We have in spiritual matters things called liberty which are no liberty. There is
Antinomian liberty—God deliver us from that! A man saith, “I am not under the law
of God, therefore I will live as I like.” A most blessed truth followed by a most
atrocious inference. 565.223

Oh! to be a child, and to give the obedience of a child and not the homage of a serf!
But the Antinomian saith, “I am not under the law, therefore will I live and fulfil my
own lust and pleasures.” Paul says of those who argue thus, their damnation is just. 565.223

Brethren, it is a precious doctrine that the saints are safe, but it is a damnable
inference from it, that therefore they may live as they list. It is a glorious truth that
God will keep his people, but it is an abominable falsehood that sin will do them no
harm. Remember that God gives us liberty, not licence, and while he gives us
protection he will not allow us presumption. 689.259

Only fancy what the effect would be upon our country if a proclamation were issued,
that henceforth all manner of offences against the law would be immediately
forgiven, and men might still continue to perpetrate them. We should hasten to
emigrate from such a pandemonium. The wicked might approve of such a relaxation
of the bonds of law, but it would be an awful curse to the righteous. If the judge of all
the earth could possibly forgive sin while men continue to indulge in it, I do not see
how the world could be inhabited; it would become a den of beasts, wild and without
restraint, raging against all goodness, and even against themselves. The very pillars
of society would be moved if sin could be at the same time indulged by the sinner and
pardoned by the Lord. 1278.88

Does some mere professor sneeringly enquire, “What, are we always to live to God’s
glory, and are we to do nothing but what would glorify him? This is laying down very
straight rules, and making the road to heaven very narrow indeed.” Do you think so,
friend? Then I will tell you plainly my solemn suspicion about you,—I am persuaded
that you do not know the Lord, for if you did, the way of holiness would be your
delight, and you would not ask for licence to sin. I can understand your sinning, but
I cannot understand your finding pleasure in it if you are a real Christian. 1305.415

A man is very far gone in guilt when he reads grace the wrong way upwards, and
infers, from the longsuffering of the Lord, that he may continue in sin. 2932.185

We cannot be certain that a thing is right because it is old, for Satan is old, and sin is
old, and death is old, and hell is old; yet none of these things are right and desirable
on that account. TN95

But there are districts, especially rural districts, where indifference prevails; and the
same state of things exists in various parts of London. It is not infidelity; the people
do not care enough about religion to even oppose it. SW117

No wonder that sinners are given to slumber when saints sleep as they do. No
wonder that the unconverted think hell a fiction when we live as if it were so. No
wonder that they imagine heaven to be a romance, when we act as if it were so little
a reality. 1427.444

Poor mortals! They concern themselves about everything that does not concern
them, but they persistently neglect everything that is needful to their eternal
well-being. 1908.363

I believe that there are some Christian men who have wasted a large part of their
lives for want of somebody or something to wake them up. There is more evil wrought
in the world by want of thought than by down-right malice, and there is more good
left undone through want of thought than through any aversion to the doing of good. 2617.169

I question whether Butler and Paley have not both of them created more infidels
than they ever cured, and whether most of the defences of the gospel are not sheer
impertinences. The gospel does not want defending. If Jesus Christ is not alive, and
cannot fight his own battles, then Christianity is in an evil case. But he is, and we
have only to preach his gospel in all its naked simplicity, and the power that goes
with it will be the evidence of its divinity. 1106.214

Most of the objections against the articles of our holy faith are contemptible, yet none
the less difficult to answer because contemptible, for an argument is not always
apparently strong in proportion to its reasonableness. 1111.270

The armour of external evidences is well stored with weapons of proof. The gospel
also bears within itself its own evidence, it has self-proving power. 1187.445

I confess that when I have to argue about the truth of divine things it is a dreary task
to me. I am so sure of these things myself, by living and actual test, that I wonder
other people are not sure too; and while they are wanting me to argue about this
point or that it seems to me like asking a man to prove that there is a sun in yonder
sky. I bask in his beams, I swoon under his heat, I see by his light; and yet they ask
me to prove his existence! Are the men mad? What do they want me to prove? That
God hears prayer? I pray and receive answers every day. That God pardons sin? I
was in my own esteem the blackest of sinners, and sunk in the depths of despair, yet
I believed, and by that faith I leaped into a fulness of light and liberty at once. Why
do they not try it themselves? 1428.454

Some of us have thought it our miserable duty to read certain books that have been
brought out against the truth, that we might be able to answer them; but it is a
perilous calling. The Lord have mercy upon us when we have to go down into these
sewers; for the process is not healthy! 2183.18

I confess that I do not believe that one human brain is capable of answering every
objection that another human brain could raise against the most obvious truth in the
world. 2209.334

To answer objections, is an endless task; it is like trying to empty a flowing fountain
with bottomless buckets. 2304.186

A great many learned men are defending the gospel; no doubt it is a very proper and
right thing to do, yet I always notice that, when there are most books of that kind, it
is because the gospel itself is not being preached. Suppose a number of persons were
to take it into their heads that they had to defend a lion, a full-grown king of beasts!
There he is in the cage, and here come all the soldiers of the army to fight for him.
Well, I should suggest to them, if they would not object, and feel that it was humbling
to them, that they should kindly stand back, and open the door, and let the lion out!
I believe that would be the best way of defending him, for he would take care of
himself; and the best “apology” for the gospel is to let the gospel out. 2467.256

The first step astray is a want of adequate faith in the divine inspiration of the
Sacred Scriptures. DG13

In looking carefully over the history of the times, and the movement of the times,
of which we have written briefly, this fact is apparent: that where ministers and
Christian churches have held fast to the truth that the Holy Scriptures have been
given by God as an authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice, they have
never wandered very seriously out of the right way. But when, on the other hand,
reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the exponent of revelation, all
kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result. DG13

Saul was once among the prophets, but he was more at home among the persecutors.
2LS20

This would be the first step in apostasy; men first forget the true, and then adore the
false. TD44:20

If I must be lost, let it be anyhow rather than as an apostate. If there be any
distinction among the damned, those have it who are wandering stars, trees plucked
up by the roots, twice dead, for whom Jude tells us, is “reserved the blackness of
darkness for ever.” Reserved! as if nobody else were qualified to occupy that place but
themselves. They are to inhabit the darkest, hottest place, because they forsook the
Lord. 547.11

You know how many passages there are in which it is positively asserted that if a
child of God did deliberately and totally apostatize, his restoration would be
utterly impossible—not difficult, but impossible. This is one of the greatest
proofs of the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, since there is no man
in a condition in which it is impossible to save him, and yet any man would be in such
a state if he apostatized. Therefore true believers shall not apostatize, but shall stand
fast, and shall be kept even to the end. Yet, could they totally apostatize, they could
never be restored again: the greatest remedy having already failed, there would
remain no other. 1341.129

The raw material for a devil is an angel. The raw material for the son of perdition
was an apostle; and the raw material for the most horrible of apostates is one who is
almost a saint. 1929.623

That which begins with shamefacedness, equivocation, hesitation, and compromise
will ripen into apostasy. 2209.328

Neither would it ensure your salvation to be able to foretell the future, for Balaam
was a great prophet, but he was a great sinner; he was an arch-rebel although he
was an arch-divine. 2330.495

He is not the God of apostates, for he hath said, “If any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him.” 2633.362

You must pick from among the apostles to find an apostate. 2914.610

Beginners in the way of grace, it is a great and solemn truth that every child of God
will hold on until the end, but it is an equally solemn truth that many who profess to
be the Lord’s are self-deceivers, and will turn out apostates after all. 3520.329

Reason is folly with the unreasonable. PP58

Some people like rows—I don’t envy their choice; I’d rather walk ten miles to get out
of a dispute than half-a-mile to get into one. PT73

Satan greatly approves of our railing at each other, but God does not. 820.392

I notice, however, that, while it is true that our gracious Master was very gentle and
patient with those who had real difficulties, yet he did not always answer everybody’s
cavil. When the difficulty was raised for the sake of questioning and disputing, when
it was mere quibbling, when the enquirer were not in earnest, and did not really wish
to know the truth, he often declined to answer them. My Master has no desire to be
merely victor in a debate: he did not come into the world to fight a battle of logic just
for the sake of winning it. 2413.229

I believe it is a mistake about God himself which has been the root and foundation of
all the mistakes in theology. Our conviction is, that Arminian theology, to a great
extent, makes God to be less than he is. 394.370

The basis and groundwork of Arminian theology lies in attaching undue importance
to man, and giving God rather the second place than the first. 406.465

I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel
doctrine; and if people began to study their Bibles, and to take the Word of God as
they find it, they must inevitably, if believers, rise up to rejoice in the doctrines of
grace. 609.29

Certain men might have been something if they had not thought themselves so. A
consciously great man is an evidently little one. GF48

We know many persons who are always doing a great deal, and yet do nothing; fussy
people, people to the front in every movement, persons who could set the whole world
right, but are not right themselves. 1936.697

The “superior” person will always be lost, take my word for it. The more superior he
is, the more sure he is to be lost; I mean not that he is superior, but that he thinks
himself so, superior to all teaching. He is not prepared to be a learner, he is ready to
set up as a teacher, and a master of anything you like. He is not the kind of man to
enter the gates of heaven; he carries his head too high for that. He is a man of broad
thought; and, of course, he goes the broad way. Narrow-minded people go in the
narrow way; but then it leadeth to life eternal, and therefore I commend it to you. 2304.187

Yet this is the bane and ruin of many men, they know so much that, like Solomon’s
sluggard, they are wiser in their own conceit than seven men who can render a
reason. See how they treat the Bible itself; when they open it, it is not that they may
hear what God says in it, but that they may tell God what he ought to have said. 2452.79

Some of the Lord’s workers have grown so big that the least thing offends them;
everything must be according to their own way, or they will have nothing to do with
it. 2453.94

When we are injured, we are bound as Christians to bear it without malice; but we
are not to pretend that we do not feel it, for this will but encourage our enemies to
kick us again. He who is cheated twice by the same man, is half as bad as the rogue;
and it is very much so in other injuries—unless we claim our rights, we are ourselves
to blame if we do not get them. PT35

When we have good work to do for our Lord, we are glad of the company of kindred
spirits, determined to make the good work succeed; but if we have no such comrades,
we must go alone. There is no absolute necessity for numbers. Who knows? The
friends we invite might be more hindrance than assistance. 3193.183

If thou canst believe, thou art saved. I cannot help quoting my brother Hill’s
expression the other day: “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John vi. 47)
You know how he put it: “H A T H spells got it.” So it does; it is a curious but a
perfectly correct way of spelling it. If you take Christ to yourself, He will never be
taken from you. Breathe the air, and the air is yours; receive Christ, and Christ
is yours, and you have attained to righteousness. BA108

I think it very convenient to come every day to Christ as a sinner—as I came at first.
“You are no saint,” says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, there I go—other hope I have
none. 510.287

If any man be not sure that he is in Christ, he ought not to be easy one moment until
he is so. Dear friend, without the fullest confidence as to your saved condition, you
have no right to be at ease, and I pray you may never be so. This is a matter too
important to be left undecided. 1408.206

Nobody ever sings over uncertain blessings. I say again, nobody ever sings over an
uncertain pardon; a doubt as to our forgiveness is fatal to all joy, for it lets in the
dread fear of divine wrath. 1492.499

We count it no presumption to say that we are saved, for the word of God has told us
so in those places where salvation is promised to faith in Christ Jesus. The
presumption would lie in doubting the word of God; but in simply believing what he
says there is far greater humility than in questioning it. 1592.196

They are written—where? In the earth? No; the wicked are written in the earth, but
the names of the Lord’s people are written in heaven. In the divine decree that never
changes, in the divine heart that never alters, in the divine memory that never fails,
in the divine thought that never forgets, all the names of the godly are written. 1689.634

Full assurance is not essential to salvation, but it is essential to satisfaction. May you
get it—may you get it at once; at any rate, may you never be satisfied to live without
it. 2023.266

Thou must be in heaven, or else he will be bereaved. Thou must be in heaven, or else
he will be imperfect. Thou art a member of his body; and if he should lose one of his
members, then his body would not be perfect, nor the Head either. 2488.510

Like Jonah, you may lose your gourd, but you cannot lose your God. 3371.439

We prize full assurance beyond all price. We count it to be a gem beyond all earthly
values; but we think it is a distressing doctrine to some of the weak ones of the flock
to say that full assurance is necessary to salvation. We believe it to be necessary to
deep joy, necessary to edification, necessary to usefulness; but necessary to salvation
we do not believe it to be. 3384.590

If a spot could be found wherein there would be no God, what a fine building
speculation might be made there. Millions would emigrate to “No God’s land,” and
would feel at ease, as soon as they trod its Godless shores. BA174

The atheist is, morally, as well as mentally, a fool, a fool in the heart as well as in the
head; a fool in morals as well as in philosophy. With the denial of God as a starting
point, we may well conclude that the fool’s progress is a rapid, riotous, raving,
ruinous one. He who begins at impiety is ready for anything. “No God,” being
interpreted, means no law, no order, no restraint to lust, no limit to passion. TD53:1

Those who talk so abominably as to deny their Maker will act abominably when it
serves their turn. TD53:1

An atheist is a misanthrope. Irreligion is akin to inhumanity. TD86:14

Atheism is the mother of anarchy; the reigning power of God exhibited in true
religion is the only security for the human commonwealth. A belief in God is the
foundation and cornerstone of a well-ordered state. TD93:1

There are no infidels anywhere but on earth: there are none in heaven, and there are
none in hell. Atheism is a strange thing. Even the devils never fell into that vice, for
“the devils believe and tremble.” And there are some of the devil’s children that have
gone beyond their father in sin, but how will it look when they are for ever lost? 667.731

You never saw a child startled when it was told for the first time that God made it,
for within that little mind there dwells an instinct which accepts the statement. 1197.568

I have heard of an atheist who said he could get over every argument except the
example of his godly mother: he could never answer that. 1725.331

Pantheism is atheism in a mask. 2085.266

Man is by nature both an atheist and an idolater. These are two shades of the same
thing. We want, if we do worship at all, something that we can see. But a god that
can be seen is no god; and so the idolater is first cousin to the atheist. 2239.27

Behind the doubt of the existence of God, many men shield themselves, and permit
themselves to indulge in iniquities of which they might be ashamed if they did not
make a cloak of their atheism. 2430.433

I believe that the most unreasonable things in all the world are doubt and unbelief;
in fact, atheists and infidels are the most gullible persons living. 2463.211

Let me ask you, how many atheists are now in this house? Perhaps not a single one
of you would accept the title, and yet, if you live from Monday morning to Saturday
night in the same way as you would live if there were no God, you are practical
atheists; and as actions speak more loudly than words, you are more atheists than
those doctrinal unbelievers who disavow God with their mouths, and, after all, are
secretly afraid of him. 2100.451

Never has there been a sin pardoned, absolutely and without atonement, since the
world began. 255.241

What the sun is to the heavens, that the doctrine of a vicarious satisfaction is to
theology. Atonement is the brain and spinal cord of Christianity. Take away the
cleansing blood, and what is left to the guilty? Deny the substitutionary work of
Jesus, and you have denied all that is precious in the New Testament. 765.449

To deny the great doctrine of atonement by the blood of Jesus Christ is to hamstring
the gospel, and to cut the throat of Christianity. 1620.538

I can truly declare among you that I do not preach this doctrine of vicarious sacrifice
as one among many theories, but the saving fact of my experience. I must preach this
or nothing. 1987.569

God has so impressed this truth upon humanity that you can scarcely go into any
nation, however benighted, but there is connected with their religion the idea of
sacrifice, and therefore the idea of the offering of a life on account of a broken law. 2070.87

What a wonderful atonement is that which hides from God that which cannot be
hidden, so that God does not see what, in another sense, he must always see, and
forgets what it is impossible for him, in another sense, ever to forget! 2551.14

If the atoning sufferings of Christ are left out of a ministry, that ministry is
worthless. “The blood is the life thereof,” is as true about sermons as it is about
animals and sacrifices. A bloodless gospel, a gospel without the atonement, is a
gospel of devils, and not the gospel of God. 2610.89

Man seems to know, in his inmost nature, that he must bring a sacrifice if he would
appear before God; and this is, by no means, an error on his part. However erroneous
may be the form it takes, in its essence there is truth in it. 2693.446

When we are giving the invitations of the gospel that we find in the Scriptures, we
never think of limiting them. Though we believe the special purpose of Christ’s
atonement was the redemption of his Church, yet we know that his sacrifice was
infinite in value, and therefore we set the wicket gate as wide open as we can, and we
repeat Christ’s own invitation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” 3216.458

I do not believe in an atonement which is admirably wide, but fatally ineffectual. BA143

I may be called Antinomian or Calvinist for preaching a limited atonement; but I had
rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was
intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the
will of man be joined with it. 173.70

Once again, if it were Christ’s intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been
disappointed! 204.316

“The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” It is usually conceded by us who
hold the doctrine of particular redemption that there was in the death of Christ very
much of generality and universality. We believe that the atonement of Christ was
infinite in value, and that if Christ had decreed to save every man of woman born, he
need not have suffered another pang; there was sufficient in his atonement if he had
so willed it to have redeemed the entire race. We believe also that by the death of
Christ there is a general and honest invitation given to every creature under heaven
in terms like these:—“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” We
are not prepared, however, to go an inch beyond that. We hold that from the very
nature of the satisfaction of Christ it could not have been made for any but his elect;
for Christ either did pay the debts of all men or he did not; and if he did pay the debts
of all men they are paid, and no man can be called to account for them. If Christ was
the surety of every man living, then how in the name of common justice is Christ to
be punished, and man punished too? If it be replied that the man would not accept
the atonement, then I ask again, Was there a satisfaction given, for if so it was
given whether the man accepts or not, or else satisfaction by itself is powerless until
man puts efficacy in it, which is preposterous to suppose. If you take away from us
the fact that Christ really did satisfy for those for whom he stood, we cry like Jacob,
“If I am bereaved I am bereaved;” you have taken away all that is worth having, and
what have you given us in its place? You have given us a redemption which
confessedly does not redeem; you have given us an atonement which is made
equally for the lost in hell and for the saved in heaven; and what is the intrinsic value
of such an atonement? If you tell us that Christ made a satisfactory atonement for
every one of the human race, we ask you how it was that he made atonement for
those that must have been in the flames of hell thousands of years before he came
into this world? 694.318

I fear me there are thousands of people who believe that Jesus died for them, who are
not born of God, but rather are hardened in their sin by their groundless hopes of
mercy. There is no particular efficacy in a man’s assuming that Christ has died for
him; for it is a mere truism, if it be true as some teach, that Jesus died for everybody.
On such a theory every believer in a universal atonement would necessarily be born
of god, which is very far from being the case. 979.139

I thank God I do not believe that I was redeemed the same way that Judas was, and
no more. If so, I shall go to hell as Judas did. General redemption is not worth
anything to anybody, for of itself it secures to no one a place in heaven: but the
special redemption which does redeem, and redeems men out of the rest of mankind,
is the redemption that is to be prayed for, and for which we shall praise God for ever
and ever. 1225.175

He did not die to make men savable, but to save them. 2043.509

We do not believe in a universal redemption which extends even to those who were in
hell before the Saviour died, and which includes the fallen angels as well as
unrepentant men. 2785.303

I know there is a general aspect to redemption, which brings some good things to all
men; but there is also the special aspect in it, which brings all good things to some
men. 2877.166

Christ did not die for Judas as he did for Peter; he did not shed his blood for Demas
as he shed it for Paul. 3012.531

We hold most firmly the doctrine of particular redemption, that Christ loved his
Church, and gave himself for it; but we do not hold the doctrine of the limited value
of his precious blood. There can be no limit to Deity, there must be infinite value in
the atonement which was offered by him who is divine. The only limit of the
atonement is in its design, and that design was that Christ should give eternal life to
as many as the Father has given him; but in itself the atonement is sufficient for the
salvation of the whole world, and if the entire race of mankind could be brought to
believe in Jesus, there is enough efficacy in his precious blood to cleanse everyone
born of woman from every sin that all of them have ever committed. 3278.568

Unless God can undeify himself, every soul that Christ died for he will have. 3293.124

There be those who say that Christ has thus given himself for every man now living,
or that ever did or shall live. We are not able to subscribe to the statement, though
there is a truth in it, that in a certain sense he is “the Saviour of all men,” but then
it is added, “Specially of them that believe.” At any rate, dear hearer, let me tell thee
one thing that is certain. Whether atonement may be said to be particular or general,
there are none who partake in its real efficacy but certain characters, and those
characters are known by certain infallible signs. 3513.245

Again let me remind you that the Scriptures plainly teach us that the atonement of
our Lord Jesus Christ has a universal bearing; and it seems to me that those who
limit the value of the atonement do most seriously err from the faith. I believe the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ was so infinite that, if there had been ten thousand worlds
full of sinners to have been redeemed, it was amply sufficient to have redeemed them
all. 3012.530

The chosen are spoken of in this manner, “These are they which are redeemed from
among men,” and although the redemption of Christ has its universal aspect very
plainly taught in God’s Word, and I hope we shall never try to take away the force of
those universal passages—yet there is a special redemption besides. 3358.278

Some preachers and professors affect to believe in a redemption which I must
candidly confess I do not understand; it is so indistinct and indefinite—a redemption
which does not redeem anybody in particular, though it is alleged to redeem
everybody in general; a redemption insufficient to exempt thousands of unhappy
souls from hell after they have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus; a redemption,
indeed, which does not actually save anybody, because it is dependent for its efficacy
upon the will of the creature; a redemption that lacks intrinsic virtue and inherent
power to redeem anybody, but is entirely dependent upon an extraneous contingency
to render it effectual. 3532.476