Chosen vessels of mercy, notwithstanding their backslidings, are brought back; but
ah! remember that nine out of ten of those who backslide never were God’s people.
590.531

It is very easy to go back in the heavenly pilgrimage, but it is very hard to retrieve
your steps. 623.198

By little and by little, as a rule, backsliding leads on to overt apostasy and sin. No,
no, so mature a servant of the devil as Judas is not produced all at once; it takes time
to educate a man for the scorner’s seat. Take care, therefore, of backsliding, because
of what it leads to. If you begin to slip on the side of a mountain of ice, the first slip
may not hurt if you can stop and slide no further; but, alas! you cannot so regulate
sin; when your feet begin to slide, the rate of their descent increases, and the
difficulty of arresting this motion is incessantly becoming greater. It is dangerous to
backslide in any degree, for we know not to what it may lead. 920.150

It is a wonderful thing, that even if you have been a prodigal, and have spent your
living with harlots, yet if you are his child, you may call him “Father.” Did not the
prodigal say, “Father, I have sinned?” There is good pleading in this fact, for you are
not unchilded even by your sin. 1232.263

The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay,
you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labour in cutting and
chipping can you make any progress; you need a guide to help you, and you are not
safe unless you are fastened to the guide, for you may slip into a crevasse. Nobody
ever slides up, but if great care be not taken they will slide down, slide back, or in
other words backslide. This is very easily done. If you want to know how to backslide,
the answer is leave off going forward and you will slide backward, cease going
upward and you will go downward of necessity, for stand still you never can. 1235.292

It is not easy to persuade one who has been a backslider to come back to his first love.
The return journey is uphill, and flesh and blood do not assist us in it. 1302.379

Devotion to God will be found to be the basis of holiness and the buttress of integrity.
If you backslide in secret before God, you will soon err in public before men. 1377.554

Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place
for you to find him again. Did you lose the company of Christ by forgetting prayer,
and becoming slack in your devotion? Have you lost Christ in the closet? Then you
will find him there. Did you lose Christ through some sin? Then you will find him in
no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify
the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the
Scriptures? Then you must find Christ in the Scriptures; where you lost him, you will
find him. It is a true saying, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, for it is there.” 2611.101

Nine times out of ten, declension from God begins in the neglect of private prayer. 2931.187

I trust that you do watch against the more coarse and vulgar sins to which others
are prone, and that you will not be allowed to fall into them; but there is such a thing
as falling by little and little. 2969.15

Balance your duties, and let not one press out another. BA21

We are to take care never to present one duty to God stained with the blood of
another, but to balance and proportion our different forms of service, so that our
life-work may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 798.124

Truth lies between two extremes, and man, like a pendulum, swings either too much
this way or that. 1248.445

The right way usually lies between two extremes: it is the narrow channel between
the rock and the whirlpool. 1541.325

Never break the balance of holy emotions and sacred duties; let us have our fear and
our great joy; but, at the same time, we must not sit down because we have great joy,
but we must run on the Lord’s errand, joy and all. 2323.413

We should work with the hands of Martha, but yet keep near the Master with the
heart of Mary; we want a combination of activity and meditation. 2440.556

Why, I know tradesmen who have failed five or six times, and yet they think they are
on the road to heaven; the scoundrels, what would they do if they got there? They are
a deal more likely to go where they shall never come out till they have paid the
uttermost farthing. PT83

Bankruptcies one after another of the same person are double-distilled thieving,
generally; not old-fashioned thieving like that which once brought men to
transportation and to the gallows, but something worse than highway robbery and
burglary. WCo49

I should think it a high sin and treason against heaven, if, believing that baptism
signifieth immersion, and immersion only, I should pretend to administer it by
sprinkling; or, believing that baptism appertaineth to believers only, I should
consider myself a criminal in the sight of God if I should give it to any but those who
believe. 186.170

Do not make any mistake, and imagine that immersion in water can wash away sin;
but do remember that if the Lord puts this outward profession side by side with the
washing away of sins it is not a trifling matter. 1838.251

Truth suffers nothing from free discussion, it is indeed the element in which it most
freely exerts its power. We have personally known several instances in which
sermons in defence of Infant Baptism have driven numbers to more Scriptural views,
and we have felt that if Pædo-baptists will only preach upon the subject we shall
have little to do but to remain quiet and reap the sure results. It is a dangerous
subject for any to handle who wish their people to abide by the popular opinion on
this matter. MT18

Some lying hypocrites tell us that children are regenerated by drops of water. What
kind of regeneration is that? We have seen people hanged that were regenerated in
this fashion. 186.175

I can say that I am not afraid to offer prayer, that my brethren who do not see
“Believer’s baptism,” may be made to see it. If they think it is wrong, I wish they
would pray to God to set us right; but I have never heard them do that; I have never
heard them pray to the Lord to convince us of the truth of infant sprinkling—I wish
they would, if they believe it to be scriptural, and I am perfectly willing to put it to
the old test, the God that answereth by fire, let him be God, and whichever shall
prevail, when prayer shall be the ultimate arbiter, let that stand. 404.454

As long as you give baptism to an unregenerate child, people will imagine that it
must do the child good; for they will ask, If it does not do it any good, why is it
baptized? 1135.556

I am amazed that an unconscious babe should be made the partaker of an ordinance
which, according to the plain teaching of the Scriptures, requires the conscious
acquiescence and complete heart-trust of the recipient. Very few, if any, would
argue that infants ought to receive the Lord’s supper; but there is no more Scriptural
warrant for bringing them to the one ordinance than there is for bringing them to the
other. 2737.351

I do not question the safety of the soul that has believed, but I do say again, I would
not run the risk of the man who, having believed, refuses to be baptized. 980.156

I feel shocked when I hear people say, “But it is not essential to salvation.” Thou
mean and beggarly spirit! Wilt thou do nothing but what is essential to thine own
salvation? A Pharisee or a harlot might talk so. Is this thy love to Christ—that thou
wilt not obey him, unless he shall pay thee for it? unless he shall make thy soul’s
salvation depend upon it? 2126.56

“Well,” says one, “I do not think that I shall confess Christ; the dying thief did not
confess him, did he? He was not baptized.” No, but he was a dying thief, recollect; and
if you are not baptized, I think that you will be a living thief; for you will rob God of
his glory, you will rob his servant also of the comfort which he ought to receive. 2265.345

I once met a man who had been forty years a Christian, and believed it to be his duty
to be baptized; but when I spoke to him about it, he said, “He that believeth shall not
make haste.” After forty years’ delay, he talked about not making haste. I quoted to
him another passage: “I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandment,”
and showed him what the meaning of his misapplied passage was. 3205.333

Still, a few historical memoranda as to the Christians commonly called Baptists will
not be out of place. Our own belief is that these people are the purest part of that sect
which of old was everywhere spoken against, and we are convinced that they have,
beyond their brethren, preserved the ordinances of the Lord Jesus as they were
delivered to the saints. MT9

Several sects claim apostolic succession, and if any possess it, the Baptists are the
most likely, since they practise the ordinances as they were delivered; but we do not
even care to trace our pedigree through the long line of martyrs, and of men abhorred
by ecclesiatics. If we could do this without a break, the result would be of no value in
our eyes; for the rag of “apostolic succession” is not worth warehouse-room. Those
who contend for the fiction may monopolize it if they will. 2185.40

We Baptists like water because our Master has ordained the use of it; but we must
also have fire, fire from heaven, the fire of the Holy Ghost. 2480.415

I always wished that he (a joyful Methodist friend) had been a Baptist; that would
have been just the finishing touch to make him perfect, and then we should have lost
him, for all perfect people go to heaven at once. But if I mentioned that subject to
him,—and sometimes I did,—he was not long before he began to sing, and he asked
me to join with him, which I gladly did. 2604.17

I recollect my mother saying to me, “I prayed that you might be a Christian, but I
never prayed that you might be a Baptist;” but, nevertheless, I became a Baptist, for,
as I reminded her, the Lord was able to do for her exceeding abundantly above what
she had asked or thought, and he did it. 2952.439

“Ah!” say you, “you Baptists make a great deal of baptism.” We Baptists do not make
any more of baptism than the Lord Jesus Christ has done; but I was not talking
about Baptists, I was talking about the words of the Lord Jesus Christ as they are
recorded in the New Testament. He says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved.” Is not that plain? Someone asks, “Can we not be saved without being
baptized?” I am not going to answer such a question as that; my business is to bid
you listen to what Jesus Christ says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved.” Give good heed to what Christ says, and raise no questions concerning it. For
my part, I am going to run no risks, and therefore I take the whole passage just as it
stands. 3132.93

There is little virtue in the beauty which calls attention to itself; modest beauty is the
last to extol its own charms. AM212

As for beauty, one of its most potent charms lies in its modest unconsciousness; it is
greatly marred when accompanied by vanity. 1392.15

You tell me of the charms of beauty. You sing of your beloveds so white and ruddy;
think of what they will come to by-and-by. Flesh! Ah me! Leave it to itself. Is there
anything fouler or more putrid than flesh when God calls back the spirit which
quickeneth it? 2020.235

Believing is a matter of the will. A man does not believe without being willing to
believe. 2305.197

If thou believest, thy belief will kill thy sinning, or else thy sinning will kill thy
believing. The greatest argument against the Bible is an unholy life; and when a
man will give that up, he will convince himself. 2305.199

Reproaches from those who have been intimate with us, and trusted by us, cut us to
the quick; and they are usually so well acquainted with our peculiar weaknesses that
they know how to touch us where we are most sensitive, and to speak so as to do us
most damage. TD55:12

They have no veils of ignorance or prejudice to darken their sight in heaven. Those of
us who most candidly endeavour to learn the truth are nevertheless in some degree
biased and warped by education. Let us struggle as we may, yet still our
surroundings will not permit us to see things as they are. There is a deflection in our
vision, a refraction in the air, a something everywhere which casts the beam of light
out of its straight line so that we see rather the appearance than the reality of truth.
We see not with open sight; our vision is marred; but up yonder, among the golden
harps, they “know, even as they are known.” 824.440

We can see, in looking at Luther, great and glorious Luther, how Romanism tinged
all that he did more or less; and the darkness of the age cast some gloom even over
the serene and steadfast soul of Calvin; of each one of the reformers we must say the
same; bright stars as all of these were, yet they kept not themselves untarnished by
the sphere in which they shone. Every man is more or less affected by his age, and we
are obliged, as we read history, to make continual allowances, for we all admit that it
would not be fair to judge the men of former times by the standard of the nineteenth
century. 1327.678

Some minds are like stained glass windows; they shut out much of the light, and
the little light that does struggle through, they colour after their own manner. 2066.51

Teaching is often judged, not by its own value, but by the prejudices which people
may happen to have concerning the source from which it comes. 2184.32

O prejudice, prejudice, prejudice, how many hast thou destroyed! Men who might
have been wise have remained fools because they thought they were wise. Many
judge what the gospel ought to be, but do not actually enquire as to what it is. They
do not come to the Bible to obtain their views of religion, but they open that Book to
find texts to suit the opinions which they bring to it. They are not open to the honest
force of truth, and therefore are not saved by it. 3205.327

There is a tendency, among us all, I suppose, to choose some part of the truth, and
attach undue importance to that, to the neglect of other truths. 3353.219