“Now, would to God that all cold-blooded, faint-hearted soldiers of Christ would look again to Jesus, and to His love; and when they look, I would have them to look again and again, and fill themselves with beholding of Christ's beauty; and I dare say then that Christ would come into great court and request with many.”
“O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sun-burnt flower, even this plastered, fair-outsided world: and then we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted!”
“Oh, how little were it for that infinite sea, that infinite fountain of love and joy, to fill as many thousand thousand little vessels (the like of me) as there are minutes of hours since the creation of God!”
“Oh, how worthy is Christ of my feckless and light suffering! and how hath He deserved at my hands that, for His honour and glory, I should lay my back under seven hells' pains in one, if He call me to that!”
“Oh, if any pain, any sorrow, any loss that I can suffer for Christ, and for you, were laid in pledge to buy Christ's love to you! and that I could lay my dearest joys, next to Christ my Lord, in the gap betwixt you and eternal destruction!”
“Oh, if He would pity a poor prisoner, and blow love upon me, and give a prisoner a taste or draught of that sweetness, which is glory as it were begun, to be a confirmation that Christ and I shall have our fill of each other for ever!”
“Oh, if I could yoke in amongst the thick of angels, and seraphims, and now glorified saints, and could raise a new love-song of Christ, before all the world!”
“Oh that I might preach His beauty and glory, as once I did, before my clay-tent be removed to darkness! and that I might lift Christ off the ground! and my branches might be watered with the dew of God, and my joy in His work might grow green again, and bud, and send out a flower!”
“Oh, that this land were humbled in time, and by prayers, cries, and humiliation, would bring Christ in at the church-door again, now when His back is turned towards us, and He is gone to the threshold, and His one foot, as it were, is out of the door!”
“Oh, what am I! such a lump, such a rotten mass of sin, to be counted a bairn worthy to be nurtured, and stricken with the best and most honourable rod in my Father's house, the golden rod, wherewith my eldest Brother, the Lord, Heir of the inheritance, and His faithful witnesses were stricken withal.”
“Oh, when Christ and ye shall meet about the utmost march and borders of time, and the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in His face at the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in His countenance, and betwixt His eyes.”
“Our Lord never getteth so kind a look of us, nor our love in such a degree, nor our faith in such a measure of stedfastness, as He getteth out of the furnace of our tempting fears and sharp trials.”
