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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Matthew Henry

  • It was a common saying among the Puritans,
  • “Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare.”
  • An active faith can give thanks for a promise even though it be not yet performed, knowing that God’s bonds are as good as ready money.

    Every tear of sorrow sown by the righteous springs up a pearl.

    Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.

    Hypocrites do the devil’s drudgery in Christ’s livery.

    If ill thoughts at any time enter into the mind of a good man, he doth not roll them under his tongue as a sweet morsel.

    In all God’s providences, it is good to compare His word and His works together; for we shall find a beautiful harmony between them, and that they mutually illustrate each other.

    It is more to the honor of a Christian soldier, by faith to overcome the world, than by a monastical vow to retreat from it; and more for the honor of Christ, to serve Him in a city than to serve Him in a cell.

    Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

    Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colors, that are but skin-deep.

    Nature is content with little; grace with less; but lust with nothing.

    None live so easily, so pleasantly, as those that live by faith.

    None shall be saved by Christ but those only who work out their own salvation while God is working in them by His truth and His Holy Spirit. We cannot do without God; and God will not do without us.

    Not lost, but gone before.

    Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good and partaking of God’s holiness.

    Nothing exposes religion more to the reproach of its enemies than the worldliness and hard-heartedness of the professors of it.

    Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.

    Shallows where a lamb could wade and depths where an elephant would drown.

    That which is won ill, will never wear well, for there is a curse attends it, which will waste it; and the same corrupt dispositions which incline men to the sinful ways of getting, will incline them to the like sinful ways of spending.

    The first lesson in Christ’s school is self-denial.

    The flower of youth never appears more beautiful than when it bends towards the Sun of Righteousness.

    The Scriptures were written, not to make us astronomers, but to make us saints.

    The way to preserve the peace of the church is to preserve the purity of it.

    Their own second and sober thoughts.

    There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them.

    They that die by famine die by inches.

    Those who complain most are most to be complained of.