William Gurnall Quotations

Of all creatures in this visible world, light is the most glorious; of all light, the light of the sun without compare excels the rest.

Humble souls are fearful of their own strength.

Great comforts do, indeed, bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree of it; the weak child is oftener in the lap than the strong one.

The Christian must trust in a withdrawing God.

The soldier is summoned to a life of active duty and so is the Christian.

In heaven we shall appear, not in armour, but in robes of glory. But here these are to be worn night and day; we must walk, work, and sleep in them, or else we are not true soldiers of Christ.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves. The pardon may be past the prince's hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner's hand.

Godliness, as well as the doctrine of our faith, is a mystery.

The grace thou hast will soon be less, if thou addest not more to it.

Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.

All the plots of hell and commotions on earth have not so much as shaken God's hand to spoil one letter or line he has been drawing.

Never was a faithful prayer lost. Some prayers have a longer voyage than others, but then they return with their richer lading at last, so that the praying soul is a gainer by waiting for an answer.

Christ bears with the saints' imperfections; well may the saints one with another.

God hath made it a debt which one saint owes to another to carry their names to a throne of grace.

And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan's prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth.

Compare not thyself with those that have less than thyself, but look on those that have far exceeded thee.

It is not only our duty to pray for others, but also to desire the prayers of others for ourselves.

Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.

Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves.

The sins of teachers are the teachers of sin.

Let your hope of heaven master your fear of death.

Men are what they see and judge; though some do not fill up their light, yet none go beyond it.

Sin disabled man to keep God's law, but it doth not enfranchise or disoblige him that he need not keep it

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little.

Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye, sigh and sing all in a breath; it is called "the rejoicing of hope" (Hebrews 3:6).

God Himself underwrites your battle and has appointed His own Son 'the captain of your salvation'.

It is the image of God reflected in you that so enrages hell; it is this at which the demons hurl their mightiest weapons.

The possessions God allows us to have are intended for our use, not our enjoyment. Trying to squeeze something out of them that was never in them in the first place is a futile endeavor. A cow's udders, gently pressed, will yield sweet milk, nourishing and refreshing. Applying more and more pressure will not produce greater quantities of milk. We lose the good of material things by expecting too much from them. Those who try hardest to please themselves with earthly goods find the least satisfaction in them.

We are justified, not by giving anything to God,--what we do,--but by receiving from God, what Christ hath done for us.

Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and you have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by His heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils.

To forsake sin, is to leave it without any thought reserved of returning to it again.

Nothing is more contrary to a heavenly hope than an earthly heart.

God loves the saints as the purchase of his Son's blood. They cost him dear, and that which is so hardly got shall not be easily lost. He that was willing to expend his Son's blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them.

God would not rub so hard if it were not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our natures. God loves purity so well He had rather see a hole than a spot in His child's garments.

The Christian is bred by the Word, and he must be fed by it.

What is Jordan that I should wash in it? What is the preaching that I should attend on it, while I hear nothing but what I knew before? What are these beggarly elements of water, bread, and wine? Are not these the reasonings of a soul that forgets who appoints the means of grace?

There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we be come.

We live by faith, and faith lives by exercise.

Furnish thyself with arguments from the promises to enforce thy prayers, and make them prevalent with God. The promises are the ground of faith, and faith, when strengthened, will make thee fervent, and such fervency ever speeds and returns with victory out of the field of prayer. The mightier any is in the Word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.

Satan cannot deny but that great wonders have been wrought by prayer. As the spirit of prayer goes up, so his kingdom goes down. Satan's strategems against prayer are three. First, if he can, he will keep thee from prayer. If that be not feasible, secondly, he will strive to interrupt thee in prayer. And, thirdly, if that plot takes not, he will labour to hinder the success of thy prayer.

We must not confide in the armour of God, but in the God of this armour, because all our weapons are only mighty through God.

Bid faith look through the key-hole of the promise, and tell thee what it sees there laid up for him that overcomes; bid it listen and tell thee whether it cannot hear the shout of those crowned saints, as of those that are dividing the spoil, and receiving the reward of all their services and sufferings here on earth.

The mightier any is in the word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.

Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's.

Peace of conscience is nothing but the echo of pardoning mercy.

Therefore tremble, O man, at any power thou hast, except thou usest it for God. Art thou strong in body; who hath thy strength? God, or thy lusts?

Never venture near the door where sin dwells, lest you are dragged in.

Christ is the door that opens into God's presence and lets the soul into His very bosom, faith is the key that unlocks the door; but the Spirit is He that makes this key.

He that loves the Word and the purity of its precepts cannot turn traitor.

Godliness is the child of truth, and it must be nursed by its own mother.

Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God's Word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again.

The storm may be tempestuous, but it is only temporary.

Praying is the same to the new creature as crying is to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but instructed by nature; it comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself.

The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print.

When people do not mind what God speaks to them in His word, God doth as little mind what they say to Him in prayer.

Job's friends chose the right time to visit him, but took not the right course of improving their visit; had they spent the time in praying for him which they did in hot disputes with him, they would have profited him, and pleased God more.

He that is impatient, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to Him in a denial.

One Almighty is more than all mighties

Say not that thou hast royal blood in thy veins; say not that thou art born of God if thou canst not prove thy pedigree by daring to be holy!

Weak faith will as surely land the Christian in heaven as strong faith, for it is impossible the least dram of true grace should perish

Pray often rather than very long at a time. It is hard to be very long in prayer, and not slacken in our affections.

CEASE to PRAY and thou will BEGIN to SIN.

Christ hath told us He will come, but not when, that we might never put off our clothes, or put out the candle.

The Christian, like a chalice without a base, cannot stand on his own nor hold what he has received any longer that God holds him in His strong hands.

Oh, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise, in the dark night of affliction, afraid to draw the latch, whereas he should then come boldly for shelter as a child into his father's house.

How many, alas, of the precious saints of God must we shut out from being believers, if there is no faith but what amounts to assurance.... shall we say their faith went away in the departure of their assurance?

How can God stoop lower than to come and dwell with a poor humble soul? Which is more than if he had said, such a one should dwell with him; for a beggar to live at court is not so much as the king to dwell with him in his cottage.

Whoever hath a seed time of grace pass over his soul, shall have his harvest time also of joy.

A minister, without boldness, is like a smooth file, a knife without an edge, a sentinel that is afraid to let off his gun. If men will be bold in sin, ministers must be bold to reprove.

God's wounds cure, sin's kisses kill.

We must come to good works by faith, and not to faith by good works.

The Christian must stand fixed to his principles, and not change his habit; but freely show what countryman he is by his holy constancy in the truth.

Indeed all the saints are taught the same lesson - to renounce their own strength, and rely on the power of God; their own policy, and cast themselves on the wisdom of God; their own righteousness, and expect all from the pure mercy of God in Christ, which act of faith is so pleasing to God, that such a soul shall never be ashamed.

The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins; those sins which have lain nearest his heart, must now be trampled under his feet.

The Christian in prayer comes up close to God, with a humble boldness of faith, and takes hold of him, wrestles with him; yea, will not let him go without a blessing... They are only a few noble-spirited souls, who dare take heaven by force, that are fit for this calling.

The longer a soul hath neglected duty, the more ado there is to get it taken up.

God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: 'Who hath required this at your hands?' This is truly to be 'righteous over-much,' as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God's law, and add supplements of our own to his rule.

God is almighty to pardon, but He will not use His power for a shameless sinner. He is able to save and help in time of need, but if you have not repented, how can you expect His aid? The same power God expends on the believer's salvation will be spent on your damnation, for He has bound Himself under oath to destroy every impenitent soul.

It is no policy to let thy lusts have arms, which are sure to rise and declare against thee when thine enemy comes.

Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior; and therefore, hold in with both thou canst not.

Least doers are the greatest boasters.

No torment in the world is comparable to an accusing conscience.

Blind zeal is soon put to a shameful retreat, while holy resolution, built on fast principles, lifts up its head like a rock in the midst of the waves.

The regenerating Spirit is compared to the wind. His first attempts on the soul may be so secret that the creature knows not whence they come, or whither they tend; but, before he hath done, the sound will be heard throughout the soul.

It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction.

As the eye of the body once put out, can never be restored by the creature's art, so neither can the spiritual eye lost by Adam's sin be restored by the teaching of men or angels. It is one of the diseases which Christ came to cure.

Pride of gifts robs us of God's blessing in the use of them.

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death.

Set a strong guard about thy outward senses: these are Satan's landing places, especially the eye and the ear.

Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool's coat thither.

If thou beest ever so exact in thy morals, and not a worshiper of God, then thou art an atheist.

Thou hast no life to lose, because thou hast given it already to Christ, nor can man take away that without God's leave.

As you love your peace, Christian, be plain-hearted with God and man, and keep the king's highway.

The Word of God is too sacred a thing, and preaching too solemn a work, to be toyed and played with.

Sometimes, perhaps, thou hearest another pray with much freedom and fluency, whilst thou canst hardly get out a few broken words. Hence thou art ready to accuse thyself and admire him, as if the gilding of the key made it open the door the better.

Can Christ be in thou heart and thou not know it? Can one king be dethroned and another crowned in thy soul and thou hear no scuffle?

God, to prevent all escape, hath sown the seeds of death in our very constitution and nature, so that we can as soon run from ourselves, as run from death. We need no feller to come with a hand of violence and hew us down; there is in the tree a worm, which grows out of its own substance, that will destroy it; so in us, those infirmities of nature that will bring us down to the dust.

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldst thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying!