Quotes from William Gurnall

Most men are more tender of their skin than conscience; and had rather the gospel had provided armour to defend their bodies from death and danger, than their souls from sin and Satan.

Great and small, minister and people, all must wrestle; not one part of Christ's army in the field, and the other at ease in their quarters, where no enemy comes. Here

Bless God for the translation of the Scriptures. The word is our sword. By being translated, this sword is drawn out of its scabbard.

That it is the saint's duty, and should be their care, not only to get an established judgment of the truth, but also to maintain a steadfast profession of the truth.

So in the Christian there are many graces, but one new creature.

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

We are grown debauched in our judgments, and corrupt in our principles; no wonder then if carnal in our joys.

Though some precious souls, that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for a while under some dissatisfactions and troubles in their own spirits; yet even then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect. In precio, in promisso, in semine—in what purchases it, in the promise, and in the germ.

And so when thou art tempted to any sin, look not on it as a single sin, but as having all other sins in its belly.

The historian's observation is worth the Christian's remembrance: 'Crafty counsels promise fair at first, but prove more difficult in the managing, and in the end do pay the undertaker home with desperate sorrow.'[9]

The Lord Jesus lays down his heart's blood to redeem souls out of the hand of sin and Satan, that they may be free to serve God, without fear, in holiness; and the loose Christian, if I may call him so, 'denies the Lord that bought him,' and delivers up himself basely unto his old bondage, from which Christ had ransomed him with so great a sum. Whose

By 'praying always,' saith he, he exhorts us to pray in prosperity as well as adversity; and not then to intermit the practice of this duty because not driven to it by such outward pres sing necessities.

The hypocrite in prayer juggles, he asks what he would not thank God to give him.

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens,' Lam. 3:41. That is, saith Bernard, oremus et laboremus—let us pray and use the endeavour. The hypocrite's tongue wags, but the sincere soul's feet walk, and his hands work.

Some books are learned at once reading, but the gospel is a mystery that will take up more than thy lifetime to understand it.

There is no mountain so heavy as the guilt of the least sin is to an awakened conscience.

The true doctor studies harder than the freshman, because, as he knows more of learning, so by that knowledge he un derstands his own deficiency better; for the higher he ascends the hill of learning, the more his prospect en largeth, while the other, standing at the bottom, thinks he knows all in his little.

Every sin thou committest is a new line that the devil draws on thy soul.

The Christian must trust in a with draw ing God, Isa. 50:10. Let him that walks in darkness, and sees no light, trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.

Prayer to the saints is as the great artillery to an army—of great use to defend them, and of as great force to do execution upon their enemies; it therefore needs the stronger guard to be set about it, lest it be taken from them, or turned against them by the enemy.

The believer is to persevere in his Christian course to the end of his life: his work and his life must go off the stage together.

O, this persevering is a hard word! this taking up the cross daily, this praying always, this watching night and day, and never laying aside our clothes and armour, I mean indulging ourselves, to remit and unbend in our holy waiting on God, and walking with God. This sends many sorrowful away from Christ, yet this is a saint's duty, to make religion his every-day work, without any vacation from one end of the year to the other.

Christ counts it his honour, that he is a king of a willing people, and not of slaves. He comes to make you free, not to bring you into bondage, to make you kings, not vassals. None

A soul castled with these walls is impregnable.