Let us view persons who have thoughts about Jesus with considerable hope. Though they blunder now, they may yet come right. Let us not frighten away the birds by imprudent haste.
Let us pray for those who deny his claims, and resist his kingdom.
Let us aid those who come a little way towards the truth, and are willing to go all the way if they can but find it.
Let us arouse those who neglect holy subjects altogether.

• Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ.


• The near and the far-off as to spiritual things are brought nigh in him, who is the one and only center of grace and truth.


• Believers of all nationalities become one church.

• Workers for Christ are sure to be blended in one body by their common difficulties.


• Position, rank, and wealth give way before the uniting influence of grace.

• Saints of varying creeds have an essential union in Christ.


• Saints of all the changing ages are alike in him.


• Saints of all styles of education are one in Jesus.


• Saints in heaven will be many as the waves, but one as the sea Ambitions, which else would disintegrate, are overcome, and laid at Jesus' feet.

Christ, who is properly the author of peace, is, on account of the wickedness of men, the occasion of discord. — John Calvin

There never lived any one who has so deeply moved the hearts of men as Jesus Christ has done. The greatest monarchs that ever reigned, the greatest warriors that ever fought, the greatest masters in art, or science, or literature, have never affected so many, and that to so great an extent, as Jesus of Nazareth has done. He has changed the course of the world's history, and made its condition almost inconceivably different from what it would have been but for his coming. His teachings are received by the foremost nations of the earth. Millions of men call themselves by his name. He occupies the highest place in the esteem and affection of multitudes. For his sake men have lived as none others were able or willing to live: for his sake they have died as none others could or would have died.

But in proportion to the faith, the veneration, the love with which Christ is regarded by a portion of mankind, are the unbelief, the contempt, and the hatred, which others display towards him. The poles are not more widely sundered than are the sentiments of men respecting Christ. There is nothing about which they are more completely at variance. Do you sing, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds"? To this day the Jew curses that name, and the infidel brands it as the name of an impostor. Do you regard Christ as worthy of your warmest love? There are those who regard him with a passionate hate. Satan himself cannot be more bitterly hostile to Christ than some men are. — P.

The union of saints results from union with Christ, as the lodestone not only attracts the particles of iron to itself by the magnetic virtue, but by this virtue it unites them to one another. — Richard Cecil

I have seen a field here, and another there, stand thick with corn. A hedge or two has parted them. At the proper season the reapers entered. Soon the earth was disburdened, and the grain conveyed to its destined place, where, blended together in the barn or in the stack, it could not be known that a hedge once separated this corn from that. Thus it is with the church. Here it grows, as it were, in different fields; severed, it may be, by various hedges. By and by, when the harvest is come, all God's wheat shall be gathered into the garner, without one single mark to distinguish that once they differed in the outward circumstantiality of modes or forms. — From "Parable, or Divine Poesy"

Originating amongst the Jews, the Christian religion was regarded at first by great Rome as a mere Jewish sect, and shared alike in the impunity and the contempt with which that people were ever treated by their imperial masters. What did a Claudius or a Vespsasian know, or care to know, of this new sect of Christians or Nazarenes, any more than of those other party names of Pharisee, Sadducee, Essene, Libertine, and the like?. . . Christ was then only "one Christus," and the controversies between his followers and the Jewish priests only one of those paltry squabbles to which that restless people were chronically subject. By and by, as the young church became strong, it began to make its existence and its presence felt in the world, and then it stood in its genuine character and distinctive spirit face to face with Rome. Once met, they instinctively recognized each the other as its natural and irreconcilable enemy, and straightway a war of deadliest hate began between them, which was from the first one of extermination, and could terminate only by the fall of the one or the other. There was no room in the world for Christ and Caesar, so one or the other must die. — Islay Burns

He declares that all else is unavailing: it was in vain that they were of the favored race if they did not admit the Savior's Word into their hearts.

The Word comes from Jesus, the appointed Messenger of God; it is true, weighty, saving; and, therefore, it must have a place among those who hear it. It ought to obtain and retain—

1. An inside place: in the thoughts, the memory, the conscience, the affections. "Thy Word have I hid in mine heart" (Ps. 119:11. See also Jer. 15:16; Col. 3:16).
2. A place of honor: it should receive attention, reverence, faith, obedience (John 8:47; Luke 6:46; Matt. 7:24-25).
3. A place of trust. We ought in all things to rely upon the sure Word of promise, since God will neither lie, nor err, nor change (Isa. 7:9; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2).
4. A place of rule. The Word of Jesus is the law of a Christian.
5. A place of love. It should be prized above our daily food, and defended with our lives (Job. 23:12; Jude 3).
6. A permanent place. It must so transform us as to abide in us.

• There is no room for Jesus in the inn of your life.


• Think of it: "You are too much occupied to be saved"!

• You are weary of the old, old story.


• Are you wearied of bread? of air? of water? of life?

• You prefer the word of man, of superstition, of skepticism.


• Is this a wise preference?

• This fact should startle you, for it condemns you.

• This shows that your nature is depraved; for the saints rejoice in it.

• That you are not in earnest?


• That you are fond of sin?


• That you are greedy of evil gain?


• That you need a change of heart?

Readers of this enlightened, gold-nugget generation can form to themselves no conception of the spirit that then possessed the nobler kingly mind. VERBUM DEI MANET IN ÆTERNUM was the epigraph and life motto which John the Steadfast had adopted for himself. The letters, V. D. M. I. Æ , were engraved on all the furniture of his existence, standards, pictures, plate, on the very sleeves of his lackeys, and I can perceive on his own deep heart first of all. — Thomas Carlyle

The only reason why so many are against the Bible, is because they know the Bible is against them. — G. S. Bowes

At one time the Malagasy did not know of any book except the Bible. There was a Creole trader, in Antananarivo, who had greatly offended some of the natives. They mobbed his house, they seized his property, and men were seen rushing in all directions, carrying away whatever they had been able to lay their hands upon. One man had got possession of the trader's ledger; and, holding it up aloft, he shouted at the top of his voice, "We have got the big Bible! We have got the big Bible!" It is to be feared that the trader's ledger is in too many cases his Bible. — Mr. Cousins, of Madagascar

The Bible has been expelled for centuries, by atheistic or sacerdotal hate, from the dwellings of many of the European nations. As a matter of course, the domestic virtues have declined; the conjugal relation is disparaged; deception and intrigue have supplanted mutual confidence; and society has become diseased to its very core. The very best thing we can do — the only thing which will be efficient — to arrest these evils, is to restore to those nations the Word of God; to replace in their houses that Bible of which they have been robbed. Only do for France and Italy, Belgium and Spain, Portugal and Austria, what has been attempted, and to a great extent accomplished, for our country; put a Bible in every family, and a mightier change will pass over Europe than can be effected by all the diplomacy of her statesmen, or all the revolutions projected by her patriots. — The Leisure Hour

The following anecdote, well told by Mr. Aitken, shows that, in some men, the Word has no place, even in their memories: "Only a short time ago, a friend of mine was preaching in one of our cathedral churches. As he was going to select for his text a prominent passage in one of the portions for the day, he thought it expedient to enquire of the clerk, 'What did the Canon preach from this morning?' The clerk became very pensive, seemed quite disposed to cudgel his brains for the proper answer; but, somehow or other, he really could not think of it just then. All the men of the choir were robing in the adjacent vestry, so he said that he would go and ask them. Accordingly, the question was passed round the choir, and produced the same perplexity. At length the sagacious clerk returned, with the highly explicit answer, 'It was upon the Christian religion, sir!' I think those good people must have needed a reminder as to how we should hear; don't you?"

By acting thus foolishly we could prove that there is no God (Ps. 14:1), that God hath forgotten his people (Isa. 49:14), that Christ was a wine-bibber (Matt. 9:19), and that we ought to worship the devil (Matt. 4:9).

This will never do. We must enquire who uttered the sentence before we begin to preach from it.

Our text is the saying of a shrewd blind man, who was far from being well instructed. It is to be taken for what it is worth; but by no means to be regarded as Christ's teaching.

The Pharisees evidently admitted the force of it, and were puzzled by it. It was good argument as against them.

1. God does hear men who sin, or else he would hear no one: for there is not a man upon earth that sinneth not (1 Kings 8:46).

• Not a saint would be heard; for even saints are sinners.

• To show that he is truly God, and make them own it (Ps. 106:44).


• To manifest his great compassion, whereby he even hears the ravens' cry (Ps. 147:9).


• To lead them to repentance (1 Kings 21:27).


• To leave them without excuse (Exod. 10:16-17).


• To punish them, as when he sent quails to the murmurers (Num. 11:33), and gave Israel a king (1 Sam. 7:17), in his anger.

• Not to believe this were to render the gospel no gospel.


• Not to believe this were to deny facts. David, Manasseh, the dying thief, the publican, the prodigal, confirm this testimony.


• Not to believe this were to deny promises. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isa. 55:7).

1. He hears no sinner's prayer apart from the mediation of our Lord Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5; Eph. 2:18).
2. He will not hear a wicked, formal, heartless prayer (Prov. 15:29).
3. He will not hear the man who willfully continues in sin, and abides in unbelief (Jer. 14:12; Isa. 1:15).
4. He will not hear the hypocrite's mockery of prayer (Job 27:9).
5. He will not hear the unforgiving (Mark 11:5, 26).
6. He will not hear even his people when sin is willfully indulged, and entertained in their hearts (Ps. 66:18).
7. He will not hear those who refuse to hear his Word, or to regard his ordinances (Prov. 28:9).
8. He will not hear those who harden their hearts against the monitions of his Spirit, the warnings of his providence, the appeals of his ministers, the strivings of conscience, and so forth.
9. He will not hear those who refuse to be saved by grace, or who trust in their own prayers as the cause of salvation.
10. He will not hear sinners who die impenitent. At the last he will close his ear to them, as to the foolish virgins, who cried, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" (Matt. 25:11)

Such is the mercy of our God that he will wink at many infirmities in our devotions, and will not reject the prayer of an honest heart because of some weakness in the petitioner. It must be a greater cause than all this that makes God angry at our prayers. In general it is sin. "We know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth." "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." It is our sins that block up the passage of our prayers. It is not the vast distance between heaven and earth, not the thick clouds, not the threefold regions, not the sevenfold orbs, not the firmament of heaven, but only our sins, that hinder the ascent of our prayers. "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear you." Why? "Because your hands are full of blood." God will have none of those petitions that are presented to him with bloody hands. Our prayers are our bills of exchange, and they are allowed in heaven when they come from pious and humble hearts; but if we be broken in our religion, and bankrupts of grace, God will protest our bills; he will not be won with our prayers. — Thomas Adams

God is "neither hard of hearing, nor hard of giving." The blood of sheep and the blood of swine are both alike; yet the blood of swine was not to be offered, because it was the blood of swine: so the prayer of an unregenerate man may be as well framed, both for the petitions and for everything that is required immediately to a prayer, and yet not be accepted, because of the heart and person from whom it comes. — Samuel Clark

It is difficult to illustrate this truth, because, in human life, nothing ever takes place corresponding to what occurs when an impenitent sinner presumes to pray to God. To every government many petitions are presented, but never one by any who are in rebellion against its authority. It is universally recognized, that rebellion against any government of itself cuts off all right of petition to it. So that, for an impenitent sinner to pray to God is one of the most unnatural and monstrous things that can be conceived of.

The fact that God is kind, good, bountiful, does not excuse the presumption of any impenitent sinner in praying to him. That only shows how inexcusable is his impenitence. For if God is good, kind, bountiful, why does he continue impenitent and rebellious?

The fact that he is in great need does not excuse the presumption or lessen the folly of an impenitent sinner in praying to God. It may be that his distress is the punishment of his sin; and for him in that case to pray to God for deliverance is as if a convicted thief were to petition Her Majesty's Government to release him, on the ground that he found it inconvenient and painful to work the treadmill. Or, it may be that his distresses are the means which God is employing for the very purpose of breaking down his obstinacy and impenitence: by them God is laying siege to his soul. But what rebellious city, besieged by the forces of the lawful government, would venture to ask aid from the government, on the ground that great distress prevailed in it, while all the time its inhabitants had not the slightest intention of surrendering to the government? — The Preachers' Monthly