59 Richard Cecil Quotes

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief starves the soul; faith finds food in famine, and a table in the wilderness. In the greatest danger, faith says, "I have a great God." When outward strength is broken, faith rests on the promises. In the midst of sorrow, faith draws the sting out of every trouble, and takes out the bitterness from every affliction.

To love to preach is one thing to love those to whom we preach, quite another.

There are three things which the true Christian desires in respect to sin: Justification, that it may not condemn; sanctification, that it may not rein; and glorification, that it may not be.

God's way of answering the Christian's prayer for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.

Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.

Nothing can be proposed so wild or so absurd as not to find a party, and often a very large party to espouse it.

If a man has a quarrelsome temper, let him alone. The world will soon find him employment. He will soon meet with someone stronger than himself, who will repay him better than you can. A man may fight duels all his life, if he is disposed to quarrel.

The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence: They acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced His will in all things.

Think of the ills from which you are exempt, and it will aid you to bear patiently those which now you may suffer.

The union of Christians to Christ, their common head, and by means of the influence they derive from him, one to another, may be illustrated by the loadstone. It not only attracts the particles of iron to itself by the magnetic virtue, but by this virtue it unites them one to another.

The world looks at preachers out of church to know what they mean in it.

He has seen but little of life who does not discern everywhere the effect of early education on men's opinions and habits of thinking. Children bring out of the nursery that which displays itself throughout their lives.

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon, as what is.

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their caparisons of title, wealth, and place, he considers but as harness.

The Christian will find his parentheses for prayer even in the busiest hours of life.

Example is more forcible than precept. People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.

Method is the very hinge of business; and there is no method without punctuality.

Supreme and abiding self-love is a very dwarfish affection, but a giant evil.

He who sows, even with tears, the precious seed of faith, hope, and love, shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him, because it is the very nature of that seed to yield a joyful harvest.

If I have made an appointment with you, I owe you punctuality, I have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own.

An accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. At first he is stunned if the accession be sudden, and is very humble and very grateful. Then he begins to speak a little louder, people think him more sensible, and soon he thinks himself so.

Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities - who has not been put into fire - who has not been taught to say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

An exquisite watch went irregularly, though no defect could be discovered in it. At last it was found that the balance wheel had been near a magnet; and here was all the mischief. If the soundest mind be magnetized by any predilection, it must act irregularly.

The joy of religion is an exorcist to the mind; it expels the demons of carnal mirth and madness.

To have too much forethought is the part of a wretch; to have too little is the part of a fool.

If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.

There is no such thing as a fixed policy, because policy like all organic entities is always in the making.

We hear much of a decent pride, a becoming pride, a noble pride, a laudable pride. Can that be decent, of which we ought to be ashamed? Can that be becoming, of which God has set forth the deformity? Can that be noble which God resists and is determined to abase? Can that be laudable, which God calls abominable? Providence is a greater mystery than revelation. The state of the world is more humiliating to our reason than the doctrines of the Gospel. A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment, and to exercise his faith, in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's, than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelations.

The nurse of infidelity is sensuality.

Tenderness of conscience is always to be distinguished from scrupulousness. The conscience cannot be kept too sensitive and tender; but scrupulousness arises from bodily or mental infirmity, and discovers itself in a multitude of ridiculous, superstitious, and painful feelings.

The way of every man is declarative of the end of every man.

God denies a Christian nothing but with a design to give him something better.

Self-will so ardent and active that it will break a world to pieces to make a stool to sit on.

Recollection is the life of religion. The Christian wants to know no new thing, but to have his heart elevated more above the world by secluding himself from it as much as his duties will allow, that religion may affect its great end by bringing its sublime hopes and prospects into more steady action on the mind.

Solitude shows us what we should be; society shows us what we are.

Eloquence is vehement simplicity.

The only instance of praying to saints, mentioned in the Bible, is that of the rich man in torment calling upon Abraham; and let it be remembered, that it was practiced only by a lost soul and without success.

The grandest operations, both in nature and grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles in its passage and is heard by everyone; but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms, but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are but partial and soon remedied; but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and is the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of grace in the church and in the soul.

As a man loves gold, in that proportion he hates to be imposed upon by counterfeits; and in proportion as a man has regard for that which is above price and better than gold, he abhors that hypocrisy which is but its counterfeit.

Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and the good, and dwell as little as possible on the evil and the false.

Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.

A contemplative life has more the appearance of piety than any other; but the divine plan is to bring faith into activity and exercise.

Every man is an original and solitary character. None can either understand or feel the book of his own life like himself.

Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.

I could write down twenty cases wherein I wished that God had done otherwise than he did, but which I now see, if I had had my own way, would have led to extensive mischief.

The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.

There are soft moments even to desperadoes. God does not, all at once, abandon even them.

Duties are ours, events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.

The meanness of the earthen vessel which conveys to others the Gospel of treasure, takes nothing from the value of the treasure. A dying hand may sign a deed of gift of incalculable value. A shepherd's boy may point out the way to a philosopher. A beggar may be the bearer of an invaluable present.

Our Heavenly Father always sends His children the things they ask, or better things.