Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by Samuel Rutherford

Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace; it is glory in its infancy.

You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed.

Jesus Christ came into my prison cell last night, and every stone flashed like a ruby.

See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all, and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy: for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory: many are lying dead by the way, slain with security.

To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith.

Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.

Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will.

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines.

My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.

Think it not hard if you get not your will, nor your delights in this life; God will have you to rejoice in nothing but himself.

I have been benefited by praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them I have gotten something for myself.

Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.

We take nothing to the grave with us, but a good or evil conscience... It is true, terrors of conscience cast us down; and yet without terrors of conscience we cannot be raised up again.

It is no small comfort that God hath written some Scriptures to you which He hath not to others. Read these, and think God is like a friend who sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but who speaketh in His letter to some by name that are dearest to Him in the house.

Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of providence, yet it hath a better side, and God shall let you see it. ... “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” ergo, shipwreck, losses, &c., work together for the good of them that love God: hence I infer, that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses, or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you.

O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want.

I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; ye must needs have it: all other things, as houses, lands, children, husband, friends, country, credit, health, wealth, honour, may be wanted ; but heaven is your one thing necessary, the good part that shall not be taken from you. See that you buy the field where the Pearl is; sell all and make a purchase of salvation. Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security.

Christ chargeth me to believe His daylight at midnight.

In our fluctuations of feelings, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by.

Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom.

They lose nothing who gain Christ.

To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith

The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that I ever bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my harbor.

I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them.

The secret formula of the saints: When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines.

But the way to overcome is by patience, forgiving and praying for your enemies, in doing whereof you heap coals upon their heads, and your Lord shall open a door to you in your trouble: wait upon Him, as the night watch waiteth for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watch-tower, and come not down, but by prayer, and faith, and hope, wait on.

Christ's enemies are but breaking their own heads in pieces, upon the Rock laid in Zion; and the stone is not removed out of its place. Faith hath cause to take courage from our very afflictions; the devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith and patience of the saints. I know that he but heweth and polisheth stones, all this time, for the new Jerusalem.

Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him.

Christ has no velvet crosses.

There is as much in our Lord's pantry as will satisfy all his children and as much wine in his cellar as will quench all their thirst. Hunger on, for there is meat in hungering for Christ; go never from him, but seek him who is yet pleased with the importunity of hungry souls until he fills you; if he delays, yet do not go away, even if you faint at his feet.

Build your nest in no tree here...for the Lord of the forest has condemned the whole woods to be demolished.

I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways

Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace. The hammer molds us, the file sharpens us, and the fire tempers us.

I urge you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before... Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labor. Take pains for Him, and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him.

You will not get to steal quietly into heaven, into Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross. I find crosses to be Christ's carved work that he marks out for us and that with crosses he portraits us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption. Lord cut - Lord carve - Lord wound - Lord do anything that may perfect thy Father's image in us and make us ready for glory.

Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.

There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ.

No pen, no words, no image can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus.

You shall by faith sustain yourself and comfort yourself in your Lord, and be strong in His power; for you are in the beaten and common way to heaven, when you are under our Lord's crosses. You have reason to rejoice in it, more than in a crown of gold; and rejoice and be glad to bear the reproaches of Christ.

My Lord Jesus has fully recompensed my sadness with his joys, my losses with his own presence. I find it a sweet and rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ's joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with himself.

Why should I tremble at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop.

Keep God's covenant in your trials; hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting; forgive a hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents: for, I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.

Ye have lost a child--nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere.

Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul - they lose nothing who gain Christ.

When the supreme magistrate will not execute the judgment of the Lord, those who made him supreme magistrate, under God, who have under God, sovereighn liberty to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, are to execute the judgment of the Lord, when wicked men make the law of God of none effect.

Since He looked upon me my heart is not my own. He hath runaway to heaven with it.

Make not Christ a liar in distrusting His promise.

Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction.

I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.

Our little time of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to Heaven.

Grace grows best in winter.

I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights , to preach Christ my Lord

After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies.

When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth.

Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.

My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love.

I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet.

The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a wonderful providence, with his own hand, planted me here, where by his grace, in this part of his vineyard, I grow; and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think fit to transplant me.

Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion.

Your heart is not the compass that God steers by.