“ In some cases the worker honours the work, but in religion the worker is ennobled by the work. How glorious is our Master, how pleasant his service, and how great the reward! Who would not say, Thine are we, O David! and on thy side thou son of Jesse: Peace be to thee, and to thine helpers, for thy God helpeth thee. Compared to this, every other employment is despicable and paltry; every other honour is disgrace; and all other pleasures are stale and insipid. ”

“ Did the influence of religion descend with us into all our intercourse with the world and into all the walks of life, the world would believe that we served a holy master, and shewed our faith by our works. When men destroy with their lives what they attempt to build with their testimony, or profession, or with their lips, they act a most inconsistent part: He is a good man, heathens wont to say, but he is a Christian: a noble testimony to Christianity! ”

“ When we do not, by family-worship, instruction and government, consecrate our houses to God, as Bethels, to his service. If God be the founder of the family, if domestic deliverances, mercies, and trials, come from God? where is his honour and fear? How ungrateful to forget, or conceal, the goodness of such a gracious Father! If children and servants, and visiters in a family, near the worship of God, how is Christ confessed under that roof? The worst of the heathen shall be witnesses against these families, falsely called Christians, in the day of the Lord. ”

“ Neither are we to confess Christ from ostentation, or love of applause. To borrow Christ’s name, to aggrandize or set off our own, is a forgery of the worst kind, and infinitely dishonouring to Christ and his religion. We are to profess him when it exposes us to the loss of every thing, and even of our good name, and consequently cannot, without the greatest iniquity, wear his name merely to take away our reproach. We are to be willing, like John Baptist, to decrease, or grow little, if Christ increase in the world, and rejoice the work is done, though we had no hand in it. ”

“ Let us act now as we would wish to have done at the day of judgment, and choose that religion which will support us through life, with all its changes, at death, with all its terrors, and in the day of the Lord, with all its solemnities! ”

“ Great is the truth, and it shall then have prevailed! The authority and excellence, and triumphs of Christianity shall then appear, in their utmost evidence, in opposition to deism in all its shapes. The necessity of a public and spirited stand for the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, in opposition to slothful, covetous, and cowardly temporizers, shall, doubtless meet with the divine approbation. The stedfastness of the church in her principles, in opposition to the wavering and unstable in religion, will be fully vindicated. ”

“ We should not be ashamed to resist that torrent of error and profaneness that deluges our country, and which may soon accelerate our ruin. When truth falls in our streets, when covenant engagements are sported with, it is a dreadful symptom that the Lord cometh out of his place, to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity. When the Romans ceased to preserve public faith pledged in their treaties, their decline and fall hastened apace ”

“ Happy are we, if we are honoured to confess that divine person before men, and, in any degree, to contribute our endeavour to make his name to endure for ever! This will be the greatest public honour God can bestow on us in this world, and no mean evidence that we are to enjoy the glories of the next! No person ever regretted in his dying moments, or at the supreme tribunal, that he had made a public profession of Christ before men. ”

“ Those hearers also who know the doctrine of God and Christ, are best able to resist the influence of error delivered from the pulpit. How unhappy are they who hear those preachers whose discourses are partly true and partly false; who have here a truth, and there an error; here a doctrine, and there an innovation; who seem eager only to startle their hearers with quirks, conceits and novelties; but judicious hearers detect the fallacy, and discover the cheat, and having tasted of the old wine, they say it is better than the new. ”

“ When we believe in Christ, every truth of his word will be precious to us, from its connection with his person, and from its connection with the other branches of the system: this will induce us to contend, as in an agony for the faith, the whole faith, once, and but once, delivered to the saints. Love to the truth also, is a strong reason for a full and consistent confession of Christ before men. Love is a most powerful principle of action, and especially when it operates about the great things of God. ”

“ Let us therefore hold fast the form of sound words, in truth and love, and by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. Let the savour of Christ’s knowledge be manifested by us in every place, and be a means of drawing others to the love and knowledge of religion, and at length may we be perfect and entire, lacking nothing; and give in our account with joy, and not with grief; believing that if we confess him before men, he will confess us before his Father which is in heaven. ”

“ It is not a matter of indifference to them, whether Christ’s name live or die in the world, whether truth sink or swim. God has a cause on earth, in which his declarative glory is deeply concerned, and the maintenance of that cause is the peculiar charge of his providence, and ought not to be of small value in our eyes. As our public profession involves in it a great part of our duty to God and the church in our generation, we should be careful to join that society which in its constitution and administration approaches nearest the rule of the word. ”

“ It is easy to seduce us, if we have not an unction from the holy One. If our own salvation for eternity be not embarked on the truth of the gospel, it will be no difficult matter to carry us about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. ”

“ We should rouse ourselves and others to our duty about the public interests of Christ’s kingdom, and love that Zion whom no man seeketh after. The zeal of others in spreading the gospel through the world, should animate us to hold fast what we have, and to pray earnestly, and to prayer add active exertions, that the whole earth may be filled with the glory of Christ. Those who love Christ, and prize his gospel, have the most tender sympathy with the people sitting in darkness, having no light. ”

“ Our confession of Christ is not to originate in false or improper motives: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, If our eye is not single, our whole bodies cannot be full of light. A profession, however splendid, if it be hypocritical, is an abomination in the sight of God. We are not to confess Christ before men from a spirit of contradiction to others: We are bound to oppose all who oppose the truth as it is in Christ ”

“ In exhibiting this confession, as in all religious duties, we should be truly sincere; our love to Christ, the animating principle of this confession, must be sincere: Our zeal for the glory of God, the credit of his cause, the honour of his truth, the propagation of his gospel, the encouragement and comfort of his friends, and the conviction of his enemies, must be pure and unfeigned. Such a cause demands integrity and resolution of mind to carry it into effect: We should confess Christ boldly and without fear or shame. ”

“ The duty of all professors of religion, to hold fast their profession, without wavering; to transmit it down to posterity; and, in the mean time, to honour it by a holy life.
Men, brethren, and fathers, let us be valiant for the truth on the earth. We serve a Master that will never leave nor forsake us, and we plead a cause that shall ultimately prevail; our infirmities and our inconsistencies are many, but the cause is good, even the cause of God and truth. A long list of witnesses, confessors and martyrs have preceded us in this course, and fought the battles of the Lord ”

“ Others, in a Christian country, affirm, that the Bible is not from God, but a fiction of men! Another class of Christians, perhaps falsely so called, are fierce for moderation, and assert, that contending for a pure profession of religion, is but another name for a party spirit, and is, as matters now stand, altogether impertinent: But, when Christ cometh the second time, things shall be seen in a different light, the controversy between him and all his rivals shall be ended. ”

“ The very constitution of the Church, and the enjoyment of her ordinances, lays every Christian under an obligation to confess Christ before men, and not to be ashamed of him, or of any of his words, before an evil and adulterous generation. The names given to Christians in Scripture, imply an obligation to make a public profession of his name: They are his friends, children, servants, followers, bride or spouse; and surely all these names indicate that none should be ashamed of that glorious person to whom they are related, and from whom their eternal happiness proceeds. ”

“ When worldly emoluments are attached to a profession of Christ before men, multitudes appear on his side, and seem zealously affected to himself and his truths; but when persecution arises because of the word, when the tide turns in opposition to genuine Christianity, many are offended, go back, and walk no more with Jesus. John vi. There are still many in the church, whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame, and who mind earthly things; who measure their diligence by their emoluments, or by the applause of men, and are not actuated by the spirit of religion. ”

“ In such a glorious cause it is honourable to be single, as Athanasius in former times, and, Abdiel in Milton, faithful among the faithless, unmoved, unshaken, unseduced, not influenced by number nor example to swerve from truth, nor change his constant mind; and in this cause nothing is too good, or too great to be lost. In short, We are to confess Christ before men in our death. The death of a saint is a most instructive event, and it is chiefly instructive as it is the close of a holy life, and a recommendation of religion to survivers. ”

“ We are to hear what God saith to his people, and that he spoke peace, and we should not turn again to folly. The eyes of the world are fastened upon us after these occasions, and we should walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise; knowledge should be taken of us, that we have been with Jesus. ”