Flowers from a Puritan's Garden, Annotated and Illustrated.

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“Let not any iniquity have dominion over me” is a good and wise prayer; for one pampered sin will slay the soul as surely as one dose of poison will kill the body.

In will and intent, we must break every bond of sin, and we must perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, or we cannot hope that the Son has made us free.

If we follow a multitude to do evil, the multitude will not excuse the evil nor diminish the punishment.

We can sin abundantly by passively yielding to the course of this world; but to be holy and gracious needs many a struggle, many a tear.

Better be dim gold than shining brass.

Past time urges us to diligence, for it has reported us in heaven; and future time calls us to earnestness, for it must be short, and may end this very day.

Our sentiments are like a tree, which must be trained to the wall of Scripture; but too many go about to bow the wall to their tree, and cut and trim texts to shape them to their mind.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;’’ let it convert us, but never let us try to pervert it.

Our ideas must take the mould of Scripture—this is wisdom: to endeavor to mould Scripture to our ideas would be presumption.

It is in our prosperity that we are tested. Men are not fully discovered to themselves till they are tried by fulness of success. Praise finds out the crack of pride, wealth reveals the flaw of selfishness, and learning discovers the leak of unbelief.

Success is the crucible of character.

O Lord, preserve us when we are full as much as when we are empty.

Eternal realities appear to be mere trifles when the heart is hot after some engrossing pleasure. The most fallacious estimates are made under the influence of corrupt desires.

Anyone sin willfully indulged and persevered in is quite sufficient to prove a man to be a traitor to his God. Though he may neither commit murder nor adultery—which would be like counterfeiting the larger coins, he may be as surely a felon in the sight of heaven if he deliberately utters falsehood or indulges pride— which some think as lightly of as if they were but the counterfeits of pence.

a world of evil lurks in a drop of rebellion.

Deliberation and delight in sin are sure marks of the heirs of wrath.

When the door of mercy is shut, then is the time for knocking. When the blessing appears to be lost, then is the season for seeking; and when favors seem to be denied, then is the hour for importunate asking. When we have had many denials, we should be the more earnest in prayer, that the hindrance may be removed.

If we knew the worst time for prayer had come, we ought still to pray.

The new birth has disqualified us for contentment with the world, and hence we have no choice but to find our all in Christ.

Blessed necessity! Driven to Jesus by an unrest which finds no remedy elsewhere! Drawn to Jesus by an impulse which we have no desire to resist!

“The wisdom must be in him that hath power to command, not in him that hath power to obey.”

At Christ’s command it is wise to let down the net at the very spot where we have toiled in vain all the night.

May the Lord make our conscience to be an alarm to us here that it be not a torment to us hereafter.

O Lord, whatever I may be, let me not be a hypocrite. Suffer me to be the least among thy true children, rather than the chief among pretenders.

God works in us that we may work, he saves us that we may serve him, and enriches us with grace that the riches of his glory may be displayed.

“The end of study is information; the end of meditation is practice, or a work upon the affections. Study is like a winter’s sun that shineth but warmeth not; but meditation is like blowing up the fire, where we do not mind the blaze, but the heat.”

He who believes the truth should himself be true.

Our past conduct is a logical reason for our condemnation; it is in God’s past mercy to us that we have accumulated argument for hope.

The Latin sentence hath great truth in it, Deus donando debet, God by giving one mercy pledges himself to give another;

He who said that he did not wish to prejudice his boy’s mind by teaching him to pray, soon discovered that the devil was not so scrupulous, for his boy soon learned to swear.

The Scriptures do not make our hearts burn till the Spirit kindles them into flames, and then we say, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures.”

“The more supernatural things are, the more we need diligence to preserve them. A strange plant [an exotic] requires more care than a native of the soil. Worldly desires, like nettles, breed of their own accord; but spiritual desires need a great deal of cultivating.”

Spirituality is a tender plant, and without great care it soon flags, while sin needs neither hoeing nor watering, but will spring up in the dark, and flourish even amid the wintry frosts of trouble.

Whatever will prove a check to us when tempted, or an incentive when commanded, must be of use to us, however strong we may conceive ourselves to be.

“Ungodly men are too impatient to wait for solid and eternal pleasures, but snatch at the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. These resemble children who cannot tarry till the grapes are ripe, and therefore eat them sour and green.”

Liberty to hold our opinions but not to spread them is no liberty,

If we are out of temper ourselves, we plead the weather, or a headache, or our natural temperament, or aggravating circumstances; we are never at a loss for an excuse for ourselves, why should not the same ingenuity be used by our charity in inventing apologies and extenuations for others?

We ourselves need from him ten times more consideration than we show to our brethren.

Has a man any faith in God if he will believe no more than his reason proves?

That religion which needs no care, and takes no trouble, is in great demand in the world; it is produced by the acre, and may be seen spread over the surface everywhere.

If we let the boat drift with the stream, and leave our religion to random influences, without care or thought, what can we look for but slovenliness and worthlessness?

Without God the world is, says Manton, “a dry nut, which we crack, we find nothing in it but dust.”

“It is easier to crush the egg than to kill the serpent.”

O Lord, of thy grace, teach me to crush sin betimes, lest it should gather strength and crush me.

He who only knows truth in the light of it, is not worthy to be compared with the believer who receives truth in the love of it.

When we speak for God, it is a blessed thing to speak through God.

If now thou dost try us severely, be pleased also to comfort us richly.

“A sudden glance at truth without meditation upon it bringeth nothing to perfection; as a hen that soon leaveth her nest never hatcheth her chicks.”

There is no merit in seeking the Lord; but we may not hope to find him without it.

Prayer does not deserve an answer, and yet we are to pray without ceasing, neither may we hope to have if we refuse to ask.