Man takes a great deal of pains to heap up riches, and they are but like heaps of manure in the furrows of the field, good for nothing unless they be spread.
What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise.
A good man is willing to know the worst of himself, and particularly under affliction, desires to be told wherefore God contends with him and what God designs in correcting him.
We have no sufficient strength of our own. All our sufficiency is of God. We should stir up ourselves to resist temptations in a reliance upon God's all-sufficiency and the omnipotence of his might.
When he [the slothful person] is pressed to be diligent, either in his worldly affairs or in the business of religion, this is his excuse (and a sorry excuse it is as bad as none).
God took Eve from the side of Adam, not from his foot to be his menial or slave or servant, not from his head to be his mental superior, and did take him from that which is nearest his heart, that he might love her, and that which is under his arm, that he might protect her.