Top 100 William Gurnall Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Can Christ be in thou heart and thou not know it? Can one king be dethroned and another crowned in thy soul and thou hear no scuffle?”

— William Gurnall

52. “A pilot without his chart, a scholar without his book, and a soldier without his sword, are alike ridiculous. But, above all these, it is absurd for one to think of being a Christian, without knowledge of the word of God and some skill to use this weapon. – William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour.”

— William Gurnall

53. “What have we Bibles for, ministers and preaching for, if we mean not to furnish ourselves by them with armour for the evil day? In.”

— William Gurnall

54. “Godliness, as well as the doctrine of our faith, is a mystery.”

— William Gurnall

55. “Gospel peace comforts the soul, and that strongly, when it hath no other comfort to mingle with it.”

— William Gurnall

56. “The sins of teachers are the teachers of sin.”

— William Gurnall

57. “The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan’s prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth.”

— William Gurnall

58. “For a beggar to live at court is not so much as the King to dwell with him in his cottage.”

— William Gurnall

59. “Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel.”

— William Gurnall

60. “The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print.”

— William Gurnall

61. “Few are made better by prosperity, whom afflictions make worse.”

— William Gurnall

62. “Oh, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise, in the dark night of affliction, afraid to draw the latch, whereas he should then come boldly for shelter as a child into his father’s house.”

— William Gurnall

63. “Jerusalem above is a city whose builder and maker is God.” Every grace, yea, every degree of grace, is a stone in that building, the topstone whereof is laid in glory, where saints shall more plainly see, how God was not only Founder to begin, but Benefactor also to finish the same. The glory of the work shall not be crumbled and piece-mealed out, some to God and some to the creature, but all entirely paid in to God, and he acknowledged all in all.”

— William Gurnall

64. “Pray often rather than very long at a time. It is hard to be very long in prayer, and not slacken in our affections.”

— William Gurnall

65. “He that is impatient, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to Him in a denial.”

— William Gurnall

66. “It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money, but for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster. Send.”

— William Gurnall

67. “Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.”

— William Gurnall

68. “Paul was Nero’s prisoner, but Nero was much more God’s.”

— William Gurnall

69. “Praying is the same to the new creature as crying is to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but instructed by nature; it comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself.”

— William Gurnall

70. “The mightier any is in the word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.”

— William Gurnall

71. “We are to choose affliction rather than sin, yea, the greatest affliction before the least sin. Moses.”

— William Gurnall

72. “Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death.”

— William Gurnall

73. “Sometimes, perhaps, thou hearest another pray with much freedom and fluency, whilst thou canst hardly get out a few broken words. Hence thou art ready to accuse thyself and admire him, as if the gilding of the key made it open the door the better.”

— William Gurnall

74. “Christian, hath not God secretly instructed thee by his Spirit from the Word, how to read the shorthand of his providence? Dost.”

— William Gurnall

75. “God loves the saints as the purchase of his Son’s blood. They cost him dear, and that which is so hardly got shall not be easily lost. He that was willing to expend his Son’s blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them.”

— William Gurnall

76. “The Christian must stand fixed to his principles, and not change his habit; but freely show what countryman he is by his holy constancy in the truth.”

— William Gurnall

77. “Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool’s coat thither.”

— William Gurnall

78. “No torment in the world is comparable to an accusing conscience.”

— William Gurnall

79. “Therefore tremble, O man, at any power thou hast, except thou usest it for God. Art thou strong in body; who hath thy strength? God, or thy lusts?”

— William Gurnall

80. “Godliness is the child of truth, and it must be nursed by its own mother.”

— William Gurnall

81. “Christ hath told us He will come, but not when, that we might never put off our clothes, or put out the candle.”

— William Gurnall

82. “The longer a soul hath neglected duty, the more ado there is to get it taken up.”

— William Gurnall

83. “As the eye of the body once put out, can never be restored by the creature’s art, so neither can the spiritual eye lost by Adam’s sin be restored by the teaching of men or angels. It is one of the diseases which Christ came to cure.”

— William Gurnall

84. “Prayer is a great heart-easer; it breathes out those distempered passions which, being bound up in others, break out when God at any time crosseth them in their wills.”

— William Gurnall

85. “They say stars have greatest influences when they are in conjunction with the sun; then sure the graces of a saint should never work more powerfully than in prayer, for then he is in the nearest conjunction and communion with God. That.”

— William Gurnall

86. “It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction.”

— William Gurnall

87. “The providences of God to his saints here, while on this low bottom of earth, are mixed and parti-coloured, as was signified by the ‘speckled’ horses, Zech. 1:8, in.”

— William Gurnall

88. “Christ is a prince that loves to see his people thrive and grow rich under his government. This.”

— William Gurnall

89. “There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we be come.”

— William Gurnall

90. “We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves. The pardon may be past the prince’s hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner’s hand.”

— William Gurnall

91. “The news which the gospel hath in its mouth to tell us poor sinners is good. It speaks promises, and they are significations of some good intended by God for poor sinners.”

— William Gurnall

92. “Great comforts do, indeed, bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree of it; the weak child is oftener in the lap than the strong one.”

— William Gurnall

93. “Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior; and therefore, hold in with both thou canst not.”

— William Gurnall

94. “It is no policy to let thy lusts have arms, which are sure to rise and declare against thee when thine enemy comes.”

— William Gurnall

95. “The regenerating Spirit is compared to the wind. His first attempts on the soul may be so secret that the creature knows not whence they come, or whither they tend; but, before he hath done, the sound will be heard throughout the soul.”

— William Gurnall

96. “He that loves the Word and the purity of its precepts cannot turn traitor.”

— William Gurnall

97. “God hath made it a debt which one saint owes to another to carry their names to a throne of grace.”

— William Gurnall

98. “Truly, hope is the saint’s covering, wherein he wraps himself, when he lays his body down to sleep in the grave: “My flesh,” saith David, “shall rest in hope.””

— William Gurnall

99. “Thou hast no life to lose, because thou hast given it already to Christ, nor can man take away that without God’s leave.”

— William Gurnall

100. “The grace thou hast will soon be less, if thou addest not more to it.”

— William Gurnall