Author
Sourced quotes from Horatius Bonar in the Postmilstill archive, with works and topics linked for reading and research.
Our business is not to give any such directions, but, as the apostles did, to preach Christ crucified, a present Saviour and a present salvation. Then it is that sinners are converted, as the Lord himself said, 'I, if I…
It is unbelief that makes ministers so cold in their preaching, so slothful in visiting, and so remiss in all their sacred duties. It is unbelief that chills the life and straitens the heart. It is unbelief that makes mi…
The divine order then is first pardon, then holiness; first peace with God, and then conformity to the image of that God with whom we have been brought to be at peace. For as likeness to God is produced by beholding His…
Is it your love to Christ, or his love to you, that is to bring you peace? God's free love to sinners, as such, is our resting place.
The gospel is the proclamation of free love; the revelation of the boundless charity of God. Nothing less than this will suit our world; nothing else is so likely to touch the heart, to go down to the lowest depths of de…
The gospel is the good news of the great work done upon the cross. The knowledge of that finished work is immediate peace.
Instead of the first Adam God brings in the "last Adam," the "second Man," the Lord from heaven, as His King, and He introduces His offspring as kings under Him, to fill, subdue, and rule the earth. He has found His King…
Man was made for God to dwell in. Man thrust God out of His dwelling-place, and left Him homeless; without a habitation on earth. The universe was His; every star was His; every mountain was His: but none of these did He…
Thus Christ is seen in every part of the tabernacle; and everywhere it is the riches of His grace that we see. Here "Christ is all and in all." The whole fabric is Christ. Each separate part is Christ. The altar is Chris…
"Through the veil, which is His flesh," is our one access to God; not merely at first when we believed, but day by day, to the last.
God's purpose is that we should never, while here, get beyond the need of expiation and purging; and though vain man may think that he would better glorify God by sinlessness, yet the Holy Spirit in this epistle shows us…
Personal imperfection on the one hand, and vicarious perfection on the other, are the solemn truths which pervade the whole. There is no day nor hour in which evil is not coming forth from us, and in which the great bloo…
Satisfaction with Jesus and his work, not satisfaction with your own faith, is what God expects of you. To be satisfied with Christ, is faith in Christ. To be satisfied with his blood, is faith in his blood.
You are to come as you are; with all your bad motives, whatever these may be. Take all your bad motives, add them to the number of your sins, and bring them all to the altar where the great sacrifice is lying. Go to the…
Faith does not spring out of feeling, but feeling out of faith. The less you feel the more you should trust. You cannot feel aright till you have believed. As all true repentance has its root in faith, so all true feelin…
The consciousness of insensibility, like the sense of guilt, ought to be one of your reasons for trusting him the more, whereas you make it a reason for not trusting him at all.
I find that the apostles shut up their hearers to immediate faith and repentance, bringing them face to face with the great object of faith, and commanding them in the name of the living God to believe, just as Jesus com…
You are in earnest now; but I fear you are making your earnestness your Christ, and actually using it as a reason for not trusting Christ immediately. You think your earnestness will lead on to faith, if it be but intens…
It is not faith as a piece of money or a thing of merit; but faith taking God at his word, and giving him credit for speaking the honest truth, when he declares that "Christ died for the ungodly," and that the life which…
Faith then is the link, the one link, between the sinner and the Sin-bearer. It is not faith, as a work or exercise of our minds, which must be properly performed in order to qualify or fit us for pardon. It is not faith…
It is the Holy Spirit alone that can draw us to the cross and fasten us to the Saviour. He who thinks he can do without the Spirit, has yet to learn his own sinfulness and helplessness. The gospel would be no good news t…
It is of God himself that we must learn; and it is only by listening to the very words of God that we shall arrive at the true knowledge of what the gospel is. His own words are the truest, the simplest, and the best.
We are not only to believe the truth, but we are to believe it because God has spoken it. Faith must have a divine foundation.
The object of the Spirit's work is to make us acquainted with the true Jehovah, that in him we may rest; not to produce in us certain feelings, the consciousness of which will make us think better of ourselves, and give…
God has declared himself to be gracious. "God is love." He has embodied this grace in the person and work of his beloved Son. He has told us that this grace is for the ungodly, the unholy, the unfit, the stout-hearted, t…
It can only come from God; and it is in knowing God that he gets it. God has written a volume for the purpose of making himself known; and it is in this revelation of his character that the sinner is to find the rest tha…
It is not opinions that man needs: it is TRUTH. It is not theology: it is God. It is not religion: it is Christ. It is not literature and science; but the knowledge of the free love of God in the gift of His only-begotte…
In all unbelief there are these two things, - a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God.
We must be more in earnest if we would win souls.
Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. Faith saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, an…
If Christ be not the Substitute, he is nothing to the sinner. If he did not die as the Sinbearer, he has died in vain. … He did not come to risk his life; he came to die!
Its burden was not, "Do this or do that; labor and pray, and use the means;" - that is, law, not gospel: - but Christ has done all! He did it when he was "delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justificatio…
The tendency of the world's religion just now is, to reject the blood; and to glory in a gospel which needs no sacrifice, no "Lamb slain." Thus, they go "in the way of Cain."
Love led him down to the cradle; love led him up to the cross! He died as the sinner's substitute. He died to make it a righteous thing in God to cancel the sinner's guilt and annul the penalty of his everlasting death.
The right kind of pardon comes not from love alone, but from law; not from good nature, but from righteousness; not from indifference to sin, but from holiness.
37 quotes
Our business is not to give any such directions, but, as the apostles did, to preach Christ crucified, a present Saviour and a present salvation. Then it is that sinners are converted, as the Lord himself said, 'I, if I…
It is unbelief that makes ministers so cold in their preaching, so slothful in visiting, and so remiss in all their sacred duties. It is unbelief that chills the life and straitens the heart. It is unbelief that makes mi…
The divine order then is first pardon, then holiness; first peace with God, and then conformity to the image of that God with whom we have been brought to be at peace. For as likeness to God is produced by beholding His…
Is it your love to Christ, or his love to you, that is to bring you peace? God's free love to sinners, as such, is our resting place.
The gospel is the proclamation of free love; the revelation of the boundless charity of God. Nothing less than this will suit our world; nothing else is so likely to touch the heart, to go down to the lowest depths of de…
The gospel is the good news of the great work done upon the cross. The knowledge of that finished work is immediate peace.
Instead of the first Adam God brings in the "last Adam," the "second Man," the Lord from heaven, as His King, and He introduces His offspring as kings under Him, to fill, subdue, and rule the earth. He has found His King…
Man was made for God to dwell in. Man thrust God out of His dwelling-place, and left Him homeless; without a habitation on earth. The universe was His; every star was His; every mountain was His: but none of these did He…
Thus Christ is seen in every part of the tabernacle; and everywhere it is the riches of His grace that we see. Here "Christ is all and in all." The whole fabric is Christ. Each separate part is Christ. The altar is Chris…
"Through the veil, which is His flesh," is our one access to God; not merely at first when we believed, but day by day, to the last.
God's purpose is that we should never, while here, get beyond the need of expiation and purging; and though vain man may think that he would better glorify God by sinlessness, yet the Holy Spirit in this epistle shows us…
Personal imperfection on the one hand, and vicarious perfection on the other, are the solemn truths which pervade the whole. There is no day nor hour in which evil is not coming forth from us, and in which the great bloo…
Satisfaction with Jesus and his work, not satisfaction with your own faith, is what God expects of you. To be satisfied with Christ, is faith in Christ. To be satisfied with his blood, is faith in his blood.
You are to come as you are; with all your bad motives, whatever these may be. Take all your bad motives, add them to the number of your sins, and bring them all to the altar where the great sacrifice is lying. Go to the…
Faith does not spring out of feeling, but feeling out of faith. The less you feel the more you should trust. You cannot feel aright till you have believed. As all true repentance has its root in faith, so all true feelin…
The consciousness of insensibility, like the sense of guilt, ought to be one of your reasons for trusting him the more, whereas you make it a reason for not trusting him at all.
I find that the apostles shut up their hearers to immediate faith and repentance, bringing them face to face with the great object of faith, and commanding them in the name of the living God to believe, just as Jesus com…
You are in earnest now; but I fear you are making your earnestness your Christ, and actually using it as a reason for not trusting Christ immediately. You think your earnestness will lead on to faith, if it be but intens…
It is not faith as a piece of money or a thing of merit; but faith taking God at his word, and giving him credit for speaking the honest truth, when he declares that "Christ died for the ungodly," and that the life which…
Faith then is the link, the one link, between the sinner and the Sin-bearer. It is not faith, as a work or exercise of our minds, which must be properly performed in order to qualify or fit us for pardon. It is not faith…
It is the Holy Spirit alone that can draw us to the cross and fasten us to the Saviour. He who thinks he can do without the Spirit, has yet to learn his own sinfulness and helplessness. The gospel would be no good news t…
It is of God himself that we must learn; and it is only by listening to the very words of God that we shall arrive at the true knowledge of what the gospel is. His own words are the truest, the simplest, and the best.
We are not only to believe the truth, but we are to believe it because God has spoken it. Faith must have a divine foundation.
The object of the Spirit's work is to make us acquainted with the true Jehovah, that in him we may rest; not to produce in us certain feelings, the consciousness of which will make us think better of ourselves, and give…
God has declared himself to be gracious. "God is love." He has embodied this grace in the person and work of his beloved Son. He has told us that this grace is for the ungodly, the unholy, the unfit, the stout-hearted, t…
It can only come from God; and it is in knowing God that he gets it. God has written a volume for the purpose of making himself known; and it is in this revelation of his character that the sinner is to find the rest tha…
It is not opinions that man needs: it is TRUTH. It is not theology: it is God. It is not religion: it is Christ. It is not literature and science; but the knowledge of the free love of God in the gift of His only-begotte…
In all unbelief there are these two things, - a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God.
We must be more in earnest if we would win souls.
Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. Faith saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, an…
If Christ be not the Substitute, he is nothing to the sinner. If he did not die as the Sinbearer, he has died in vain. … He did not come to risk his life; he came to die!
Its burden was not, "Do this or do that; labor and pray, and use the means;" - that is, law, not gospel: - but Christ has done all! He did it when he was "delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justificatio…
The tendency of the world's religion just now is, to reject the blood; and to glory in a gospel which needs no sacrifice, no "Lamb slain." Thus, they go "in the way of Cain."
Love led him down to the cradle; love led him up to the cross! He died as the sinner's substitute. He died to make it a righteous thing in God to cancel the sinner's guilt and annul the penalty of his everlasting death.
The right kind of pardon comes not from love alone, but from law; not from good nature, but from righteousness; not from indifference to sin, but from holiness.