Matthew Simpson Quotes

Sanctification is not regeneration.

It is a principle of our nature that feelings once excited turn readily from the object by which they are excited to some other object which may for the time being take possession of the mind.

Washington and the elder Napoleon. Both were brave men; both were true men; both loved their country and dared to expose their lives for their country’s cause.

Napoleon was probably the equal at least of Washington in intellect, his superior in education. Both of them were successful in serving the state.

Mr. Lincoln’s elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.

The name of Abraham Lincoln is imperishable.

If an honest man is the noblest work of God, then Mr. Lincoln’s title to high nobility is clear and unquestioned.

If I know that I shall be as an angel, and more; if I shall behold all God has made; if he shall own me for his son and exalt me to honor in his presence, I shall not fear to die, nor shall I dread the grave where Christ once lay.

We ourselves can die with comfort and even with joy if we know that death is but a passport to blessedness, that this intellect, freed from all material chains, shall rise and shine.

We shall see our friends again. We can lay them in the grave; we know they are safe with God.

Human nature is the same now as when Adam hid from the presence of God; the consciousness of wrong makes us unwilling to meet those whom we have offended.

Man wants to be reconciled to God; wants to know that the past is forgiven.

Angels are spirits, flames of fire; they are higher than man, they have wider connections.

Not in purity or in holiness merely, for in Paradise man was holy, and he shall be holy when redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ and made an heir of heaven.

If, then, faith widens the connections, it elevates the man.

If, then, knowledge be power, how much more power to we gain through the agency of faith, and what elevation must it give to human character.

 

The realm of immediate or personal knowledge is a narrow circle in which these bodies move; the realm of knowledge derived through faith is as wide as the universe, and old as eternity.

We know the past and its great events, the present in its multitudinous complications, chiefly through faith in the testimony of others.

Of history, how little do we know by personal contact; we have lived a few years, seen a few men, witnessed some important events; but what are these in the whole sum of the world’s past.

If we look at the realm of knowledge, how exceedingly small and limited is that part acquired through our own senses; how wide is that we gain from other sources.