Inspirational Quotes by Matthew Henry
“Where God sets up the tabernacle of his ordinances he will himself dwell.”
“The public concerns of God's glory ought to lie nearer our hearts than any private affections of our own.”
“The saints, who are living sacrifices to God, must have salt in themselves, for every sacrifice must be salted with salt (Mark 9:49,”
“teaching us to press towards perfection and endeavour that our last works may be our best works.”
“The Lord is for the body, and it is not only folly, but sin against God, to prejudice our health for the pleasing of our appetite.”
“Drunkenness is bad in any, but it is especially scandalous and pernicious in ministers, who of all men ought to have the clearest heads and the cleanest hearts.”
“Communion with God and serviceableness to his church are things that, above any other, put true honour upon men.”
“The gospel excludes none who do not exclude themselves.”
“Bethink yourselves; "Admit a second thought, to correct the errors of the first – an afterthought. Consider your ways, change your minds; you have thought amiss; think again, and think aright.”
“What is prayer, but the ascent of the soul to God?”
“The better we can accommodate ourselves to plain things, and the less we indulge ourselves with those artificial delights which have been invented to gratify men's pride and luxury, the nearer we approach to a state of innocency. Nature is content with a little and that which is most natural, grace with less, but lust with nothing. Matthew 1:8-15”
― Matthew Henry ,
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. He has walled me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has barred my way with blocks of stone; he has made my paths crooked. Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink. He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.”
topics: afflication , bible , christian , darkness , god , lamentations , lord , rod-of-the-lord , sorrow , wrath
“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
“Hypocrites are very much strangers to the delights and pleasures of religion. And they are altogether so, for it is a joy which they do not intermeddle with. Counterfeit piety can never bring true pleasure. He that acts a part upon a stage, though it may be the part of one that is ever so pleasant, though he may exhibit the pleasantness well, yet he does not experience it. The pleasures of God’s house do not lie in the outer courts, but within the veil.”
“A hypocrite may have some transitory pleasure in religion from a land-flood of sensible affections, yet he does not have the least taste of the “river of God’s pleasures” (Psalm 36:8).”
“Deuteronomy 7 16 And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? 18 Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; 19 The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out: so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. 20 Moreover the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. 21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. 22 And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. 23 But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. 24 And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them. 25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therin: for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. 26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.”
“Those whose hearts are not right with God in their religion cannot have the pleasures of communion with God. For it is only the soul that converses with God.”
“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
“And as to the pleasure of a scholar removed from religion, it is indeed rational and intellectual; but it is only the pleasure of the mind in knowing truths, and not its enjoying good. Solomon, who had as much of this pleasure as ever any man has had, and as nice a taste of it, yet has assured us from his own experience that in much wisdom of this kind is much grief, and “he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18). But the pleasures which a holy soul has in knowing God and in communion with him are not only of a spiritual nature, but they are satisfying; they fill the soul, and make a happiness adequate to its best affections.”
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Henry's well-known Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1708-1710) is a commentary of a practical and devotional rather than of a critical kind, covering the whole of the Old Testament, and the Gospels and Acts in the New Testament. After the author's death, the work was finished by a number of ministers, and edited by George Burder and John Hughes in 1811. Not a work of textual criticism, its attempt at good sense, discrimination, its high moral tone and simple piety with practical application, combined with the well-sustained flow of its English style, made it one of the most popular works of its type. Matthew Henry's six volume Complete Commentary, originally published in 1706, provides an exhaustive verse by verse study of the Bible. His commentaries are still in use to this day.