I learn the depth to which I have sunk from the length of the chain let down to up-draw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery for restoration.

Henry Melvill
British Anglican priest
21 pieces
- Lived
- 1798–1871
- Known as
- educator
- Era
- 19th century
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Works (21)
And is not this a great salvation, great in its simplicity, great in its comprehensiveness, which thus meets the every necessity of the guilty and helpless; and which, arranged for creatures whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leaves …
The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of …
Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, "How shall man be just with God?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he …
Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above.
The Bible tells me explicitly that Christ was God; and it tells me, as explicitly that Christ was man. It does not go on to state the modus or manner of the union. I stop, therefore, where the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my …
The mysteries of the Bible should teach us, at one and the same time, our nothingness and our greatness; producing humility, and animating hope. I bow before these mysteries.
An uneducated population may be degraded; a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants.
As revelation is the great strengthener of reason, the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear, is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death.
Glorious transformation! glorious translation! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene.
Indifference, if let alone, will produce obduracy; and obduracy, if let alone, will produce torment.
God is summoning you. Angels are summoning you. The myriads who have gone before are summoning you. We are surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." The battlements of the sky seem thronged with those who have fought the good fight of …
If it be heaven toward which we journey, it will be holiness in which we delight; for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meetness for a world in which God is to be all in all forever and forever?
Then re-united to the friends with whom vve took sweet counsel upon earth, we shall recount our toil, only to heighten our ecstasy; and call to mind the toil and the din of war, oniy that, with a more bounding throb and a richer song, we …
In proportion as we " grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ," we shall grow in the desire that the Redeemer's sovereignty may be more widely and visibly extended.
Able to save to the uttermost, "Lord to whom shall we go; Thou hast the words of eternal life?" Thou who hast abolished death, upon whom else shall we suspend our immortality?
Faith — saving faith — whatever other definition may be framed — is best described as that act of the soul by which the whole man is given over to the guardianship of the Mediator. He who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two things: …
O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, " We have waited for Thy salvation, O …
If hope be fixed on Christ as the Rock of Ages, a rock rent, if we may use the expression, on purpose that there might be a holding-place for the anchors of a perishing world, it may well come to pass that we enjoy a calm as we journey …
There is truth in Jesus which is terrible, as well as truth that is soothing; terrible, for He shall be Judge as well as Saviour; and ye cannot face Him, ye cannot stand before Him, unless ye now give ear to His invitation.
We glory most in the fact, that Scripture so commends itself to the conscience, and experience so bears out the Bible, that the gospel can go the round of the world, and carry with it, in all its travel, its own mighty credentials.