As I read through books, I keep a log of my favorite quotes. This way I can return to them with ease and ponder them again. Here are four that spoke to me recently. I have italicized the sentences that I found most profound:

Get a large acquaintance with the promises of the gospel, that in every special time of need you may have a suitable word of refuge and support. In special seasons of trial keep your mind fixed upon some single promise that is most suited to the present danger or suffering, and to the present taste and relish of your soul. Fixing and living on a particular word of grace for the whole day will let it abide in your heart and whisper to your soul with divine sweetness in the dark and solitary watches of the night. – Isaac Watts (1674–1748), Works, 1:338–340.

True faith is full of self-denial. Faith keeps us low. Paul didn’t want us to be mistaken—“It is Christ that lives in me, I don’t live in my own power. It is Christ that keeps house. I mortify my corruptions and vanquish my temptations, but I am a debtor to Christ for the strength.’ Blessed Paul acknowledges that God is the sole founder and benefactor of all the good he has and does. . . . Faith is not like Nebuchadnezzar, who looked no higher than himself in building his great Babylon—‘Is this not Babylon that I have built by my power and for the honor of my majesty?’ But faith teaches us to blot out our own name, and write God’s name for all that is accomplished! – William Gurnall (1616–1679), The Christian in Complete Armour, 2:35–36.

Can you bear up in faith upon a promise [of Scripture] when the crutch of reason breaks under you? Does your faith fall to the ground with it? . . . . Strong faith does not fear when God carries them beyond the depth of reason. ‘We do not know what to do,’ said good Jehoshaphat, ‘but our eyes are on you’ (2 Chron. 20:12). It was as if he said, ‘we are in a sea of troubles, beyond our own help, and we have no idea how we can get out of this problem; but our eyes are on you. We do not dare give up our case as desperate so long as there is strength in your arm, tenderness in your heart, and truth in your promise!’ However, weak faith looks for some footing for reason to stand on.” – William Gurnall (1616–1679), The Christian in Complete Armour, 2:61).

If it is in your power, live under a faithful, searching, serious, powerful minister, and diligently attend his public teaching and private counsel. Though God can work without means, it is his ordinary way to work by means, and we should not neglect duty upon presumptuous expectation of a miraculous or extraordinary work. Alas, how apt are the best to cool if they are not kept warm by a powerful ministry! We are apt to lose the hatred of sin, the tenderness of conscience, fervency in prayer, and the delights and power of heavenly meditations. How apt is faith to stagger if it is not powerfully undergirded. How hardly will we keep the heat of love, the confidence of hope, the resolution of obedience, without the help of a powerful ministry” – Richard Baxter (1615–1691), Practical Works, 1:44–46.