“Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the 'Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annhiliation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.”
“We can think only of creatures, of things He's made. Creatures are all we know, and can be all we know until we know Him. When we think of Him like that, we find we can't believe. He can't be like a creature any more than a carpenter is like a table.”
“We are all children of a God who knows us, loves us, and is there for us, especially in our sorrow and suffering. To be separated from Him is to be lost.”
“We are not separate, and I want you to know that. We are all part of one thing, and nothing good has ever passed or ever can pass away. There is no way out, but there is a way in, and when one person feels lonely like a ghost it touches us all.”
“if we resist God's right to rule our lives, if we doubt the goodness of his word, if we use one part of Scripture to silience another part that we find objectionable, then it is a salvation issue-because our attitude to God's word cannot be separated from our attitude towards God himsel. And so as God's children, may we not resist the Holy Spirit. Rather, may we prefer to differ from our fallen world than from his glorious word in the way we live and relate and minister as Christian women and men, and in all things.”
“I don't see how the study of language and literature can be separated from the question of free speech, which we all know is fundamental to our society. [p.92]”