Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.

It was the strangest feeling, to be convicted but not condemned. God had torn him down but then had slowly built him back up. He had crushed him and then restored him. The more honest Clay became, the more God revealed to him the condition of his heart—a heart born into darkness, a heart that had trusted in the ways of the world.

If you can't solve a problem, manage it.

I would put no man upon extremes; but in this case flesh and blood doth make even good men so partial, that they take their duties, and duties of very great worth and weight, to be extremes. If worldly vanities did not blind us, we might see when public or other greater good did call us to deny ourselves and our families.

He that believeth that he believe, believeth himself and not God (333)[.]

O]ur English divines are sounder in it than any in the world, generally: I think because they are more practical, and have had more wounded, tender consciences under cure, and less empty speculation and dispute (336-7).

Consideration doth, as it were, open the door between the head and the heart: the understanding having received truths, lays them up in the memory now, consideration is the conveyer of theme from thence to the affections (571).

8"Forp My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. 9"Forq as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Doubt and fear of the future are behind the reluctance of many to wholeheartedly accept and follow God's invitation to join Him.

There will be times when you do not comprehend why He allows certain things to occur, and that is to be expected.

Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life, which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events.

Truth is not always about pragmatic problem solving and making things "work," but about reconciling contradictions. Just because something might have some dire effects does not mean it is not true or even good. Just because something pleases people does not make it true either.