Richard Cecil (clergyman)

Richard Cecil (8 November 1748 – 15 August 1810) was a leading Evangelical Anglican clergyman of the 18th and 19th centuries.

• Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.
  • As quoted in Remains of Mr. Cecil (1836) edited by Josiah Pratt, p. 59.

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• It is much easier to settle a point than to act on it.
  • p. 4.

• Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain.
  • p. 9.

• I cannot look around me without being struck with the analogy observable in the works of God. I find the Bible written in the style of His other books of Creation and Providence. The pen seems in the same hand. I see it, indeed, write at times mysteriously in each of these books; thus I know that mystery in the works of God is only another name for my ignorance. The moment, therefore, that I become humble, all becomes right.
  • p. 31.

• The Old and New Testaments contain but one scheme of religion. Neither part of this scheme can be understood without the other.
  • p. 32.

• The man who labors to please his neighbor for his good to edification has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. Even a feeble, but kind and tender man, will effect more than a genius, who is rough and artificial.
  • p. 128.

• Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only, can he securely lay down his head, and close his eyes.
  • p. 197.

• If there is any person to whom you feel a dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.
  • p. 214.

• The Christian's fellowship with God is rather a habit than a rapture.
  • p. 245.

• To know Jesus Christ for ourselves is to make Him a consolation, delight, strength, righteousness, companion, and end.
  • p. 246.

• The Christian will sometimes be brought to walk in a solitary path. God seems to cut away his props, that He may reduce him to Himself. His religion is to be felt as a personal, particular, appropriate possession. He is to feel, that, as there is but one Jehovah to bless, so there seems to him as though there were but one penitent in the universe to be blessed by Him.
  • p. 264.

• The grandest operations, both in nature and in grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles or. its passage, and is heard by every one; but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms; but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are partial and soon remedied; but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of grace in the church and in the soul.
  • p. 318.

• The spirit and tone of your home will have great influence on your children. If it is what it ought to be, it will fasten conviction on their minds, however wicked they may become.
  • p. 324.

• Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God: "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.
  • p. 332.

• An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim — that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.
  • p. 345.

• The nurse of infidelity is sensuality. Youth are sensual. The Bible stands in their way. It prohibits the indulgence of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.
  • p. 348.

• I have often had occasion to observe, that a warm blundering man does more for the world than a frigid wise man.
  • p. 394.

• In viewing the scheme of redemption, I seem like one viewing a vast and complicated machine of exquisite contrivance; what I comprehend of it is wonderful, what I do not, is, perhaps, more so still.
  • p. 422.

• Providence is a greater mystery than revelation.
  • p. 423.

• The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence: — they acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced in His will in all things.
  • p. 435.

• Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.
  • p. 471.

• Regeneration is God's disposing the heart to Himself; conversion is the actual turning of the heart to God.
  • p. 490.

• Religion is such a belief of the Bible as maintains a living influence on the heart.
  • p. 494.

• If you are seeking the comforts of religion rather than the glory of our Lord, you are on the wrong track. The Comforter meets us unsought in the path of duty. There is something in religion, when rightly comprehended, that is masculine and grand. It removes those little desires which are the constant hectic of a fool.
  • p. 501.

• The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves.
  • p. 537.

• Sin, without strong restraints, would pull God from His throne, make the world the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship.
  • p. 549.

• Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities — who has not been put into fire — who has been taught to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
  • p. 585.

• A friend called on me when I was ill, to settle some business. My head was too much confused by my indisposition to understand fully what he said, but I had such unlimited confidence in him, that I did whatever he bid me, in the fullest assurance that it was right. How simply I can trust in man, and how little in God! How unreasonable is a pure act of faith in one like ourselves, if we cannot repose the same faith in God.
  • p. 598.