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"Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower—that is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death and say: 'God does not require me to make myself a drudge to save them?' Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty? (Richard Baxter) "Misemployment of time is injurious to the mind. In illness I have looked back with self-reproach on days spent in my study. I was wading through history and poetry and monthly journals, but I was in my study! Another man's trifling is notorious to all observers, but what was I doing? Nothing, perhaps, that has a reference to the spiritual good of my congregation. Be much in retirement and prayer. Study the honor and glory of your Master." (Richard Cecil) "Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God. [Martin] Luther spent his best three hours in prayer." (Robert Murray McCheyne)
"During this affliction I was brought to examine my life in relation to eternity closer than I had done when in the enjoyment of health. In this examination relative to the discharge of my duties toward my fellow-creatures as a man, a Christian minister, and an officer of the Church, I stood approved by my own conscience. But in relation to my Redeemer and Savior the result was different. My returns of gratitude and loving obedience bear no proportion to my obligations for redeeming, preserving, and supporting me through the vicissitudes of life from infancy to old age. The coldness of my love to Him who first loved me and has done so much for me overwhelmed and confused me. And to complete my unworthy character, I had not only neglected to improve the grace given to the extent of my duty and privilege, but for want of that improvement had, while abounding in perplexing care and labor, declined from first zeal and love. I was confounded, humbled myself, implored mercy, and renewed my covenant to strive and devote myself unreservedly to the Lord." (Bishop McKendree) "Let us often look at [David] Brainerd in the woods of America pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen without whose salvation nothing could make him happy. Prayer—secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent knowledge of the language where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, a heart given up to God in closet religion—these, these are the attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human redemption." (William Carey) "You know the value of prayer; it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it." (Sir Thomas Buxton) "Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray then, my dear brother, pray, pray, pray." (Edward Payson) "The principal cause of my leanness and unfruitfulness is owing to an unaccountable backwardness to pray. I can write or read or converse or hear with a ready heart. But prayer is more spiritual and inward than any of these, and the more spiritual and duty is the more my carnal heart is apt to start from it. Prayer and patience and faith are never disappointed. I have long since learned that if ever I was to be a minister, faith and prayer must make me one. When I can find my heart in frame and liberty for prayer, everything else is comparatively easy." (Richard Newton) "The great masters and teachers in Christian doctrine have always found in prayer their highest source of illumination. Not to go beyond the limits of the English Church, it is recorded of Bishop Andrewes that he spent five hours daily on his knees. The greatest practical resolves that have enriched and beautified human life in Christian times have been arrived at in prayer." (Canon Liddon) "The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable—praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men [and women] and of learned men [and women] are absolutely incapable of prayer." (Samuel Coleridege) "[Edward] Payson wore the hardwood boards into grooves where his knees pressed so often and so long. His biographer says, 'His continuing instant in prayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable fact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival his eminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be ascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted success.'" (E. M. Bounds)
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But above
all [George Fox] excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of
his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behavior,
and the fewness and fullness of his words have often struck even
strangers with admiration as they used to reach others with
consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame I ever felt or
beheld, I must say, was his prayer. And truly it was a testimony. He
knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men, for they that know
Him will see most reason to approach Him with reverence and fear."
(William Penn)
