Albert Barnes Quotes

       Albert Barnes
       1798-1870
      
       Albert Barnes was an American theologian, born at Rome, New York, on December 1, 1798. He graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 1820, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1823. Barnes was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by the presbytery of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1825, and was the pastor successively of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey (1825-1830), and of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia (1830-1867).
      
       He was an eloquent preacher, but his reputation rests chiefly on his expository works, which are said to have had a larger circulation both in Europe and America than any others of their class.
      
       Of the well-known Notes on the New Testament, it is said that more than a million volumes had been issued by 1870. The Notes on Job, the Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel found scarcely less acceptance. Displaying no original critical power, their chief merit lies in the fact that they bring in a popular (but not always accurate) form the results of the criticism of others within the reach of general readers. Barnes was the author of several other works of a practical and devotional kind, including Scriptural Views of Slavery (1846) and The Way of Salvation (1863). A collection of his Theological Works was published in Philadelphia in 1875.

In our manner of speech, our plans of living, our dealings with others, our conduct and walk in the church and out of it--all should be done as becomes the gospel (Phil. 1:27).     Topics: Character Christianity may produce agitation, anger, tumult as at Ephesus; but the diffusion of the pure gospel of Christ, and the establishment of the institutions of honesty and virtue, at whatever cost, is a blessing to mankind.     Topics: Christianity, The Gospel Christians should be grave and serious, though cheerful and pleasant. They should feel that they have great interests at stake, and that the world has too. They are redeemed--not to make sport; purchased with precious blood--for other purposes than to make men laugh. They are soon to be in heaven--and a man who has any impressive sense of that will habitually feel he has much else to do than to make men laugh. The true course of life is midway between moroseness and levity; sourness and lightness; harshness and jesting. Be benevolent, kind, cheerful, bland, courteous--but serious. Be solemn, thoughtful, deeply impressed with the presence of God and with eternal things--but pleasant affable and benignant. Think not a smile sinful; but think not levity and jesting harmless.     Topics: Christians Many a barren church owes its present sad estate to its inconsistent behaviour, and many a barren Christian has come into this mournful condition by a careless, unsanctified walk before the Lord. Let not saints who are now useful run the risk of enduring the loss of their mercies, but let them be watchful that all things may go well with them.     Topics: Church There is nothing more foolish than an act of wickedness; there is no wisdom equal to that of obeying God.     Topics: Foolishness, Wisdom It is, in a great measure, by raising up and endowing great minds that God secures the advance of human affairs, and the accomplishment of His own plans on earth.     Topics: God Our earthly possessions will indeed perish in the final wreck of all things; but let the ship perish, let all we have sink in the deep, if we may come "safe to land." From these storms and billows--these dangerous seas--these tempestuous voyages--may we all be brought at last safe to heaven.     Topics: Heaven Think amid your plans and anticipations of future gaiety what the redemption of your soul has cost, and how the dying Saviour would wish you to act. His wounds plead that you will live for better things.     Topics: Life When life has been well spent; when there is a conscience without reproach; when there is faith in the Saviour; when there is a well-founded hope of heaven, there can be nothing that should disquiet us.     Topics: Life Life, if properly viewed in any aspect, is great, but mainly great when viewed in its relation to the world to come.     Topics: Life, Heaven It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."     Topics: Persecution Whatever be the topic of conversation, the spirit of piety should be diffused through it--as the salt in our food should properly season it all, whatever the article of food may be (Col. 4:6).     Topics: Piety