Adam Clarke Quotes on Faith, Prayer, Holiness and Preaching
TheologyPrayerHolinessPreaching
Adam Clarke was the most learned preacher of early Methodism. John Wesley sent him out in 1782, and for the next fifty years he preached, studied and wrote, above all his commentary on the whole Bible. He had a gift for putting a truth in one clear sentence, and Methodist preachers repeated his lines for a century.
Many Adam Clarke quotes online come without a source. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. Most come from Christian Theology, the body of doctrine his friend Samuel Dunn gathered from all of Clarke's writings. For his life story, see who was Adam Clarke. For a guide to his books, see Adam Clarke books.
On faith
Clarke was a Wesleyan. He taught that God gives the power to believe, and that we must use it. He liked to set God's part and ours side by side.
To provide a Saviour, and the means of salvation, is God's part; to accept this Saviour, laying hold on the hope set before us, is ours.
Christian Theology, Chapter VIII: Faith
Without the grace or power to believe no man ever did or can believe; but with that power the act of faith is a man's own.
Christian Theology, Chapter VIII: Faith
Christ dwells in the heart only by faith, and faith lives only by love, and love continues only by obedience; he who believes loves, and he who loves obeys.
Christian Theology, Chapter VIII: Faith
Little faith may be the seed of great faith, and therefore is not to be despised.
Christian Theology, Chapter VIII: Faith
Faith seems to put the almighty power of God into the hands of men; whereas unbelief appears to tie up even the hands of the Almighty.
Christian Theology, Chapter VIII: Faith
On salvation and the love of God
He believed God's love reached the whole world, and that salvation means being set free from sin, not only from its penalty.
The doctrine of justification by faith is one of the grandest displays of the mercy of God to mankind.
Christian Theology, Chapter IX: Justification
To be saved, therefore, implies the being delivered from all the guilt of all sin or transgression; from all the power or influence of sin, so that it shall have no more dominion over them
A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects, The Doctrine of Salvation by Faith Proved
He made man in his own image and likeness, that he might be happy.
A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects, The Truth by Which God Shows His Willingness That All Men Should Be Saved
I will lay down as an axiom, what I think will not be disputed, and what cannot be successfully controverted, that man is the creature of God's love.
A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects, The Love of God to a Lost World
Did any man ever love God till he had felt that God loved him?
Christian Theology, Chapter XII: Entire Sanctification
On Christ
Clarke defended the full deity of Christ again and again. He saw that everything in redemption depends on it.
Take Deity away from any redeeming act of Christ, and redemption is ruined.
Christian Theology, Chapter VI: Christ
He was a man, that he might suffer and die for the offences of man; for justice and reason both required that the nature that sinned should suffer for the sin. But he was God, that the suffering might be stamped with an infinite value.
Christian Theology, Chapter VI: Christ
What Christ has done for us, is a favourite subject with many; but what Christ is to do in us, is a topic well considered but by few.
A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects, The Christian Prophet and His Work
On holiness and the Holy Spirit
Like Wesley, Clarke taught that God can cleanse the heart from all sin in this life and fill it with love. He was just as sure that a believer may know he is a child of God.
Every man whose heart is full of the love of God is full of humility; for there is no man so humble as he whose heart is cleansed from all sin.
Christian Theology, Chapter XII: Entire Sanctification
It is the blood of Jesus alone that cleanseth from all unrighteousness.
Christian Theology, Chapter XII: Entire Sanctification
Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.
Christian Theology, Chapter XII: Entire Sanctification
The Holy Spirit in the soul of a believer is God's seal, set on his heart to testify that he is God's property, and that he should be wholly employed in God's service.
Christian Theology, Chapter XI: The Holy Spirit
This assurance of God's love is the birthright and common privilege of all his children.
Christian Theology, Chapter XI: The Holy Spirit
Faith helps, and hope sustains us; but love to God and man makes us obedient and useful.
Christian Theology, Chapter XI: The Holy Spirit
On prayer
Clarke had no patience with long-winded, showy prayers. Real prayer, he said, is the heart talking to God.
Prayer is the most secret intercourse of the soul with God, and, as it were, the conversation of one heart with another.
Christian Theology, Chapter XV: Prayer
The eloquence of prayer consists in the fervency of desire and the simplicity of faith.
Christian Theology, Chapter XV: Prayer
A fluency in prayer is not essential to praying: a man may pray most powerfully, in the estimation of God, who is not able to utter even one word.
Christian Theology, Chapter XV: Prayer
No man ever backslid from the life and power of Christianity who continued constant and fervent, especially in private prayer.
Christian Theology, Chapter XV: Prayer
Where Abram has a tent, there God must have an altar, as he well knows there is no safety but under the divine protection.
Christian Theology, Chapter XV: Prayer
On preaching
These come mostly from his Letter to a Preacher, written for young men starting out. He'd ridden the circuits himself, and his advice is blunt and practical.
Pray much, read much, write much.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning the Cultivation of Your Mind
You preach, not merely to explain God's word, but to save souls: whenever you forget this, you go astray.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning the Spirit in Which You Should Do Your Work
When in the pulpit, be always solemn: say nothing to make your congregation laugh.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning Your Behaviour in the Pulpit
A dull, dead preacher makes a dull, dead congregation.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning Your Behaviour in the Pulpit
Some preach more in ten minutes than others do in sixty.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning Your Behaviour in the Pulpit
Avoid the error of those who are continually finding fault with their congregations because more do not attend. … I have known this conduct scatter a congregation, but I never knew it gather one.
A Letter to a Preacher, Concerning the Spirit in Which You Should Do Your Work
… the success of a preacher's labours depends more on his prayers than on his public teaching.
A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects, The Christian Prophet and His Work
On home and children
Clarke had a large family, and he wrote warmly about raising children in the faith.
If we wish our children to be happy, we should show them where happiness is to be found.
Christian Theology, Chapter XXI: Parents and Children
Tell them about Jesus: and how he loves them: and what he has done for them; and what he will do in them; and how happy he will eternally make them!
Christian Theology, Chapter XXI: Parents and Children
He found his model of a Christian mother in John Wesley's mother:
I have been acquainted with many pious females, I have read the lives of several others, and composed memoirs of a few: but such a woman take her for all in all, I have not heard of, I have not read of, nor with her equal have I been acquainted.
Memoirs of the Wesley Family, Mrs. Susanna Wesley
On trouble, death and heaven
Last, a few lines on the end of the road. Clarke died suddenly of cholera, but he had been ready for a long time.
God never permits any tribulation to befall his followers, which he does not design to turn to their advantage.
Christian Theology, Chapter XXVIII: Afflictions
It is a good antidote against the fear of death, to find, as the body grows old and decays, the soul grows young and is invigorated.
Christian Theology, Chapter XXXI: Death
Let thy continual bent and inclination be to God, to holiness, to charity, to mercy, and to heaven: then, fall when thou mayest, thou wilt fall well.
Christian Theology, Chapter XXXI: Death
It is not heaven they are to inherit; it is God, who is infinitely greater and more glorious than heaven itself.
Christian Theology, Chapter XXXIV: Heaven
Where to read more Adam Clarke
If you want one book of his to read first, try Christian Theology. It's arranged by subject, so you can turn to whatever you need, and it opens with a short life of Clarke. For his preaching, read A Collection of Discourses on Various Subjects. All his books are listed on the Adam Clarke author page, and our reading guide explains what's in each one. If these lines on holiness help you, our guide to the best Christian books on holiness will take you further.