Alexander Maclaren Quotes on God's Love, Christ, Faith and Prayer
Alexander Maclaren preached in Manchester, England, for forty-five years, and he wrote out his sermons with great care. Readers in his own day called him a prince of expositors. His sentences are short and clear, and many of them sum up a whole sermon in one line. That's why preachers have been copying him for more than a century.
Many Maclaren quotes online come without a source, and some aren't his at all. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and the sermon it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For his life story, see who was Alexander Maclaren. For a guide to all his books, see Alexander Maclaren books.
On the love of God
Maclaren came back to God's love more than to any other subject. He believed the love came first, and everything else came from it.
There is only one thing that will ever win a man's heart to love God, and that is that God should love him first, and let him see it.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms, Sky, Earth, and Sea: A Parable of God
The love is the cause of the mission, and not the mission that which evokes the love.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John, Christ's Mission the Revelation of God's Love
God's love is Christ's love; Christ's love is God's love.
Music for the Soul, January 24
Hearts are only bought by hearts; love's flame can only be kindled by love's flame.
Paul's Prayers and Other Sermons, Christ's Gift to Us and Ours to Him
He also refused to let love be confused with softness:
A love that cares nothing for the moral character of its object is not love, but hate; it is not kindness, but cruelty.
The Victor's Crowns and Other Sermons, Christ's Mission the Revelation of God's Love
On Jesus Christ
Maclaren preached Christ from every part of the Bible. These lines show how he spoke of Him.
The Gospel has two parts: Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory.
Expositions of Holy Scripture (St. Matthew), The Divine Christ Confessed, the Suffering Christ Denied
In that Cross Jesus Christ revealed God as God's heart had always yearned to be revealed, infinite in love, pitifulness, forbearance, and pardoning mercy.
Expositions of Holy Scripture (St. Matthew), Taunts Turning to Testimonies
Christ does not deal with us in the mass, but soul by soul.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Mark, Love's Triumph Over Sin
Jesus Christ comes to us, not drawn by our deserts, but impelled by His own love, and that love pours itself out upon each of us.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke, Worthy-Not Worthy
WHAT Jesus Christ is to a man settles what everything else is to Him.
Last Sheaves, Death, the Friend
Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, can cast the evils out of our natures.
Christ's Musts and Other Sermons, An Attempt to Account for Jesus
Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is my Friend?
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI, Christ's Friends
On faith
For Maclaren, faith was simple trust laid on a faithful God. He liked to show how small our part is and how large God's is.
God's faithfulness demands, and is only adequately met by, our faith.
The God of the Amen, The God of the Amen
Our power is God's power in us, and our faith is the power with which we grasp God's power and make it ours.
The Secret of Power and Other Sermons, The Secret of Power
He does not lecture us into faith, but He blesses us into it.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Mark, Unbelieving Belief
Rahab's story shows how living faith, like a living stream, will cut a channel for itself, and must needs flow out into the life.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Deuteronomy to Second Kings, Rahab
It does not matter whether it is Goshen or the wilderness, if the Lord is by our side.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis to Numbers, Gershom and Eliezer
On prayer and time alone with God
Maclaren was known for guarding his study hours. He believed a busy Christian needs more hidden time with God, not less.
The more any of us are trying to do for Jesus Christ, the more need there is that we increase our secret communion with Jesus Christ.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms, Life Hid and Not Hid
We must make a solitude for ourselves, if we would have God speaking to us and keeping us company.
The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons, Full of Joy and of the Holy Ghost
If we would hear God our souls must be silence.
Week-Day Evening Addresses, Silence to God
The prayer of faith is not forcing our wills on God, but bending our wills to God's.
The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and Philemon, chapter VI on Philemon
He is too sure that God hears to use many words; for it is distrust, not faith, which makes us besiege His throne with much speaking.
The Life of David, chapter VI
The Christ in the heart will be the Christ in the face and in the life.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke, Prayer and Transfiguration
On sin and forgiveness
He was plain about sin, and just as plain about the mercy that meets it.
What we think about sin will settle all our religious ideas.
Paul's Prayers and Other Sermons, The Universal Burden and Its Bearer
All sin separates from God, but the thing that makes the separation permanent is not the sin, but the ignorance of the sin.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke, The Dying Thief
I do not suppose that Judas was lost, if he were lost, because he betrayed Jesus Christ, but because, having betrayed Jesus Christ, he never asked to be forgiven.
Expositions of Holy Scripture (St. Matthew), 'See Thou to That!'
The clean heart must continue contrite, if it is not to cease to be clean.
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2, Psalm LI
God does not do things by halves; and He always gives when He forgives.
The Beatitudes and Other Sermons, The Gifts That Accompany Forgiveness
On joy, trust and the days ahead
Maclaren preached to a busy industrial city. Many of his hearers carried heavy cares, and he spoke to them with steady hope.
God's past is the prophecy of God's future; and my past, if I understand it aright, ought to rebuke every fear and calm every anxiety.
Leaves from the Tree of Life, Current Coin and Bullion in Reserve
God's gifts never reach us before the day, and they never come after the day.
The Victor's Crowns and Other Sermons, The Matter of a Day in Its Day
Joy in God is the strength of work for God, but work for God is the perpetuation of joy in God.
Music for the Soul, October 18
The one, true, pure, abiding joy is to hold fellowship with God and to live in His love.
A Year's Ministry, First Series, Man's True Treasure in God
Unless we have Jesus with us in the darkness, we have no one.
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 3, Psalm CXLII
On serving Christ
Last, a few lines on living for Christ among other people.
One poor, weak man or woman, with Jesus Christ at their back, is always in the majority.
After the Resurrection and Other Addresses, The King with Ten Thousand
Brother, no man possesses himself till he has given himself to Jesus Christ.
The Victor's Crowns and Other Sermons, A Life Lost and Found
Do not let your Christian love go wandering away abroad only, but keep some for home consumption.
Week-Day Evening Addresses, Quartus a Brother
Where to read more Maclaren
These lines come from more than thirty of his books. If you want to read one book of his first, try Music for the Soul, a page of Maclaren for every day of the year, chosen from his sermons. If you want his preaching on one book of the Bible, his sermons on the Psalms are a fine place to begin. All his books are listed on the Alexander Maclaren author page, and our reading guide explains how the long Expositions of Holy Scripture set is laid out.