Alexander Whyte Quotes on Prayer, Sin, Grace and Jesus Christ
Alexander Whyte (1836–1921) preached at Free St George's in Edinburgh for more than forty years. He's remembered for searching sermons that hold up a Bible character like a mirror until you see yourself in it. He spoke about sin more plainly than almost any preacher of his time, and he spoke about the grace of Christ with just as much warmth.
Whyte quoted other writers constantly, so many lines credited to him online are really someone else's. Every quotation below is Whyte's own, copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from. For his life story, see who was Alexander Whyte. For a guide to all his books, see Alexander Whyte books.
On prayer
Whyte believed prayer is the hardest and most important work a Christian does, and that it has to be learned by doing it.
Prayer worth calling prayer: prayer that God will call true prayer and will treat as true prayer, takes far more time, by the clock, than one man in a thousand thinks.
The Apostle Paul, Chapter VIII: Paul as a Man of Prayer
Intellectually as well as spiritually, as a theologian as well as a saint, Paul is at his very best in his prayers.
The Apostle Paul, Chapter VIII: Paul as a Man of Prayer
There is no royal road; there is no short or easy road to proficiency in prayer.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LXIII: Daniel
Enough prayer will work all possible humility into the proudest heart.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LXIV: Nebuchadnezzar
Prayer every day, and many times every day, and all the day, would bring down and would abase into the very dust very Lucifer himself.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LXIV: Nebuchadnezzar
He also saw that prayer for others changes how we treat them:
When you cease to pray for those men, you, that moment, begin again to sin against them; and that continually drives you back to the blood of Christ both for yourselves and for them.
The Apostle Paul, Chapter VIII: Paul as a Man of Prayer
On sin and the heart
Whyte's sermons on sin are what he's most famous for. He preached them so that his hearers would stop hiding and run to Christ.
God had many matters, first and last, with David; but God's first matter with David, as with all men, was David's sin and David's soul.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LI: Heman
The heart of a great sinner, under a great sanctification, is the field of all fields.
Bible Characters: Our Lord's Characters, Chapter II: The Man Which Sowed Good Seed in His Field
But secret visions of sin will soon harden the tenderest heart in the world.
Bible Characters: Our Lord's Characters, Chapter X: The Prodigal Son
The point with God is not whether I have envy or not; but it is this, how I deal with the envy that He knows I have.
Bible Characters: Gideon to Absalom, Chapter XXXII: Eli
Sin is self. Your true leprosy is yourself.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LVIII: Naaman
Get yourself killed in your heart; and God, and love, and heaven, and holiness, and eternal life are all, from that moment, in you.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LVIII: Naaman
He didn't think sorrow for sin was the end of the story:
Our present sorrow for sin is the exact measure and the sure seal of our future joy.
Bible Characters: Gideon to Absalom, Chapter XXXI: Hannah
He could put it homely, too. Here he is on Esau, and then on suffering, from his books on Fraser of Brea and Thomas Shepard.
Esau was a very successful hunter, but then he was much too lazy to roast what he took in his hunting.
James Fraser, Laird of Brea, Chapter VI: I Was Too Lazy to Roast What I Took in Hunting
And so is suffering absolutely necessary for our spiritual life.
Thomas Shepard, Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard, Chapter XV: "I Was Salted with Suffering"
On Jesus Christ
No man can keep looking all his days at Jesus Christ without in the end becoming wholly like Him.
The Walk, Conversation and Character of Jesus Christ Our Lord, Chapter XIII: A Teacher Come from God
As in Messianic prophecy, so in the days of His actual flesh, our Lord was by far the greatest and the best of believers.
The Walk, Conversation and Character of Jesus Christ Our Lord, Chapter XIX: Our Lord as a Believing Man
All good books are really good books to us, just in the measure that they speak to us about Jesus Christ.
Bible Characters: Our Lord's Characters, Chapter VII: The Merchant Man Who Sold All That He Had
At the cross, before the cross, under the cross, upon the cross, I am reconciled to God, and God is reconciled to me.
Bible Characters: Stephen to Timothy, Chapter CXI: Paul as a Preacher
A friend gives full scope to his friend's love and goodness, Have you given Jesus Christ full scope to His life and death for you?
Bible Characters: Adam to Achan, Chapter XI: Abraham
On grace
Love amply accounts for and explains and justifies it all — God's love to man, and then man's love to God and to his neighbour.
Bible Characters: Adam to Achan, Chapter I: Adam
Justification is an act of God's free grace; adoption is an act of God's free grace; sanctification is the work of God's free grace.
A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism, Question 35: What Is Sanctification?
On beginning again
This may be the most helpful thing Whyte ever said to a discouraged Christian.
The final perseverance of the ripest and surest saint is all made up of ever-new beginnings in repentance, in faith, in love, and in obedience.
Bunyan Characters, Second Series, Chapter XXXII: Temporary
Begin, then, every new day to repent anew, to return anew, to believe and to love anew.
Bunyan Characters, Second Series, Chapter XXXII: Temporary
Begin to-night, and begin again to-morrow morning.
Bunyan Characters, Second Series, Chapter XXXII: Temporary
He said the same of conversion itself, in his book on Fraser of Brea.
It is just having hitherto gone on the wrong road to turn round and henceforth to go on the right road.
James Fraser, Laird of Brea, Chapter III: Four False Steps That I Took Toward My Conversion
On truth and love
From his lecture on Bunyan's Valiant-for-Truth, and his study of Nehemiah's enemy Sanballat:
For the truth does not stand in points, but in principles.
Bunyan Characters, Second Series, Chapter XLIV: Valiant-for-Truth
The truth is not served by setting other people right, but by seeing every day and in every thing how far wrong we are ourselves.
Bunyan Characters, Second Series, Chapter XLIV: Valiant-for-Truth
Truth is love in the mind, just as love is truth in the heart.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LXVIII: Sanballat
Humility and courtesy are the court manners of the kingdom of heaven.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter L: Barzillai
On Bible people
Whyte could sum up a life in a sentence.
His hot heart was always in his mouth, and he spoke it all out many a time when he should have held his peace.
Bible Characters: Joseph and Mary to James, Chapter LXXV: Peter
Jonathan is a disciple of Jesus Christ, born out of due time.
Bible Characters: Gideon to Absalom, Chapter XXXIX: Jonathan
To preachers
Whyte spent his life training younger ministers, and he never let them forget their own souls.
The salvation of our hearers must always begin with our own salvation: and it must go on to perfection with our perfection.
Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah, Chapter LXII: Jeremiah
Let the preacher but see in imagination, as his Lord saw, the awful things he preaches about, and that will kindle him into the true earnestness, and the true earnestness will always clothe him with the true authority.
The Walk, Conversation and Character of Jesus Christ Our Lord, Chapter XIV: He Taught Them as One Having Authority
Two more lines for preachers, from his books on Lancelot Andrewes and Thomas Shepard.
It is enough for one man that he can pray as Andrewes alone can pray, but let no beginner in the pulpit go to Andrewes to learn how to preach.
Lancelot Andrewes and His Private Devotions, A Biography
Men of science may be made without much heart but not men of religion.
Thomas Shepard, Pilgrim Father and Founder of Harvard, Chapter XVIII: "Pectus Facit Theologum"
On books and dying well
From his studies of Samuel Rutherford's friends:
Our greatest authors have all written little books.
Samuel Rutherford and Some of His Correspondents, Chapter XVII: William Guthrie
Since we die but once, then, and since so much turns upon it, let us take advice how we are to do it well.
Samuel Rutherford and Some of His Correspondents, Chapter XV: Bailie John Kennedy
Read Whyte for yourself
These lines are best read in their setting, where Whyte builds up to them slowly. Start with Bible Characters: Adam to Achan, or with The Apostle Paul if you want his sermons on prayer. All fourteen of his books in the library are on the Alexander Whyte author page.