John R. Macduff Quotes on Grace, Prayer, Jesus and Comfort in Trial
John Ross Macduff (1818–1895) was a Church of Scotland minister who wrote small devotional books for the sick, the grieving and the busy. Books like The Morning and Night Watches, The Faithful Promiser and Memories of Bethany sold widely in Britain and America, and many readers kept them by the bed. He wrote in short, warm sentences, often speaking straight to "my soul" or to the reader in trouble.
Many Macduff quotes online come without a source. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and the reading or chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For his life story, see who was John R. Macduff. For a guide to all his books, see John R. Macduff books.
On grace for each day
The Faithful Promiser takes one promise of God for each day of the month. Its steady message is that God gives grace when it's needed, not before.
God does not give grace till the hour of trial comes.
The Faithful Promiser, 2d Day
Do not anticipate coming sorrows; perplexing thyself with the grace needed for future emergencies; to-morrow will bring its promised grace along with to-morrow's trials.
The Faithful Promiser, 2d Day
Grace is no scanty thing, doled out in pittances. It is a glorious treasury, which the key of prayer can always unlock, but never empty.
The Faithful Promiser, 3d Day
There is no standing still in the life of faith.
The Faithful Promiser, 7th Day
Believer! all the glory of thy salvation belongs to Jesus, — none to thyself; every jewel in thine eternal crown is His, — purchased by His blood, and polished by His Spirit.
The Faithful Promiser, 21st Day
Grace found him a rebel — it leaves him a son.
The Morning and Night Watches, On Thy Grace
What a fountain of comfort is to be found in the Immutability of God!
The Morning and Night Watches, On Thy Immutability
On prayer
Macduff wrote whole books of prayers for morning and evening. These lines come from those prayers and from his meditations.
Prayer brings the soul near to Jesus, and fetches Jesus near to the soul.
Memories of Bethany, The Messenger
What mercy it is that, with all my great unworthiness, a throne of grace is still open, and a God of grace is still waiting to be gracious!
Evening Incense, Nineteenth Evening: For Renunciation of Self
Let me see all sin, and my own sin in particular, in the light of Calvary's cross.
Evening Incense, Seventh Evening: For Quickening Grace
Other refuges may fail, but I am as secure in Thee as everlasting love and wisdom and power can make me.
Evening Incense, Thirteenth Evening: For Trust for the Future
I am another day nearer death — oh, may I be a day nearer Thee!
The Morning and Night Watches, For a Pilgrim Spirit
Let us be nearer Jesus, and then we shall be nearer one another.
The Morning and Night Watches, For a Pilgrim Spirit
On the mind of Jesus
In The Mind of Jesus Macduff took one trait of the Lord's character for each day and urged the reader to copy it.
Jesus never spake one unnecessarily harsh or severe word.
The Mind of Jesus, Fidelity in Rebuke
A dying Saviour gathers up His expiring breath to plead for His foes!
The Mind of Jesus, Forgiveness of Injuries
Jesus stands out for our imitation a grand solitary exception in the midst of a world of selfishness.
The Mind of Jesus, Unselfishness
Speak of the faults of others only in prayer; manifesting more sorrow for the sin of the censorious and unkind, than for the evil inflicted on yourselves.
The Mind of Jesus, Twentieth Day
He knows the power of littles; that little by little consumes and eats out the vigor of the soul.
The Mind of Jesus, Twenty-fourth Day
On the words of Jesus
Its companion, The Words of Jesus, opens one saying of the Lord each day, mostly for people in sorrow.
As the clustering constellations shine with intensest lustre in the midnight sky, so these "words of Jesus" come out like ministering angels in the deep dark night of earthly sorrow.
The Words of Jesus, 11th Day
All that befals you, to the very numbering of your hairs, is known to God!
The Words of Jesus, 6th Day
Our best earthly friends — a few weeks may estrange them; — centuries have rolled on — Christ is still the same.
The Words of Jesus, 25th Day
Leave nothing for a dying hour, but to die, and calmly to resign thy spirit into the hands of Jesus.
The Words of Jesus, 31st Day
On suffering and comfort
Much of Macduff's writing is for the hurting. He never pretends trouble is small, but he always shows God's hand in it.
But for these wounds it would never have come to the Valley.
The Hart and the Water-Brooks, The Hart Wounded
Suffering one! be thankful for thy wounds.
The Hart and the Water-Brooks, The Hart Wounded
God is the only satisfying portion of the soul.
The Hart and the Water-Brooks, The Hart Panting
He selects the blackest cloud, and causes His people to pass through it, that He may span it with His Rainbow of mercy, and shew in blended colours, His power, and faithfulness, and love!
Memories of Gennesaret, The Storm on the Lake
This whole narrative is designed to teach the lesson that there is an undeveloped future in all God's dealings.
Memories of Bethany, Lessons
Man — short-sighted man — often raises impossibilities when God does not.
Memories of Bethany, Unbelief
On sin and a holy life
Remember, it is not the Sinner He hates, but Sin.
Memories of Gennesaret, Three Portraits
The heart broken at the cross, like Mary's broken box, begins from that hour to give forth the hallowed perfume of faith, and love, and obedience, and every kindred grace.
Memories of Bethany, The Box of Ointment
Make it not your worthless ambition to appear to be holy, but be holy!
Memories of Bethany, The Fig-Tree
On Bible lives
Macduff liked to tell the story of a Bible character and draw out a lesson. In Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains he looked at lives from their close.
God's saints are like forest trees in their golden autumn tints — grandest in decay, when the hand of death is on them.
Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains, Preface
It will always be found that those who are the most earnest workers are those who exercise the most childlike trust in a higher strength.
Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains, Sunset on Mount Ephraim
Does not all this teach us, that God's grace can reach any heart, in any place?
Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains, A Dark Day and a Bright Sunset
Go back in thought to that widow of Sarepta, and take courage from her example in doing little things for God and for His people.
The Prophet of Fire, Cherith and Zarephath
The Apostle who walked on the stormy lake, had now, by the grace of God in his soul, lost all the fitful instability of earlier life.
The Footsteps of St. Peter, Peter and Cornelius
For children
Macduff also wrote for young readers, and he spoke to them just as plainly about Jesus.
They are six pictures of the Saviour, hung up in the Old Testament picture-gallery.
The Cities of Refuge, Chapter II
The sinner is in danger everywhere else, but in Jesus he is safe.
The Cities of Refuge, Chapter II
There is something terrible about the thought of a Judge; but there is nothing but love and joy in the thought of a Father!
The Little Child's Book of Divinity, Third Night
Only be faithful to your God, and he will be faithful to you.
The Exiles of Lucerna, Chapter I
Where to read more
If these lines help you, start with The Faithful Promiser, a short reading for each day of the month, or The Morning Watches, and Night Watches, the book that made his name. All his books are on the John R. Macduff author page.