We can never be too frequent or too solemn in the general surrender of our souls to God and binding our souls by a vow to be the Lord’s forever: to love Him above all things, to fear Him, to hope in Him, to walk in His ways in a course of holy obedience, and to wait for His mercy and eternal life.
A Guide to Prayer.
He that hears without ears understands us without our words. Yet as language is of absolute necessity in social prayer, that others may join with us in our addresses to God, so for the most part we find it necessary in secret, too, for there are few persons of so steady and fixed a power of meditation as to maintain warm devotion and to converse with God, or with themselves profitably, without words.
A Guide to Prayer, p. 69.
The Great God values not the service of men if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; He has no regard for outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly for God.
Discourses on the Love of God, 1798, p. 12.