Thomas Adams is the name of:
Satan like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish.
The covetous man pines in plenty, like Tantalus up to the chin in water, and yet thirsty.
Passion costs me too much to bestow it on every trifle.
Will you trust your five senses above the four Gospels?
Beauty is like an almanack: if it lasts a year it is well.
We know there is a sun in heaven, yet we cannot see what matter it is made of, but perceive it only by the beams, light and heat. Election is a sun, the eyes of eagles cannot see it, yet we may find it in the heat of vocation, in the light of illumination, in the beams of good works.
A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty, the trouble of civility, the spoil of wealth, the distraction of reason. He is the brewer's agent, the tavern and alehouse benefactor, the beggar's companion, the constable's trouble, his wife's woe, his children's sorrow, his neighbours scoff, his own shame.
Prevention is so much better than healing because it saves the labor of being sick.
Paradise had four rivers that watered the earth. . . . and howsoever neglected by many, they make glad the city of God. So Bernard sweetly: Eternal life is granted to us in election, promised in our vocation, sealed in our justification, possessed in our glorification. Conclude then, faithfully to thy own soul. I believe, therefore I am justified; I am justified, therefore I am sanctified; I am sanctified, therefore I am called; I am called, therefore I am elected; I am elected, therefore I shall be saved. Oh! settled comfort of joy, which ten thousand devils shall never make void.
No man more truly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend Him.
Let us not make the poor our friends by our alms, not our enemies by our scorns. We had better have the ears of God full of their prayers, than heaps of money in our own coffers with their curses.
Ever tell me of a humble heart where I see a stubborn knee.
Our mind is where our pleasure is, our heart is where our treasure is, our love is where our life is, but all these, our pleasure, treasure, and life, are reposed in Jesus Christ.
Sins are so remitted, as if they had never been committed.
He who demands mercy and shows none ruins the bridge over which he himself is to pass.
Better a holy discord than a profane concord.
Blessed be God, I not only begin praying when I kneel down, but I do not leave off praying when I rise up.
Self-righteousness is the devil's masterpiece to make us think well of ourselves.
The Bible is to us what the star was to the wise men; but if we spend all our time in gazing upon it, observing its motions, and admiring its splendor, without being led to Christ by it, the use of it will be lost on us.
If thou wilt fly from God, the devil will lend thee both spurs and a horse.