"My meaning is in these sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in poetry, shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory."

“Wit's an unruly engine, wildly strikingSometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.”

“A verse may finde him,who a sermon fliesAnd turns delight into a sacrifice.”

“It (my book) is a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom.”

“By no means run in debt: take thine own measure.Who cannot live on twenty pound a year,Cannot on forty.”

“Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.”

“Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame,When once it is within thee.”