I am nothing on earth but a poor wretched sinner, with only God’s rich, free sovereign grace betwixt Him and the hell he deserves. Even though permitted to preach the Gospel so precious for the salvation it brings to me, a Gospel sweeter and sweeter to me every day I live, yet through it all a poor, sinning man still, and still and still! A sinner, battling all my life against the sins I loathe! – It is of His mercy, that I am not consumed in His wrath. Had every pleasure been a pain, and every joy a sorrow, I would be obliged to say, He has not rewarded me as my iniquities have deserved. No, He has been good to me all my days – and my very grief’s have shown to me how good He is, by the very contrast with the awful wrath He might have dispensed. I could never have appreciated the amazing stretch of His mercy, but for those chastisements which He has shown to be corrective and not penal. You must praise Him with me, that He has dealt with me only in the severity of His grace, and not in the visitations of judicial displeasure. – If you knew me as I know myself, you would see more than reason for all the blows, and for blows a thousand fold heavier than have fallen upon me.

- Rev Benjamin Morgan Palmer, Pastor First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans