Choice Sentences

In the New England Primer, there are three valuable and well-known "Choice Sentences" for meditation and direction:

1. PRAYING will make us leave sinning, or sinning will make us leave praying.
2. OUR weakness and inabilities break not the bond of our duties.
3. WHAT we are afraid to speak before men, we should be afraid to think before GOD.

I was curious about their origin and decided to dig into the background a bit.

The first comes from an adage of Thomas Fuller (the physician and writer, not the church historian), Introductio Ad Prudentiam: Or, Directions, Counsels, and Cautions, Tending to Prudent Management of Affairs in Common Life. Compiled by Thomas Fuller, M.D. (first published in 1725; 3rd ed., 1731, p. 45):

742. Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave off finning; or continuing in Sin will make thee defift from praying.

Beyond its inclusion in the Primer, I have not identified the source of the second "choice sentence."

The third comes from Richard Sibbes, Divine Meditations and Holy Contemplations (first published in 1638, now found in The Works of Richard Sibbes, Vol. 7, p. 189):

49. What we are afraid to speak before men, and to do for fear of danger, let us be afraid to think before God. Therefore we should stifle all ill conceits in the very conception, in their very rising: let them be used as rebels and traitors, smothered at the first.