Thomas Watson (d. 1690) was an eminent Puritan divine who, like so many, many others during his age, shined brighter than the firmament in his proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of his notable works, all of which contain rich veins of spiritual gems, are Heaven Taken By Storm, The Fight Of Faith Crowned, The Duty Of Self Denial, The Mischief Of Sin - these published by Soli Deo Gloria in hardcover, and then a masterly work, A Body Of Divinity, as well as The Lord's Prayer, and The Ten Commandments, all likewise in hardcover and published by The Banner Of Truth Trust. |
"God mingles joy with fear, that fear my not be slavish." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm II |
"When prayer leads the van, in due time deliverance brings up the rear." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm III |
"There is as much difference between heavenly comforts and earthly, as between a banquet that is eaten, and one that is painted on the wall." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm IV |
"Behold the deplorable condition of all ungodly ones in the other world; they shall have a life that always dies, and a death that always lives." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm IX |
"God forbears punishing, therefore men forbear repenting. He doth not smite upon their back by correction, therefore they do not smite upon their thigh by humiliation. Jeremiah xxxi. 19." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm X |
"The lower the heart descends, the higher the prayer ascends." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm X |
"Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God in the name of Christ, for such things as are agreeable to his will. It is an offering of our desires. Desires are the soul and life of prayer; words are but the body; now as the body without the soul is dead, so are prayers unless they are animated with our desires." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm X |
"The world pretends to hate the godly for something else, but the ground of the quarrel is holiness." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm XIV |
"For my part, I much question his truth towards God, that will flatter and lie to his friend." Treasury of David, Vol II Psalm XXVIII |
"Before sin is forgiven it must be repented of." Treasury of David, Vol II Psalm XXXII |
"It is necessary to get Christ for our food and grace for our armour, without which there is no abiding the day of trial." The Fight Of Faith Crowned |
"There is a two-fold call -- an outward call: an inward call... There is an inward call, when God with the offer of grace works grace. By this call the heart is renewed, and the will is effectually drawn to embrace Christ. The outward call brings men to a profession of Christ; the inward to a possession of Christ." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"The ministry of the Word is the pipe or organ; the Spirit of God blowing in it, effectually changes men's hearts... Ministers knock at the door of men's hearts; the Spirit comes with a key and opens the door." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"Election is the fountain-cause of our vocation. It is not because some are more worthy to partake of the heavenly calling than others, for we were all in our blood. What worthiness is in us? What worthiness was there in Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were cast? What worthiness in the Corinthians, when God began to call them by his gospel? They were fornicators, effeminate, idolaters... So that the foundation of vocation is election." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"God puts forth infinite power in calling home a sinner to himself; he not only puts forth his voice, but his arm." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"If God, in conversion, should only morally persuade, that is, set good and evil before men, then he does not put forth so much power in saving men as the devil does in destroying them... Shall not God's power in converting be greater than Satan's power in seducing? The EFFECTUAL call is mighty and powerful. God puts forth a divine energy, nay, a kind of omnipotence; it is such a powerful call that the will of man has no power effectually to resist." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"Before God's effectual call, a humbling work passes upon the soul. A man is convinced of sin; he sees he is a sinner and nothing but a sinner... Such as were never convinced are never called." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"We may read God's predestinating love in the work of grace in our heart." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"As God so governs the clouds, that he makes them rain upon one place, and not upon another; so at a sermon the Lord opens the heart of one, and another is no more affected with it than a deaf man with the sound of music. Here is the banner of free grace displayed, and here should the trophies of praise be erected... Such as are patterns of mercy should be trumpeters of praise." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"Though pagans and nominal Christians take liberty to sin, yet it is not fit for those who are called out of the world, and have the mark of election upon them, to do so. Ye are consecrated persons, your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and your bodies must be a sacristy, or holy of holies." A Body Of Divinity - Effectual Calling |
"A true justifying faith, which is called 'A faith of the operation of God,' is a jewel hung only upon the elect." A Body Of Divinity - Faith |
"Faith is the chief work which the Spirit of God works in a man's heart. In making the world God did but speak a word, but in working faith he puts forth his arm." A Body Of Divinity - Faith |
"What a power was put forth in raising Christ from the grave when such a tombstone lay upon him as the sins of all the world! yet he was raised up by the Spirit. The same power is put forth by the Spirit of God in working faith. The Spirit irradiates the mind, and subdues the will. The will is like a garrison, which holds out against God: the Spirit with sweet violence conquers, or rather changes it; making the sinner willing to have Christ upon any terms; to be ruled by him as well as saved by him." A Body Of Divinity - Faith |
"Faith is not an idle grace; as it has an eye to see Christ, so it has a hand to work for him. It not only believes God's promise, but obeys his commands." A Body Of Divinity - Faith |
"God does not justify us because we are worthy, but by justifying us makes us worthy. The ground of our justification is Christ's satisfaction made to his Father... By Christ's death and merits, God's justice is more abundantly satisfied than if we had suffered the pains of hell forever." A Body Of Divinity - Justification |
"The righteousness of Christ, which justifies us, is a better righteousness than the angels, for theirs is the righteousness of creatures, this of God." A Body Of Divinity - Justification |
"God the Father justifies, as he pronounces us righteous; God the Son justifies, as he imputes his righteousness to us; and God the Holy Ghost justifies, as he clears up our justification, and seals us up to the day of redemption." A Body Of Divinity - Justification |
"It is absurd to imagine that God should justify a people, and they should still go on in sin. If God should justify a people and not sanctify them, he would justify a people whom he could not glorify." A Body Of Divinity - Justification |
"Adoption is a mercy spun out of the bowels of free grace. All by nature are strangers, therefore have no right to sonship. God is pleased to adopt one, and not another; to make one a vessel of glory, another a vessel of wrath." A Body Of Divinity - Adoption |
"God consecrates us with his Spirit. Whom he adopts, he anoints; whom he makes sons, he makes saints." A Body Of Divinity - Adoption |
"All the world is divided into two ranks: the sons of God, and the heirs of hell." A Body Of Divinity - Adoption |
"God will have his people to be volunteers in religion, not forced with fear but drawn with love. Therefore he works upon them in such a way as is most alluring and persuasive. He would catch men with a golden bait and tempt them to obedience by showing them what is laid up in heaven for them." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"If you set the crown on Christ's head while you live, he will set the crown on your head when you die." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Be assured; there's no way for us to reign with Christ but to let Christ reign here." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"If there is love in pardoning mercy, what is there in crowing mercy? It is a favour that we poor vermin, worms and not men, should be allowed to live; but that worms should be made kings, that Christ should be arraigned and we adorned, that the curse should be laid on his head and the crown on ours -- Behold! what manner of love is this!" The Crown Of Righteousness |
"We must love God for those intrinsic excellencies in him which are so alluring and amiable... Oh, love God the Father who has made this crown for us. Love God the Son who has bought this crown for us. Love God the Holy Spirit who has made us fit to wear this crown." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Here we have a weight of sin; in heaven we shall have a weight of glory." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"A believer, at death, will be the happiest loser and the happiest gainer. He will lose his sins; he will gain glory. The day of death is the saint's coronation day." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Grace makes a metamorphosis; it produces in the soul a configuration and likeness to Christ. First there must be a consecrating work before a crowning work... there must be the unction of the Spirit; first God pours on us the anointing oil of grace, and after the horn of oil comes the crown." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Those who expect a golden crown must walk by a golden rule." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Be assured you shall never partake of the privilege of Christ's death unless you imitate the pattern of Christ's life." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Would you wear the crown of righteousness? Walk in the way of righteousness. But alas, this is a very untrodden way." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Others walk half in the way and half out. These are loose professors who, though in some dogmatic things they differ from us, yet, under a notion of Christian liberty, walk carelessly and presumptuously, CRYING UP JUSTIFICATION SO THAT THEY MAY WEAKEN THE POWER OF SANCTIFICATION. They can take that liberty which others tremble to think of. Surely, were there no other Bible read but the lives of some professors, we should read but little Scripture there." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"The men of the world give out that the way of righteousness is a solitary way and makes them melancholy who walk in it, and that they must expect to lose their joy by the way. These forget that golden saying of Augustine that when a man is converted and turned to God, his joy is not taken away but changed. Tis more sublime and pure." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Jesus Christ not only send forth blood out of his sides to redeem us, but also water to cleanse us." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Walk so that if we could suppose the Bible to be lost, it might be found again in your lives." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"Christians must strive like Olympian combatants. They must not only be adorned with the jewel of knowledge, but armed with the breastplate of faith. Satan is a lion in the way; there must be a pitched battle." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"A Christian most shines in his spiritual armour." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"The crown is set upon the head of the conqueror. Those dainty, silken Christians who live at ease, and will not make the least sally out against the enemy, shall have no crown, but will be discarded as cowards." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"God will write no man's name in the book of life but he who dies fighting. When the saints, after all their spiritual battles, shall come to heaven as conquerors, then, as was said of Caesar, shall their ensigns of honour be hung up; then shall the crown of righteousness be set upon their head." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"As one star differs from another in glory, so one crown differs from another in glory." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"A Christian in this life has something to grieve him and yet something to comfort him. A true saint is an heir of the cross. If he wears any robes, they are bloody; if he wears any crown, tis one of thorns. But here is that which may sweeten his sufferings; here is wine mingled with myrrh -- he shall be crowned in paradise." The Crown Of Righteousness |
"We may know the Scripture to be the Word of God by its miraculous preservation in all ages. The holy Scriptures are the richest jewel that Christ has left us; and the church of God has so kept these public records of heaven, that they have not been lost. The Word of God has never wanted enemies to oppose, and, if possible, to extirpate it. They have given out a law concerning Scripture, as Pharaoh did the midwives, concerning the Hebrew women’s children, to strangle it in the birth; but God has preserved this blessed Book inviolable to this day. The devil and his agents have been blowing at Scripture light, but could never blow it out; a clear sign that it was lighted from heaven. Nor has the church of God, in all revolutions and changes, kept the Scripture that it should not be lost only, but that it should not be depraved. The letter of Scripture has been preserved, without any corruption, in the original tongue. The Scriptures were not corrupted before Christ's time, for then Christ would not have sent the Jews to them. He said, 'Search the Scriptures.' He knew these sacred springs were not muddied with human fancies." A Body Of Divinity |
"The Word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him... It is given by divine inspiration; that is, the Scripture is not the contrivance of man’s brain, but is divine in its origin... The holy Scripture is to be highly reverenced and esteemed, because we are sure it came from heaven. 2 Pet 1: 21. The two Testaments are the two lips by which God has spoken to us." A Body Of Divinity |
"The mystery of Scripture is so abstruse and profound that no man or angel could have known it, had it not been divinely revealed. That eternity should be born; that he who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle; that he who rules the stars should suck the breasts; that the Prince of Life should die; that the Lord of Glory should be put to shame; that sin should be punished to the full, yet pardoned to the full; who could ever have conceived of such a mystery, had not the Scripture revealed it to us? So, for the doctrine of the resurrection; that the same body which is crumbled into a thousand pieces, should rise idem numero, the same individual body, else it were a creation, not a resurrection. How could such a sacred riddle, above all human disquisition, be known, had not the Scripture made a discovery of it? As the matter of Scripture is so full of goodness, justice and sanctity, that it could be breathed from none but God; so the holiness of it shows it to be of God." A Body Of Divinity |
"Out of this tower of Scripture is thrown a millstone upon the head of sin. The Scripture is the royal law which commands not only the actions, but affections; it binds the heart to good behaviour. Where is there such holiness to be found, as is digged out of this sacred mine? Who could be the author of such a book but God himself?" A Body Of Divinity |