Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Watson
“Everyone that hangs around the court does not speak with the king.”
topics: Church
“No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.”
topics: Conscience
“Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil’s bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.”
“Do not rest in baptism; what is it to have the water, and want the Spirit?”
― Thomas Watson ,
from All Things for Good
“Where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.”
― Thomas Watson ,
from All Things for Good
“Indeed faith deals with invisibles, but God hates that love which is invisible.”
― Thomas Watson ,
from All Things for Good
“None but the godly are capable of desertion. Wicked men know not what God’s love means, nor what it is to want it. They know what it is to want health, friends, trade, but not what it is to want God’s favour. You fear you are not God’s child because you are deserted. The Lord cannot be said to withdraw His love from the wicked, because they never had it. The being deserted evidences you to be a child of God. How could you complain that God has estranged Himself, if you had not sometimes received smiles and tokens of love from Him?”
― Thomas Watson ,
from All Things for Good
topics: affliction
“They that seek the LORD shall not want [lack] any good thing’ (Psalm 34:10). If it is good for us, we shall have it; if it is not good for us, then the withholding of it is good.”
― Thomas Watson ,
from All Things for Good
“Self-love raises a sickbed vow, and love of sin will prevail against it. Trust not to a passionate resolution; it is raised in a storm and will die in a calm.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“It was a witty fiction of the poets, that when Mercury had cast Argus into a sleep and with an enchanted wand closed his eyes, he then killed him. When Satan has by his witcheries lulled men asleep in sloth, then he destroys them. Some report that while the crocodile sleeps with its mouth open, the Indian rat gets into its belly and eats up its entrails. So while men sleep in security they are devoured.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“When men have hearts of stone and foreheads of brass—it is a sign that the devil has taken full possession of them.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“It is better that men should reproach you for repenting than that God should damn you for not repenting.”
“Morality shoots short of heaven. It is only nature refined. A moral man is but old Adam dressed in fine clothes. The king's image counterfeited and stamped upon brass will not go current.”
“Why does he send war and epidemics? What does the heat of this great anger mean? Surely dying times are to make men die to the world.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“We shall never go to heaven when we die—unless we are in heaven while we live.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“Let it not be said that repentance is difficult. Things that are excellent deserve labour. Will not a man dig for gold in the ore though it makes him sweat? It is better to go with difficulty to heaven, than with ease to hell.”
“This judgment is on many, the earth swallows up their time, and thoughts, and discourse, they are buried twice; their hearts are buried in the earth before their bodies.”
― Thomas Watson ,
“Meditation is the saints’ looking glass, by which they see things invisible. Meditation is the golden ladder by which they ascend to paradise. Meditation is the spy they send abroad to search the land of promise, and it brings a cluster of the grapes of Eshcol with it. Meditation is the dove they send out, and it brings an olive branch of peace in its mouth. But who can tell how sweet honey is, save they that taste it? The excellency of meditation I leave to experienced Christians, who will say the comfort of it may be better felt than expressed.”
“A godly person chooseth Christ and grace before the most illustrious things under the sun:”
― Thomas Watson ,
“We should look upon sin in two looking-glasses—the glass of Christ’s blood, and the glass of death.”
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He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably intense study. In 1646 he commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen's, Walbrook. He showed strong Presbyterian views during the civil war, with, however, an attachment to the king, and in 1651 he was imprisoned briefly with some other ministers for his share in Christopher Love's plot to recall Charles II of England.
He was released on 30 June 1652, and was formally reinstated as vicar of St. Stephen's Walbrook. He obtained great fame and popularity as a preacher until the Restoration, when he was ejected for nonconformity. Not withstanding the rigor of the acts against dissenters, Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately as he found opportunity. Upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license to preach at the great hall in Crosby House. After preaching there for several years, his health gave way, and he retired to Barnston, Essex, where he died suddenly while praying in secret. He was buried on 28 July 1686.
Thomas Watson was an English, non-conformist, Puritan preacher and author.
He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was noted for remarkably intense study. In 1646 he commenced a sixteen year pastorate at St. Stephen's, Walbrook. He showed strong Presbyterian views during the civil war, with, however, an attachment to the king, and in 1651 he was imprisoned briefly with some other ministers for his share in Christopher Love's plot to recall Charles II of England.
He was released on 30 June 1652, and was formally reinstated as vicar of St. Stephen's Walbrook. He obtained great fame and popularity as a preacher until the Restoration, when he was ejected for nonconformity. Not withstanding the rigor of the acts against dissenters, Watson continued to exercise his ministry privately as he found opportunity. Upon the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 he obtained a license to preach at the great hall in Crosby House. After preaching there for several years, his health gave way, and he retired to Barnston, Essex, where he died suddenly while praying in secret. He was buried on 28 July 1686.