A righteous man may make a righteous work, but no work of an unrighteous man can make him righteous. Now we become righteous only by faith, through the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.
– Thomas Boston
Righteousness
Consider the end of God’s decrees – and this is no other than His own glory. Every rational agent acts for an end; and God being the most perfect agent, and His glory the highest end, there can be no doubt but all His decrees are directed to that end. “For to Him are all things” (Rom. 11.36).
– Thomas Boston
God
They that would keep themselves pure must have their bodies in subjection, and that may require, in some cases, a holy violence.
– Thomas Boston
Purity
Whoever be the instruments of any good to us, of whatever sort, we must look above them, and eye the hand and counsel of God in it, which is the first spring, and be duly thankful to God for it. And whatever evil of crosses or afflictions befalls us, we must look above the instruments of it to God.
– Thomas Boston
Affliction
It is great folly to cast your sins upon Satan who tempted you, or upon your neighbor who provoked you; but it is a far greater sin, nay horrid blasphemy, to cast it upon God Himself. A greater affront than this cannot be offered to the infinite holiness of God.
– Thomas Boston
Sin
Affliction doth not rise out of the dust or come to men by chance; but it is the Lord that sends it, and we should own and reverence His hand in it.
– Thomas Boston
Affliction
Again, the glory of one attribute is more seen in one work than in another: in some things there is more of His goodness, in other things more of His wisdom is seen, and in others more of His power. But in the work of redemption all His perfections and excellencies shine forth in their greatest glory.
– Thomas Boston
Redemption
For as the sun darts its beams upon a dunghill, and yet is no way defiled by it; so God decrees the permission of sin… yet is not the author of sin.
– Thomas Boston
Sin
A man shall as soon force fruit out of a branch broken off from the tree and withered, as work righteousness without believing in, and uniting with Christ. These are two things by which those that hear the gospel are ruined.
– Thomas Boston
Righteousness
God hath decreed the end, so He hath decreed the means that are proper for attaining that end; so that these two must not be separated.
– Thomas Boston
God
It is our duty to look to God’s commands, and not to His decrees; to our own duty, and not to His purposes. The decrees of God are a vast ocean, into which many possibly have curiously pried to their own horror and despair; but few or none have ever pried into them to their own profit and satisfaction.
– Thomas Boston
Obedience
Has God decreed all things that come to pass? Then there is nothing that falls out by chance, nor are we to ascribe what we meet with either to good or ill luck and fortune. There are many events in the world which men look upon as mere accidents, yet all these come by the counsel and appointment of Heaven.
– Thomas Boston
God