If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He will make peace within. The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.
– Thomas Watson
Peace
Prayer delights God’s ear; it melts His heart; and opens His hand. God cannot deny a praying soul.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
Afflictions add to the saints’ glory. The more the diamond is cut, the more it sparkles; the heavier the saints’ cross is, the heavier will be their crown.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
There are no sins God’s people are more subject to than unbelief and impatience. They are ready either to faint through unbelief, or to fret through impatience.
– Thomas Watson
Unbelief | Impatience
Many think they repent when it is not the offense but the penalty that troubles them.
– Thomas Watson
Repentance
God does not justify us because we are worthy, but by justifying us make us worthy.
– Thomas Watson
Justification
Leave not off reading the Bible till you find your hearts warmed. Read the word, not only as a history, but labor to be affected with it. Let it not only inform you, but inflame you. “Is not my word like a fire? saith the Lord”: Jer 23:29. Go not from the word till you can say as those disciples, “Did not our hearts burn within us?” Lu 24:32.
– Thomas Watson
The Bible | Fire
Let them fear death who do not fear sin.
– Thomas Watson
Death | Sin
How may we know that we are rightly thankful? When we are careful to register God’s mercy… Physicians say the memory is the first thing that decays; it is true in spirituals.
– Thomas Watson
Thankfulness | Mercy
The apostles went away rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ, that they were graced so far as to be disgraced for the name of Christ!
– Thomas Watson
Persecution
By delay of repentance, sin strengthens, and the heart hardens. The longer ice freezeth, the harder it is to be broken.
– Thomas Watson
Rebellion
God has given us two ears, but one tongue, to show that we should be swift to hear, but slow to speak. God has set a double fence before the tongue, the teeth and the lips, to teach us to be wary that we offend not with our tongue.
– Thomas Watson
Gossip | The Tongue
Water is useful to the ship and helps it to sail better to the haven, but let the water get into the ship, if it is not pumped out, it drowns the ship. So riches are useful and convenient for our passage. We sail more comfortably with them through the troubles of this world; but if the water gets into the ship, if love of riches gets into the heart, then we are drowned by them.
– Thomas Watson
Money
Meditate on what you read (Psm. 199:15). The Hebrew word for “meditate” means to be intense in the mind. Meditation without reading is wrong and bound to err; reading without meditation is barren and fruitless.
– Thomas Watson
Meditation
Wherever God pardons sin, he subdues it… If the fetters of sin be broken off, and we walk at liberty in the ways of God, this is a blessed sign we are pardoned.
– Thomas Watson
Forgiveness | Liberty
A Christian without patience is like a soldier without arms.
– Thomas Watson
Patience
Mercy is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that fear and sin not.
– Thomas Watson
Mercy | Fear
No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.
– Thomas Watson
Conscience
Godliness is the curious embroidery and workmanship of the Holy Ghost: a soul furnished with godliness is damasked with beauty, and enameled with purity: this is the “clothing of wrought gold” which makes the King of heaven fall in love with us.
– Thomas Watson
Godliness
God loves a broken heart, not a divided heart.
– Thomas Watson
The Heart
The Scripture is both the breeder and feeder of grace. How is the convert born, but by “the word of truth”? (James 1:18). How doth he grow, but by “the sincere milk of the Word.”? (I Peter 2:2).
– Thomas Watson
Scripture
Prayer as it comes from the saint is weak and languid; but when the arrow of a saint’s prayer is put into the bow of Christ’s intercession it pierces the throne of grace.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer | Intercession
The flesh inclines us more to believe a temptation than a promise.
– Thomas Watson
Temptation
Take heed of drowsiness in hearing; drowsiness shows much irreverence. How lively are many when they are about the world, but in the worship of God how drowsy. …In the preaching of the Word, is not the bread of life broken to you; and will a man fall asleep at his food? Which is worse, to stay from a sermon, or sleep at sermon?
– Thomas Watson
Apathy
The Ediles among the Romans had their doors always standing open, that all who had petitions might have free access to them. The door of heaven is always open for the prayers of God’s people.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.
– Thomas Watson
Repentance | Knowledge
All the danger is when the world gets into the heart. The water is useful for the sailing of the ship; all the danger is when the water gets into the ship; so the fear is when the world gets into the heart.
– Thomas Watson
Apathy | The Heart
To be of a peaceable spirit brings peace along with it.
– Thomas Watson
Peace
Soon the battle will be over. It will not be long now before the day will come when Satan will no longer trouble us. There will be no more domination, temptation, accusation, or confrontation. Our warfare will be over and our commander, Jesus Christ, will call us away from the battlefield to receive the victor’s crown.
– Thomas Watson
Satan | Heaven
He sheds tears for those that shed His blood.
– Thomas Watson
Jesus
The torments of hell abide for ever… If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.
– Thomas Watson
Hell | Justice
Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting. Affliction was a sting, but withal a wing: sorrow shall soon fly away.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
When a man has judged himself, Satan is put out of office. When he lays anything to a saint’s charge, he is able to retort and say, “It is true, Satan, I am guilty of these sins, but I have judged myself already for them; and having condemned myself in the lower court of conscience, God will acquit me in the upper court of heaven.
– Thomas Watson
Judging
Malice is the devil’s picture. Lust makes men brutish; malice makes them devilish – it is mental murder.
– Thomas Watson
Hatred | Lust
if you have felt the power and authority of the word upon your conscience; if you can say as David, “Thy word hath quickened me.” Christian, bless God that he has not only given thee his word to be a rule of holiness, but his grace to be a principle of holiness.
– Thomas Watson
Conscience | Holiness
Read the Scripture, not only as a history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God.
– Thomas Watson
Scripture
The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
What fools are they who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath.
– Thomas Watson
Foolishness
The devil tempts, that he may deceive; but God suffers us to be tempted, to try us. Temptation is a trial of our sincerity.
– Thomas Watson
Temptation | Deception
To serve God, to love God, to enjoy God, is the sweetest freedom in the world.
– Thomas Watson
Freedom
The right manner of growth is to grow less in one’s own eyes.
– Thomas Watson
Humility | Growth
God sometimes in infinite patience adjourns his judgments and puts off the sessions a while longer, he is not willing to punish.
– Thomas Watson
Discipline
People are usually better in adversity, than prosperity. A prosperous condition is not always so safe. True, it is more pleasing to the flesh – but it is not always best. In a prosperous state, there is more burden. Many look at the shining and glittering of prosperity – but not at the burdens of prosperity.
– Thomas Watson
Adversity | Prosperity
Satan doth sow most of his seed of temptation in hearts that lie fallow. When he sees persons unemployed, he will find work for them to do.
– Thomas Watson
Satan | Temptation
We may force our Lord to punish us, but we will never have to force Him to love us. That’s His nature.
– Thomas Watson
Love | God
A spiritual prayer is a humble prayer. Prayer is the asking of an alms, which requires humility… The lower the heart descends, the higher the prayer ascends.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
If there is anything excellent, it is salvation; if there be anything necessary, it is working out salvation; if there be any tool to work with, tis holy fear.
– Thomas Watson
Salvation | Fear
A man may read the figures on the dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes unless the sun is shining on it; so we may read the Bible over, but we cannot learn to purpose till the spirit of God shine upon it and into our hearts.
– Thomas Watson
The Bible | The Holy Spirit
The devil would have Christ prove Himself to be God, by turning stones into bread; but the Holy Ghost shows His Godhead by turning stones into flesh (Eze. 36:26).
– Thomas Watson
The Trinity
Prayer is the soul’s breathing itself into the bosom of its heavenly Father.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
A man adopts one for his son and heir that does not at all resemble him; but whosoever God adopts for His child is like Him; he not only bears His heavenly Father’s name, but His image (Col. 3:10).
– Thomas Watson
Godliness
Keep your heart as you would a prisoner.
– Thomas Watson
Humility | The Heart
Those prayers God likes best which come seething hot from the heart.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
Faith is full of good works. It believes as if it did not work, and it works as if it did not believe.
– Thomas Watson
Faith
Idleness tempts the devil to tempt.
– Thomas Watson
Idleness
Religion will cost us the tears of repentance and the blood of persecution.
– Thomas Watson
Religion | Persecution
A humble sinner is in a better condition than a proud angel.
– Thomas Watson
Humility
There is but one God, and they that serve him should be one. There is nothing that would render the true religion more lovely, or make more proselytes to it, than to see the professors of it tied together with the heart strings of love. If God be one, let all that profess him be of one mind, and one heart, and thus fulfill Christ’s prayer, “that they all may be one.”
– Thomas Watson
Unity
Adoption is a greater mercy than Adam had in paradise.
– Thomas Watson
Salvation
A child of God, though he cannot serve the Lord perfectly, yet he serves him willingly; his will is in the law of the Lord; he is not a pressed soldier, but a volunteer. By the beating of this pulse we may judge whether there be spiritual life in us or no.
– Thomas Watson
Obedience
Cheerfulness is a friend to grace; it puts the heart in tune to praise God, and so honors religion by proclaiming to the world that we serve a good master. Be serious, yet cheerful. Rejoice in the Lord always.
– Thomas Watson
Cheerfulness | The Heart
It is a sign the oil of grace hath been poured into the heart “when the oil of gladness” shines on the countenance. Cheerfulness credits religion.
– Thomas Watson
Grace | Cheerfulness
God intermixeth mercy with affliction: he steeps his sword of justice in the oil of mercy; there was no night so dark, but Israel had a pillar of fire in it; there is no condition so dismal, but we may see a pillar of fire to give light. If the body be in pain, conscience is in peace, –there is mercy: affliction is for the prevention of sin, –there is mercy. In the ark there was a rod and a pot of manna, the emblem of a Christian’s condition, mercy interlined with judgment.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction | Mercy
Death is the last and best physician, which cures all diseases and sins – the aching head and the unbelieving heart. Sin was the midwife which brought death into the world; and death shall be the grave to bury sin! O the privilege of a believer!
– Thomas Watson
Death
A wicked man in prayer may lift up his hands, but he cannot lift up his face.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer | Hypocrisy
How far are they from offering violence to themselves in hearing, who come to the word in a dull, drowsy manner, as if they came to church to take a receipt to make them sleep. The word is to feed; it is strange to sleep at meat. The word judgeth men: it is strange for a prisoner to fall asleep at the bar.
– Thomas Watson
Apathy
He that chooses God, devotes himself to God as the vessels of the sanctuary were consecrated and set apart from common to holy uses, so he that has chosen God to be his God, has dedicated himself to God, and will no more be devoted to profane uses.
– Thomas Watson
Holiness | Consecration
The pampering of the flesh, is the quenching of God’s spirit.
– Thomas Watson
Self-love
The glory of God is a silver thread which must run through all of our actions.
– Thomas Watson
God
Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise.
– Thomas Watson
Eternity
To obey God in some things, and not in others, shows an unsound heart. Childlike obedience moves toward even command of God, as the needle points where the loadstone draws.
– Thomas Watson
Obedience
The sins of the godly are worse than others, because they bring a greater reproach upon religion. For the wicked to sin, there is no other expected from them; swine will wallow in the mire; but when sheep do so, when the godly sin, that redounds to the dishonor of the Gospel: “By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.”
– Thomas Watson
Sin
Highly prize the Scriptures. Can he make a proficiency in any art, who doth slight and deprecate it? Prize this book of God above all other books.
– Thomas Watson
Scripture
Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God’s Will. God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy.
– Thomas Watson
Grace
They that deny Christ to be God, must greatly wrest, or else deny the Scripture to be the Word of God.
– Thomas Watson
The Trinity
The godly have some good in them, therefore the devil afflicts them; and some evil in them, therefore God afflicts them.
– Thomas Watson
Suffering
To sin because mercy abounds is the devil’s logic; he that sins because of God’s mercy, shall have judgment without mercy. Mercy is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that fear and sin not.
– Thomas Watson
Sin | Mercy | Satan
Meditation doth discriminate and characterize a man; by this he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad; let me allude to that; “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7. As the meditation is, such is the man. Meditation is the touchstone of a Christian; it shows what metal he is made of. It is a spiritual index; the index shows what is in the book, so meditation shows what is in the heart.
– Thomas Watson
Fire
Wicked men seem to bear great reverence to the saints departed; they canonize dead saints, but persecute living.
– Thomas Watson
Persecution
Whoever is afraid of submitting any question, civil or religious, to the test of free discussion, is more in love with his own opinion than with truth.
– Thomas Watson
Ignorance | Truth
Satan tempts to sin gradually. As the husbandman digs about the root of a tree, and by degrees loosens it, and at last it falls. Satan steals by degrees into the heart: he is at first more modest.
– Thomas Watson
Satan | The Heart
And let me tell you, the more labor you have put forth for the Kingdom of heaven, the more degrees of glory you shall have. As there are degrees of torment in hell, so of glory in heaven (Matthew 23:14). As one star differeth from another in glory, so shall one saint (1 Corinthians 15:41). Though every vessel of mercy shall be full, yet one may hold more than another.
– Thomas Watson
Heaven
Men could be content to have the kingdom of Heaven; but they are loathe to fight for it. They choose rather to go in a feather bed to Hell than to be carried to Heaven in a ‘fiery chariot’ of zeal and violence.
– Thomas Watson
Laziness
A true saint is a divine landscape or picture, where all the rare beauties of Christ are lively portrayed and drawn forth. He hath the same spirit, the same judgment, the same will with Christ.
– Thomas Watson
Humility
How many souls have been blown into hell with the wind of popular applause?
– Thomas Watson
Hell
If there be one God subsisting in three persons, then let us give equal reverence to all the persons in the Trinity. There is not more or less in the Trinity; the Father is not more God than the Son and Holy Ghost. There is an order in the Godhead, but no degrees; one person has not a majority or super eminence above another, therefore we must give equal worship to all the persons.
– Thomas Watson
The Trinity
Jesus Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace. Had not we need then provoke ourselves to duty?
– Thomas Watson
The Cross
Faith holds the promise in one hand, and Christ in the other.
– Thomas Watson
Faith
What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of sin.
– Thomas Watson
Affliction
If the word stays not in the memory, it cannot profit. Some can better remember a piece of news than a line of Scripture: their memories are like those ponds, where frogs live, but fish die.
– Thomas Watson
Scripture
God would have us part with nothing for Him, but that which will damn us if we keep it. He has no design upon us, but to make us happy.
– Thomas Watson
Happiness
God being a Father, if He hide His face from His child, it is in love. Desertion is sad in itself, a short hell (Job 6:9). When the light is withdrawn, dew falls. Yet we may see a rainbow in the cloud, the love of a Father in all this.
– Thomas Watson
Discipline
Hope is like the cork to the net, which keeps the soul from sinking in despair; and fear, like the lead to the net, which keeps it from floating in presumption.
– Thomas Watson
Hope | Fear
The mercies of God make a sinner proud, but a saint humble.
– Thomas Watson
Mercy | Humility
I will conclude with that excellent saying of Bernard: “Lord, I will never come away from Thee without Thee.” Let this be a Christian’s resolution, not to leave off his meditations of God till he find something of God in him.
– Thomas Watson
Meditation
When sin is your burden, Christ will be your delight.
– Thomas Watson
Sin
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.
– Thomas Watson
Prayer
The reason we come away so cold from reading the word is, because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.
– Thomas Watson
Meditation
It is absurd to imagine that God should justify a people and not sanctify them, He should justify a people whom He could not glorify.
– Thomas Watson
Justification | Sanctification
Doth God give us a Christ, and will he deny us a crust? If God doth not give us what we crave, He will give us what we need.
– Thomas Watson
God | Grace