A Body of Divinity Quotes

“What is it to glorify God?

Glorifying God consists in four things: 1. Appreciation, 2. Adoration, 3. Affection, 4. Subjection. This is the yearly rent we pay to the crown of heaven.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity: Contained in Sermons upon the Westminster Assembly's Catechism

“[I] Appreciation. To glorify God is to set God highest in our thoughts, and to have a venerable esteem of him... There is in God all that may draw forth both wonder and delight; there is a constellation of all beauties; he is prima causa, the original and springhead of being, who sheds a glory upon the creature. We glorify God when we are God-admirers; admire his attributes, which are the glistening beams by which the divine nature shines forth; his promises which are the charter of free grace, and the spiritual cabinet where the pearl of price is hid; the noble effects of his power and wisdom in making the world, which is called 'the work of his fingers.' Psa 8:3. To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts; to esteem him most excellent, and search for diamonds in this rock only.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity: Contained in Sermons upon the Westminster Assembly's Catechism

“The wisdom of God is seen in making the most desperate evils turn to the good of his children. As several poisonable ingredients, wisely tempered by the skill of the artist, make a sovereign medicine, so God makes the most deadly afflictions co-operate for the good of his children. He purifies them, and prepares them for heaven. 2 Cor 4: I7. These hard frosts hasten the spring flowers of glory.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“God often goes by contrary means, and makes the enemy do his work. He can make a straight stroke with a crooked stick.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“God has decreed troubles for the church’s good. The troubles of God’s church is like the angel’s troubling the water, which made way for healing his people. John 5: 4. He has decreed troubles in the church. ‘His fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.’ Isa 31: 9. The wheels in a watch move cross one to another, but they all carry on the motion of the watch; so the wheels of Providence often move cross to our desires, but still they carry on God’s unchangeable decree.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“By having a change wrought in thee. ‘But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified.’ I Cor 6: 2: Whence we are changed, a tenebris ad lucem [from darkness to light], so changed, as if another soul did live in the same body. By this change we are interested in the unchangeable”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“A judge judges only matters of fact, but God judges the heart. He not only judges wicked actions, but wicked designs. He sees the treason of the heart and punishes it.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

“Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God’s glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, ‘A God of knowledges.”
― Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity