Thomas Boston Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

Call it no more free-will, but slavish lust; free to evil, but free from good, till regenerating grace loosens the bands of wickedness.

Thomas Boston
For the turning away of the simple, shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Thomas Boston
Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world.

Thomas Boston
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
Sinners in their natural state lie dead, lifeless, and moveless; they can no more believe in Christ, nor repent, than a dead man can speak or walk: but, in virtue of the promise, the Spirit of life from Christ Jesus, at the time appointed, enters into the dead soul, and quickens it; so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, that were lost by Adam's fall.

Thomas Boston
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
Believing, repenting, and the like, are the product of the new nature; and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature... as the child cannot be active in his own generation, so a man cannot be active in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ: man cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace.

Thomas Boston
As fish in the water love deep places and wells and are most frequently found there, so wicked men have a great love to carnal security and have no will to strive against the stream. Fish love deep places best where there is least noise. Oh, how careful are natural men to keep all quiet, that there may be nothing to disturb them in their rest in sin! They love to be secure which is their destruction. O my soul, beware of carnal security, of being secure, though plunged over head and ears in sin.

Thomas Boston
Go where thou wilt, thou canst not go out of thy Father's ground.

Thomas Boston
Free grace will fix those, whom free will shook down into a gulph of misery.

Thomas Boston
Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men's lusts, but cannot change their hearts.

Thomas Boston
O what hardness of heart mayst thou see in every corner whither thou goest, and where thou preachest, most part being as unconcerned as the very stones of the wall; and say what thou wilt, either by setting before them alluring promises or dreadful threatenings, yet people are hardened against both, none relenting for what they have done, or concerned about it.

Thomas Boston
If a man be new-born, he will desire the sincere milk of the word.

Thomas Boston
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
No work nor deed of ours whatsoever, no not faith itself, can be the condition of the covenant of grace properly so called; but only Christ's fulfilling all righteousness.

Thomas Boston
Saving faith is the faith of God's elect; the special gift of God to them, wrought in them by his Spirit.

Thomas Boston
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
The natural man cannot but resist the Lord's offering to help him; yet that resistance is infallibly overcome in the elect, by converting grace.

Thomas Boston
Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the rdots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.

Thomas Boston
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