Quotes by Thomas Boston
Thomas Boston (1676–1732) — Pastor · Presbyterianisch · Schottland
Thomas Boston (1676–1732) war ein schottischer presbyterianischer Pfarrer und Theologe, der vor allem in der Gemeinde Ettrick wirkte. Bekanntheit erlangte er durch geistliche Schriften wie „Human Nature in Its Fourfold State“ sowie seinen Einsatz im Marrow-Streit für das unbedingte, freie Gnadenangebot des Evangeliums. Für heutige Bibelleser steht sein Werk für eine reformierte Bundestheologie und Seelsorge, die den Umgang mit persönlichen Lebensprüfungen eng mit dem Trost der göttlichen Gnade verknüpft.
Era: Revival & the 19th Century
Recurring topics: God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, Guidance & God's Will, Grace & Redemption, Faith & Trust, Wisdom & Understanding, Discipleship, Suffering & the Question of God, Guilt & Forgiveness
Quotes by Thomas Boston
In our redemption by Christ we have the fullest, clearest, and most delightful manifestation of the glory of God that ever was or shall be in this life. All the declarations and manifestations that we have of His glory in the works of creation and common providence, are but dim and obscure in comparison with what is here. Indeed the glory of His wisdom, power, and goodness, is clearly manifested in the works of creation. But the glory of His mercy and love had lain under an eternal eclipse without a Redeemer.
Thomas Boston
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
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
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
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 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
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
In vain will ye fast, and pretend to be humbled for our sins, and make confession of them if our love of sin be not turned into hatred; our liking of it into loathing; and our cleaving to it, into a longing to be rid of it; with full purpose to resist the motions of it in our heart, and the outbreakings thereof in our life; and if we turn not unto God as our rightful Lord and Master, and return to our duty again.
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
Our election is not written in particular in the word of God; but our duty is plainly set down there. If men conscientiously perform their duty, this is the way to come to the knowledge of their election. Men therefore should not question whether they be elected or not, but first believe on Christ, and endeavor diligently to work out their own salvation; and if their works be good, and their obedience true, thereby they will come to a certain knowledge that they were elected and set apart to everlasting life.
Thomas Boston
The properties of God’s decrees: 1. They are eternal. God makes no decrees in time, but they were all from eternity. If the divine decrees were not eternal, God would not be most perfect and unchangeable, but, like weak man, should take new counsels, and would be unable to tell everything that were to come to pass (Eph. 1:4). 2. They are most wise. God cannot properly deliberate or take counsel, as men do; for He sees all things together and at once. Nothing is determined that could have been better determined (Rom. 11:33). 3. They are free. [They depend] on no other, but all flowing from the mere pleasure of His own will. He has made no decrees suspended on any condition without Himself (Rom. 11:34). 4. They are unchangeable. God’s decrees are constant; and He by no means alters His purpose, as men do (Psm. 33:1). 5. They are most holy and pure (1 Jn. 1:5). 6. They are effectual. Whatsoever God decrees comes to pass infallibly (Isa. 46.10).
Thomas Boston
They that would keep themselves pure must have their bodies in subjection, and that may require, in some cases, a holy violence.
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
That all sinful actions fall under the divine decree. Though sin itself flows from transgressing the law, yet the futurition of it is from the decree of God. No such thing could ever have been in the world, if it had not been determined by the eternal counsel of Heaven for a holy and just end. This is plainly asserted by the apostle Peter, with respect to the greatest villainy that was ever committed on the earth, namely, the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the hands of sinful men (Ac. 2:23; 4:27-28)… There was never such an atrocious crime or higher act of wickedness committed, than the murdering of the Lord of glory. And yet it appears from these texts of Scripture, that, in this bloody and horrid scene, wicked men did no more than God’s hand and counsel determined before to be done.
Thomas Boston
Sources: wikipedia.org, digitalpuritan.net, thegospelcoalition.org, unbrokenfaith.org
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