Thomas Goodwin Quotations

I will begin first to search out this right by that magna charta, that great and faithful charter which was made to Abraham, the father of the faithful, in the name of all his seed.

We have the promise of God's being our God, and of the blessing by Christ for ourselves, as we are Abraham's seed, yet take the whole promise collectively made to him and us.

Christ's riches are unsearchable, and this doctrine of the gospel is the field this treasure is hidden in.

Let us search into the records of Holy Writ, if out of this their great charter, there be not a seal grant of a lesser, though like privilege, and this by virtue of Christ, in that we have the honour to be accounted Abraham's seed as truly as they.

My brethren, when God first began to love you, He gave you all that He ever meant to give you in the lump, and eternity of time is that in which He is retailing of it out.

And so Adam, in that his speech to Eve, uttered his faith in the promise made to her of her seed, and so in that respect Adam himself came in under her covenant.

The children of believing parents, at least their next and immediate seed, even of us Gentiles now under the gospel, are included by God within the covenant of grace.

It was both Abraham's and the Jews' privilege also that they should have this promise to all generations.

We were not fathers also to convey the promise, as Abraham was; nor although the promise, as collectively taken, had belonged to us, as to Abraham it did.

Forget this 7.4-mile stuff, ... fully a dozen units that can finish the course.

When God will have any great matters done, he sets his people's hearts to work at prayer by a kind of gracious instinct. He stirs them up and moves their hearts by the influence of his Holy Spirit.

The most thankful person is the most fully human.

Oh despise not election! therein lies all your hope, that there is a remnant who shall infallibly be saved.

Judas heard all Christ's sermons.

Grace is more than mercy and love. It super-adds to them. It denotes, not simply love, but the love of a sovereign, transcendent Superior. One that may do what He will. That may wholly choose whether He will love or no. Now God, who is an infinite Sovereign, who might have chosen whether ever He would love us or no; for Him to love us, this is Grace.

Being in Christ, and united to Him, is the fundamental constitution of a Christian.

The Indwelling of Christ by faithis to have Jesus Christ continually in one’s eye, a habitual sight of Him. I call it so because a man actually does not always think of Christ; but as a man does not look up to the sun continually, yet he sees the light of it. So you should carry along and bear along in your eye the sight and knowledge of Christ, so that at least a presence of Him accompanies you, which faith makes.

Our prayers are granted as soon as we have prayed, even though the process of fulfilling our requests has not yet begun.

In public worship all should join. The little strings go to make up a concert, as well as the great.

Moreover, as God respects no persons, so He respects no conditions upon which He gives salvation to us.

God works with power, and can make the unwilling willing; if He undertakes the conversion of a soul, it will be converted. All the pious workings of our heart towards God are the fruit and consequence of the powerful working of His grace in us.

Glory in nothing, but only in this, that you are in Christ. For God chose you in him; the being you had was in him before the world was.

In Christ are treasures that will require digging to the end of the world.

What a wonder is it, that two natures infinitely distant, should be more intimately united than anything in the world; and yet without any confusion! That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity! That a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man, are such expressions of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they astonish men upon earth, and angels in heaven.

Value God and his love more than all the world, though there were millions of them. He valued you before the world, and therefore is beforehand with you in his love. He not only loved you from everlasting, (whereas your love is but of yesterday,) but in the valuation of it, he loved you before all worlds, and preferred you to all worlds: though you loved the world first, before you loved him.

If I were to go to heaven, and find that Christ was not there, I would leave immediately; for heaven without Christ would be hell to me.

What is the cause of all God's purposes towards us? Himself. There is no other cause.

Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayers and won with thanks.

Heaven would be hell to me without Christ.