The Thomas Watson Reading Room
The following are quotes and excerpts taken from The Christian Soldier, or Heaven Taken by Storm.
The pampering of the flesh, is the quenching of God's spirit.
The flesh inclines us more to believe a temptation than a promise
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?
We must not read these holy lines [Scripture] carelessly, as if they did not concern us, or run over them hastily, as Israel ate the passover in haste; but peruse them with reverence and seriousness.
Read the word as a book made by God Himself. It is given 'by divine inspiration' 2 Tim. iii.16. It is the library of the Holy Ghost.
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.
Prayer is a lifting up of the mind and soul to God, which cannot be done aright without offering violence to one-self. The names given to prayer imply violence. It is called wrestling, Gen. xxxii. 24. and a pouring out of the soul, 1 Sam. i. 15.
Prayer without fervency and violence is no prayer; it is speaking, not praying. -- Lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of a man is a man.
Those prayers God likes best which come seething hot from the heart.
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
Faith holds the promise in one hand, and Christ in the other
If Christ thought the soul was worth the shedding of His blood, well may we think it worth spending our sweat.
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.
To serve God, to love God, to enjoy God, is the sweetest freedom in the world.
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