Thomas Goodwin Quotes

Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks.

Thomas Goodwin said, “Christ is love covered over in flesh.

The most thankful person is the most fully human.

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." -Thomas Jefferson

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

The person who knows Christ best is the person who will pray best.

It is not enough to hear a sermon, but you must eat it down, take in what it commands, and then it will purge your heart...Take the word and digest it, squeeze the juice of it into thy heart, and it will purge thee from all contrary corruption." pg.73

Take the fact that you were created to love. Your heart can find real joy only through love - through loving and being loved.

All that God is, will supply your need.

This is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

The Indwelling of Christ by faith…is 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. —Thomas Goodwin, Works, 2:411

God is infinitely beautiful in himself, and his beauty ought to attract you like a magnet to him.

Ask God to make you like David: an intercessor, even in the midst of your own great sins and great needs.

Where God gives opportunity for preaching it is more than likely that he has some people to convert. Usually the Word of God takes root among some, though often in but a few.

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.

Thomas Goodwin Jr. wrote of his godly father: In all the violence of [his fever], he discoursed with that strength of faith and assurance of Christ’s love, with that holy admiration of free grace, with that joy in believing, and such thanksgivings and praises, as he extremely moved and affected all that heard him…. He rejoiced in the thoughts that he was dying, and going to have a full and uninterrupted communion with God. ‘I am going,’ said he, ‘to the three Persons, with whom I have had communion: they have taken me; I did not take them…. I could not have imagined I should ever have had such a measure of faith in this hour…. Christ cannot love me better than he doth; I think I cannot love Christ better than I do; I am swallowed up in God….’ With this assurance of faith, and fullness of joy, his soul left this world.89 

It is not enough to hear a sermon, but you must eat it down, take in what it commands, and then it will purge your heart...Take the word and digest it, squeeze the juice of it into thy heart, and it will purge thee from all contrary corruption.

The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals… it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.” -Thomas Jefferson

believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." -Thomas Jefferson

Ultimately, we are much more addicted than the junkie because we are responsible for not only our own demise, but the breakdown of the entire natural world. There is no other appropriate response to a situation this grave, this utterly overwhelming, than powerlessness. It has taken countless generations to arrive in this predicament; a solution cannot arise overnight. It will take work. It will take time.

personage was formally identified upon entrance: Acclaimed eighty-seven-year-old poet Robert Frost; father of antibiotics Selman Waksman; literature Nobel Prize winner Pearl Buck; astronaut John Glenn; immunologist Thomas Weller, whose virus research enabled the polio vaccine; J. Robert Oppenheimer, Manhattan Project director; celebrated novelists James Baldwin and William Styron—in all, a parade of 127 guests and their spouses.

The same thing, notes Brynjolfsson, happened 120 years ago, in the Second Industrial Revolution, when electrification—the supernova of its day—was introduced. Old factories did not just have to be electrified to achieve the productivity boosts; they had to be redesigned, along with all business processes. It took thirty years for one generation of managers and workers to retire and for a new generation to emerge to get the full productivity benefits of that new power source. A December 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute on American industry found a “considerable gap between the most digitized sectors and the rest of the economy over time and [found] that despite a massive rush of adoption, most sectors have barely closed that gap over the past decade … Because the less digitized sectors are some of the largest in terms of GDP contribution and employment, we [found] that the US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential … The United States will need to adapt its institutions and training pathways to help workers acquire relevant skills and navigate this period of transition and churn.” The supernova is a new power source, and it will take some time for society to reconfigure itself to absorb its full potential. As that happens, I believe that Brynjolfsson will be proved right and we will start to see the benefits—a broad range of new discoveries around health, learning, urban planning, transportation, innovation, and commerce—that will drive growth. That debate is for economists, though, and beyond the scope of this book, but I will be eager to see how it plays out. What is absolutely clear right now is that while the supernova may not have made our economies measurably more productive yet, it is clearly making all forms of technology, and therefore individuals, companies, ideas, machines, and groups, more powerful—more able to shape the world around them in unprecedented ways with less effort than ever before. If you want to be a maker, a starter-upper, an inventor, or an innovator, this is your time. By leveraging the supernova you can do so much more now with so little. As Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.

You are to consider that God does not hear you for your prayers’ sake (though not without them), but for His name’s sake and His Son’s sake, and because you are His child. The mother does not neglect to hear and relieve her child when the child cries, but she is tender, not because the child cries more loudly, but because the child cries, and the weaker the child is, the more pity she shows. Again, though the performance in itself might be weak, yet considered as a prayer, it might be strong, because a weak prayer may set the strong God to work. The faith we produce may be weak, yet because its object is Christ, therefore it justifies. So it is in prayer; it prevails, not because of the performance itself, but because of the name in which it is made, even Christ’s name. Therefore, as a weak faith justifies, so a weak prayer prevails as well as a stronger, and both for the same reason, for faith attributes all to God, and so does prayer. As faith is merely a receiving grace, so prayer is a begging grace.

Reflecting on this, Albert LaChance recognized an opportunity—what if the work he and so many others found so fruitful in the 12-Step recovery programs could be expanded to an ecological, a global, or even a cosmic level?

Even greater shifts will be needed if we are to finally understand that we cannot continue to live on this planet as if it is nothing more than a collection of resources for us to exploit. A greater shift will be needed if we are to realize that no one religious tradition can lay claim to absolute “truth” and we must instead learn from each other in a mutually enhancing quest for conscious contact with the Sacred.

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?' saith the Apostle; 'it is God that justifieth,' and it is their being elect that carries it. Yea, his love is so strong that if there be any accusation,—the Apostle makes the supposition, 'Who shall lay anything to their charge?' Sin or devil? —that if at any time sin or devil come to accuse, it moves God to bless. His love is so violent, it is so set, that he takes occasion to bless so much the more.

If through all thy discouragemnets thy condition prove worse and worse, so that thou canst not pray, but are struck dumb when thou comest into his presence, as David, then fall making signs when thou canst not speak; groan, sigh, sob, "chatter, "as Hezekiah did; bemoan thyself for thine unworthiness, and desire Christ to speak thy requests for thee, and God to hear him for thee.

Seeing her approach, the pie man gave her a friendly wave. ‘Where’s your mate today, then?’ he shouted pleasantly. ‘Indoors with a nasty cough,’ Sassy told him, and after exchanging a few words she moved on. Somehow, without Clara there to share them, the faggots and peas didn’t hold the same appeal. Taking the list from her pocket, she smiled to herself. Clara would never be classed as a scholar, judging by the many spelling mistakes. Soon Sassy’s basket was full of her purchases and, deciding that there was nothing to be gained by lingering, she headed home. When she finally turned into Tuttle Hill, all the while moving the heavy basket from one arm to the other, she was feeling more than a little deflated. Without Clara’s cheerful gossip she hadn’t enjoyed the outing nearly as much as usual. It was then that a sudden movement in the spinney to the side of the lane caught her eye. Setting down the heavy basket, she stopped to rest for a while and saw Thomas, Ellie and Jez suddenly emerge from the trees.

Therefore, seeing the Lord, when he doth speak, doth speak by others, and there is a great deal of reason for it, because it is your own request, let not God fare the worse in delivering his word; do not condemn it because men are fain to deliver it to you, for it is your own request. If he should speak himself, he would strike you dead at every word; therefore do not take advantage because God doth not back it with thunder, but receive the word as the word of God; for God himself would speak to you, if you were able to bear him; but because you are not, therefore he speaks by others.

Love descends better than ascends, and so does the love of Christ, who indeed is love itself, and therefore comes down to us himself; "I will come again and receive you unto myself" (says Christ), "that so where I am, you may be also." That last part of his speech gives the reason of it, and also divulges his entire affection.

Now the same Spirit dwelling in Christ's heart in heaven, that does in yours here, and always working in his heart first for you, and then in yours by commission from him; rest assured, therefore, that that Spirit stirs up in him bowels of mercy infinitely larger towards you than you can have unto yourselves.

The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you. He is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven. As he did take off Christ's words, and used the same that he before had uttered, when he spoke in and to the disciples the words of life, so he takes off of Christ's prayers also when he prays in us; he takes but the words as it were out of Christ's mouth, or heart rather, and directs our hearts to offer them up to God. He also follows us to the sacrament, and in that glass shows us Christ's face smiling on us, and through his face, his heart; and thus helping of us to a sight of him, we go away rejoicing that we saw our Saviour that day.

And the word συμπαθῆσαιis a deep word, signifying to suffer with us until we are relieved. And this affection, thus stirred up, is it which moves him so cordially to help us.

Now, take an estimate of Christ's heart herein, from those two holy apostles Paul and John, who were smaller resemblances of this in Christ. What, next to immediate communion with Christ himself, was the greatest joy they had to live upon in this world, but only the fruit of their ministry, appearing in the graces both of the lives and hearts of such as they had begotten unto Christ?

So, says Christ, injuries and unkindnesses do not so work upon me as to make me irreconcilable; it is my nature to forgive: "I am meek." Yes, but (may we think) he being the Son of God and heir of heaven, and especially being now filled with glory, and sitting at God's right hand, he may now despise the lowliness of us here below; though not out of anger, yet out of that height of his greatness and distance that he is advanced unto, in that we are too mean for him to marry, or be familiar with. He surely has higher thoughts than to regard such poor, low things as we are. And so though indeed we conceive him meek, and not prejudiced with injuries, yet he may be too high and lofty to condescend so far as to regard, or take to heart, the condition of poor creatures. No, says Christ; "I am lowly" also, willing to bestow my love and favour upon the poorest and meanest.

Dios es lo más glorioso en lo que nuestras mentes pueden fijarse, lo más atrayente. Los pensamientos acerca de Él deberían tragarse otros pensamientos, ya que no son dignos ni de compartir con Él el mismo día.

Nuestros pensamientos y entendimiento fueron asignados para moderar, suavizar, enfriar y apartar nuestras pasiones cuando estas se desbordan, para gobernarlas y dominarlas. Pero, en lugar de eso, se sujetan a nuestras emociones, convirtiéndose en algo parecido al combustible para nuestros malos deseos, y haciéndoles arder más.

Si alguna vez estamos inclinados a enorgullecernos de nuestro conocimiento bíblico, debemos abrir cualquier volumen de John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, o Thomas Brooks, observar cómo se cita algún pasaje desconocido de Nahum seguido de un pasaje conocido de Juan —donde ambos ilustran perfectamente el punto que está planteando el escritor—, luego comparar nuestro conocimiento con el de ellos.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.” -Thomas Jefferson

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”   -Thomas Jefferson

The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside.”   -Thomas Paine

Now the kingdom of power, glory experienced by the Church and Christ is the more endeared and enriched to us by our rescue from the empire of Satan and the world whose domain is the air and will end with the air, whereas ours are in heavenly places. —Thomas Goodwin.

Romans 8:16 tells us that the Spirit bears witness to our hearts that we are children of God. Part of the mission of the Spirit is to tell you about God’s love for you, his delight in you, and the fact that you are his child. These things you may know in your head, but the Holy Spirit makes them a fiery reality in your life. Thomas Goodwin, a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, wrote that one day he saw a father and son walking along the street. Suddenly the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him and kissed him and told the boy he loved him—and then after a minute he put the boy back down. Was the little boy more a son in the father’s arms than he was down on the street? Objectively and legally, there was no difference, but subjectively and experientially, there was all the difference in the world. In his father’s arms, the boy was experiencing his sonship.

Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.” Something

Thomas Goodwin, a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, wrote that one day he saw a father and son walking along the street. Suddenly the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him and kissed him and told the boy he loved him—and then after a minute he put the boy back down. Was the little boy more a son in the father’s arms than he was down on the street? Objectively and legally, there was no difference, but subjectively and experientially, there was all the difference in the world. In his father’s arms, the boy was experiencing his sonship. When

Thomas Goodwin said that “next to the Bible, he esteemed Dr. Ames, his Marrow of Divinity, as the best book in the world.

Secondly, He bids his ambassadors declare, that as to that point men need not trouble themselves, nor take care about it; for he himself hath further been so zealously affected in this business, that he himself hath made full provision, and took order for that aforehand, and done it to their hand; He hath been in Christ, reconciling the world; that is, in him and by him, as a mediator, and umpire, and surety between them and him, this great matter hath been taken up and accorded. For he and Jesus Christ his only Son have from all eternity laid their counsels together (as I may so speak with reverence), to end this great difference; and they both contrived and agreed, that Christ should undertake to satisfy his Father, for all the wrong was done to him, all which he should take upon himself, as if he were guilty of it; he was made sin, 2 Cor. v. 21, that is, a surety and a satisfaction for it. And God the Father, upon it, is so fully satisfied, as he is ready not only not to impute their sins to them, ver. 19, but to impute all Christ’s righteousness to them, and to receive them into favour more fully than ever they were. He was made sin, that they might be made the righteousness of God in him.

strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”   -Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Goodwin Jr. wrote of his godly father: In all the violence of [his fever], he discoursed with that strength of faith and assurance of Christ’s love, with that holy admiration of free grace, with that joy in believing, and such thanksgivings and praises, as he extremely moved and affected all that heard him…. He rejoiced in the thoughts that he was dying, and going to have a full and uninterrupted communion with God. ‘I am going,’ said he, ‘to the three Persons, with whom I have had communion: they have taken me; I did not take them…. I could not have imagined I should ever have had such a measure of faith in this hour…. Christ cannot love me better than he doth; I think I cannot love Christ better than I do; I am swallowed up in God….’ With this assurance of faith, and fullness of joy,

cuidadoso

A human being lives out not only his personal life as an individual,” remarked Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain, “but also, consciously or subconsciously, the lives of his epoch and his contemporaries.

I will come again and receive you unto myself" (says Christ), "that so where I am, you may be also." That last part of his speech gives the reason of it, and also divulges his entire affection. It is as if he had said, 'The truth is, I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet until I have you where I am, that so we may never part again; that is the reason of it. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father's company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set upon you; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it.

Thomas Goodwin quotes Jeremiah 31:20 and then deduces that if this is true of God, how much more of Christ. He explains that such a text “may afford us the strongest consolations and encouragements” in the presence of many sins in our lives: There is comfort concerning such infirmities, in that your very sins move him to pity more than to anger. . . . Christ takes part with you, and is far from being provoked against you, as all his anger is turned upon your sin to ruin it; yea, his pity is increased the more towards you, even as the heart of a father is to a child that has some loathsome disease, or as one is to a member of his body that has leprosy, he hates not the member, for it is his flesh, but the disease, and that provokes him to pity the part affected the more. What shall not make for us, when our sins, that are both against Christ and us, shall be turned as motives to him to pity us the more?2

Algunos suspiran durante toda la semana hasta que suceden cosas nuevas, convierten en parte de la felicidad de sus vidas el estudiar cómo va el estado, más que el estudiar cómo marchan sus propios corazones, o incluso sus propios negocios. Sin embargo, no piensan en las miserias de la iglesia de Cristo, ni ayudan con sus oraciones.

Paul heard not one sermon of Christ's (that he knew of) while on earth, and received the gospel from no man, apostle or other, but by the immediate revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven, as he speaks, Galatians 1:11-12. But he was converted by Christ himself from heaven, by immediate speech and conference of Christ himself with him, and this long after his ascension.

Thomas Goodwin (1600–1679), one of the English Puritan pastors and, for a time, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, expressed this wonderful mutual benefit of serious thinking and spiritual affections: Indeed, thoughts and affections are sibi mutuo causae—the mutual causes of each other: “Whilst I mused, the fire burned” (Psalm 39:3); so that thoughts are the bellows that kindle and inflame affections; and then if they are inflamed, they cause thoughts to boil; therefore men newly converted to God, having new and strong affections, can with more pleasure think of God than any.3

As the crowd responded with yells and cheers, Lincoln “gave way to intense and scathing ridicule,” mocking still further the “ludicrous” way Thomas spoke. Seated in the audience, Thomas broke down in tears, and soon the “skinning of Thomas” became “the talk of the town.” Realizing he had badly overstepped, Lincoln went to Thomas and gave him a heartfelt apology, and for years afterward, the memory of that night filled Lincoln “with the deepest chagrin.” Increasingly, though not always, he was able to rein in his impulse to throw a hurtful counterpunch. He was after something more significant than the gratification of an artfully delivered humiliation.

our only hope is that the one who shares in all our pain shares in it as the pure and holy one. Our sinless high priest is not one who needs rescue but who provides it. This is why we can go to him to “receive mercy and find grace” (4:16). He himself is not trapped in the hole of sin with us; he alone can pull us out. His sinlessness is our salvation. But here we are beginning to move over into the work of Christ. The burden of Hebrews 4:15, and of Thomas Goodwin’s book on it, is the heart of Christ. Yes, verse 16 speaks of “the throne of grace.” But verse 15 is opening up to us the heart of grace. Not only can he alone pull us out of the hole of sin; he alone desires to climb in and bear our burdens. Jesus is able to sympathize. He “co-suffers” with us. As Goodwin’s contemporary John Owen put it, Christ “is inclined from his own heart and affections to give . . . us help and relief . . . and he is inwardly moved during our sufferings and trials with a sense and fellow-feeling of them.”5 If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours. 1

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. Thomas Jefferson