Heaven Taken By Storm: Or, The Christian Soldier
Thomas Watson's short but bracing treatise on Matthew 11:12 argues that heaven is entered only by holy violence, a determined, strenuous pursuit of God rather than a passive drift toward glory. He works through the concrete means by which believers press forward: reading the Word, prayer, meditation, self-examination, holy conversation, and keeping the Lord's Day. It endures as a practical spur against spiritual laziness.
Based on The Christian Soldier, or Heaven Taken by Storm (1669)
Puritan quotes
Quotes by Thomas Watson
“The right way to take heaven is by storm.”
“The Word is the treasury of divine knowledge; it is the rule and touchstone of truth; out of this well we draw the water of life.”
“Self-examination is the setting up a court in conscience, and keeping a register there, that by strict scrutiny a man may know how things stand between God and his own soul.”
“Mercy is not like the sun to the fire, to dull it, but like the oil to the wheel, to make it run faster.”
“A hard heart is the anvil on which the hammer of God’s justice will be striking to all eternity.”
“A gracious heart is like a piece of good ground that, having received the seed of mercy, produces a crop of obedience.”
“It is not enough to have a few transient thoughts of God by the by, but there must be a fixing of our minds on God, till our hearts are warmed in love to him, and we can say, like those in Like 24:32, 'Did not our heart burn within us?”
“An idle person is the devil’s tennis ball, which he bandies up and down with temptation till at last the ball goes out of play.”
“Faith is the oil which feeds the lamp of hope. Faith and hope are two turtle-dove graces; take away one, and the other languishes. If the sinews are cut, the body is lame; if this sinew of faith is cut, hope is lame.”
“Believers are Christ’s garden; their graces are flowers; their savory discourse is the fragrant scent of these flowers.”
