“Here joy begins to enter into us, there we shall enter into joy” by Thomas Watson

“‘Is His mercy clean gone?’ (Psalm 77:8). Now, when the soul is in this case, and ready to faint away in despair, God shines upon the soul, and gives it some apprehension of His favour, and turns the shadow of death into the light of the morning…

If God gives His people such joy in this life: O then what glorious joy will He give them in heaven! ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,’ (Matthew 25:21). Here joy begins to enter into us, there we shall enter into joy; God keeps His best wine till last.”

–Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity Contained in Sermons Upon the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1692/1970), 269, 272-273.