Regarding the necessity of repentance for all sins, Watson writes:
In particular, let us lament the corruption of our will and our affections. Let us mourn for the corruption of our will. The will not following the dictamen (precept or injunction) of right reason is biased to evil. The will distasts (dislikes) God, not as he is good, but as he is holy. It contumaciously affronts him: 'we will do whatsoever goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven' (Jer. 44.17). The greatest wound has fallen upon our will.
Let us grieve for the diversion of our affections. They are taken off from their proper object. The affections, like arrows, shoot beside the mark. At the beginning our affections were wings to fly to God; now they are weights to pull us from him.
Let us grieve for the inclination of our affections. Our love is set on sin, our joy on the creature. Our affections, like the lapwing, feed on dung. How justly may the distemper of our affections bear a part in the scene of our grief? We of ourselves are falling into hell, and our affections would thrust us thither.
Later Watson encourages his readers to make a serious consideration of sin. He writes:
Sin is a debt. It is compared to the debt of ten thousand talents (Matt. 18.24). Of all the debts we owe, our sins are the worst. With other debts a sinner may flee to foreign parts, but with sin he cannot. 'Whither shall I flee from thy presence' (Ps. 139.7). God knows where to find out all his debtors. Death frees a man from other debts but it will not free him from this. It is not the death of the debtor but the creditor that discharges this debt.
In the sweeping popularity of prosperity preaching, this dose of penitent, puritanical persuasion was a pleasure to peruse. That last paragraph was particularly powerful and penetrating. (These two sentences are in memoriam of Adrian Rogers, whom I heard on the radio today).
ReplyDeleteHow strangely relevant this focus on sin as debt is for our socio-historical context so many years later. That our desires and affections, as expressions of our carnal craving will, drive us deeper and deeper into debt financially would provide a great springboard for the gospel: from the despair and hopelessness of financial debt to the reality and root of our despair and utter hopelessness, our sin debt before God, to the death of the Creditor! Truly beautiful.
Plumbing deeply into the depth and depravity, the gravity and grotesqueness of my own sinfulness, because of Watson’s remarks, was a pleasant change from all the recent ANE background stuff ;)