Repentance (part 1)

I’m slowly working through a book by an old-school Puritan, Thomas Watson, titled “The Doctrine of Repentance.” It’s rich with passionate pleas to turn from sin and turn to Christ! To turn from death and turn to live! To turn from God's displeasure to live in His joy! Here are a few excerpts from chapters 1-4. May we all learn to live in repentance.

In Adam we all suffered shipwreck, and repentance is the only plank left us after shipwreck to swim to heaven. (p. 13)

Until the heart is full of compunction [regret] it is not fit for Christ. How welcome is a surgeon to a man who is bleeding from his wounds! (p. 20)

We are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it. (p. 24)

O Christian, the disease of your soul is chronic and frequently returns upon you; therefore you must be continually physicking yourself by repentance. (26)

The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ. (27)

Our hearts must go along with our confessions. The hypocrite confesses sin but loves it, like a thief who confesses to stolen goods, yet loves stealing. (p, 29)

The sins we [Christians] commit are far worse than the sins of the heathen. We act against more light….the Christian sins against clearer conviction. (p. 42)

Be assured, the more we are ashamed of sin now, the less we shall be ashamed at Christ’s coming. (p. 44)

A true penitent is a sin-loather….It is more to loath sin than to leave it…the nauseating and loathing of sin argues a detestation of it. Christ is never loved till sin be loathed. Heaven is never longed for till sin be loathed….Sound repentance begins in the love of God and ends in the hatred of sin…a rue penitent with a secret abhorrence of it is disgusted by it and will not meddle with it. (p. 45-46)

To the godly sin is as a thorn in the eye; to the wicked it is as a crown on the head. (p. 47)

Sin is the Trojan horse out of which comes a whole army of troubles. (p. 51)

A real penitent turns out off the road of sin. Every sin is abandoned—not one must escape—so a true convert seeks the destruction of every lust. He knows how dangerous it is to entertain any one sin. He that hides one rebel in his house is a traitor to the Crown and he that indulges one sin is a traitorous hypocrite. (p. 54)

“Repent and turn to God” (Acts 26:20) – Turning from sin is like pulling the arrow out of the wound; turning to God is like pouring in the balm. (p. 55)