Thomas Watson - Repentance must be a turning from sin as to turning unto God

This is in the text, "that they should 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. We read in scripture of a repentance from dead works (Heb. 6:1), and a repentance toward God (Acts 20:21). Unsound hearts pretend to leave old sins—but they do not turn to God or embrace his service. It is not enough to forsake the devil's quarters—but we must get under Christ's banner and wear his colors. The repenting prodigal did not only leave his harlots—but he arose and went to his father! It was God's complaint, "They do not turn to the Most High God" (Hos. 7:16). In true repentance the heart points directly to God—as the compass needle to the North Pole.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - There must be a great change in the heart, and in the life

The sixth ingredient in repentance, is a turning from sin. ...This turning from sin implies a great change.

There is a change wrought in the heart. The flinty heart has become fleshly. Satan would have Christ prove his deity—by turning stones into bread. Christ has wrought a far greater miracle—in making stones become flesh. In repentance Christ turns a heart of stone—into a heart of flesh.

There is a change wrought in the life. Turning from sin is so visible, that others may discern it. Therefore it is called a change from darkness to light (Eph. 5:8). Paul, after he had seen the heavenly vision, was so different—that all men wondered at the change (Acts 9:21). Repentance changed the jailer into a nurse and a servant (Acts 16:33). He took the apostles and washed their wounds and set food before them. A ship is going eastward; there comes a wind which turns it westward. Likewise, a man was turning hell-ward before the contrary wind of the Spirit blew, turned his course, and caused him to sail heaven-ward.

Chrysostom, speaking of the Ninevites' repentance, said that if a stranger who had seen Nineveh's excess had gone into the city after they repented, he would scarcely have believed it was the same city—because it was so transformed and reformed. Such a visible change does repentance make in a person—it is as if another soul lodged in the same body!


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Jonathan Edwards - Pray for the church and ministers

Pray much for the church of God and especially that he would carry on his glorious work that he has now begun. Be much in prayer for the ministers of Christ.


Particularly I would beg a special interest in your prayers and the prayers of your Christian companions, both when you are alone and when you are together, for your affectionate friend, that rejoices over you and desires
to be your servant.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - walk with God and follow Christ

In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ's hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on his hands and side. From these wounds came the blood that cleanses you from sin and hides your nakedness under the skirt of the white shining robe of his righteousness.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - On talking on things of religion

Don't talk of things of religion and matters of experience with an air of lightness and laughter, which is too much the custom in many places.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - behave in a manner worthy of Christ

Don't let the adversaries of religion have any grounds to say that these converts don't carry themselves any better than others. 

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:46-48) 

How holy should the children of God be! And the redeemed and the ones beloved of the Son of God should behave themselves in a manner worthy of Christ. Therefore walk as a child of the light and of the day, and adorn the doctrine of God your Savior. Particularly be much in those things that may especially be called Christian virtues, that make you like the Lamb of God. Be meek and lowly of heart and full of a pure, heavenly, and humble love to all. Abound in deeds of love to others and of self-denial for others, and let there be in you a disposition to account others better than yourself.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - When in need of or great longings after any particular mercies for yourself or others

Under special difficulties, or when in great need of or great longings after any particular mercies for your self or others, set apart a day of secret fasting and prayer alone. Let the day be spent not only in petitions for the mercies you desired, but in searching your heart, and looking over your past life, and confessing your sins before God, not as practiced in public prayer, but by a very particular rehearsal before God. Include the sins of your past life from your childhood up until now, both before and after conversion, with particular circumstances and aggravations. Also be very particular and as thorough as possible, spreading all the abominations of your heart before him.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - Exhort, counsel and warn others

You should be often exhorting and counseling and warning others, especially at such a day as this: 

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one anotherand all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb. 10:25)
 
... When you counsel and warn others, do it earnestly, affectionately, and thoroughly. And when you are speaking to your equals, let your warnings be intermixed with expressions of your sense of your own unworthiness and of the sovereign grace that makes you differ. And, if you can with a good conscience, say how you in yourself are more unworthy than they.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts) 

Jonathan Edwards - The effects that your best conversations and experiences produce

That you may pass a good judgment on your spiritual condition, always consider your best conversations and best experiences to be the ones that produce the following two effects: first, those conversations and experiences that make you least, lowest, and most like a little child; and, second, those that do most engage and fix your heart in a full and firm disposition to deny yourself for God and to spend and be spent for him.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - On pride

Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ. It was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building. It is the most difficult to root out, and it is the most hidden, secret, and deceitful of all lust, and it often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - Never think that you lie low enough for your remaining sin, but keep in view the great Advocate we have with the Father

Be always greatly humbled by your remaining sin, and never think that you lie low enough for it, but yet don't be at all discouraged or disheartened by it. Although we are exceeding sinful, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the preciousness of whose blood, the merit of whose righteousness, and the greatness of whose love and faithfulness infinitely overtop the highest mountains of our sins.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - You have more reason to lament & humble yourself for sins since conversion than before conversion

Remember that you have more cause, on some accounts a thousand times more, to lament and humble yourself for sins that have been since conversion than those that were before conversion, because of the infinitely greater obligations that are upon you to live to God. Look upon the faithfulness of Christ in unchangeably continuing his loving favor, and the unspeakable and saving fruits of his everlasting love. Despite all your great unworthiness since your conversion, his grace remains as great or as wonderful as it was in converting you.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - Remember your past sins

Though God has forgiven and forgotten your past sins, yet don't forget them yourself. Often remember what a wretched bond slave you were in the land of Egypt. Often bring to mind your particular acts of sin before conversion, as the blessed Apostle Paul is often mentioning his old blaspheming, persecuting, and injuriousness, to the renewed humbling of his heart and acknowledging that he was the least of the apostles, and not worthy to be called an apostle, and the least of saints, and the chief of sinners. And be often in confessing your old sins to God. Also, let this following passage be often in your mind:


Then, when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the sovereign LORD. (Ezek. 16:63).


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - When you hear sermons

When you hear sermons, hear them for yourself, even though what is spoken in them may be more especially directed to the unconverted or to those that in other respects are in different circumstances from yourself. Let the chief intent of your mind be to consider what ways you can apply the things that you are hearing in the sermon. You should ask, What improvement should I make, based on these things, for my own soul's good?


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - When seeking, striving and praying

Don't slack off seeking, striving, and praying for the very same things that we exhort unconverted persons to strive for, and a degree of which you have had in conversion. Thus pray that your eyes may be opened, that you may receive your sight, that you may know yourself and be brought to God's feet, and that you may see the glory of God and Christ, may be raised from the dead, and have the love of Christ shed abroad in your heart. Those that have most of these things still need to pray for them; for there is so much blindness and hardness and pride and death remaining that they still need to have that work of God upon them, further to enlighten and enliven them. This will be a further bringing out of darkness into God's marvelous light, and a kind of new conversion and resurrection from the dead. There are very few requests that are not only proper for a natural person, but that in some sense are also proper for the godly.


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Jonathan Edwards - Be extremely earnest for the kingfom of heaven, especially when you have attained conversion

I would advise you to keep up as great a strife and earnestness in religion in all aspects of it, as you would do if you knew yourself to be in a state of nature and you were seeking conversion. We advise persons under convictions to be extremely earnest for the kingdom of heaven, but when they have attained conversion they ought not to be the less watchful, laborious, and earnest in the whole work of religion, but the more; for they are under infinitely greater obligations. For lack of this, many persons in a few months after their conversion have begun to lose the sweet and lively sense of spiritual things, and to grow cold and flat and dark. They have pierced themselves through with many sorrows, whereas if they had done as the Apostle did in Philippians 3:12-14, their path would have been as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day.

Not that I have already all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:12-14)


- Jonathan Edwards (Advice to Young Converts)

Thomas Watson - Compare sin with hell

Compare sin with hell, and you shall see that sin is worse. Torment has its epitome in hell—yet nothing in hell is as bad as sin. Hell is of God's making—but sin is not of God's making. Sin is the devil's creature. The torments of hell are a burden only to the sinner—but sin is a burden to God. In the torments of hell, there is something that is good, namely, the execution of divine justice. There is justice to be found in hell—but sin is a piece of the highest injustice. It would rob God of his glory, Christ of his purchase, the soul of its happiness. Judge then if sin is not a most hateful thing—which is worse than affliction, or the torments of hell.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - Where there is a real hatred of sin, we not only oppose sin in ourselves but in others too

The church at Ephesus could not bear with those who were evil (Rev. 2:2). Paul sharply censured Peter for his deception, although he was an apostle. Christ in a holy anger, whipped the money-changers out of the temple (John 2:15). He would not allow the temple to be made an exchange. Nehemiah rebuked the nobles for their usury (Neh. 5:7) and their Sabbath profanation (Neb. 13:17).

A sin-hater will not endure wickedness in his family: "He who works deceit shall not dwell within my house" (Psalm 101:7). What a shame it is when magistrates can show height of spirit in their passions—but no heroic spirit in suppressing vice.

Those who have no antipathy against sin, are strangers to repentance. Sin is in them—as poison in a serpent, which, being natural to it, affords delight. How far are they from repentance who, instead of hating sin, love sin! To the godly—sin is as a thorn in the eye; to the wicked sin is as a crown on the head! "They actually rejoice in doing evil!" (Jer. 11:15). 

Loving of sin is worse than committing it. A good man may run into a sinful action unawares—but to love sin is desperate. What is it, which makes a swine love to tumble in the mire? Its love of filth. To love sin shows that the will is in sin, and the more of the will there is in a sin, the greater the sin. Wilfulness makes it a sin not to be purged by sacrifice (Heb. 10:26). O how many there are—who love the forbidden fruit! They love their oaths and adulteries; they love the sin and hate the reproof. Solomon speaks of a generation of men: "madness is in their heart while they live" (Eccles. 9:3). So for men to love sin, to hug that which will be their death, to sport with damnation, "madness is in their heart". It persuades us to show our repentance, by a bitter hatred of sin. There is a deadly antipathy between the scorpion and the crocodile; such should there be between the heart and sin.

- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - When a man's heart is set against sin

When a man's heart is set against sin, not only does the tongue protest against sin—but the heart abhors it. However lovely sin is painted—we find it odious—just as we abhor the picture of one whom we mortally hate, even though it may be well drawn. Suppose a dish be finely cooked and the sauce good—yet if a man has an antipathy against the meat—he will not eat it. So let the devil cook and dress sin with pleasure and profit—yet a true penitent has a secret abhorrence of it, is disgusted by it, and will not meddle with it.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - The sins that we commit and the sins that the devils commit

The fallen angels never sinned against Christ's blood. Christ did not die for them. The medicine of his merit was never intended to heal them. But we have affronted his blood by unbelief. The devils never sinned against God's patience. As soon as they apostatized, they were damned. God never waited for the angels—but we have spent upon the stock of God's patience. He has pitied our weakness, borne with our rebelliousness. His Spirit has been repulsed—yet has still importuned us and will take no denial. Our conduct has been so provoking as to have tired not only the patience of a Job, but of all the angels. The devils never sinned against example. They were the first that sinned and were made the first example. We have seen the angels, those morning stars, fall from their glorious orb; we have seen the old world drowned, Sodom burned—yet have ventured upon sin. How desperate is that thief who robs in the very place where his fellow hangs in chains. And surely, if we have out-sinned the devils, it may well put us to the blush.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - The sins that we commit and the sins that heathens commit

That which may make us blush, is that the sins we commit are far worse than the sins of the heathen. We act against more light. To us have been committed the oracles of God. The sin committed by a Christian is worse than the same sin committed by an heathen, because the Christian sins against clearer conviction, which is like weight put into the scale, which makes it weigh heavier.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 4)

Thomas Watson - Godly sorrow is sincere

It is sorrow for the offence—rather than for the punishment. God's law has been infringed—and his love abused. This melts the soul in tears. A man may be sorry—yet not repent. A thief is sorry when he is caught, not because he stole—but because he has to pay the penalty! Hypocrites grieve only for the bitter consequence of sin. Their eyes never pour out tears—except when God's judgments are approaching. Pharaoh was more troubled for the frogs—than for his sin.

Godly sorrow, however, is chiefly for the trespass against God—so that even if there were no conscience to smite, no devil to accuse, no hell to punish—yet the soul would still be grieved because of the offense done to God. "My sin is ever before me" (Psalm 51:3); David does not say, The sword is ever before me—but "my sin". "O that I should offend so good a God, that I should grieve my Comforter! This breaks my heart!" Godly sorrow shows itself to be sincere, because when a Christian knows that he is out of the gun-shot of hell and shall never be damned—yet he still grieves for sinning against that free grace which has pardoned him! 

- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 3)

Thomas Watson - Sin must first be seen before it can be wept for

The first thing God made was light. So the first thing in a penitent, is illumination: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord" (Eph. 5:8). The eye is made both for seeing and weeping. Sin must first be seen—before it can be wept for. Hence I infer that where there is no sight of sin—there can be no repentance.


- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 3)

Thomas Watson - Repentance is wrought by the Spirit

One of the two ways in which repentance is wrought is by the Spirit

Ministers are but the pipes and organs. It is the Holy Spirit breathing in them—which makes their words effectual: "While Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the Word" (Acts 10:44). The Spirit in the Word illuminates and converts. When the Spirit touches a heart—it dissolves with tears: "I will pour upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace—and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn" (Zech. 12:10).

It is astonishing to consider what different effects the Word has upon men. Some at a sermon are like Jonah: their heart is tender and they let tears fall. Others are no more affected with it than a deaf man with music. Some grow better by the Word—others grow worse. The same earth which causes sweetness in the grape—causes bitterness in the wormwood. What is the reason the Word works so differently? It is because the Spirit of God carries the Word to the conscience of one—and not another. One has received the divine annointing—and not the other (1 John 2:20). I pray that the dew may fall with the manna—that the Spirit may go along with the Word. The chariot of ordinances will not carry us to heaven unless the Spirit of God joins himself to this chariot (Acts 8:29).

- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 1)

Thomas Watson - Repentance is a grace required under the gospel

Repentance is a grace required under the gospel. Some think it legal; but the first sermon that Christ preached, indeed, the first word of his sermon, was "Repent!" (Matt. 4:17) And his farewell that he left when he was going to ascend was that "repentance should be preached in his name" (Luke 24:47).The apostles plucked upon this same string: "They went out and preached that men should repent" (Mark 6:12).

Repentance is a pure gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance; there it was, sin and die! Repentance came in by the gospel. Christ has purchased in his death—that repenting sinners shall be saved. The Law required personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience. It cursed all who could not come up to this: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law" (Gal. 3:10). It does not say, "he who obeys not all things, let him repent" —but, "let him be cursed." Thus repentance is a doctrine that has been brought to light, only by the gospel. 

- Thomas Watson (The Doctrine of Repentance, Chapter 1)

Thomas Goodwin - What a friend we have in Jesus

In all miseries and distresses, you know where to have a Friend to help and pity you; one, whose nature, office, interest, relation, all, engage him to your succor. You will find men, even friends, to be often unreasonable, and their bowels in many cases shut up: well, say to them all, "If you will not pity me, I know one that will; one in heaven, whose `heart is touched with the feeling of all my infirmities,' and I will go and bemoan myself to him. ‘Come boldly,' to lay open your complaints, and 'you shall find grace and mercy to help in time of need.'


- Thomas Goodwin (The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth, Part 3)

Thomas Goodwin - A great motive against sin

As the doctrine delivered is a comfort, so it is the greatest motive against sin, and persuasive unto obedience, to consider, that Christ's heart, if it be not afflicted with, (and how far it may suffer with us,we know not,) yet for certain has less joy in us, in proportion as we are less obedient. You know not by sinning what blows you give the heart of Christ. And take this as one incentive to obedience; if he retain the same heart towards you which he had on earth, endeavor you to have the same heart towards him on earth, which you hope to have in heaven.


- Thomas Goodwin (The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth, Part 3)

Thomas Goodwin - Jesus knows more of the guilt of sin and the temptations from it than any one of us

As for the guilt of sin, and the temptations from it, he knows more of that than any one of us. He tasted the bitterness of that more deeply than we can, and of the cup of his Father's wrath for it; and so is able experimentally to pity a heart wounded with it, and struggling under such temptations. He knows full well the heart of one forsaken by GOD, seeing himself felt it, when he cried out, " My God! my God! why has you forsaken me".


- Thomas Goodwin (The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth, Part 3)

Thomas Goodwin - A fit priest

The apostle puts in indeed that he was tempted, yet without sin; and it was well for us that he was thus without sin; for otherwise he had not been a fit priest to have saved us: so Heb. 7: 25, " Such an High-Priest became us as was separate from sinners." Yet withal, consider, that he came as near in that point as might be, " He was tempted in all things," though " without sin" on his part; yet tempted to all sin, so far as to be afflicted in those temptations, and to see the misery of those that are tempted. Even as in taking our nature in his birth, he came as near as could be, without being tainted with original sin, by taking the very same matter to have his body made of that all ours are made of; so in the point of actual sin also, he suffered himself to be tempted as far as might be, and yet to keep himself pure. And because he was tempted by Satan unto sin, therefore it is added, "yet without sin:" it is as if he had said, sin never stained him, though he was outwardly tempted to it.


- Thomas Goodwin (The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth, Part 3)

John Calvin - who but Jesus Christ?

This will become still clearer if we reflect, that the work to be performed by the Mediator was of no common description: being to restore us to the divine favour, so as to make us, instead of sons of men, sons of God; instead of heirs of hell, heirs of a heavenly kingdom. Who could do this unless the Son of God should also become the Son of man, and so receive what is ours as to transfer to us what is his, making that which is his by nature to become ours by grace? Relying on this earnest, we trust that we are the sons of God, because the natural Son of God assumed to himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, bones of our bones, that he might be one with us; he declined not to take what was peculiar to us, that he might in his turn extend to us what was peculiarly his own, and thus might be in common with us both Son of God and Son of man. Hence that holy brotherhood which he commends with his own lips, when he says, "I ascend to my Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God," (John 20: 17.) In this way, we have a sure inheritance in the heavenly kingdom, because the only Son of God, to whom it entirely belonged, has adopted us as his brethren; and if brethren, then partners with him in the inheritance, (Rom. 8: 17.) Moreover, it was especially necessary for this cause also that he who was to be our Redeemer should be truly God and man. It was his to swallow up death: who but Life could do so? It was his to conquer sin: who could do so save Righteousness itself? It was his to put to flight the powers of the air and the world: who could do so but the mighty power superior to both? But who possesses life and righteousness, and the dominion and government of heaven, but God alone? Therefore, God, in his infinite mercy, having determined to redeem us, became himself our Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son.


- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.2)

John Calvin - The necessity of our Mediator to be very God and very man

It deeply concerned us, that he who was to be our Mediator should be very God and very man. If the necessity be inquired into, it was not what is commonly termed simple or absolute, but flowed from the divine decree on which the salvation of man depended. What was best for us, our most merciful Father determined. Our iniquities, like a cloud intervening between Him and us, having utterly alienated us from the kingdom of heaven, none but a person reaching to him could be the medium of restoring peace. But who could thus reach to him? Could any of the sons of Adam? All of them, with their parents, shuddered at the sight of God. Could any of the angels? They had need of a head, by connection with which they might adhere to their God entirely and inseparably. What then? The case was certainly desperate, if the Godhead itself did not descend to us, it being impossible for us to ascend. Thus the Son of God behoved to become our Emmanuel, the God with us; and in such a way, that by mutual union his divinity and our nature might be combined; otherwise, neither was the proximity near enough, nor the affinity strong enough, to give us hope that God would dwell with us; so great was the repugnance between our pollution and the spotless purity of God. Had man remained free from all taint, he was of too humble a condition to penetrate to God without a Mediator. What, then, must it have been, when by fatal ruin he was plunged into death and hell, defiled by so many stains, made loathsome by corruption; in fine, overwhelmed with every curse? It is not without cause, therefore, that Paul, when he would set forth Christ as the Mediator, distinctly declares him to be man. There is, says he, "one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," (1 Tim. 2: 5.) He might have called him God, or at least, omitting to call him God he might also have omitted to call him man; but because the Spirit, speaking by his mouth, knew our infirmity, he opportunely provides for it by the most appropriate remedy, setting the Son of God familiarly before us as one of ourselves. That no one, therefore, may feel perplexed where to seek the Mediator, or by what means to reach him, the Spirit, by calling him man, reminds us that he is near, nay, contiguous to us, inasmuch as he is our flesh. And, indeed, he intimates the same thing in another place, where he explains at greater length that he is not a high priest who "cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," (Heb. 4: 15.)


- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.12.1)