Wednesdays with Watson is a weekly reading taken from my favorite Puritan writer, Thomas Watson. This week’s selection is taken from All Things for Good.
If we are lovers of God, we love what God loves.
(1) We love God’s Word. David esteemed the Word, for the sweetness of it, above honey (Psalm 119.103),
and for the value of it, above gold (Psalm 119.72). The lines of Scripture are richer than the mines of gold. Well may we love the Word; it is the lode-star that directs us to heaven, it is the field in which the Pearl is hid. That man who does not love the Word, but thinks it too strict and could wish any part of the Bible torn out (as an adulterer did the seventh commandment), he has not the least spark of love in his heart.
(2) We love God’s day. We do not only keep a sabbath, but love a sabbath. ‘If thou call the sabbath a delight’ (Isa. 58.13). The sabbath is that which keeps up the face of religion amongst us; this day must be consecrated as glorious to the Lord. ‘I`he house of God is the palace of the great King; on the sabbath God shows Himself there through the lattice If we love God we prize His day above all other days All the week would be dark if it were not for this day; on this day manna falls double. Now, if ever, heaven-gate stands open, and God comes down in a golden shower. This blessed day the Sun of righteousness rises upon the soul. How does a gracious heart prize that day which was made on purpose to enjoy God in!
(3) We love God’s laws. A gracious soul is glad of the law because it checks his sinful excesses. The heart would be ready to run wild in sin if it had not some blessed restraints put upon it by the law of God. He that loves God loves His law — the law of repentance, the law of self-denial. Many say they love God but they hate His laws. ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us’ (Psalm 2.3). God’s precepts are compared to cords, they bind men to their good behaviour; but the wicked think these cords too tight, therefore they say, Let us break them. They pretend to love Christ as a Saviour, but hate Him as a King. Christ tells us of His yoke (Matt. 11.29). Sinners would have Christ put a crown upon their head, but not a yoke upon their neck. He were a strange king that should rule without laws.
(4) We love God’s picture, we love His image shining in the saints. ‘He that loves Him that begat, loves him also that is begotten of him’ (1 John 5.1). It is possible to love a saint, yet not to love him as a saint; we may love him for something else, for his ingenuity, or because he is affable and bountiful. A beast loves a man, but not as he is a man, but because he feeds him, and gives him provender. But to love a saint as he is a saint, this is a sign of love to God. If we love a saint for his saintship, as having something of God in him, then we love him in these four cases.
(a) We love a saint, though he be poor. A man that loves gold, loves a piece of gold, though it be in a rag: so, though a saint be in rags, we love him because there is something of Christ in him.
(b) We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there is a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest stars their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you?
(c) We love the saints though in some lesser things they differ from us. Perhaps another Christian has not so much light as you, and that may make him err in some things; will you presently unsaint him because he cannot come up to your light? Where there is union in fundamentals, there ought to be union in affections.
(d) We love the saints, though they are persecuted. We love precious metal, though it be in the furnace. Paul bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6.17). Those marks were, like the soldier’s scars, honorable. We must love a saint as well in chains, as in scarlet. If we love Christ, we love His persecuted members.
If this is love to God, when we love His image sparkling in the saints, oh then, how few lovers of God are to be found! Do they love God, who hate them that are like God? Do they love Christ’s person, who are filled with a spirit of revenge against His people? How can that wife be said to love her husband, who tears his picture? Surely Judas and Julian are not yet dead, their spirit yet lives in the world. Who are guilty but the innocent! What greater crime than holiness, if the devil may be one of the grand jury! Wicked men seem to bear great reverence to the saints departed ; they canonize dead saints, but persecute living saints. In vain do men stand up at the creed, and tell the world they believe in God, when they abominate one of the articles of the creed, namely, the communion of saints. Surely, there is not a greater sign of a man ripe for hell, than this, not only to lack grace, but
to hate it.
Words of Grace 