Excerpt from The Doctrine of Repentance, By Thomas Watson. (Chapter 3, Ingredient 2)
I will be sorry for my sin (Psalm 38. 18)
Ambrose calls sorrow “the embittering of the soul.” The Hebrew word “to be sorrowful” signifies “to have the soul,” as it were, “crucified.” This must be so in true repentance: “They will look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn” (Zec 12.10), as if they felt the nails of the cross sticking in their sides. A woman may as well expect to have a child without pangs as one can have repentance without sorrow. Someone who can believe without doubting, should suspect his faith; and someone who can repent without sorrowing, should suspect his repentance. Martyrs shed blood for Christ, and penitents shed tears for sin: “she stood at Jesus’ feet weeping” (Luk 7.38). See how this distillery dripped. The sorrow of her heart ran out at her eye. The brazen basin for the priests to wash in (Exo 30. 18) typified a double basin: the basin of Christ’s blood we must wash in by faith, and the basin of tears we must wash in by repentance. A true penitent labors to work his heart into a sorrowing attitude. He blesses God when he can weep; he is glad of a rainy day, for he knows that it is a repentance he will have no cause to repent of. Though the bread of sorrow is bitter to the taste, it strengthens the heart (Psa 104.15; 2Cor 7. 10). This sorrow for sin is not superficial: it is a holy agony. It is called in Scripture, a breaking of the heart: “The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart” (Psa 51.17); and a rending of the heart: “Rend your heart” (Joe 2.13). The expressions of striking on the thigh (Jer 31.19), beating on the breast (Luk 18.13), putting on sackcloth (Isa 22.12), plucking the hair (Ezra 9.3), are all but outward signs of inward sorrow. This sorrow is:
(1) To make Christ precious. O how desirable is a Savior to a troubled soul! Now Christ is Christ indeed, and mercy is mercy indeed. Until the heart is full of compunction, it is not fit for Christ. How welcome is a surgeon to a man who is bleeding from his wounds!
(2) To drive out sin. Sin breeds sorrow, and sorrow kills sin. Holy sorrow is the rhubarb to purge out the ill moods of the soul. It is said that the tears of vine branches are good to cure leprosy. Certainly the tears that drop from the penitent are good to cure the leprosy of sin. The salt water of tears kills the worm of conscience.
(3) To make way for solid comfort: “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psa 126.5). The penitent has a wet seedtime but a delicious harvest. Repentance bursts the abscess of sin, and then the soul is at ease. Hannah, after weeping, went away and was sad no more (1Sam 1.18). God’s troubling of the soul for sin is like the angel’s troubling of the pool (Joh 5.4), which made way for healing. But not all sorrow evidences true repentance. There is as much difference between true and false sorrow as between water in the spring, which is sweet, and water in the sea, which is briny. The apostle speaks of sorrowing “in a godly manner” (2Cor 7.9). But what is this godly sorrowing? There are six qualifications for it:
1. True godly sorrow is inward.
It is inward in two ways:
(1) It is a sorrow of the heart. The sorrow of hypocrites lies in their faces: “they disfigure their faces” (Mat 6.16). They make a sour face, but their sorrow goes no further, like the dew that wets the leaf but does not soak to the root. Ahab’s repentance was an outward show. His garments were rent but not his spirit (1Kng 21.27). Godly sorrow goes deep, like a vein which bleeds inwardly. The heart bleeds for sin: “they were pricked in their heart” (Act 2.37). As the heart bears a primary part in sinning, so it must bear a primary part in sorrowing.
(2) It is a sorrow for heart-sins, the first outbreaks and stirrings of sin. Paul grieved for the law in his members (Rom 7.23). The true mourner weeps for the stirrings of pride and lust. He grieves for the “root of bitterness” even though it never blossoms into action. A wicked man may be troubled by scandalous sins; a real convert laments heart-sins.
As the heart bears a primary part in sinning, so it must bear a primary part in sorrowing.
2. Godly sorrow is sincere.
It is sorrow for the offense 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, just as a thief is sorry when he is captured – not because he has stolen, but because he has to pay the penalty. Hypocrites grieve only for the bitter consequence of sin. I have read of a fountain that only flows on the evening before a famine. Likewise their eyes never pour out tears except when God’s judgments are approaching. Pharaoh was more troubled for the frogs and river of blood than for his sin. Godly sorrow, however, is chiefly for the trespass against God, so that even if there were no conscience to strike, no devil to accuse, no hell to punish, yet the soul would still be grieved because of the prejudice done to God. “My sin is ever before me” (Psa 51.3); David does not say, “The sword threatened 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 gunshot of hell and will never be damned, he still grieves for sinning against that free grace which has pardoned him.
3. Godly sorrow is faithful.
It is intermixed with faith: “the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe’” (Mar 9.24). Here was sorrow for sin checkered with faith, as if we have seen a bright rainbow appear in a watery cloud. Spiritual sorrow will sink the heart if the pulley of faith does not raise it up. Just as our sin is ever before us, so God’s promise must ever be before us. Just as we greatly feel our sting, so we must look up to Christ, our bronze serpent. Some have faces so swollen with worldly grief that they can hardly look out of their eyes. The weeping which blinds the eye of faith is not good. If faith sinks in the soul, then it is not the sorrow of humiliation but of despair.
Just as our sin is ever before us, so God’s promise must ever be before us.
4. Godly sorrow is a great sorrow.
“In that day there shall be great mourning, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon” (Zec 12.11). Two suns set that day when Josiah died, and there was a great funeral mourning. Sorrow for sin must be boiled up to such a degree. Pectore ab imo suspiria.
Question 1: Do all have the same degree of sorrow?
Answer: No, sorrow recipere magis em minus (produces greater or lesser [sorrows]). In the new birth all have pangs, but some have sharper pangs than others.
(1) Some are naturally of a more rugged disposition, of higher spirits, and are not easily brought to stoop. These must have greater humiliation, just as a knotty piece of timber must have greater wedges driven into it.
(2) Some have been more heinous offenders, and their sorrow must be suitable to their sin. Some patients have their sores opened with a needle, others with a lance. The more wicked sinners must be more bruised with the hammer of the law.
(3) Some are designed and cut out for higher service, to be eminently instrumental for God; and these must have a mightier work of humiliation pass upon them. Those whom God intends to be pillars in his church must be more hewn. Paul, the prince of the apostles, who was to be God’s ensign-bearer to carry his name before the Gentiles and kings, was to have his heart more deeply lanced by repentance.
Question 2: But how great must sorrow for sin be in all?
Answer: It must be as great as for any worldly loss. Turgescunt lumina petu. “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn as for an only son” (Zec 12.10). Sorrow for sin must surpass worldly sorrow. We must grieve more for offending God than for the loss of dear relations. “In that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping, and baldness, and girding with sackcloth” (Isa 22.12): this was for sin. But in the case of the burial of the dead we find God prohibiting tears and baldness (Jer 22.10; 16.6), to intimate that sorrow for sin must exceed sorrow at the grave; and with good reason, for in the burial of the dead it is only a friend who departs, but in sin it is God who departs. Sorrow for sin should be so great as to swallow up all other sorrow; when the pain of the gall stone and the gout meet, the pain of the stone swallows up the pain of the gout. We are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it. Surely David found more bitterness in repentance than ever he found comfort in Bathsheba. Our sorrow for sin must be such that it makes us willing to let go of those sins which brought the greatest income of profit or delight. The medicine shows itself strong enough when it has purged our disease. The Christian has a sufficient measure of sorrow when the love of sin is purged.
Our sorrow for sin must be such that it makes us willing to let go of those sins which brought the greatest income of profit or delight.
5. Godly sorrow in some cases is joined with restitution.
If someone has wronged others in their estate by unjust and fraudulent dealing, in conscience he ought to recompense them. There is an express law for this: “he shall recompense for his trespass with the principal taken, adding a fifth to it, and giving it to the one he wronged” (Num 5.7). This is how Zacchaeus made restitution: “If I have taken anything from any man by fraud, I restore him fourfold” (Luk 19.8). When Selymus the great Turk lay upon his deathbed, being urged by Pyrrhus to put to charitable use the wealth he wrongfully gained from the Persian merchants, he commanded rather that it should be sent back to the rightful owners. Should not a Christian’s creed be better than a Turk’s Koran? It is a bad sign when a man on his deathbed bequeaths his soul to God and his ill-gotten goods to his friends. I can hardly think God will receive his soul. Augustine said, “Without restitution, no remission.” And it was a speech of old Latimer, “If you do not restore goods unjustly gotten, you shall cough in hell.”
Question 1: Suppose a person has wronged another in his estate and the wronged man is dead. What should he do?
Answer: Let him restore his ill-gotten goods to that man’s heirs and successors. If none of them is living, let him restore them to God, that is, let him put his unjust gain into God’s treasury by relieving the poor.
Question 2: What if the party who did the wrong is dead?
Answer: Then those who are his heirs ought to make restitution. Mark what I say: if there are any who have estates left to them, and they know that the parties who left them their estates had defrauded others and died with that guilt upon them, then the heirs or executors who possess those estates are bound in conscience to make restitution. Otherwise they entail the curse of God upon their family.
Question 3: If a man has wronged another and is not able to restore, what should he do?
Answer: Let him deeply humble himself before God, promising to the wronged party full satisfaction if the Lord makes him able, and God will accept the intent for the deed.
6. Godly sorrow is abiding.
It is not a few tears shed in a passion that will serve the turn. Some will fall weeping at a sermon, but like an April shower, it is soon over, or like a vein that is opened and quickly stopped again. True sorrow must be habitual. O Christian, the disease of your soul is chronic and frequently returns to you; therefore you must continually dose yourself by repentance. This is sorrow that is “after a godly manner.” Use: How far from repentance those are who never had this godly sorrow!
Such are:
(1) The Papists, who leave out the very soul of repentance, making all penitential work consist in fasting, penance, and pilgrimages, in which there is nothing of spiritual sorrow. They torture their bodies, but their hearts are not torn. What is this but the carcass of repentance?
(2) Carnal Protestants, who are strangers to godly sorrow. They cannot endure a serious thought, nor do they trouble their heads about sin. Paracelsus spoke of a frenzy that some have which makes them die dancing. Likewise, sinners spend their days in mirth; they fling away sorrow and go dancing to damnation. Some have lived many years, yet never put a drop in God’s bottle; nor do they know what a broken heart means. They weep and wring their hands as if they were undone when their estates are gone, but they have no agony of soul for their sin.
There is a twofold sorrow:
Firstly, a rational sorrow, which is an act of the soul by which it has a dislike of sin, and chooses any torture rather than admit sin; secondly, there is a sensitive sorrow, which is expressed by many tears. The first of these is found in every child of God; but not all have the second, which is a sorrow running out at the eye. Yet it is very commendable to see a weeping penitent. Christ considers those who are tender-eyed as great beauties; and sin may well make us weep. We usually weep for the loss of some great good; well, by sin we have lost the favor of God. If Micah wept for the loss of a false god, saying, “You have taken away my gods, and what more do I have?” (Jdg 18.24), then well may we weep for our sins which have taken the true God away from us. Some may ask whether our repentance and sorrow must always be alike. Although repentance must always be kept alive in the soul, there are two special times when we must renew our repentance in an extraordinary manner:
(1) Before receiving the Lord’s Supper. This spiritual Passover is to be eaten with bitter herbs. Now our eyes should be fresh-broached with tears, and the stream of sorrow should overflow. A repentant attitude is a sacramental attitude. A broken heart and a broken Christ well agree. The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we taste in Christ. When Jacob wept he found God: “And he called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face” (Gen 32.30). The way to find Christ comfortably in the sacrament is to go there weeping. Christ will say to a humble penitent, as he said to Thomas: “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into my side” (Joh 20.27), and let those bleeding wounds of mine heal you.
(2) Another time of extraordinary repentance is at the hour of death. This should be a weeping season. Now is our last work to be done for heaven, and our best wine of tears should be kept for such a time. We should repent now, over having sinned so much and wept so little, that God’s bag has been so full and his bottle so empty (Job 14.17). We should repent that we repented no sooner, that the garrisons of our hearts held out so long against God before they were levelled by repentance. We should repent that we did not love Christ more, that we have fetched no more virtue from him and brought no more glory to him. It should be our grief on our deathbed that our lives have had so many blanks and blots in them, that our duties have been so fly-blown with sin, that our obedience has been so imperfect, and that we have gone so lame in the ways of God. When the soul is going out of the body, it should swim to heaven in a sea of tears.
