This quotation will probably reveal how far I am behind in the Puritan Reading Challenge. It is May (almost June) and I am 3/4 of the way finished with March’s The Godly Man’s Picture. Eventhough it will reveal my lackluster performance in the Puritan Reading Challenge, I had to share this quote from Thomas Watson:
“If our hearts were more fixed with love, they would be more fixed in duty, an oh, what cause we have to love duty! Is not this the direct road to heaven? Do we not meet with God here? Can the spouse be better than in her husband’s company? Where can the soul be better than in drawing near to God?” (164)
Watson’s marriage of duty and love is painfully foreign to our contemporary minds. To the Puritan the lifeblood of his fellowship with God was the performance of duties. That sounds legalistic doesn’t it? Keep in mind that to a Puritan true performance of duty came from the principle of grace imparted to the soul by God Himself. To truly be faithful in duty is to cling to the Cross.
