A weeping creature

(Thomas Watson, "Harmless as Doves")

"Open to Me, My sister, My darling, My dove,
My flawless one." Song of Songs 5:2

Christ calls His spouse His "dove". The dove is a
weeping creature. Grace dissolves and liquefies
the soul, causing a spiritual thaw. The sorrow of
the heart, runs out at the eye.

A godly heart grieves that it is not more holy.
It troubles him that he falls short of the rule and
standard which God has set. "I should", he says,
"love the Lord with all my heart. But how defective
my love is! How far short I come of what I should
be, no, of what I might have been!"

A godly man sometimes weeps out of the sense
of God's love. Gold is the finest and most solid of
all the metals, yet it is soonest melted in the fire.
Gracious hearts, which are golden hearts--are the
soonest melted into tears, by the fire of God's love.

A godly person weeps because the sins he commits
are in some sense worse than the sins of other men.
The sin of a justified person is very odious, because
it is a sin of unkindness. Peter's denying of Christ was
a sin against love. Christ had enrolled him among the
apostles. He had taken him up into the Mount and
shown him the glory of heaven in a vision. Yet after
all this mercy, it was base ingratitude that he should
deny Christ. This made him go out and 'weep bitterly.'
He baptized himself, as it were, in his own tears.

The sins of the godly, go nearest to God's heart.

The sins of the wicked--anger the Lord.
The godly man's sins--grieve Him.

The sins of the wicked--pierce Christ's side.
The sins of the godly--wound His heart.

How far from being godly--are those
who scarcely ever shed a tear for sin!

__________________
1689 Baptist Confession

Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley, Wilderness Road Baptist Assembly.
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
www.wildernessroadbaptist.org