The Godly Man's Picture - Part 3

Here are the final ten attributes of a godly man according to Puritan divine Thomas Watson in his 1666 work The Godly Man’s Picture Drawn With a Scripture Pencil. A godly man will be:

1. A zealous man. “Grace turns a saint into a seraph,” Watson writes. “It makes him burn in holy zeal. Zeal is a mixed affection, a compound of love and anger. It carries forth our love to God and anger against sin in the most intense manner. Zeal is the flame of the affections; a godly man has a double baptism—of water and fire. He is baptized with a spirit of zeal; he is zealous for God’s honor, truth , worship.”
2. A patient man. A godly man is patient in: waiting, bearing trials, when God removes any comfort from him, when God inflicts any evil on him.
3. A thankful man. “Praise and thanksgiving is the work of heaven and he begins that work here which he will always be doing in heaven.”
4. A man who loves the saints. “The best way to discern grace in one’s self is to love grace in others.”
5. A man who does not indulge himself in any sin. “Though sin lives in him, yet he does not live in sin. Every man that has wine in him is not in wine. A gladly man may step into sin through infirmity, but he does not keep on that road.”
6. A man who is good in his relationships. Two of the most crucial relationships for Watson are marriage and fatherhood. A godly man, Watson says, fills up the marital relationship with love in accord with Eph. 5:25. “The vine twisting its branches about the elm and embracing it may be an emblem of that entire love which should be in conjugal relationship. A married condition would be sad, if it had cares to embitter it and not love to sweeten it. Love is the best diamond in the marriage ring.” A father’s duties to his children are threefold: “he must drop holy instructions into his children, he must pray for his children and he must give his children discipline. Of the latter, Watson writes, “The rod beats out the dust and moth of sin. A child indulged and humored in wickedness will prove a burden instead of a blessing.”
7. A man who does spiritual things in a spiritual manner. “Spiritual worship is pure worship…A wicked man either lives in the total neglect of duty or else discharges it in a dull, careless manner…A godly man spiritualizes duty; he is not only for the doing of holy things but for the holy doing of things.”
8. A man who is thoroughly trained in religion. “A godly man strives to walk according to the full breadth and latitude of God’s law. Every command has the same stamp of divine authority on it, and he who is godly will obey one command as well as another.”
9. A man who walks with God. Walking with God, for Watson, includes five things: Walking as under God’s eye, the familiarity and intimacy that the soul has with God, walking above the earth (has his heart fixed ultimately on eternal matters), visible piety and continued progress in grace.
10. A man who strives to be an instrument who makes others godly. “He is not content to go to heaven alone but wants to take others there. Spiders work only for themselves, but bees work for others. A godly man is both a diamond and a lodestone—a diamond for the sparkling of grace and a lodestone for attractiveness. He is always drawings others to embrace piety. Living things have a propagating virtue. Where religion lives in the heart, there will be an endeavor to propagate the life of grace in those we converse with.”