Thomas Watson on the 7th Commandment

Watson’s treatment of it, like anything else he writes about, is stirring, convicting, and breath-taking.  I plan to outline the chapter (Watson, The Ten Commandments.  Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, reprint 1986, pp. 152-163).

1. The thing implied is that the ordinance of marriage should be observed
2.   The thing forbidden is infecting ourselves with bodily pollution and uncleanness.  There is a two-fold adultery
   a.  mental (Mt. 5:28)
   b.  Corporeal
3. The greatness of this sin:
   a.  breach of the marriage oath
   b.  Dishonour done to God.
   c.  it is committed with mature deliberation
   d.  It is needless, since God has provided men and women with spouses.
4. Practical Uses of this Doctrine:

   a. The Church of Rome stands condemned.  How can they be holy when the city stews with fornications and uncleanness?
   b.  It is a most common sin of our times (and Watson wrote this 350 years ago!)
   c.  Exhortation on how to avoid this sin:
   (i)  It is the highest sort of thievery, since you are stealing a man’s wife.
   (ii)  Adultery debases a man and makes him brutish
   (iii)  Adultery pollutes
   (iv) Adultery destroys the body
   (v)  Adultery drains the purse
   (vi) Adultery destroys the reputation
   (vii) It impairs the mind
   (viii) It incurs temporal judgments
   (ix) Damns both one and soul and the other’s

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