Swimming Against the Stream

Thomas Watson, the great Puritan theologian, wrote the following in The Great Gain of Godliness (Banner of Truth Trust, 2006):

"In those degenerate times when men were arrived at the acme and height of impudence, and dared to speak treason against heaven, then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. When others were plaintiffs these were defendants; when others spoke against God, these spoke for God . . . The more outrageous others are in sin, the more courageous we should be for truth . . .

"To profess religion when the times favour it is no great matter. Almost all will court the Gospel Queen when she is hung with jewels. But to own the ways of God when they are decried and maligned, to love a persecuted truth, this evidences a vital principle of goodness. Dead fish swim down the stream, living fish swim against it. To swim against the common stream of evil shows grace to be alive" (p. 5, 6).