Reading the Puritans Without Becoming Weird or Proud

The Theology of Thomas Watson Series: Part 10

There is a strange phenomenon that happens when someone begins reading the Puritans.

At first, they are humbled.
Then they are helped.
Then, sometimes and truthfully, they become insufferable.

I say that carefully, but honestly.

The Puritans did not write to create theological elitists. They wrote to produce humble, serious, Christ-exalting believers. Yet it is possible to read them in a way that produces pride instead of holiness. It is possible to gain a sharper tongue, a colder spirit, and a more critical eye, all while telling yourself you are “just being discerning.”

Thomas Watson would have warned us about that.

Watson had a rare ability to take doctrine and drive it straight into the conscience. He could comfort the weak and confront the careless in the same chapter. He wrote like a pastor who expected to answer to God for the souls under his care. And he would not have been impressed by the modern habit of using theology as a personality.

This article is not about dumbing anything down. It is about reading the Puritans rightly. Watson especially.

The Danger of Theological Vanity

Watson was precise. He cared about truth. He defined words carefully and refused sloppy thinking. But he never treated theology as a toy, or as a badge, or as a way to feel superior.

One of Watson’s most memorable warnings is about knowledge that never reaches the heart. In The Godly Man’s Picture, he writes:

Bible knowledge in a natural man’s head is like a torch in a dead man’s hand.”
– Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

That is a devastating image. A dead man can hold a torch and still be dead. A man can learn vocabulary, win arguments, and quote authors, and still lack spiritual life. Watson’s point is that true knowledge animates. It awakens love, fear of God, repentance, and obedience. It is supposed to move you, not merely arm you.

This is where many Puritan readers go wrong. They pick up Watson, find phrases that sound weighty, and then start dropping them in conversations like spiritual hand grenades. They become the guy who always has a correction, always has a critique, always has a theological footnote. Meanwhile, their patience shrinks. Their gentleness fades. Their prayer life stays thin. Their own sins remain largely unexamined.

Watson would call that a torch in a dead man’s hand.

Why Some Puritan Readers Become Weird

Let us be honest. Some people read the Puritans and begin to imitate everything external about them. Their tone changes. Their vocabulary becomes archaic. Their conversations revolve around obscure debates. They start sounding like they are auditioning for a 1650s church meeting.

That is not maturity. That is insecurity dressed up as seriousness.

The Puritans lived in a different historical moment. Their speech patterns, political context, cultural assumptions, and church structures were shaped by their era. You do not honor them by pretending you live in their century. You honor them by pursuing the same spiritual aims in your own.

Watson himself was not trying to create a certain aesthetic. He was aiming at the heart. He cared about repentance, holiness, reverence, prayer, meditation, and genuine love for Christ. He would not have wanted modern believers to cosplay Puritanism. He would have wanted them to cultivate Puritan affections.

If reading Watson makes you socially awkward but not spiritually deeper, something is off. If it makes you sound more intense but love people less, something is off. If it makes you feel like you are in a higher category of Christian than the “ordinary” believers at your church, something is off.

Pride Loves Religion, Too

One reason this matters is that pride is not allergic to doctrine. Pride can hide inside all the right words.

Watson understood that the devil is not limited to tempting people toward obvious sins. Sometimes the devil tempts a person toward religious sins. Spiritual sins. Cleaner sins. The kind that ruin a soul while looking respectable.

In Watson’s work on prayer, he warns that Satan will change strategies and tempt people in whatever way works:

If he cannot tempt to lust, he will tempt to pride.”
– Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer

That sentence should slow down every man who begins taking theology seriously. Pride is not a beginner problem. Pride is an advanced problem. It often grows alongside increased knowledge. You learn more, you see more errors, you notice more weaknesses, and before long you begin to assume you are the solution to all of it.

Watson would say you are in danger.

Watson’s Humility Test

Watson gives us an incredible diagnostic for pride. He describes a truly humble man as someone who cares more about Christ’s glory than his own reputation. In The Godly Man’s Picture, Watson writes:

A humble man is willing to have his name and gifts eclipsed, so that God’s glory may be increased. He is content to be outshone by others in gifts and esteem, so that the crown of Christ may shine the brighter.”
– Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

That is not how most of us naturally think. We want to be the one noticed. The one praised. The one seen as sharp, bold, and important. But Watson is describing a man who can gladly be overlooked if Christ is exalted. He can rejoice when another man is used mightily. He can take the back seat without resentment.

Now bring that test into Puritan reading.

If you begin reading Watson and you find yourself wanting to “outshine” others, you have missed him. If you start treating your reading list like a hierarchy of holiness, you have missed him. If you look down on believers who have never heard of Watson, you have missed him.

Watson did not write to help you win the room. He wrote to help you worship Christ.

Strong Doctrine Should Produce Strong Love

There is a modern myth that serious theology creates harsh Christians. It can, if the heart is wrong. But that is not the fruit Watson aimed at. The Puritans were not trying to produce men who are loud online and cold at home. They were trying to produce men who are steady, humble, faithful, and warm in love.

Watson’s theology consistently leans toward affection. He wanted people to love Christ, hate sin, and treasure grace. His doctrinal clarity was never meant to make believers smug. It was meant to make them grateful.

One of the most common misfires among Puritan readers is this: they become better at spotting flaws in other people than in themselves. They become more passionate about “the state of the church” than the state of their own soul. They become more eager to correct than to pray.

Watson’s method was different. He applied doctrine personally. He aimed at the conscience. He drove truth inward.

If your reading produces sharpness without tenderness, something has gone wrong. If it produces correction without compassion, something has gone wrong. If it produces a habit of looking down rather than bowing low, something has gone wrong.

Puritans Are Not a Personality

This needs to be said plainly. The Puritans are not a personality. They are not a brand. They are not a substitute for Christlikeness.

Some Christians discover the Puritans and start acting like they have graduated beyond ordinary discipleship. They withdraw from simple fellowship. They lose interest in serving quietly. They become suspicious of everyone else’s worship, everyone else’s preaching, everyone else’s church.

Watson would have hated that.

He was a pastor. He loved the visible church. He cared about ordinary Christians growing in ordinary means of grace. He did not encourage isolation. He encouraged faithfulness. He did not urge men to become eccentric. He urged them to become godly.

If reading Watson pulls you away from local church life, you are reading him poorly. If it makes you disdain “normal” believers, you are reading him poorly. If it makes you impatient with weakness instead of compassionate toward it, you are reading him poorly.

Read Watson Like Medicine, Not Like a Trophy

Here is a simple way to stay sane: treat Puritan reading like medicine, not like a trophy.

A trophy is something you display to impress others. Medicine is something you take because you know you need it.

Watson is not meant to make you impressive. He is meant, by God’s providence, to make you healthier. He should expose your sin, deepen your reverence, strengthen your prayer, and drive you toward Christ.

That is why Watson can say something like this in The Doctrine of Repentance:

Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”
– Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance

That line does not exist to impress you. It exists to change you. Watson is trying to produce a Christian who hates sin more and loves Christ more. He wants repentance to become real, not theoretical. He wants grace to become precious, not assumed.

Read Watson as medicine. Let him do surgery on you. Let him confront you before he arms you.

A Practical Way to Read the Puritans Without Becoming Proud and Arrogant

Let me give you a few safeguards that have helped many readers stay grounded. These are simple, but they work.

1. Keep Scripture central.
Watson is not your authority, nor is any other Puritan or Reformed theologian for that matter. Scripture is. The Puritans are servants, not masters. They help you read the Bible better. They do not replace your Bible reading.

2. Read slowly and apply personally.
Do not rush through Watson like you are trying to finish a book. Stop and ask, “Where does this land on me?” One of the best reasons to read Watson is that he forces personal application.

3. Pray before you read.
Ask God to expose pride immediately. Ask Him to soften your heart. Ask Him to make the reading fruitful. This is not academic work. This is soul work.

4. Do not turn every insight into a public announcement.
Some things God teaches you are for your repentance, not your platform. If every new insight becomes a post, a correction, or a debate, you are training your heart to seek applause rather than holiness.

5. Stay close to ordinary Christian fellowship.
Watson was a pastor. He wrote for the church. If your reading makes you less patient, less helpful, and less present in your local body, something has drifted.

6. Measure growth by humility and obedience, not by vocabulary.
If you are using bigger words but fighting sin less, you are not growing. If you are winning arguments but losing gentleness, you are not growing. Growth looks like repentance, prayer, love, and obedience.

What Watson Was Actually After

Watson did not want admirers. He wanted holy Christians.

He wanted men who trembled at sin and rejoiced in grace. He wanted believers who feared God and loved Christ. He wanted disciplined minds and warm hearts. He wanted Christians who were steady under pressure and tender toward weaker saints. He wanted theology that led to worship.

That is why Watson remains so useful. He does not let you hide. He does not let you pretend. He brings you into the light.

And if you let him, he will do what the best Christian writers always do. He will make you smaller, and Christ bigger.

A Final Word

The Puritans are not spiritual trophies. They are spiritual physicians.

Thomas Watson does not exist to make us impressive. He exists, by God’s providence, to help us become more faithful.

Read deeply. Think carefully. Apply personally. Stay humble!

That is how you read the Puritans without becoming weird or proud.

Transition to Week 11

Once you learn how to read Watson with humility, the next question becomes practical: where should a beginner start, and how do you actually read him in a way that sticks?

That is where we go next.