What Qualifies for Godly Sorrow?

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

A godly man's sorrow has three qualifications:

1. It is inward. It is sorrow of soul. Hypocrites 'disfigure their faces' (Matthew 6:16). Godly sorrow goes deep. It is 'pricking at the heart' (Acts 2:37). True sorrow is a spiritual martyrdom, therefore called 'soul affliction' (Lev. 23:29).

2. Godly sorrow is ingenuous. It is more for the evil that is in sin than the evil which follows after. It is more for the spot than the sting. Hypocrites weep for sin only as it brings affliction. I have read of a fountain that never sends out streams except on the evening before a famine. Hypocrites never send forth the streams of their tears except when God's judgment is approaching.

3. Godly sorrow is influential. It makes the heart better: 'by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better' (Eccles. 7:3). Divine tears not only wet but wash; they purge out the love of sin.

Thomas Watson, The Godly Man's Picture