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E_F_Grant said:
"Watching" as you have described it, sounds like a thing every Christian does all the time, so I guess I'm asking, what did it look like for a Catholic to do it, that got Owens riled up?
1) In Owen's day, which hasn't changed much among some Catholics, the external was the focus since it led to "final justification". Where the RCC has always gone wrong as does the majority of even Evangelicals to some degree and on one side of the error or the other, is by looking at one's "works" to gain God's favor instead of simple faith in Christ Who is the believer's righteousness; justification and sanctification.

2) On the one extreme in the RCC is Monasticism, which again is guilty of externalizing sin (Evangelicalism blames sin mainly upon Satan). If one can escape the allurements of the world by cloistering oneself, then the evil influences will be diminished or even nullified thus allegedly making the task of becoming "holy" an easier task.

In all these various expressions of "externalizing" evil, they are the continued expression of Pharisaism (aka: synergism) and spiritual pride which is most notably seen in the Pharisees of Jesus' day, e.g.:

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Luke 18:10-13 (ASV) "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner."
In His grace,

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simul iustus et peccator

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