Maintaining a Tender Heart (1)

How a tender heart may be preserved and maintained.
(1) Be under the means whereby God's Spirit will work; for it is he by his Spirit that works upon the heart and does preserve tenderness in us; and he will work only by his own means. All the devices in the world will not work upon the heart. Let us hear what God's word says of our state by nature, of the wrath and justice of God, and of the judgment that will shortly come upon all the world.
(2) Present before yourselves the miserable and forlorn state of the church of God abroad. It was this that broke Nehemiah's heart. When he heard that the Jews were in great affliction and reproach, that the wall of the city was broken down, and the gates burnt with fire, he sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, fasted and prayed before the God of heaven (Neh. 1:4). This also made Moses' heart to melt when he looked on his brethren's affliction in Egypt. We might keep our hearts tender if we did but set before our eyes the pitiful state of God's church abroad, and that we may come to be in such a state ourselves before long.
(3) Labour for an evangelical faith. We must believe that all the warnings of God's vengeance against the wicked will come to pass. Faith does make these things present before our eyes; for it is the nature of faith to set things absent as present before us. What makes the sinner tremble and be cast down, but when he sees that he is about to die and sees death look him in the face? So, faith setting the day of judgment before our eyes, will make us to tremble. Paul so often urged Timothy by the coming of the Lord Jesus to judgment (2 Tim. 4:1). If we had an evangelical faith to believe the goodness of God, pardon from him, and everlasting life, this would preserve tenderness of heart.
(4) Good company will preserve tenderness of heart, be careful to associate yourself with those that are tender-hearted.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 16-18 [12-14]
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