Maintaining a Tender Heart (2)

(5) Take heed of the least sin against conscience. Sins that are committed against conscience darken the understanding, deaden the affection, and take away life; so that one has not the least strength to withstand the least temptation. For the heart at first being tender, will endure nothing, but the least sin will trouble it. As water, when it begins to freeze, will not endure anything, not so much as the weight of a pin upon it, but after a while will bear the weight of a cart; even so at the beginning, the heart being tender, trembles at the least sin; but when it once gives way to sins against conscience, it becomes so frozen, so hard, that it can endure any sin.
(6) Take heed of spiritual drunkenness; that is, that you be not drunk with setting your love too much upon outward things. The immoderate use of any earthly thing takes away spiritual sense; for the more sensible the soul is of outward things, the less it is of spiritual. When the heart is filled with the pleasures of this life, it is not sensible of any judgment that hangs over the head. As in the old world, 'they ate and drank, they married and gave in marriage, they bought and sold, while the flood came upon them and swept all away' (Matt. 24:38, 39). When a man sets his love upon the creature, the very strength of his soul is lost. In the Scripture, God joins prayer and fasting both together (Matt. 17:21); that when he would have our hearts raised up to heaven, we should have all use of earthly things taken away. Talk of religion to a carnal man, whose senses are lost with love of earthly things, he has no ear for that; his sense is quite lost, he has no relish or savour of anything that is good. Therefore, we are bidden to take heed that our hearts be not overcome with the cares of this life, for these will make a man to be insensible of spiritual things (Luke 21:34).

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 18-20 [14-16]
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