Maintaining a Tender Heart (3)

(7) Take heed of hypocrisy; for it causes swelling, and pride makes the heart to condemn others that be not like unto us. They bless themselves that they live thus and thus, they think themselves better than any other; and if they hear the minister reprove them for sin, they will shift it off, and say, 'Oh, this belongs not to me, but to a carnal man, and to a wicked person.' The Scribes and Pharisees, who were vile hypocrites, were the cause of all mischief, and more hard-hearted than Pilate, a heathen man; for he would have delivered Christ, but they would not (Luke 23:14). Therefore, if thou wilt have tenderness of heart, take heed of hypocrisy.
(8) Take heed of great sins, which will harden the heart; for little sins do many times not deaden the heart, but stir up the conscience; but great sins do stun and dull a man; as a prick of a pin will make a man to start, but a heavy blow makes a man dead for the present. Therefore, take heed of great sins. So it was with David. He sinned in numbering the people, and for this his heart smote him; but when he came to the great and devouring sin of Uriah and Bathsheba, this was a great blow that struck him and laid him for dead, till Nathan came and revived him (2 Sam.
12:1). For when men fall into great sins, their hearts are so hardened, that they go on from sin to sin. The eye being a tender part, and easily hurt, how watchful is man by nature over it, that it be not hurt. So, the heart, being a tender thing, let us preserve it by all watchfulness to keep blows from off it. It is a terrible thing to keep a wound of some great sin upon the conscience, for it makes a way for a new breach; because when the conscience once begins to be hardened with some great sin, then there is no stop, but we run on to commit sin with all greediness.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 20-22 [16-17]
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