Test to See if Your Heart is Tender

We may test our tenderness of heart these four ways:
(1) As it is tender from God, so it is tender for God; for the three persons of the Trinity. He that has a tender heart cannot endure to dishonour God himself, or to hear others dishonour him. He cannot endure to hear God's name blasphemed. So again, a man has a tender heart when he yields to the motions of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit moves and he yields. But a hard heart beats back all, and as a stone to the hammer, will not yield to any motion of God's Spirit.
(2) A tender heart is sensible in regard to the word of God. It will tremble when it hears of the terrors of the Lord at the day of judgment, as Paul did, 'Now knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men' (2 Cor. 5:11). The apostle Peter would have us make this use of it: 'Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?' (2 Pet. 3:11). How can the heart but melt at God's promises, for they are the sweetest things that can be? A tender heart will be pliable to any direction from the word.
(3) By applying it to the works of God; for a tender heart quakes when it sees the judgment of God upon others. So again, a tender heart rejoices at the mercy of God, for it sees that mercy proceeds from the love of God.
(4) A man may know his heart to be tender in regard to the state of others. If they be wicked, he has a tender heart for them; as David said, 'Mine eyes gush out with rivers of water, because men keep not your law' (Psa. 119:136). As Paul said in Philippians 3:18, 'There are many that walk as enemies to the cross, of whom I have told you before, and now tell you weeping.' By these marks we may know whether we have tender hearts.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Josiah's Reformation, pp. 30-33 [23-25]
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