The ever practical and pastoral Richard Sibbes (Works, Vol. 4, pp. 87-88):
It is not, beloved, the having of corruption that damns men, but the affections we carry towards our corruptions. The best of us have corruptions, but mark how we do carry ourselves towards them. A carnal man pleads for his corruptions, he strengthens them; and another man hath corruption, but it is hardly used. Corruption is differently used in the heart of a carnal and of a gracious man, for in the one it is fostered, cherished, and pleaded for: in a civil, carnal man; in the other man it is indeed, but it is subdued and mortified, it is judged and condemned. As we say of a man, when judgment is passed upon him, he is a dead man, though he be not dead, because the sentence of death is passed upon him, who, when he comes to be executed, by little and little he dies, till he be perfectly dead; so it is when corruption is judged by us and condemned in our hearts, it is as it were dead, because we have passed the sentence on it, we have condemned it, and because we have begun the execution that shall end in death; and therefore, as we would difference ourselves from the world, let us labour more and more, that though we have corruption, yet to carry ourselves thus towards it, to make it more hateful by all means. We cannot make it too hateful to us; it doth us all the mischief in the world; it is the ill of ills. All other ills are but the fruits of it; it puts a fiery, venomed sting into all things; it makes things comfortable uncomfortable: as the hour of death, that should be thought on as our entrance into heaven; and the day of judgment, the consideration whereof should be our joy. What makes these things terrible? Oh! it is sin, the sin that we cherish and love better than our souls; it is that that makes things that are most comfortable uncomfortable. What a thing is that that makes us afraid to go to God! to think of a gracious God! that hinders us in our best performances! that makes us backward and dull! Labour, by all means, to make sin odious, I say. In the best commonwealth in the world there will be lurking rebels, base people. What! doth the commonwealth bear the blame? No. The laws are against them, and they are executed when they are found out. So in the best heart there will be rebellious thoughts, evil thoughts, but let it not be laid to the charge of God’s people. There are laws against them; they labour to find them out and to execute them. Here is the comfort of God’s children, that though they groan under many infirmities, yet they look upon them as enemies, and as objects of their mortification.
