Sunday, February 16, 2020

The Anatomy of Secret Sins - by Obadiah Sedgwick

"...(1) pride is a bold and presuming sin; and (2) it is that which is the main ingredient of a presumptuous kind of sinning." (pg. 3)

"The heart of man is a scheme of wickedness.  A man says that in his heart which he dares not speak with his tongue, and his thought will do that which his hands dare not execute.  Well, then, sin may be called secret when it is sin and acted as sin even there, where none but God and conscience can see." (pg. 11)

"Satan shall not need to tempt him much who has already tempted himself: and he who will work sin in his heart, a weak occasion will draw it out into his life." (pg. 15)

"...Fore-past sins must be eyed with grief, present inclinations with combat, and future with fear." (pg. 61)

"...presumption disposes of mercy beyond all allowance and writes a pardon which God will never seal." (pg. 74)

"We carry about with us vile natures and treacherous hearts!  Even those abominations which sometimes we would have trembled at, unto them will our wicked selves deliver ourselves, if God does not keep us back." (pg. 103)

"Mercy is the tenderest goodness but, with all, it is a special goodness, and is set up not as a light by the sea, that a man may know thereby how to sail more freely, that a man should therefore sin more violently, but as a proclamation from a prince to draw in the rebel to sheath his sword, and to fall down on his knees." (pg. 123)

"Deliverance from the greatest evil is reason enough for great thanks.  It is more than if God had delivered you from hell if He has delivered you from the dominion of sin." (pg. 187)

"If ignorance rules the mind, then sin will easily rule the heart.  All sinful dominion is enabled by ignorance." (pg. 213)

"There are some graces which are, as it were, the guard of other graces.  Look, as faith is a grace which feeds all the rest, so fear is a grace which keeps all the rest." (pg. 223)

"A man's heart is upright when God alone, HIs ways alone, and His truth alone satisfy, order, and bound it; when a man can say in truth, as they in the matter of choice, 'Nay, but the Lord is our God, Him will we serve.'" (pg. 233)

"A hypocrite may do so much about duties as to manifest the excellency of his gifts, but he does not that regarding duties that will argue the efficacy of grace." (pg. 277)

"There are two things which show great rottenness of heart.  One is when any sin has our warrant sealed with secret allowance.  Another is when we drive on the sin with a customary trade and continuance." (pg. 310)

"Unbelief is the root of all hypocrisy and apostasy.  That men are but half in duties, is because they do not indeed believe the extent of obedience to God; and that they keep some private lust is because they do not indeed believe the truth of God's justice, power, and wrath." (pg. 329)

Obadiah Sedgwick, The Anatomy of Secret Sins (Morgan, PA:Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1995)