A care-cloth

Otherwise,¹ we shall also pull another evil upon our selves, even make our selves slack, careless and remiss, in the endeavour of reforming the sins of our brethren. Hardheartedness, in not feeling the burdensomenesse of sin, will cause, that a man shall sit still, and let it take its course, and bestow no pains to redress it: for that that one doth not feel to be evil, why should he bestir himself to amend? And ⟨p. 225⟩surely he feels it not evil, that doth not mourn for it. What was the cause that the Corinthians did so carelessly tolerate the incestuous person among them? Hath not the Apostle taxed it in one word, saying; And you have not rather grieved, that such an one might be taken from amongst you. Lo, they mourned not for the sin, and therefore they chastised not the sinner in good manner, as they ought to have done, for his amendment. And so will it ever be in all places and times. In what measure sorrow for sin is wanting, care of amending it will be wanting also: little of this, if little of that; and if none of that, none of this will be seen in mens lives. This unsensiblenesse of sin, is joined with too much sensibleness of other things; it makes one so timorous, that he dares not speak against wickedness, for fear of offending such and such: it makes a man foolishly pitiful, and cruelly compassionate, that he cannot find in his heart to hurt the offender, even by due executions of justice. He, whose heart and eyes cannot perform their office, in grieving for, and lamenting sin, neither will his hand and tongue do their offices, in speaking and striving against it. The same corruptions that make the hart short in grief, and the eyes in tears, will also make the tongue short in reproving, and hand in punishing. Neither will any man lay a plaster to that sore, which he thinks not worth grieving for; for if it were dangerous, why is not he sorry? If it be not dangerous, what need a plaster? ⟨p. 226⟩And so it will follow, that sin having none enemy to resist it, none to oppose and fight against it, will mightily prevail (as a fire which no man seeks to quench,) and so get the upper hand, till at last it grow so high, crying, and insufferable,² that the Justice of God can no longer forbear it, but he himself must take the matter into his own hand.