“…sin is like a candle in a lantern, where the shining is first within and then bursting out at the windows, or like boils and ulcerous humors that are scabs and scurvy stuff. They are first within the skin, and afterwards they break out to the view on the outside. So it is with sin. It is a malignant humor and a fretting leprosy, diffusing itself into several secret acts and workings within the mind. Then it breaks abroad and dares adventure the practice of itself to the eye of the world. Though that sin may never see the light, it is still like a child who is alive, but buried in the womb. Yet as that child is a man—a true man there closeted in that hidden frame of nature—so sin is truly sin, though it never gets out beyond the womb that conceived and enlivened it...”
-Obadiah Sedgwick (1600-1658) The Anatomy of Secret Sins
“…secret sins will become public sins if they are not cleansed. It is with the soul as it is with the body wherein diseases are first bred and then manifested. And if you suppress them not in their root, you shall shortly see them break out in the fruit. It is like fire that catches the inside of the house first, and there, if you do not suppress it, will make a way to get to the outside. "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin" Jam 1:15). Beloved, remember this: though the first ground of sin is within the heart, yet the propensity of sin is to come forth into public. The child in the womb does not have stronger throes to get out of its private lodging than sin secretly wrought to fly into open and manifest action…”
-Obadiah Sedgwick (1600-1658) The Anatomy of Secret Sins
“Brethren, how many are there who apparel themselves in the secret thoughts of abhorred wickedness, but even in the secret actings of the same, as if there were no God to look on them, nor conscience to spy on them, nor Judgment Day to arraign them! Oh, how infinitely odious you must be in the eyes of that holy God, who dare to court Him in public, and yet dare to provoke Him to His face thus in private. You are like a whorish strumpet who dissembles marvelous affections to her husband abroad, and yet at home she will violate the covenant of her God before her husband's eyes. So you pretend so much for God before company, and yet in private you will presume to sin before His face! He sees you, and your conscience knows that right well.”
-Obadiah Sedgwick (1600-1658) The Anatomy of Secret Sins
“…hypocrisy, which is a screen to your sin, a holy cover for an unholy heart and practice. [This] makes the sinner so much the more vile in God's eyes, by how much the more that he not only sins against God, but wrests, as it were, something from God to cover and palliate his rebellion against Him.”
-Obadiah Sedgwick (1600-1658) The Anatomy of Secret Sins
"Men go from bad to worse. Launch your boat in the current: it must go where the current takes it. Put yourself in the whirlwind: you are but a straw in the wind; you must go which way the wind carries you, for you cannot control yourself. The balloon can mount, but it cannot direct its course: it must go whichever way the wind blows. If you once mount into sin, there is no stopping. Take heed if you would not become the worst of characters! Take heed of the little sins: they, mounting one upon another, may at last heave you from the summit and destroy your soul forever. There is a great danger in secret sins."
-Charles H. Spurgeon
"Little sins, like little thieves, may open the door to greater ones outside."
-Charles H. Spurgeon
"The heart is full of unclean birds; it is a cage of them." "Ah, but," said another divine, "you must not make that an apology, for a Christian's business is to wring their necks." And so it is: if there be evil things [in the heart], it is our business to kill them. Christians must not tolerate secret sins. We must not harbor traitors. It is high treason against the King of Heaven. Let us drag them out to light and offer them upon the altar, giving up the dearest of our secret sins at the will and bidding of God. There is a great danger in a little secret sin. Therefore avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and shun it (Pro 4:15); and God give thee grace to overcome it."
-Charles H. Spurgeon
"Pretender, thou art fair to look upon—thy conduct outwardly upright, amiable, liberal, generous, and Christian. But thou dost indulge in some sin that the eye of man has not yet detected. Perhaps it is private drunkenness. Thou dost revile the drunkard when he staggers through the street; but thou canst thyself indulge in the same habit in private. It may be some other lust or vice. It is not for me just now to mention what it is. But, pretender, we say unto thee, "Thou art a fool to think of harboring a secret sin, and thou art a fool for this one reason: thy sin is not a secret sin. It is known and shall one day be revealed—perhaps very soon. Thy sin is not a secret: the eye of God hath seen it. Thou hast sinned before His face. Thou hast shut-to the door, drawn the curtains, and kept out the eye of the sun. But God's eye pierceth through the darkness: the brick walls that surrounded thee were as transparent as glass to the eye of the Almighty. The darkness that did gird thee was as bright as the summer's noon to the eye of Him Who beholdeth all things. Knowest thou not, O man, that "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Heb4:13)?"
-Charles H. Spurgeon
"No man can sin a little in secret: it will certainly engender more sin. No man can be a hypocrite and yet be moderate in guilt. He will go from bad to worse and still proceed until his guilt shall be published."
-Charles H. Spurgeon
"You may labor to conceal your vicious habit, but it will come out. You cannot help it. You keep your little pet sin at home, but mark this: when the door is ajar, the dog will be out in the street. Wrap him up in your bosom, put over him fold after fold of hypocrisy to keep him secret, and the wretch will be singing some day when you are in company..."
-Charles H. Spurgeon
