Archives for December 10, 2008

The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues.

If the same talents which we admire in ourselves appear in others, or even our betters, we depreciate and diminish them with the utmost malignity, in order that we may not have to acknowledge the superiority of others.

If others have any vices, we are not content to criticize them sharply and severely, but we exaggerate them hatefully.

John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, 2.4.2

Not only the open profane, the swearer, the drunkard, and the enemies of godliness, will prove hurtful companions to us, though these indeed are chiefly to be avoided: but too frequent society with persons merely civil and moral, whose conversation is empty and unedifying, may much divert our thoughts from heaven.

Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest, cited in Fish, Surprised by Sin, 12f.

Baxter’s words hold true not only for companions but also for entertainments.