Persevere as God Preserves (2)

(5) Strive to grow daily in the denial of yourself. No one can come to heaven who does not first strip himself of himself. He must not trust in his own wisdom, will, or affections. He must deny himself in all his aims after the pleasure, profit, or preferment of the world. A religion that vacillates in what it holds as most valuable is never a sound religion. A true Christian has a single eye; he serves God for God himself. A man that has worldly aims has a double eye as well as a double heart; such a one cannot help but vacillate. Bring therefore a single eye, a single heart, and a single aim to receive the word. it is said of Israel that they brought Egypt into the wilderness (Num. 11:18). So it is with most men, they want to have religion and their lusts together; but whatever begins in hypocrisy will end in apostasy. He that has religion must not turn back to his old aims and company. For he now has acquaintance with God and an eternal inheritance to aim at.
(6) Labour to have divine truth engrafted  in you; not to hold it loosely, for then it will never grow. We should embrace truth inwardly. For then God's children will have truth that belongs to them. As a wife receiving a letter from her husband, says, 'This is sent to me, it belongs to me.' So we should say of God's truth; 'This was penned for me, and directed to my soul in particular.'
(7) To grow deeper in religion, we must grow deeper and deeper in humility. A man is humble when he accounts sin his greatest evil and grace his greatest good. Such a one will hold out in time of trial. If temptations come on the right hand, he says, 'Christ is better to me!' If sin comes on the left hand, to draw him aside, he says, 'This is the vilest thing in the world; it is the worst of all evils, I will not yield to it.'

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Experience Triumphing, Works, vol. 7, pp. 411-12
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