Guard against False Loves (1)

How can I know if I love the world?
What we love will be seen by observing the bent of our heart if it is swayed toward God and his service or toward things below. When two masters are separated, their servants will be known by whom they serve and whom they follow. In these days we enjoy both religion and the world together; but if times of suffering should begin, then it would be known whose servants we truly are. Consider therefore beforehand what you would do. If trouble and persecution should arise, would you stand up for Christ, and let go of liberty, riches, honour, and all in comparison to him?
We must know it is not simply the world that draws our hearts from God, but the love of the world. Worldly things are good in themselves and are given by God to sweeten our passage to heaven. It is your falseness that makes them hurtful, in loving them too much. Use the world as a servant and not as a master, and you will have comfort in this life. It is not the world properly used that hurts us, but our setting our hearts upon it. When God should be in our thoughts, our spirits are drunk with the cares below. Thorns will not prick by themselves, but when they are grasped in a man's hand they prick deep. So this world and the things of the world are all good, and were all made by God for the benefit of his people. Is it not our immoderate affection for them that makes them hurtful? When once a man's heart is set upon the world, how does he shine as a light for God? He breaks with God, his truth, his religion, and his all, to satisfy lust! It is where we place our love that reveals whether we are good or bad. We are not as we know, but as we love. Our affections are the things which declare who we are. If we do not love God and the things of God, it does not matter what we know or how we talk of them.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Experience Triumphing, Works, vol. 7, pp. 412-13
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