Mere Knowledge versus Growing in Godliness

What makes a true Christian? When he simply believes the grounds of divine truth, the articles of the faith, when he can recite them over--does that make a true Christian? No! it is when these truths take root and work godliness. For religion is a truth according to godliness not according to mere knowledge or thought. Wherever these fundamental truths are embraced, there is godliness with them; a man cannot embrace religion in truth and not be growing in godliness. A man knows no more of Christ and divine things, than he values and esteems and allows to make affect and brings the whole inward man into a frame to be like the things. If they carry not the soul to trust in God, to hope in God, to fear God, to embrace him, to obey him, that man is not yet a true Christian; for Christianity is not a simple knowledge of the truth, but godliness.
Religious evangelical truth is wisdom, and wisdom is a knowledge of things that leads to practice. The gospel is a divine wisdom, teaching practice as well as knowledge. It works godliness, or else a man has but a human knowledge of divine things. He that is godly, believes aright and practices aright. He that believes ill can never live well, for he has no foundation. He makes an idol of some thought he has, and he that lives ill, though he thought well, will be damned too. A true Christian gets godly principles out of the gospel, and a godly lifestyle suitable to those principles. Can a man know God's love in Christ incarnate, and Christ's suffering for us, and his sitting at the right hand of God, the infinite love of God in Christ, and not be carried in affection back to God, in love and joy and true allegiance, and to whatever makes up the respect of godliness? It cannot be. Therefore, being a Christian is not a cold, simple apprehension, but a spiritual knowledge, when the soul is stirred up to a suitable disposition and lifestyle that makes godliness.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 461
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