Knowledge and Affections

When we have the truths of religion revealed to us by the ministry of others or by reading on our own, let us ask our souls, 'Are these things so or not? Do I believe them to be so or not?' If I do believe them, then I must consider what my affections and inward disposition are, whether they are suitable to such things. We must work up on our hearts that our knowledge may be an affecting knowledge, a knowledge that sinks even to the very affections, that pierces through the whole soul. Let us never cease until there is a correspondence between the affections and truth. Are they true? Believe them. Are they good? Embrace them. Let us think there is a defect in our apprehension if the affections embrace them not. Let us never think our state good until we find our hearts warmed with the goodness of divine supernatural truths. 'Oh! how I do love your law!' said David (Psa. 119:97). Let us labour to have great affections, consistent with the truth; and never stop until we can love them and joy and delight in them as the greatest things. Like Paul, account 'all as dung and dross, in comparison to them' (Phil. 3:8). The knowledge that is a saving knowledge is that which works the heart to a love, to a joy and delight, that works the whole man to practice and obedience. All other knowledge serves for nothing but to prove God correct in our damnation: when knowing these things, we do not work our hearts to love them, but we rest in the barren knowledge of them. Therefore, we should labour to see spiritual things in a spiritual light, for where spiritual light is there is always spiritual heart. Where spiritual evidence is in the understanding there is spiritual embracing in the affections. Supernatural light and supernatural life go together. Let us labour that our comprehension of these great mysteries may be supernatural and spiritual, and then as our minds comprehend them to be true, and our affections are present, we will believe them and live by them.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 476
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