Be Mindful of Your Soul (2)

Beloved, the devil and devilish-minded men have a special spite to the soul. What do they aim at in all their wrongs and injuries to God's children? Do they care to hurt the body? They will do this rather than nothing at all; they will rather play at small game than sit out. The devil will enter the swine rather than stand out altogether. However, his main spite is at the soul, to vex and disquiet the soul, and taint it with sin all he can. Considering that it is Satan's aim to unloose our hold from God by defiling our souls with sin, so to put a separation between his blessed majesty and us, let it be our chief care to see to that which Satan strikes at most! He did not so much care, in Job's trouble, for his goods, or for his house, or children, etc. Alas, he aimed at a further mischief than these! His plot was how to make him blaspheme and wound his soul, that so there might be a division between God and him. He first tempts us to commit sin, and afterwards to despair for sin.
Commit the keeping of your souls to God. Indeed, he only can keep our souls. We cannot keep them ourselves; neither can anything else in the world. Some when they are sick will commit themselves to a physician and put all their trust in him. When they are in trouble, they will commit themselves to a great friend; when they have any bad or disobedient cause to manage, they will commit themselves to their purse, and think it will bear them out in anything. One thinks his cleverness and abilities will secure him, another that his ingenuity may shelter him. Indeed the heart of man is so full of atheism, that it can never light upon the right object, to trust God alone, until it sees everything else fail, as being insufficient to support the soul, or to yield any solid comfort in times of extremity and distress.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Saint's Hiding-Place in the Day of Evil, Works, vol. 1, pp. 408-09
Banner of Truth has granted permission for the use of this material.