Richard Sibbes (Works, V. 4, p. 163):
To be wise to salvation is the best wisdom. What a pitiful case is this, that God should give us our understandings for better things than we can see or hear in this world, yet we employ them in things of the world wholly. Let us not do as some shallow, proud heads, that regard not divine things. The holy Scriptures they will not vouchsafe to read once a-day, perhaps not once a-week; nay, some scarce have a Bible in their studies. For shame; shall we be so atheistical, when God hath provided such excellent things contained in this book of God, the Testament? Shall we slight these excellent things for knowledge that shall perish with us? as St Paul saith before the text. The knowledge of all other things is perishing, knowledge of perishing men. Learn on earth that that will abide in heaven, saith St Austin. If we be wise, let us know those things on earth, that the comfort of them may abide with us in heaven. Therefore let us be stirred up to value the Scriptures, the mysteries of salvation in the gospel; they are things that ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,’ &c. Nay, I say more, that little that we have here, by hearing truths unfolded, whereby the Spirit of God slides into our hearts, and works with them. There is that peace that a man hath in his heart, in the unfolding of the point of justification or adoption, or any divine comfort, that it breeds such inward peace and joy as is unspeakable and glorious. All that we have in the world is not worth those little beginnings that are wrought by the hearing of the word of God here. If the first fruits here be joy ofttimes ‘unspeakable and glorious,’ 1 Peter 1:8, if the first fruits be ‘peace that passeth understanding,’ Phil. 4:7, what will the consummation and perfection of these things be at that day?.
