Devote Yourself to Perfection

If you would now devote yourself to perfection, perhaps you must part with some friends, you must displease some relations, you must alter your life.  Nay, perhaps you must do more than this — you must expose yourself to the hatred of friends, to the jest and ridicule of clever mockers, and to the scorn and derision of worldly men.  But had you not better do and suffer all this than to die less perfect, less prepared for mansions of eternal glory?  Indeed, suffering all this is suffering nothing.  For why should it signify anything to you what fools and madmen think of you?  And surely it can be no wrong or rash judgment to think those both fools and mad who condemn what God approves, and like that which God condemns.  But if you think this too much to be done to obtain eternal glory, think, on the other hand, what can be gained instead of it.

William Law, “A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection,” as cited in “A Burning and A Shining Light,” edited by David Lyle Jeffrey, p. 135


Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.  2 Corinthians 7:1