I have both heard and read of a rare story of Mrs Honywood, a famous profcwssor of the gospel, and one that for many years together lay under the burden of a wounded spirit, and was much troubled in mind for want of assurance that God was her portion, and that she should be saved from wrath to come. At length there came a godly minister to her, who endeavoured to settle her faith and hope in Christ ; and pressing many gospel promises upon her, she took it with a kind of indignation and anger that he should offer to present any promises to her, to whom, as she thought, they did not belong ; and having a Venice-glass in her hand, she held it up, and said, Speak no more to me of salvation, for I shall as surely be damned as this poor brittle glass shall be broke against the wall, throwing it with all her force to break it. But it so pleased God that, by a miraculous providence, the glass was preserved whole. The minister, beholding the miracle, took up the glass, and said unto her, 'Behold, God must work a miracle before you, before you will believe.' And for ever after that day she had very strong assurance of her salvation, and that God was her portion ; and so lived and died in a sweet and comfortable sense of the love and favour of God.
Now, to provoke you to labour with all your might to attain to a clear, personal, satisfactory evidence in your own bosoms that God is your portion, do but seriously consider and lay to heart the rare and singular advantages that will redound to your souls by this means. I shall jOnly touch upon some, by which yourselves may guess at others.
76 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD's NOAHS. [LAM. III. 24.
[1.] First, By this means your hearts will come to be fixed, settled, and established. A man's soul never comes to be fixed and settled by knowing in the general that God is the saint's portion, but by a personal evidence and certainty of knowledge that he is his particular portion. Whilst a man's particular propriety is unsettled, all is unsettled in his soul ; but when a man's particular propriety is settled, when he can say. This God is my God, and the Lord is my portion, then all is settled, then all is at peace in the soul, Ps. Ivii. 7, cviii. 1, cxii. 7. A man that hath God for his portion, if he do not know it, will still be like a ship at sea in the midst of a storm, tossed here and there, and now rolling on one side and then on the other, and never quiet, never lying still ; but a man that hath God for his portion, and knows it, he is like a ship in a good harbour, that lies quiet and still; yea, he is like mount Zion, that cannot be removed. But,
[2.] Secondly, A clear, personal evidence that God is a man's portion, will rid his soul of all sinful doubts. O Christians ! now your hearts are as full of doubts as hell is full of darkness. One day you doubt whether your graces are true, and another day you doubt whether your comforts are true. Now, you doubt of your saintship, and anon of your sonship, and then of your heirship. Sometimes you doubt of your communion with God, sometimes you doubt of your acquaintance with God, and sometimes you doubt of your acceptance with God. One hour you doubt of the favour of God, and the next hour you doubt of your access to God. And as it is thus with you, so it will be thus with you till you come to have some clear satisfaction in your own spirits that God is your portion. O Christians ! had you but once a personal evidence in your own bosoms that God is your portion, all those doubts that are bred and fed by ignorance and unbelief, and that rob the soul of all joy, comfort, and content,and that render men babes in Christianity, and that cast reproach upon God, Christ, and the promises, &c., and that do most gratify and advantage Satan to tempt and try your souls, would vanish and disperse as the clouds do before the sun when it shines in its brightness. Till a Christian's eyes be opened to see God to be his portion, his heart will be full of doubts and perplexi- ties. Though Mary Magdalene was very near to Christ, yet she stands sighing, mourning, and complaining, that 'they had stolen away her Lord,' John xx. 3 3-16. A Christian may have God for his portion, yet till he comes to see God to be his portion, he will spend his days in sighing, mourning, and complaining. O Christians ! till you come to see God to be your portion, your doubts will lie down with you and rise with you, they will talk with you and walk with you, till they make your lives a very hell. It was an excellent speech of Luther, ' The whole Scripture,' saith he, ' doth principally aim at this thing, that we should not doubt, but that we should hope, trust, and believe that God is a merciful, bountiful, and gracious God to his people.' And what will bring a man's heart over to answer to this blessed aim of the Scripture? Certainly nothing below an assurance that God is his portion. It was a noble resolution of blessed Bradford, who, in one of his epistles, saith thus : ' O Lord, sometimes methinks I feel it so with me, as if there were no difference between my heart and the hearts of the wicked. My mind is as blind as theirs, and my will as stout, stubborn, and re- bellious as theirs; and ray affections are as much disordered as theirs,
Lam. hi. 24.] an ark for all god's noahs. 77
and my conscience as much benumbed and stupefied as theirs, and my heart as hard and flinty as theirs, &c.; shall I therefore conclude that thou art not my Father ? Nay, I will reason otherwise,' saith he ; ' I do believe thou art my Father; I will come unto thee, that thou mayest enlighten this blind mind of mine, and bend and bow this stout and stubborn will of mine ; and that thou mayest put order into these dis- ordered affections of mine, and that thou mayest put life and quickness into this stupefied and benumbed conscience of mine, and that thou mayest put softness and tenderne.ss into this hard and flinty heart of mine.'^ And thus he nobly reasoned himself, and believed himself, out of all his fears and doubts. There is no such way for a man to be rid of all his fears and doubts, as to live in the sight and faith of this truth, that God is his portion.