* vruoaltri, from «ri/»(w to pierce through, &c., S«*(^a|sTi, to prove and try, as goldsmiths try tlieir metal by the fire and the touchstone. God brings not a pair of scales to weigh our grace, but a touchstone to try our graces. If our gold be true, though it be never so little, it will pass current with him. He will not ' quench the smoking flax,' &c. [Mat. xii. 20.]
» Climacus, Joannes, sumamed the Learned, called Climacus on account of a work written by him, entitled *X/jMa|. — G.
Rom. VIII. 82-34.] heaven on eakth. 385
If thou wilt cast thy eye upon the particulars, I doubt not but thou wilt find that profit and content that will recompense thee for thy pains. And this I thought more convenient to hint to thee, than to write over the same things that there thou wilt find to thy delight and settlement.'
(5.) The fifth impediment to assurance is, Their grieving and vex- ing the Spirit of grace by not hearkening to his voice, by refusing his counsel, by stopping the ear, by throwing water upon that fire he kindles in their souls, and by attributing that to the Spirit that is to be attributed to men's own passions and distempers, and to the prince of darkness and his associates.^ By these and such like ways, they sad that precious Spirit that alone can glad them, they set him a-mourning that alone can set them a-rejoicing, they set him a-grieving that alone can set them a-singing ; and therefore it is that they sigh it out with Jeremiah, Lam. i. 16, ' Behold, he that should comfort our souls, stands afar off.'^ Ah, doubting souls ! if ever you would have assur- ance, you must observe the motions of the Spirit, and give up your- selves to his guidance ; you must live by his laws, and tread in his steps ; you must live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit ; you must let him be chief in your souls. This is the way to have him to be a sealing Spirit, a witnessing Spirit to your hearts. Believe it, souls, if this be not done, you will be far off from quietness and settlement. The word that in 1 John iii. 19 is rendered ' assure,' signifies to per- suade : to note to us that our hearts are forward and peevish, and apt to wrangle and raise objections against God, against Christ, against the Scripture, against our own and others' experiences, and against the sweet hints and joyings of the Spirit; and this they will do, especially when we omit what the Spirit persuades us to.* Omissions raises fears and doubts, and makes work for hell, or for the Spirit and physician of souls. Or else, when we do that which the Spirit dissuades us from. If you be kind and obedient to the Spirit, it will not be long night with your souls ; but if you rebel and vex him, he will make your life a hell, by withholding his ordinary influences, by denying to seal you to the day of redemption, and by giving you up to conflict with horrors and terrors, &c., Isa. Ixiii. 10. Therefore, be at the Spirit's beck and check, and assurance and joy will ere long attend you.
(6.) The sixth impediment to assurance is. Doubting souls making their sense, reason, and feeling the judges of their spiritual conditions. Now so long as they take this course, they will never reach to assurance. Reason's arm is too short to reach this jewel assurance. This pearl of price is put in no hand but that hand of faith that reaches from earth to heaven. What tongue can express or heart conceive the fears, the doubts, the clouds, the darkness, the perplexities that will arise from the soul's reasoning thus : — I find not that the countenance of God is
* The same man sells that, that sells this ; more to that point I cannot easily say.
* Nil nisi sanctum a sancto Spiritu prodire potest, nothing can come from the Holy Spirit but that which is holy.
' Smoke drives away bees, and an ill-savour drives away doves. Sin is such a smoke, such an ill-savour, as drives away this dove-like Spirit.
* fl-s/VoitJv. The soul will not quite leave wrangling, till it be quiet in the bosom of Christ.
386 HEAVEN ON EARTH. [ROM. VIII. 32-34.
towards me as before, Gen. xxxi. 5 ; therefore, surely my condition is bad ; I feel not those quickenings, those cheerings, those meltings as before ; I am not sensible of those secret stirrings and actings of the Spirit and grace in my soul as before ; I do not hear such good news from heaven as before ; therefore certainly God is not my God, I am not beloved, I am not in the state of grace, I have biit deceived myself and others ; and therefore the issue will be that I shall die in my sins. To make sense and feeling the judges of our spiritual con- ditions, what is it but to make ourselves happy and miserable, right- eous and unrighteous, saved and damned in one day, ay, in one hour, when sense and reason sit as judges upon the bench ? Hath God made sense and feeling the judges of your conditions ? No. Why, then, will you ? Is your reason Scripture ? Is your sense Scripture ? Is your feeling Scripture ? No. Why, then, will you make them judges of your spiritual estate ? Is not the word the judge, by which all men and their actions shall be judged at last ? ' The word that I have spoken,' says Christ, ' shall judge you in the last day/ John xii. 48. ' To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light, or no morning in them,' Isa. viii. 20 [1?"i''** inK'j. Why, then, 0 doubting souls, will you make your sense and feeling the judge, not only of your condition, but of the truth itself ? What is this but to dethrone God, and to make a god of your sense and feeling ? What is this, but to limit and bind up the Holy One of Israel ? What is this but to toss the soul to and fro, and to ex- pose it to a labyrinth of fears and scruples ? What is this but to cast a reproach upon Christ, to gratify Satan, and to keep yourselves upon the rack ? Well ! doubting souls, the counsel that I shall give you is this, be much in believing, and make only the Scripture the judge of your condition ; maintain the judgment of the word against the judgment of sense and feeling ; and if upon a serious, sincere, and im- partial comparing of thy heart and the word together, of thy ways and the word together, the word speaks thee out to be sincere, to be a Nathanael, to be a new creature, to be born again, to have an immortal seed in thee, &c., cleave to the testimony of the word, joy in it, rest upon it, and give no more way to fears and doubts. Let thy counte- nance be no more sad ; for nothing can speak or make that soul miserable, that the word speaks out to be happy,' Ps. cxix. 24, '•tfJN ^n^y