(9.) The ninth motive to provoke you to get assurance is this, Tou cannot gratify Satan more, nor injure yourselves more, than by living without assurance. By living without assurance, you lay yourselves open to all Satan's snares and temptations ; yea, you do instigate and provoke Satan to tempt you to the worst of sins, to tempt you to the greatest neglects, to tempt you to the strangest shifts, and to reduce you to the saddest straits. Ah, Christians ! in what, in what hath Satan so gratified you, that you should thus gratify him ? Hath he not robbed you of your glory in innocency ? Hath he not kept your souls and your Saviour long asunder ? When with Joshua you have been standing before
1 The precepts of God, saith Lactantius, do so change the whole man, and make him new, that you can hardly know him to be the same. — Lactantius, De Falsa Sapient, lib. iii. cap. 27 : a thing which philosophy hath much laboured in, but could never achieve. Christians ! the pressing of those very commands last cited upon your hearts, may pro- duce that comfort and peace, and make such a blessed change in your inward condition, as may bespeak much admiration.
406 HEAVEN ON EARTH. [ROM. VIII. 32-34.
the Lord, Zech. iii. 1, 2, hath not he stood at your right hand as an adversary to resist you ? Hath he not often set the glory of the world before you, that he might bewitch you and ensnare you ? Mat. iv. 8. Hath he not often cast water upon those divine motions that have been kindled in you ? Have you not often found him a lion and a serpent, a tempter and a deceiver, a liar and a murderer? 1 Thes. ii. 18. Yes. Oh, then, never gi-atify him any longer by living without assurance. He that lives without assurance, lives without a comfortable fruition of God, and so gratifies Satan. He that lives without assurance, lives upon some creature enjoyment more than upon God, and so gratifies Satan, He that lives without assurance, lives not like the beloved of God, and so gratifies Satan. He that lives without assurance is very apt to gratify Satan, sometimes by complying with him, sometimes by following after him, and sometimes by acting his part for him, &c. Verily, Christians ! there is no way effectually to prevent this sore evil, but by getting a well-grounded assurance of your everlasting happiness and blessedness. Assurance will make a man stand upon terms of de- fiiance with Satan, it will make the soul constant in resisting, and happy in overcoming, the evil one. An assured soul will fight it out to the death with Satan; an assured soul will not fly like a coward, but will stand and triumph like a David.
And as you gratify Satan by living without assurance, so you wrong your own souls by living without assurance.
(1.) In the point of comfort and joy, you wrong your own souls.
(2.) In the point of peace and content, you wrong your own souls.
(3.) In the point of boldness and confidence, you wrong your own souls.
A man that lives without assurance, lays his precious soul open to many blows and knocks, to many frowns and wounds, from God, from the world, from carnal friends, from hypocrites, and from Satan ; there- fore as you would not, Christians, gratify Satan, and wiong your own souls, and exercise over yourselves spiritual cruelty and tyranny, which is the very worst of all cruelty and tyranny,^ give God no rest till he hath made known to you the sweetness of his love, and the secrets of his bosom, till he hath gathered you up into himself, till he hath set you as 'a seal upon his heart, as a seal upon his arm,' Cant. viii. 6.
(10.) The tenth motive, to provoke you to get a well-grounded assur- ance is this, Consider the sweet 'profit and glorious advantage thai will redound to you by gaining assurance ; and if the gain that will certainly redound to you by assurance will not provoke you to get assur- ance, I know not what will.
[1.] The first advantage. It wUl bring down heaven into your bosoms; it will give you a possession of heaven, on this side heaven, Heb. xi. 1. An assured soul lives in paradise, and walks in paradise, and works in paradise, and rests in paradise ; he hath heaven within him, and heaven about him, and heaven over him ; all his language is Heaven, heaven ! Glory, glory !
[2.] The second advantage. Assurance will exceedingly sweeten all the changes of this life. This life is full of changes. Assurance will sweeten sickness and health, weakness and strength, wants and > Rapil animam tuam, he plundereth Ms own soul.
Rom. VIII. 32-34.] heaven on earth. 407
abundance, disgrace and honour, 2 Cor. iv. 16-18, &c. While a man lives in the sense of unchangeable loves, no outward changes can make any considerable change in his spirit. Let times change, let men change, let powers change, let nations change, yet a man under the power of assurance will not change his countenance, nor change his master, nor change his work, nor change his hopes. Though others under changes turn, like the chameleon, into all colours to save their little all, yet the assured soul under ail changes is semper idem, always the same.^
Antistines, a philosopher,^ to make his life happy, desired only that he might have the spirit of Socrates, who was always in a quiet temper of spirit, whatever wrongs, injuries, crosses, losses, &c., befell him. Let the trials be what they would that did attend him, yet he continued one and the same. Ah, Christians ! the want of assurance hath made many changelings in these days ; but if ever you would be like Socrates, if ever you would be like the philosopher's good man, that is, rtr«a- yuvo;, Tetragonos, four square, that cast him where you will, like a die, he falls always sure and square, then get assurance of everlasting happiness.
Assurance will make your souls like the laws of the Medes and Persians, that alter not; it will sweeten the darkest day, and the longest night; under variety of changes, it will make a man sit down with Habakkuk, and rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of his salvation, Hab. iii. 17-19.
[3.] Tlie third advantage. Assurance will keep the heart from an inordinate running out after the world, and the glory thereof. Moses having an assurance of the recompence of reward, and of his love and favour that is invisible, could not be drawn by all the honours, pleasures, and treasures of Egypt. He slights all, and tramples upon all the glory of the world, as men trample upon things of no worth, Heb. xi. 24-27. So after Paul had been in the third heaven, and had assurance that nothing should separate him from the love of God in Christ, he looks upon the world as a crucified thing : ' The world is crucified to me,' saith he, 2 Cor. xii. 1-3, and Rom. viii. 38 ; 'and I am- crucified unto the world,' Gal. vi. 14. The world is dead to me, and I am dead to it : the world and I am well agreed ; the world cares not a pin for me, and I care not a pin for the world.