' Assurance of Christ's love made Jerome admiringly to say, 0 my Saviour, didst thou die for love of me alone, a [death] more dolorous than death, but to me a death more lovely than life itself ! I cannot live, love thee, and be longer from thee.
* David, though in a wilderness, seeks not for bread or water or protection, but fur more of God.
* The assured soul's motto is, 0 my God! when shall I be with thee, when shall I be with thee?
* The devil marcheth well armed, and in good array, saith Luther.
< ^ I verily think that they have very much cause to question the truth of their assur- ance, who know not what it is to have their assurance assaulted strongly by Satan. VOL. II. K k
5 1 4 HEAVEN ON EARTH. [ROM. VIII. 32-34.
honour and glory, and your comfort and felicity, that he cannot but be very studious and industrious to make use of all traps, snares, methods, and ways whereby he may shake the pillars of your faith, and weaken and overthrow your assurance. Pirates, you know, do most fiercely assault those ships and vessels that are most richly ladeu ;' so doth Satan those precious souls that have attained to the riches of full assurance.'
Assurance makes a paradise in believers' souls, and this makes Satan to roar and rage. Assurance fits a man to do God the greatest service and Satan the greatest dis-service, and this makes him mad against the soul. Assurance makes a saint to be too hard for Satan at all weapons, yea, to lead that ' son of the morning ' captive, to spoil him of all his hurting power, to bind him in chains, and to triumph over him ; and this makes his hell a great deal hotter, Rom. viii. 32-39. And there- fore never wonder at Satan's assaulting your assurance, but expect it and look for it. The jailor is quiet when his prisoner is in bolts, but if he be escaped then he pursues him with hue and cry.^ So long as the soul is in bolts and bondage under Satan, Satan is quiet and is not so apt to molest and vex it ; but when once a soul is made free, and assured of his freedom by Christ, John viii. 36, then says Satan, as once Pharaoh did, ' I will arise, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my lust shall be satisfied upon them ; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them,' Exodus xv. 9. The experience of all assured saints doth abundantly confirm this. Israel going into Egypt had no enemies, no opposition, but travelling into Canaan they were never free.
[4.] The fourth difference. Fourthly, A weU grounded-assuranee makes a man as bold as a lion ; it makes him valiant and gallant for Christ and his cause, in the face of all dangers and deaths} After the Holy Ghost was fallen upon the apostles, and had assured them of their internal and eternal happiness, oh ! how bold, how undaunted, how resolute were they in the face of all oppositions, afflictions, and persecutions ! as you may see from the second of the Acts of the ApOvStles to the end of the Acts. So assurance had this operation upon David's heart : Ps. xxiii. 4, 6 compared, ' Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.' Well, David, but how doth this assurance of yours operate ? Why, saith he ' Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' So Moses having an assurance of the 'recompence of reward,' he fears not the wrath of the king, ' for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible,' Heb. xi. 26, 27. So in Heb. x. 34, ' And ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.' ^ Oh, that knowledge, that assurance that they
> See Index under Iieighton. — G.
• 8atan is that old serpent, as John speaks, Eev. xii. 9. He is as old as the world, and is grown very cunning by experience, he being a spirit of above five thousand years' standing.
3 Luther cries out, I am set upon by all the world without, and within by the devil and all his angels.
* Tanto plus ffloricB referemus quoniam eo plures snperabimus. The number of opposers makes the Christian's conquest the more illustrious, say saints under the power of assurance, &c.
'^ ixaerierifft, was Constant. . . . 'yitai^KevTtt ix"* >' i'^vraTs, Knowing that you have in yourselves, K^tirTna vTct^^m in eS^moif xa'i fcitoviray, a better being in heaven, and an abiding one.
Rom. VIII. 32-34] heaven on earth. 515
had in their own hearts of enjoying in heaven a better and a more en- during substance, made them bear cheerfully and gallantly the spoiling of their worldly goods. Though the archers — the world, the flesh, and the devil — do shoot sore at a soul under assurance, yet his bow will still abide in strength. Assurance will make a man to break a bow of steel, to trample down strength, and to triumph over all oppositions and afflictions.
Colonus the Dutch martyr called to the judge that had sentenced him to death, and desired him to lay his hand upon his heart, and asked him whose heart did most beat, his or the judge's. Assurance will make a man do this, and much more for Christ and his cause.
[5.] The fifth difference. Fifthly, A well-grounded assurance of a man's own eternal happiness and blessedness ^'iWiMike him very studious and laborious to make others happy: Ps. Ixvi. 16, ' Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul.' I will acquaint you with the soul blessings, with the soul favours, that God hath crowned me with. I was darkness, but he hath made me light ; I was unrighteousness, but he hath made me righteous ; I was deformed, but he hath made me complete ; I was full of sores, and spots, and blemishes, but he hath washed me, and made me all fair, without spot or wrinkle. I have found the want of assurance, I now see the worth of assurance ; I have long sought assurance, and now I find the sweetness of assurance. Ah ! it is such a pearl of price, it is such a beam of God, it is such a spark of glory, that makes my soul a rich amends for all its waiting, weeping, and wrestling.*