Let us often examine ourselves in this particular : how it is Avith us when such thoughts arise '? what if trouble should come ? what if change and alteration should come ? He that hath truly settled his heart will say, If they do come, I am fixed, I know whom I have believed ; I know I am a
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member of Christ, an heir of heaven, that God is reconciled to me in his Son ; I know God hath taken me out of the condition I was in by nature, and hath advanced me to a better condition than I can have in the world ; and when the world shall be turned upside down, I know, when all things fail, I shall stand.
He that his heart can answer him thus, is firm. A <^ood man, saith the psalmist, ' shall not be afraid of evil tidings,' Ps. cxii. 7. Why ? His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord ; and again, in ver. 8, ' His heart is stablished, therefore he shall not be afraid.' If our hearts bo established, then we shall not be afraid of evil tidings, nor afraid of wars, nor of troubles, nor of loss of friends, nor of loss of favours, or the like. A righteous man is afraid of no evil. He that hath his heart stablished in Christ, and that hath peace of conscience wrought by the Spirit of God in the promises, his heart is fixed. In all alterations and changes, he hath somewhat that is unchangeable. Even when he ceaseth to be in this world, he hath a perpetual, eternal being in Christ. If he die, he goes to heaven. He hath his being there, where he enjoys a more near communion with Christ than he can have in this world. So that all is on the bettering hand to him that is stablished in Christ ; for it is not an act of one day to be stablished in Christ. God doth it more and more till death, and then comes a perfect consummation of this stablishing. ' We shall be for ever with the Lord,' saith the apostle, 1 Thess. iv. 17. A man then that is stablished in Christ, he is fixed, he is built on a rock ; come what can come, he is not afraid.
Alas ! others that are not so, they are as wicked Ahaz, in Isa. vii. 2 : he was boisterous out of trouble, but in trouble he was as fearful. His heart shook ' as the leaves of the forest,' as the leaves of the forest when the wind comes. They are shaken, because they are not seemly knit to the ti'ee, because they have no stability.
All those whose hearts are not firmly settled in the knowledge of Christ, and the excellent prerogatives that come by him, when trouble come, they are as the leaves of the forest ; or, as you have it in Ps. i. •!, 'As the chaif that the wind driveth to and fro ; ' because it hath no consistence, it is a light body, or as ' the dross,' Ps. cxix. 119. ' God shall destroy the wicked as dross.' See how the Scripture compares men, not only for their wickedness, but for their misery, that have no certain being, but on earthly things, though they be never so great, and, as they think, deeply rooted, when troubles come, they are as dross, they are as chafi" that hath no firmness before the wind ; when the wind of judgment comes, they are as stubble presently wasted and brought to nothing.
I beseech you therefore, without deceiving of our own hearts, let us enter into our own souls, and examine, for our knowledge first, and then for our boldness.
What dost thou know in religion that thou wouldst die for, or die in ? We are stablished in no more to purpose, than we would die^ for. Are those truths thou laiowest so firmly wrought in thee by the Spirit of God ? Hast thou such experience of them, such spiritual sense and taste of the goodness of them, that thou wouldst be content to part with thy life, rather than to part with them ? Thou art stablished then by the Spirit of God in Christ. I do not speak of every little truth. It needs not that a man should die for that ; but I speak of fundamental truths. Canst thou prove them so out of the Scripture ? and dost thou find the testimony of Jesus Christ witnessing to thy heart that they are true ? Then thou art
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confirmed and etablishcd in these truths. I beseech you, let us often examine upon wliat pjrounds, and how firmly we know what we know. For, have we not many that, if the adversaries should come, would conform to popery, and join themselves to Home, because they cannot hack their principles with Scriptures, and because they have not a spiritual under- standing and apprehension of divine truths ? Now he that is stablished stands firm against temptations and against arguments ; he will not be won away from his fuith, but remains unnioveable.
Therefore, I say, let us often examine ourselves in this particular. I believe this and this against the papists and others. Aye, but how shall I stand out for this ? If trials should come, am I able to prove this from the Scriptures so clear as if it were written, as he saith, * with a sun- beam ? ' The temptation and assaults of the devil, by men's subtle wits and arguments, will shake our judgments, will hurt more, and if time should come, tr}' us better than tire and fagot. Those spies that brought an evil report upon the land of Canaan, we see that though the land, when it was won, was fruitful enough, and the conquest of it honourable, &c., and therein those spies discovered their own weakness ; 5'et when they had made that shrewd oration, and brought subtle arguments to the eye of flesh and blood, we see, I say, how the people were discouraged, and how they staggered. Num. xiii. 38, seq. So a man that is not stablished, he may sometimes have shrewd men to deal withal, perhaps atheists, papists, Jesuits, and the devil joining with them to unsettle men ; and they will pre- vail if men be not well settled and stablished before.