The divine life in three treatises

2. Walking with God is the surest way to obtain a certainty of his special love, and of our salvation: And what an excellent preparative for sufferings or death such assurance is, I need not tell any considerate believer. How easy may it be to us to suffer poverty, disgrace or wrongs, or the pains of sickness or death, when once we are certain that we shall not suffer the pains of Hell! How cheerfully may we go out of this troublesome world, and leave the greatest prosperity behind us, when we are sure to live in Heaven for ever! Even an Infidel will say, that he could suffer or dye, if he could but be certain to be Glorified in Heaven when he is dead.

2. Walking with God is the surest way to obtain a certainty of his special love, and of our salvation: And what an excellent preparative for sufferings or death such assurance is, I need not tell any considerate beleever. How easie may it be to us to suffer poverty, disgrace or wrongs, or the pains of sickness or death, when once we are certain that we shall not suffer the pains of Hell! How chearfully may we go out of this troublesome world, and leave the greatest prosperity behind us, when we are sure to live in Heaven for ever! Even an Infidel will say, that he could suffer or dye, if he could but be certain to be Glorified in Heaven when he is dead.

3. Walking with God doth mortify the flesh, and allay the affections and lusts thereof: The soul that is taken up with higher matters, and daily seeth things more excellent, becometh as dead to the things below: And thus it weaneth us from all that is in the world which seemeth most desirable to carnal men. And when the flesh is mortified, and the world is nothing to us, or but as a dead and loathsome carcass, what is there left to be very troublesome in any suffering from the world? or to make us loth by death to leave it? It is men that know not God, that overvalue the profits and honours of the world; and men that never felt the comforts of Communion with God, that set too much by the pleasures of the flesh: And it is men that set too much by these, that make so great a matter of suffering. It is he that basely overvalueth wealth, that whineth and repineth when he comes to poverty: It is he that set too much by his honour, and being befooled by his pride, doth greatly esteem the thoughts or applauding words of men, that swelleth against those that disesteem him, and breaketh his heart when he falleth into disgrace. He that is cheated out of his wits by the pomps and splendour of a high and prosperous estate, doth think he is undone when he is brought low. But it is not so with him that walks with God: For being taken up with far higher things, he knoweth the vanity of these: As