A Saint Indeed

4. The comfort of our Souls doth much depend upon the keeping of our hearts, for he that is negligent in attending his own heart, is (ordinarily) a great stranger to assurance, and the sweet comforts flowing from it.

Indeed, if the Antinomian Doctrine were true, which teaches you to reject all marks and signs for the trial of your conditions, telling you it is only the spirit that immediately assures you by witnessing your adoption directly without them, then you might be careless of your hearts, yea, strangers to them, and yet no strangers to comfort: but since both Scripture and experience do confute this dotage, I hope you will never look for comfort in that unscriptural way. I deny not but it is the work and office of the Spirit to assure you, and yet do confidently affirm, that if ever you attain assurance in the ordinary way wherein God dispenses it, you must take pains ⟨p. 29⟩with your own hearts, you may expect your comforts upon easier terms; but I am mistaken, if ever you enjoy them upon any other: Give all diligence; prove your selves: this is the Scripture way. I remember Mr. Roberts in his Treatise of the Covenant, tells us, That he knew a Christian who in the infancy of his Christianity, so vehemently panted after the infallible assurance of God's love, that for a long time together he earnestly desired some voice from Heaven; yea, sometimes walking in the solitary fields, earnestly desired some miraculous voice from the Trees and stones there; this, after many desires and longings was denied him; but in time, a better was afforded in the ordinary way of searching the word, and his own heart. An instance of the like nature the learned Gerson gives us, Of one that was driven by temptation upon the very borders of desperation, at last being sweetly settled and assured, one asked him, How he attained it? He answered, Non ex nova aliqua revelation, &c. Not by any extraordinary revelation, but by subjecting his understanding to the Scriptures, and comparing his own heart with them. The Spirit indeed assures by witnessing ⟨p. 30⟩our adoption, and he witnesseth two ways. (1) Objectively, (i. e.) by working those Graces in our Souls which are the Conditions of the Promise, and so the Spirit and his Graces in us are all one; the Spirit of God dwelling in us, is a mark of our Adoption. Now the Spirit cannot be discerned in his essence, but in his operations; and to discern these is to discern the Spirit; and how these should be discerned without serious searching and diligent watching of the heart, I cannot imagine. (2) The other way of the Spirits witnessing is effectively, (i.