Heaven on Earth

The seventh Motive to provoke you¹ to get Assurance, is, To consider that Assurance will enable you to bear a burden without a burden. As in Heb. 10. 34. For ye had compassion of ²me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in your selves that ye have in Heaven a better, and an enduring substance. Here you see that assurance of Heavenly things, makes ⟨p. 243⟩these Worthies, patiently, and joyfully bear a burden without a burden. So the Apostles knowing, that they ³had a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens, went through honour and dishonour, evil report, and good report. They went through many weaknesses, sicknesses, wants, and deaths; they had nothing, and yet possest all things; they had burden upon burden, cast upon them by the Churches, by false Apostles, and by an uncharitable world; and yet they cheerfully bore all burdens without a burden, through the power of a well-grounded assurance. Assurance makes heavy afflictions⁴ light, long afflictions short, bitter afflictions sweet. Where a man wants assurance, there the shadow of a burden frights him, and the weight of the least burden sinks him; such a man is still a crying out, No mans burdens to my burden, my burden is greater then others, my burden is heavier then others. The want of assurance often times makes mens very mercies a burden, their comforts a burden, their relations a burden, yea, their very lives a burden unto them.⁵ ⟨p. 244⟩Ah Christians, you will never bear burdens without a burden, till you come to attain an assurance of better things: This will enable you to leap under the weight of any cross, to rejoice under the weight of any Mountain. Assurance fits a mans heart to his condition, and when a mans heart is fitted to his condition, nothing proves a burden to him. Assurance of better