God had once made known to me my condition! He remembereth also the frequent refreshings, which he hath had from the Spirit and grace of Christ; the assistances in duty, the conquests which by him have been obtained against the enemy: and all these reviews do renew his love; and with such thoughts and remembrances as these in his mind, and with such a sacred fire of love in his heart, how excellently is he fortified against temptations to unbelief! This love is strong, and the waters of many temptatious cannot quench it: if the tempter would give him the substance of worldly goods and riches, yea, all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, to draw the soul from Christ, they would be despised. A bare belief is only in the head, which is but the entrance into the inwards of the soul: but when Christ hath our love, he is in the castle of the heart ; and then the word hath rooting in us; and therefore in time of trial we shall stand. Love is accompanied with hope and desire, so far as we want the thing we love; and it is not easy to take a man off from his strongest desires, and highest hopes, Love is always accompanied with delight, so far as we enjoy the thing we love, and know that we do enjoy it; and a fruition in taste and earnest we have of Christ in this life. And it is, then, no wonder if the tempter have a hard task of it, to draw the soul from him, whom he is delighted in. Worldly men will not let go their vanities; no, nor children their toys; no, nor foolish wretches their foulest sins; because they do delight in them. No wonder, then, if the sons of wisdom, the members of Christ, and children of the kingdom, do hold fast their delights. Did not faith work by this love, desire, delight, and hope, it would be dead, being alone, as to this resisting of temptations. These are the ways in which it putteth forth its strength. These are the arms by which it holdeth fast the Lord. Every grace is employed in its own place, for the entertainment of Christ, and the retaining him with us. They all sit together, do compose that spiritual frame or furniture, which makes us convenient habitations for the Spirit. He, therefore, that hath this nature, these affections, and these experiences accompanying his belief, may well make Paul's challenge, "What shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" O, thou malicious devil, that dost haunt me with thy darts! O, you deluded heretics and infidels, that fill my ears with your foolish sophisms, and trouble me with your disputes against the Lord, my Redeemer! Go to them that know him only by the hearing of the ear, if you

mean to prevail: but I have known him by the sweet experiences of my soul. Go to them that make a religion of their opinions, and whose belief was never any deeper than their fancies, and whose piety never reached any higher than to certain abstinency and negatives, and to tasks of formal duty; these you may possibly draw away from Christ, and make infidels of them, that were never true believers. Go to them that never knew what it was to love Christ, nor to desire after him, nor to delight in his salvation, nor to hope for his promised blessedness hereafter; but have been only the shells or shadows of believers, annumerating themselves with the strictest professors, while they were strangers to their new natures, and inward frame of mind. It is like you may prevail with these, by subtle seducement, or allurements, or threats; but do you think to do so by me? Why, what weapons, what arguments, do you think to prevail by? Shall tribulation be the means? why, I have that promise in the hand of my faith, and that glory in the eye of my hope, that will bring me through tribulation. Shall distress do it? why, I will rather stick so much the closer to him that will relieve me in distresses, and bring me unto his rest. Will you affright me by persecution? I am assured that this is, the nearest way to heaven, and I am blessed of Christ, when persecuted for righteousness. Shall nakedness be the weapon? I had rather pass naked out of this world to heaven, than be clothed in purple, and be stripped of it at death, and cast into hell. Adam's innocent nakedness, and Lazarus's rags, were better than that epicure's gay apparel. (Luke 16.) Shall famine be the means? Why, man liveth not by bread only; I had rather my body famished, than my soul. I have meat to eat that ye know not of; even the bread of life, which whoso eats shall live for ever. If I eat and drink with you, I must hunger and thirst again; but this living water will spring up within me to everlasting life, and then I shall thirst or hunger no more. Will you affright me from Christ, by the sword of violence? I know that the Lord, whom I believe in, and serve, is able to deliver me out of your hands; but if he will not, be it known to you, I will not forsake him: for your sword shall be but the key to open the prison doors, and let out my soul, that hath long desired to be with Christ. If you tell me of peril, I know no danger so great, as of losing Christ and salvation, and bearing his wrath that can kill both body and soul in hell. Do I not read in certain history of

that noble army of martyrs that loved the Lord Jesus to the death, and gloried in tribulation, and would not by the flames, or jaws of lions, be separated from Christ? Did not they pass through that Red Sea, as on dry ground to the promised land.

Was not the Son of God in the flames with them, to strengthen and support them? Though they were killed all the day long, and accounted as sheep to the slaughter, yet did they not forsake the Captain of their Salvation; who was made perfect by suffer. ing, and gave them an example: nay, in all this they were triumphing conquerors; they triumphed in the flames, to the confusion of Satan and all their enemies, as Christ triumphed on the cross, destroying by death the prince of death. (Heb. ii. 14.) Through him that loved them to the death, they were enabled to love him to the death. I am confident that all your assaults will be vain, by which you would separate me from the love of God, in Christ. If you would do it by the threats of death, I will remember it will prove the passage to life, and that Christ doth threaten everlasting death. If you would do it by the baits of life, I will prefer the everlasting life before it. If evil angels assault me, as thinking themselves too strong for me, they will find that I am preserved by a stronger than they. Were it possible for a good angel to dissuade me from my Lord, and to preach to me another Gospel, as he would cease to be good, so I would hold him accursed.

Principalities, aerial or terrestrial, cannot overtop the Divine and Sovereign Lord of the redeemed. Powers, aerial or terrestrial, will never overpower him. Present hopes, or fears, or enjoy'ments, are transitory and contemptible. Future evils will soon be past; and all future things are as ineffectual as the present. The height of honours would not entice; the depths of distresses would not discourage. No power, from the highest to the lowest of creatures; no state, from the highest to the lowest of conditions, shall separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord; either from the love wherewith through Christ I love him, or the love wherewith he loveth me through Christ.

Thus may the confirmed, experienced believer be confident, that the bands and cords of love will never by fraud or force be untwisted; and that none shall take them out of the Father's hands, who is greater than all; and, therefore, none shall take them out of the hands of Christ; and that no persecution shall cause that faith to wither, which in a good and honest heart hath taken root.

And thus you see what an advantage it is against temptation to infidelity, to have the impress of the Gospel of Christ on our hearts, and the witness in ourselves.

Sect. XV.

6

2. So if the tempter should persuade such a man to doubt whether the Gospel be true, or be God's word, this believer may have recourse into his soul for a testimony of it; thence he can tell the tempter, by experience, that he hath found the promises of this Gospel made good to him. Christ hath there promised to send his Spirit into the souls of his people, and so he hath done by me; he hath promised to give light to them that sit in darkness, and to guide their feet into the ways of peace; to bind up the broken-hearted, and set at liberty the captives; and all this he hath fulfilled upon me: all that he hath spoken about the power of his word and grace, and the nature of its effects, I have found upon myself. The help which he promised in temptations, the hearing of prayers, the relief in distress; all these I have found performed; and, therefore, I know that the Gospel is true.'

3. If the tempter would persuade you that there was no need of a Redeemer, the believer hath a testimony of the contrary in himself. Experimentally he hath been convinced of the need of a Redeemer, and so hath advantage against this temptation.

4. If the tempter would persuade you that Christ came but to seek himself, and only to be believed on, and magnified in the world, here also the true believer hath the witness in himself, from whence he can conclude, and prove, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, to be a physician to the sick, to seek and to save that which was lost, and to pull down the kingdom and powers of darkness: for of all these he hath experience in himself, and from hence may sufficiently repel this temptation.

5. If any should question whether there be, indeed, such a thing as a sanctifying Spirit of Christ sent forth into the souls of believers, to recover them to God (as many carnal persons, and deceivers of late, do,) the true believer may have recourse to his own heart, and prove the thing by the testimony within him. He can think of the sins that this Spirit hath mortified, and of the heavenly image which it hath planted on his soul, and the discoveries and changes which it hath made within him, which flesh and blood could not have made, and thus can experimentally confute such deceivers.

Thus you may perceive, that it is the duty of the saints to fetch arguments from within them, for the repelling of such temptations, and the confutation of all suggestions to unbelief: and here, if ever, to show ourselves instructed to the kingdom of God, by fetching out of our treasure things new and old. If the wiser heathens, yea, almost all the pagan world, could gather that there was some life for us after this, from those small sparks of virtue which they found in man's nature, how much more easily and solidly may we conclude, both this and much more, from the spiritual principles, inclinations, and actions, which are wrought on the souls of the sanctified, by the grace of Christ, and the power of the Gospel? Doubtless, there is something within a true Christian that takes part with Christ against all contradictors, as there was something in the new-created man, Adam, that would have taken part with God, if any had denied the Godhead: yea, and as there is something yet in the common sort of mankind, that would make them rise up against him that should be a professed atheist. Do not tempt God, upon confidence of this, by thrusting yourselves into the mouth of temptation, or lending your ears to heretical de ceivers or infidels; but if you are cast upon such temptations, make use of this antidote, and observe whether there be not somewhat within you, that contradicteth the seducer, and riseth up against the blasphemies which are suggested? If a child should be persuaded to think ill of his own father, whatever arguments were brought to persuade him, the very natural love of a child would contradict them, and much advantage him against any slanderous reports that might be raised of him. Another man that neither so well knoweth him, or loveth him, would be far more easily drawn to believe them ; but there is somewhat within him that will not let a child believe them so easily. If a deceiver should say to him, This man is not thy father, and hath nothing to do with thee; he meaneth but to undo thee, and desireth not thy good,' would not something within, even natural love, and experience of his father's kindness, establish a son from crediting such a deceiver? Believers have an inward rooted love to Christ. They love him above father, mother, house, land, or their own lives. They have tasted also and tried how good he is and is it easy to break these bonds, and make such an one believe that the Gospel is false, or that Christ is not indeed the Messiah? When Christ standeth without, and knocks at the door of men's hearts, he then pleadeth but his