Monday, January 19, 2015

Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 6

Assurance of Life Eternal (continued)

It is the very drift and design of the whole Scripture, to bring souls first to an acquaintance with Christ, and then to an acceptance of Christ, and then to build them in a sweet assurance of their actual interest in Christ. (Thomas Brooks)

To make sense and feeling the judges of our spiritual conditions, what is it but to make ourselves happy and miserable, righteous and unrighteous, saved and damned in one day, ay, in one hour. What is this but to toss the soul to and fro, and to expose it to a labyrinth of fears and scruples? What is this but to cast a reproach upon Christ, to gratify satan, and to keep yourselves upon the rack? Well, doubting souls, the counsel that I shall give you is this, be much in believing, and make only the Scripture the judge of your condition; maintain the judgment of the Word against the judgment of sense and feeling. If you resolve to make sense and feelings the judge of your conditions, you must resolve to live in fears, and lie down in tears. (Thomas Brooks)

Motion is the most perfect discovery of life. He that can stir his limbs, is surely not dead. The feet of the soul are the affections. Hast thou not found in thyself a hate and detestation of that sin whereinto thou has  been miscarried? Hast thou not found in thyself a true grief of heart, for thy wretched, indisposition to all good things? Without a true life of grace, these things could never have been. (Joseph Hall)

Another sure mark of sensible faith and comfort, is this: that they that have tasted of it, CAN NEVER BE SATISFIED, but still hunger and labor for more. (Ezekiel Culverwell)

It may be you have been more earnest and vehement for assurance, and the effects of it, viz., joy, comfort, and peace, than you have been for grace and holiness, for communion with God, and conformity to God. It may be your requests for assurance have been full of life and spirits, when your requests for grace and holiness, for communion with God, and conformity to God, have been lifeless and spiritless. If so, no wonder that assurance is denied you. Assurance makes most for your comfort, but holiness makes most for God's honor. Man's holiness is now his greatest happiness, and in heaven man's greatest happiness will be his perfect holiness. (Thomas Brooks)

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