A Goodly Heritage

God sometimes permits Satan to assail His dear children , the more to strengthen them in His spiritual graces , and to confirm them more fully in the assurance of His love and their salvation .   For as a city which has been once besieged and not sacked will ever after be more strong to hold out if it be assaulted by the like danger ..... so those that are besieged and assaulted by their spiritual enemies will ever after more carefully arm themselves against them with the graces of God's Spirit , that they may not be overcome nor foiled by them .  

Let us not commend our graces to the eye of our deluded judgements , as shopkeepers do their coarse wares , by setting coarser by them , or by setting in our sight the examples of others who come short of us ;but let us compare our little sparks of grace with those bright flames which shone in the patriarchs ,prophets, and apostles , yea , in our Saviour , Christ himself . And so we shall not be proud of our progress, but ashamed rather of our small proficiency ; and with the apostle ,"forgetting those things that are behind , and reaching forth to those things that are before ,"we shall "press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.