Assurance of Salvation (2)

(2) Likewise, we may know those who belong to God by our sympathy and antipathy—our sympathy with them that be good, and antipathy to that which is wicked. There is a love of that which is good. So good things are natural to a good man. There is a relish in good company and good things. As there is sweetness in the best things, so there is something in the children of God that is answerable to the God whom they serve. He is never so out of taste, but he finds his chief comfort in these things, and he is never himself so much as when he is conversant in these things, though in different measure: sometimes more, and sometimes less. On the other hand, there is an inward antipathy to God in a proud carnal man that has not his heart subdued by grace; there is a contrariness to the power of that grace which outwardly he professes, and a sympathy with the world and the spirit of the world. Take a good Christian at the worst, he is better than another at the best.
I beseech you, therefore, examine your dispositions; how you stand affected to things of a higher nature than the things of the world; to spiritual things, how you can relish spiritual things, God's ordinances, and anything that is holy. Surely if there be the life of God and Christ in you, there will be a kind of naturalness and suitableness of taste to the sweetness that is in holy things.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
A Heavenly Conference, pp. 101-03
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