If you would, Christians, attain unto assurance, then you must mind your work more than your wages; you must be better at obeying than disputing; at doing, at walking, than at talking and wrangling. Assurance is the heavenly wages which Christ gives, not to loiterers, but to holy laborers. Though no man merits assurance by his obedience, yet God usually crowns obedience with assurance.
-Thomas Brooks, Works of Thomas Brooks, Vol. 2, pp. 413-414 (Heaven on Earth, ch. 5).
Note: I don’t necessarily agree with this as a primary means of gaining assurance, but I certainly think it is wise counsel in general. The idea of ‘minding your work more than your wages’ is quite helpful in general, but we must have an eye toward the promises of God in Christ if we are to rightly mind our work to begin with (though I think this is Brooks’ assumption).
