SECT. VI.

Sixthly, Labour to carry on the work of mortification every day to further degrees than others. It is the sap in the wood that makes it hard to burn, and corruption unmortified that makes the Christian loath to suffer; dried wood will not kindle sooner than a heart dried and mortified to the lusts of the world will endure any thing for Christ. The Apostle speaks of some that were "tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection;" Heb. xi. 35. they did not like the world so well, as, being so far on their journey to heaven (though in hard way) to be willing to come back to live in it any longer. Take heed, Christian, of leaving any worldly lust unmortified in thy soul; this will never consent thou shouldest endure much for Christ. Few ships sink at sea, they are the rocks and shelves that split them; couldest thou get off the rocks of pride and unbelief, and scape knocking on the sands of fear of man, love of the world, and the like lusts, thou wouldest do well enough in the greatest storm that can overtake thee in the sea of this world. "If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." 2 Tim. ii. 21. O that we knew the heaven that is in a mortified soul! one that is crucified to the world and lusts of it; he hath the advantage of any other in doing or suffering for Christ, and enjoying Christ in both. A mortified soul lives out of all noise and disturbance from those carnal passions which put all out of quiet where they come. When the mortified soul goes to duty, here are not those rude and unmannerly intrusions of impertinent, carnal, yea sinful thoughts between him and his God. Is he to go to prison? here is not such weeping and taking on, no lust to hang about his legs, and break his heart with its insinuations; no self-love to entreat him that he would pity himself; his heart is free, got out of the acquaintance of these troublers of his peace, and a prison to him, if he may go upon so honourable an errand as testifying to the truth is, O how welcome is it to him! whereas an unmortified heart

is wedged in with so great acquaintance and kindred (as I may so say), which his heart hath in the world, that it is impossible to get out of their embraces into any willingness to suffer. A man that comes into an inn in a strange place, he may rise at what time he pleaseth, and be goue as early as he pleaseth in the morning: there are none entreat him to stay; but hard to get out of a friend's house, these, like the Levite's father-in-law, will be desiring him to stay one day, and then one more, and another after that. The mortified soul is the stranger; he meet with no disturbance (I mean comparatively) in his journey to heaven, while the unmortified one is linked in fast enough for getting on his journey in haste, especially so long as the flesh hath so fair an excuse as the foulness of the way or weather, any hardship likely to be endured for his profession. I have read of one of the Catos, that in his old age withdrew himself from Rome to his country-house, that he might spend his elder years free from care and trouble; and all the Romans, as they rode by his house, used to say, Iste solus scit vivere; this man alone knows how to live. I know not what art Cato had to disburden himself (by his retiring) of the world's cares; I am sure a man may go into the country, and yet not leave the city behind him; his mind may be in a crowd, while his body is in the solitude of a wilderness. Alas! poor man, he was a stranger to the Gospel; had he been but acquainted with this, it could have shewn him a way out of the world's crowd, in the midst of Rome itself and that is by mortifying his heart to the world both in the pleasures and troubles of it; and then that high commendation might have been given him without an hyperbole ; for, to speak truth, he only knows aright how to live in the world, that hath learnt to die to the world. And so much for the first point; which was, that the Christian is to stand ready for all trials and troubles that may befal him. The second follows, which is

SHEWETH

CHAP. XVIII.

WHO IS THE PERSON THAT IS SHOD AND PREPARED FOR SUFFERINGS, i. e. HE THAT HATH THE GOSPEL'S PEACE IN HIS BOSOM; AND HOW THIS PEACE DOTH PREPARE FOR SUFFERING, WITH A BRIEF APPLICATION OF ALL.

DOCT. 2. That he who enjoys the peace of the Gospel in his bosom is the person, and the only person, that stands shod for all ways, prepared for all troubles and trials.

SECT. I.

None can make a shoe to the creature's foot, so as he shall go easy on hard way, but Christ; he can do it to the creature's full content; and how doth be it? Truly no other way, than by underlaying it, or, if you will, lining it, with the peace of the Gospel; what though the way be set with sharp stones, if this shoe go between the Christian's foot and them, they cannot be much felt. Solomon tell us, "The ways of wisdom (that is Christ) are ways of pleasantness." But how so, when some of them are ways of suffering? The next words resolve us : "And all her paths are peace;" Prov. iii. 17. Where there is peace, such peace as peace with God and conscience, there can want no pleasure. David goes merry to bed when he hath nothing to supper, but the gladness that God by this puts into his heart, and promiseth himself a better night's rest than any of them all that are feasted with the world's cheer. Psal. iv. 7, 8. "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine encreased. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep." This same peace with God, enjoyed in the conscience, redounds to the comfort of the body. Now David can sleep sweetly, when he lies on a hard bed; what here he saith he would do, Psal. iii. 5. he saith he had done: "I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me." The title of the

Psalm tells us when David had this sweet night's rest; not when he lay on his bed of down in his stately palace at Jerusalem, but when he fled for his life from his unnatural son Absalom, and possibly was forced to lie in the open field under the canopy of heaven. Truly it must be a soft pillow indeed that could make him forget his danger, who then had such a disloyal army at his back, hunting of him; yea, so transcendant is the sweet influence of this peace, that it can make the creature lie down as cheerfully to sleep in the grave as on the softest bed. You will say that child is willing that calls to be put to bed; some of the saints have desired God to lay them at rest in their beds of dust; and that not in a pet and discontent with their present trouble, as Job did, but from a sweet sense of this peace in their bosoms. "Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," was the swan-like song of old Simeon. He speaks like a merchant that had got all his things on ship-board, and now desires the master of the ship to hoist sail, and be gone homewards. Indeed what should a Christian, that is but a foreigner here, desire to stay any longer for in the world, but to get this full lading in for heaven; and when hath he that if not when he is assured of his peace with God? This peace of the Gospel, and sense of the love of God in the soul, doth so admirably conduce to the enabling of a person in all difficulties, and temptations, and troubles, that ordinarily before he calls his saints to any hard service, or hot work, he gives them a draught of this cordial wine next their hearts to cheer them up, and embolden them in the conflict. God calls Abraham out of his native country, Gen. xii. 1. and what so fit, as a promise of Christ, to bring his heart to God's foot, verse 2, 3. A sad errand it was that sent Jacob to Padan-Aram; he fled from an angry wrathful brother, that had murdered him already in his thoughts, to an unkind deceitful uncle, under whom he should endure much hardship.

Now God comes in a sweet Gospel vision to comfort this poor pilgrim; for by "that ladder, whose feet stood on earth, and top reached heaven," Christ was signified to his faith, in whom heaven and earth meet, God and 3 P

VOL. II.

man are reconciled; and by the "moving up and down of the angels on the ladder," the ministry of the angels, which Christ by his death and intercession procures for his saints, that they shall attend on them, as servants on their master's children; so that the sum of all is as much as if God had said, Jacob, thy brother Esau hates thee, but in Christ I am reconciled to thee; thy uncle Laban, he will wrong thee, and deal hardly by thee, but fear him not; as I am in Christ at peace with thee, so through him thou shalt have my especial care over thee, and the guardianship of the holy angels about thee, to defend thee wherever thou goest. The Israelites, when ready to take their march out of Egypt into a desolate wilderness, where they should be put to many plunges, and their faith tried to purpose, to prepare them the more for these, he entertains them at a Gospel-supper before they go forth, I mean the passover, which pointed to Christ; and no doubt the sweetness of this feast made some gracious souls among them (that tasted Christ in it) endure the hardship and hunger of the wilderness the more cheerfully. And the same care and love did our Lord Jesus observe in the institution of his supper, chusing that for the time of erecting this sweet ordinance when his disciples' feet stood at the brink of a sea of sorrows and troubles, which his death and the consequences of it would inevitably bring upon them. Now the pardon of their sins, sealed to their souls in that ordinance, must needs be welcome, and enable them to wade through their sufferings the more comfortably. Indeed the great care which Christ took for his disciples, when he left the world, was not to leave them a quiet world to live in, but to arm them against a troublesome world; and to do this, he labours to satisfy their poor hearts with his love to them, and his Father's love to them for his sake: he bequeathes unto them his peace, and empties it in the sweet consolations of it into their bosoms; for which end he tells them, as soon as he got to heaven, he would "pray his Father to send the Comforter to them," with all speed, and sends them to Jerusalem, there to stay privately, and not go into the field, or openly contest with the angry world, till they received