world. ' If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honoui-, sanctified and meet for his 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 him 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 pleaselh, and be gone 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 meets 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 waj' or weather, any hardship likely to be endured for his pro- fession. I have read of one of the Catos, that in his old age he 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, Isfe solus self tnvere : ' 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 commenda- tion 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 befall him. The second follows.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SHEWETH 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.
Section I. — First, 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 con- tent; and how doth he do 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 much be felt. Solomon tells us, 'The ways of wisdom (that is, Christ) are ways of pleasantness.' But how so, when some of them are ways of suffer- ing? the next words resolve us, ' And all her paths are peace,' Prov. iii. 17. Where there is ])eace, such peace as peace with (Jod 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,
2 E
418 AND YOUR FEET SHOD WITH