Tliirdly, This peace enjoj'ed in the Cliristian's bosom hath a sweet influence on his self-denial ; a grace so necessary to sufl'ering, that Cluist lays the cross, as I may so say, upon the biick of this grace : ' Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,' Mark viii. 34. Another, with Simon of Cyrene, may be compelled to carry Christ's cross after him a little way; but it is the self-denying soul that will stoop willingly and down on his knees to have his burden laid on him at Christ's hand. Now the sense of a soul's peace with Ciod will enable the creature in a twofold self-denial, and by both sweetly dispose him for any suHering from or for Christ. Fii-st, It will enable him to deny himself in his sinful self. Sin may well be called our self, it cleaves so close to us, even as our members to our body ; as hard to mortify a lust as to cut oft' a joint. And some sins are more our self than others, as our life is more boimd up in some members than others ; well, let them be what they will, there is a good day in which, if Christ asks the head of the proudest lust among them all, he shall have it with less regret than Herodias obtained the Baptist's at Herod's hands. And what is that gaudy day in which the Christian can so freely deny his sin, and deliver it up to justice, but when Christ is feasting him with this hidden manna of pardon and peace ? A true friend will rather deny himself tlian one he lo\'es dearly, if it be in his power to grant his request ; but least of all can he deny him, when his friend is doing him a greater kindness at the same time tliat he asks a less. No such picklock to open the heart as love. When love comes a-begging, i'.nd that at a time when it is shewing itself in some eminent expression of kind- ness to him at whose door she knocks, there is little fear but to speed. Esther chose that time to engage Ahasuerus's heart against Haman, her enemy, when she expressed her love most to Ahasuerus, viz., at a banquet : when doth God give, or indeed when can he give, the like demonstration of his love to a poor soul, as when he entertains it at this gospel banquet? Now sure, if ever, God may prevail with his child to send the cursed Amalekite to the gallows, his lust to the gibbet. Do you think that Mary Magdalen, when that blessed news dropped from Christ into her mournful heart, that ' her sins, which were many, were all forgiven her,' could now have been persuaded to have o])ened the door to any of her former lovers, and gone out of these embraces of Christ's love, to have played the whore again? No; I doubt not but she would sooner have chosen the flames of martyrdom than of lust. Indeed, that which can make the creature deny a lust, can make the creature it shall not deny a cross. Secondly, The sense of this peace will enable the Christian to deny his carnal enjoyments ; and these the Christian finds his great drawbacks from suffering. As the heart burns in the hot fit of love to the pleasures and profits of this world when he abounds with them ; in that degree will his shaking fit of fear and grief be when Christ calls him to part witli them. What the sweet wines and dainty fare of Capua were to Hannibal's soldiers, that we shall find any intemper;ince of heart to the creatiu-e will be to us ; it will enervate our spirits, and so effeminate us, that we shall have little mind tot»ndure hardship when drawn into tlie field to look an enemy in the face. Now the sense of this gospel-peace will deaden the heart to the creature, and facilitate the work of self-denial, as to the greatest enjoyments the world hath. ' God forbid,' saith St. Paixl, ' that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world,' Gal. vi. 14. Paul's heart is dead to the world ; now mark what gave the death-wound to his carnal afiections : ' By whom,' saith he, ' the world is crucified to me, and I unto it,' that is, Christ and his cross. 'I'here was a time indeed that Paul loved the world as well as most ; but since he hath been acquainted with Christ, and the mercy of God in him to his soul, pardon- ing his sins, and receiving him into favour and fellowship with himself, he is quite of another mind ; he leaves the world, as Saul his seeking of the asses at the news of a kingdom ; his haunt lies another way now. I-et the Zibas of the world take the world, and all they can make of it with their best husbandry ; he will not grudge them their happiness, forasmuch as his heavenly Lord and King is come in peace to his soul. None can part with the comfort of the creature so cheerfully as he who hath his mouth at the fountain-head, the love of God himself. Parents are near, and friends are dear ; yet a loving wife can forget her father's house, and leave her old friends' company, to go with her
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