2. Because when life is in hazard, conscience will work in them by way of discouragement ; it will hint the danger of their eternal state to them, and tell them they may cast away their souls for ever in a bravado ; for though the cause they are called to suffer for be good, yet their condition is bad ; and if the condition be not good as well as the cause, a man is lost for ever, though he suffer for it, 1 Cor. xiii. 3. Conscience, which encourages and supports the up- right, will discourage and daunt the hypocrite, and tell him, he is not on the same terms in sufferings that other men are.
3. Because then all the springs by which their profession was fed and maintained, fail and dry up. Now the wind that was in their backs is come about, and blows a storm in their faces ; there are no preferments nor honours now to be had from religion. These men's sufferings are a perfect surprize to them, for they never counted the cost, Luke xiv. 28. Now they must stand alone, and resist unto blood, and sacrifice all visibles for invisibles ; and this they can never do.
O therefore, professors, look to your hearts, try their predomi- nant love; compare your love to Christ with that to your lives. Now the like question will be put to you, that once was put to Peter, John xxi. 15. " Lovest thou me more than these?" What say you to this ? You think now you do, but alas your love is not yet brought to the fire to be tried : you think you hate sin, but will you be able to strive unto blood against sin ? Heb. xii. 4. Will you choose suffering rather than sin ? Job xxvi. 21. O try your love to Christ, before God bring it to the trial. Sure I am, the love of life will make you warp in the hour of temptation ; ex- cept,
A TREATISE OF THE SOI L OE U 599
1. You sat down and counted the cost of religion before-hand: if you set out in procession only for a walk, not for a journey ? If you go to sea for recreation, not for a voyage ; if you be mounted among other processors, only to take the air, and not to engage an enemy in sharp and bloody encounters, you are gone.
2. Except you live by faith, and not by sense, 2 Cor. iv. 18. " Whilst we look not at the things that are seen." You must ba- lance present sufferings with future glory. You must go by that account and reckoning, Horn. viii. 18. or you are gone. " Now ** the just shall live by faith;" and if faith do not support, your fears will certainly sink you.
3. Except you be sincere and plain-hearted in religion, driving no design in it but to save your souls ; you may see your lot in that example, 2 Tim. iv. 10. " Demas hath forsaken me." O take heed of a cunning, deceitful, double heart in religion ; be plain, be open, care not if your ends lie open to the eyes of all the world.
4. Except you experience the power of religion in your own souls, as well as wear the name of it. O my brethren, it is not a name to live that will do you service now. Many ships are gone down to the bottom, for all the brave names of the Success, the Prosperous, the Happy Return, and so will you. There is a know- ing of ourselves by taste and real experience, Heb. x. 34. which doth a soul more service in a suffering hour, than all the splendid names and titles in the world.
5. Except you make it your daily work to crucify the flesh, deny self for Christ, in all the forms and interests of it. He that cannot deny himself, will deny Jesus Christ, Matth. xvi. 24. " Let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me,11 else he cannot be my disciple. Ponder these things in your hearts, whilst yet God delays the trial.
Inf. 3. If the souls of men be naturally so strongly inclined and affected towards the body; Then hence you may plainly sec the wisdom of God in all the afflictions and burdens he lays upon his people in this world, and find that all is but enough to wean off their souls from their bodies* and make them willing- to part with then?.
The life of the saints in this world, is generally a burdened and a groaning life; 2 Cor. v. 2. " In this ^ibernacle we groan, being " burdened." Here the saints [et'l, (1.) A burden of sin, Rom. \ii. 24. this is a dead and a sinking weight. (2.) A burden of af- fliction ; of this all are partakers, Heb. xii. though not all in an equal degree, or in the same kind, yet all have their burdens equal to, and even beyond their own strength to support it ; 2 Cor. i 8. " pressed above measure.1' (3.) A burden of inward troubles
A TREATISE Of THE BOt L OF MAX.
for sin, ami outward troubles in the flesh both tog-ether, so had Job, Heman, David, and many of the saints.
Certainly this befals them not, (1.) Casually, Job v. 6. " It " rises not out of the dust :" (2.) Nor because God loves and regards them not, for they are fruits of his love ; Heb. xii. 6. fc* Whom he loveth he correeteth :" (3.) Nor because he takes pleasure in their groans ; Lam. iii. 34. " To tread under his feet " the prisoners of the earth, — the Lord hath no pleasure :" it is not for his own pleasure, but his children's profit, Heb. xh. 10. And among the profits that result from these burdens, this is not the least, to make you less fond of the body than you would else be, and more willing to be gone to your everlasting rest. And cer- tainly all the diseases and pains we endure in the body, whether they be upon inward or outward accounts, by passion or compas- sion from God or men, will be found but enough to wean us, and loose off our hearts from the fond love of life. Afflictions are bitter things to our taste, Ruth i. 20. so bitter, that Naomi thought a name of a contrary signification fitter for her afflicted condition : call me Mar ah, i. e. bitter, not Naomi, pleasant, beautiful. And the church, Lam. iii. 9. calls them wormwood and gall.
The great design of God in afflicting them, is the same that a tender mother projects in putting wormwood to her breast when she would wean the child.
It hath been observed by some discreet and grave ministers, that before their removal from one place to another, God hath permit- ted and ordered some weaning providence to befal them ; either denying wonted success to their labour, or alienating and cooling the affections of their people towards them, which not only makes the manner of their departure more easy, but the grounds of it more clear. Much so it falls out in our natural death, the com- fort of the world is imbittered to us before we leave it ; the longer we live in it, the less we shall like it. We over-live most of our comforts which engaged our hearts to it, that we may more freely take our leave of it. It were good for Christians to observe the voice of such providences as these, and answer the designs of them in a greater willingness to die.