3. Thougli a prisonlooks sad and dismal, yet it is not hell: OK bless God for that, that is a sad prison indeed ! Beloved, men have their jirisons, and God hath his : God's prison is a terrible jjrison indeed, thousands are now there in chains, 1 Pet. iii. 19- and there you deserved to have been sent long ago : If God exchange an hell for a prison, have you any cause to complain ?
4. How obdurate and cruel soever men are to you, yet tlie Lord Jesus is kind and tender-hearted to Xyvs prisoners ; he puts the kind- nesses that any shew them upon his own account, Matth. xxv. 36. " He looks down from heaven to hear the sighings and groanings " of his prisoners,^ Psal. cii. 20. He will tenderly sympathize with you in all your prison-straits and troubles.
5. A prison hath been handselled and perfumed by the best and holiest of men in all ages, 1 Kings xxii. 27. Jer. xxxii. 2. iVIat. iv. 12. Acts V. 18. and xxvi. 10. God hath made it a settled ,sc/iooZ of discipline to them.
6. Should, you, to avoid a prison, commit a sin, instead of being man's lyrisoner, you shall be clapt up by God, for he hath a prison for your souls even in this world, Psal. cxlii. 7. And this is ten thousand times more dreadful than any dungeon in the world. Oh it is a dark 2)rison I nothing to let in the least beam of Gods countenance upon 3^our poor souls. What a sad exchange have you made then.?
7. Consider what a ground of comfort God hath laid in that word, llev. ii. 10. to obviate the fears and terrors incident to us in such a condition : God hath limited Satan and his instruments, both for time, number, and all circumstances of the trial.
8. Lastly, You do not know what a mercy may be in it : It may^ be a time of retirement from the world, and the clamours and dis- tractions that are abroad. These days of imprisonment may be your holy-days ; as a prisoner of Christ once called them.
4. Get an heart mortified to the excessive and inordinate love of life : This, I confess, is the highest and hardest point of self-denial, because it wraps up all other self-interests in it. But yet consider,
* If the presence of Christ once changed a prison into a kind of heaven, what wil it do in heaven itself, vhich tven here doth make a dungeon like heaven ?
58 PEEPAIIATIOXS FOR SUFFERINGS ; OK,
First, Though life be very dear, yet Jesus Christ is ten thousand times dearer than thy life : If you be a saint he is the life of thy life, and the length of thy days ; and in comparison of him and his glorv, saints should, and have despised and slighted their lives, Luke xiv/26. Rev. xii. 11.
Secondly, Die you must : and if by shrinking from Christ you should protract a miserable life for a few days longer, in the mean time losing that which is better than life, Psal. Ixiii. 3. Mat. x. 39- Oh ! -when you lie upon your death-bed, you will wish that you had obeyed God's call, and so have departed in peace.
Thii'dly, If you have cordially covenanted with Christ, (as all sin- cere believers have done,) then you have yielded up your lives to him, to be disposed of for his glory, Rom. xiv. 7. So that, look as Christ both lived and died for you ; so 02ight you to live as Christ : And all the excellency you see in life consists in that reference and subserviency it hath to his gloiy. I say then, if you have under- standingly and cordially transacted in a covenant-way with him> your care will not be so much how to shun death, as by what death you may most glorify God, John xxi. 19. And certainly you can never lay them down upon a more honourable and comfortable account than in his cause, and for his sake. It was a great trouble to Luther, that he carried his blood to his grave.
Fourthly^ To die for Christ, is one of the highest testifications of jour love to Christ, that you are capable of, John xiii. 37. Yea, it is such a testification of your love to the Lord Jesus, as angels are not capable of making.
Fifthly, Why should you decline even a violent death for Christy when as the bitterness of death is past, and there is no hell following the ijale horse ? It cannot separate you from Christ, Rom. viii. 38.
Sixthly, Think what a death Christ suffered for you : In which the fulness of the wrath both of God and man met together, so that he was sore amazed ; yet with desire did he desire it for your sakes.
7. Lastly, Think what a life you shall have with Christ as soon as this is delivered up to, and for him, 2 Tim. ii. \% It is but wink, and vou shall see God.
Oh that these things might provoke you to follow on, and ply the work of mortijication.
Wherein is opened the singular advantage that suffering saints have by their slcill and insights into the methods and mysteries of Satan'' s temptations : some of those wiles of Satan opened, and rules for the avoiding of the danger brief y prescribed.
J HE hazards and dangers of Christians in times of persecution, arise not so much from their sufferings, as from the tempta-
THE BEST WORK IN THE WORST TIMES. 5^
tions that always attend, and are by Satan planted upon their suffer- ino-s : for the most part, sufferings and temptations go together, Heb. xl. 37. And therefore it behoves such as are, or expect to be called to sufferings, to dive into the mysteries of temptations, and be well acquainted with the enemy's designs upon them. So was Paul, and so he supposes all others to be that engage in the same cause : " We " are not ignorant of his devices," 2 Cor. ii. 11. There is a mani- fold advantage redounding to suffering saints thereby.
1. He that is well acquainted with the methods of temptation, will be better able to descry the first approaches and beginnings of it, and a temptation discovered, is more than half conquered. It is a special artifice of Satan to shuffle in his temptations as undiscernibly as may be into the soul ; for he knows, that " in vain is the net " spread in the sight of any bird,'' Prov. i. 17. And therefore he ordinarily makes a suffering season to be a tempting season ; because sufferings, like fire to iron, make it impressive and operable, they do ordinarily put the soul into an hurry and distraction, and so gives him an advantage to tempt thesoul with less suspicion andgreater success. liut now, a skilful Christian that is acquainted with his wiles, will discern when hehegms to eiite?' into teinptation; as Christ's cxpresssiou is, Luke xxii. 46. And so check the temptation in its first rise when it is weakest, and most easily broken. Doubtless one reason why so many fall by temptation is, because it is got within them, and hath prevailed far before it be discovered to be a temptation.