they are not their own, they are bought with a price, 1 Cor. vi. 20, and vii. 23 ; and therefore to him they must be accountable for their lives, liberties, &c., and therefore they had need be very wary how they part with them. We must not step out of our way to take up a cross. The three worthies were passive,! Dan. iii. 20, 21,28. They did not rush into the fiery furnace, but yielded themselves to be cast into the fiery furnace ; they did not stubbornly oppose nor struggle against their enemies, but patiently and quietly yielded their bodies to the flames : neither did the prophets or apostles step over God's hedge, to make way to their own sufferings or martyrdom. No men may, with the Donatists, destroy themselves, rather than they would conform to this or that religion. No man may have a hand in his own destruction, no man may cut his throat with his own hands to avoid a prison, a dungeon, a den, a fiery furnace. Cyprian tells the Christians in his time, that were ambitious of martyrdom, Non est in tua potestate, sed in Dei dignatione, martyrium. We may not run ourselves into prison without a mittimus from heaven. If righteous- ness lead me into prison, a righteous God will stand by me in prison, and in the issue, give me a gracious or a glorious deliverance out of prison. But if I wilfully, causelessly run myself into prison, it will be a righteous thing with God, to leave me to shift for myself in prison. If God should meet a man in prison, and say to him — as he did once to Elijah, 'What dost thou here, Elijah?'^ 1 King xix. 9 — What dost thou here, 0 man ? is this a fit place for truth's champion? if a man cannot readily answer. Lord, I have not run myself into a prison — but it is thyself, it is thy truth, it is thy interest, it is thy honour, it is my conscience, it is duty that has brought me hither — what confusion would attend him! Philustrius (?) and Theodoret speak of some that would compel men to kill them out of an affectation of martyrdom ; but this was a mad ambition, but no true zeal. It was an error in Tertullian, to say that afflictions, that sufferings were to be sought. No man is to make his own cross, nor scourges to whip him- self ; nor to cast himself into a suffering state, so long as God hath left him a plain open way to escape suffering without sinning : not but that most men are more apt and prone to sin themselves out of smart sufferings, than unwarrantably to run themselves into sufferings ; but it is good for every Christian to be upon his guard, and not run till God sends him. Acts ix. 23-25 ; John xx. 19, 26. As a Christian must not shun sufferings, so he must not seek them.
(2.) Secondly, That afflictions, sufferings, persecutions, hath been the common lot and portion of the people of God in all the ages of the world.^ Witness the sufferings of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, the primitive Christians, and the martyrs of a later date. Abel was persecuted by Cain, 1 John iii. 12 ; and Isaac by Ishmael, Gal. iv. 29 ; and Jacob by Esau. That seems to be a standing law, ' All that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution,' 2 Tim.
^ What sad sufferings do many blind papists run themselves into, out of a superstitious opinion of merit or satisfaction ; but under all their penances they cannot say, ' We bear in our bodies the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ,' Gal. vi. 17.
' Here he is secretly taxed for leaving his station out of too much fear of Jezebel.
^ Mat. X. 22, and xvi. 24 ; Luke xxi. 12 ; John xv. 20 ; Heb. xi. The common cry of persecutors hath been Cliristianos ad Leones.
418 A GENERAL EPISTLE