ISA. LIU. G,] THE FIFTY-THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 307
remove tliy foot from evil.' Walk with a great deal of care and cir- cumspection. When it is so easy to err, a man would be solicitous. The apostle blameth those that did not opOovoSetv, not ' walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel/ Gal, ii. 14. They did not go with a right foot. The world thinketh strictness to be folly and nice- ness. You see there is a great deal of reason for it : there is error on both sides of truth, and you may easily miscarry : there is an extreme on both hands. A little to direct you, mind that place, Mat. vii. 14, ' Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it.' There are some way-marks. I think, without wrong to that place, that I may give you three — a strait gate, a narrow way, and few compan3^
1. A strait gate. The entrance into it puts the soul shrewdly to it, whether taken for the coming out of ourselves, or the getting into Christ. It is a narrow way to carry the soul right. It is like the pas- sages by which Jonathan and his armour-bearer sought to get up to the Philistines: 1 Sam. xiv. 4, 'There was a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side ; the name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other was Seneh.' So here, between pre- sumption and despair, it is hard to keep the soul right, sometimes the wind bloweth in one corner, sometimes in another. How to keep our- selves from despair in going out of ourselves, how to keep ourselves from presumption by getting into Christ, is not so easy.
2. There is a narrow path, T€ffXi/u.fMevr] rj 6Bo<i, an afflicted, rough way, such as will engage believers —
[1.] To the exercise of care. A diffident, regardless soul is out of his way: you have but a ridge to walk upon : Eph. v. 15, ' Walk cir- cumspectly ; ' not even as it liitteth ; for it is a hard matter to keep a good conscience, Acts xxiv. 16 ; and Prov. xxiii. 19, * Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the right way.' You had need look to it.
[2.] To a great deal of pains and sorrow. He was mistaken that said, Take thine ease. Many can swallow sins, and pursue them, and yet have no sense of them that they are wrong. It is a way that will put you upon much sorrow and affliction, because you have such a distempered soul, and such a deal of pride and intemperance and anger in it : Kom. vii, 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' Ps. cxx. 5, ' Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar ! ' The saints are apt to grieve that they have such a worldly spirit in a heavenly journey.
[3.] To a great deal of self-denial. It is a way that restraineth nature ; therefore we are called upon. Mat. iii. 3, ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;' Heb. xii. 13, 'And make straight paths to your feet.' There must be strictness in our course. It is not such a way as will leave you to the sway of your own hearts. ^Nature would have a thing many times, but you must put a knife to your throats, as if you were more ready to slay your appetite than to satisfy it. The thoughts, the affections, the speeches, the actions, must be reduced to the strict rules of the word. When men please nature to the full, it is a sign they have mistaken their way.
308 A rRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [IsA. LIII. G.
[4.] It will en<:^ai;e you to miicli mortification, to miicli opposition: Epli. vi. 12, 'For Ave wrestle not against tlesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.' You have strong lusts to cope with, and those must be mortified, which you cannot do Avithout the Spirit of Christ, Rom. viii. 13. It will cost you many prayers and tears, and fighting with spiritual wickednesses.
3. Tiie next way-mark is, that you have but little company : ' Nar- row is the way that leads to life, and fcAv there be that find it.' Many walk as others do, and so mistake. Others sever themselves from the world, but go in the ordinary track of profession, not out of the com- mon road. This is to be true to a sect and company of men, not to the ways of God. As Paul, when he was a i)harisee, he lived by the eye, and did as others did ; he lived after the strictest sect of religion, Acts. xxvi. 5. You must put a difference between the ordinary num- ber of professors and yourself. But if you be vain and sensual, what do you more than they ? Christians should look after the distinction and the difference between them and others: Mat. vi. 32, ' For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.' Implying, a man should do more than they, more than the men of the world can ever do : Ps. iv. 6, ' There be many that say. Who will show us any good ? ' That is the fashion of the men of the brutish multitude. But the godly say, ' Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance upon us.'