Others there are, who, if once they come to suffer, presently fall to shift- ing and, plotting, how to get forth again by unlawful means ; oftentimes making shipwreck of a good conscience, and dishonom'ing the gospel of God. I beseech you consider these things. Every man would have Christ, and be religious, so long as they may enjoy peace and quietness ; but if once trouble or persecution arises, then farewell religion ; they cast ofi' their profession then. I wish this were not the case of many seeming Christians in these our days.
But suppose a man carry himself ill in suffering ?
There is not the least promise of comfort in Scripture to such a man, unless he return, and seek the Lord by timely repentance ; for all encourage- ment is to well-doing. Oh, what a pitiful thing is it for the soul to be in such a state, as that it dares not commit itself to God ! A man in evil doing cannot go home to his own conscience for comfort, nor have any inward peace in the least action he performs, so long as he doth it with false aims, and carnal affections, &c. Who would deprive himself of the comfort of suffering in a good cause for want of integrity ? I beseech you, therefore, carry yourselves well in anything you either do or sufier, other- wise no blessing can be expected ; for we tempt the Lord, and make him accessory to us, when we commit our souls to him in ill-doing : even as your pirates and other miscreants in the world, that will rob and steal, and do wickedly, and yet pray to God to bless them in their base courses (c) ; what is this but to make God like themselves, as if he approved their theft and horrible blasphemy ?
But ivhat must we commit to God in imll-doing ? The keeping of our souls. The soul is the more excellent part, witness he that purchased the same with his dearest blood. ' What will it profit a man,' saith our Saviour, ' to gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?' Mark viii. 36. Who could know the price of a soul better than he that gave his life for redemption of it ? Yea, if the whole world were laid in one balance and the soul in another, the soul were better than all. Therefore, whatsoever estate thou art in, let thy first care be for thy soul, that it may go well with that. You know in any danger or combustion, suppose the firing of an house, that which a man chielly looks after is his jewels and precious things, • I have some wealth in such a place, if I could but have that I care for no more, let the rest go ;' so it is with a Christian, whatsoever becomes of him
THE saint's hiding-place IN THE EVIL DAY. 407
in this world, he looks to his precious soul, that that may be laid up safely in the hands of God. Suppose a man were robbed by the highway, and had some special jewel about him, though eveiy thing else were taken away from him, yet so long as that is left he thinks himself a happy man, and saith, they have taken away some luggage, but they have left me that which I prize more than all : so it is with a Christian, let him be stripped of all he hath, so his soul be not hurt, but all safe and well there, he cares not much.
Quest. But what should we desire our souls to be kept from in this world ?
Ans. From sin and the evil consequences thereof. Beloved, we have great need our souls should be kept by God ; for alas ! what sin is there but we shall fall into it, unless God preserve us in peace and comfort, and assurance of a better estate. What would become of our poor souls if we had them in our own keeping ? Ahithophel had the keeping of his own soul, and what became of him ? First, he did run into the sins of treason, and afterwards, being a wicked politician, and an atheist, having no delight in God, was the executioner of himself {d). We shall be ready, as Job saith, to tear our own souls if God hath not the keeping of them ; we shall tear them with desperate thoughts, as Judas, who never committed his soul to God, but kept it himself, and we see what became of him. The apostle bids us go to God in prayer, and committing our souls to him, to keep from sin, despair, distrust, and all spiritual evil whatsoever, ' and then the peace of God which passeth all understanding,' as the word in the oiiginal is, * shall guard* our souls in Christ,' Phil. iv. 7. Om' souls have need of guarding, and we of ourselves are not sufficient to do it ; therefore we should commit them unto God, for except he preserve us we shall soon perish.
Wicked men think that they have no souls. I am ashamed to speak of it, and yet notwithstanding the courses of men are such, that they enforce a man to speak that which he is ashamed of. What do I speak of commit- ting your souls to God, when many thousands in the world live as if they had no souls at all ? I am persuaded that your common swearers, and pro- fane wretches, who wrong their souls to pleasure their bodies, and prosti- tute both body and soul, and all to their base lusts, think for the time that they have no souls ; they think not that there is such an excellent immortal substance breathed into them by God, which must live for ever in eternal happiness or endless miseiy. Did they believe this they would not wound and stain their precious souls as they do ; they would not obey every base lust out of the abundance of profaneness in their hearts, even for nothing, as many notorious loose persons do. Oh could we but get this principle into people, that they have immortal souls, which must live for ever, they would soon be better than they are ; but the devil hath most men in such bondage that their lives speak that they believe they have no souls, by their ill usage of them.