Therefore let us not be afraid beforehand. ' Fear nothing,' saith the ■apostle, ' that thou shalt suffer,' Acts sxvii. 24. And with Moses, let ' us not be ashamed of the rebuke of Christ,' Heb. xi. 26 ; but ' let us go out of the camp with Christ, bearing our reproach,' Heb. xiii. 13. And because we know not what God may call us to, let us entertain presently a resolu- tion to endm'e whatsoever in this world God calls us to ; to pass through thick and thin, to pass through all kinds of ways to the ' hope of our glorious calling,' Philip, iii. 14 ; if by any way, by any means,' saith St Paul, ' I may attain the resm-rection of the dead,' Philip, iii. 11 : if by any means I may come to heaven, by fair death, or by violent death. He scorned reproach, if by any means he might be happy.
And for others, it is a wondrous quailing to the spirits of men that offer any wrong, if it be but a disgrace. A scoff" is a persecution to a Christian for a good cause. When wicked men oppose a Christian in a good cause and course, let us learn what they do, they ' kick against the pricks,' Acts ix. 5, Do they know what they do ? "When they reproach Christians, it is the * reproach of Christ,' Heb. xi. 26. What was Ishmael's scorning ? A persecution. Gal. iv. 29 Christ is scorned in his members. WiU he endure this at their hands ? "When good causes are opposed, Christ is opposed, and Christ is scoffed. This doth enable- our suffering, being an abasing of itself, that Christ accounts it done to him.
Base men of the world, they think when they scoff at goodness, and wrong the image of God in his children, they think they deride and despise a company of weak creatm-es, that they scoff at silly persons meaner than themselves. But they are deceived. They scoff Christ in them, and he takes it so, ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?' Acts ix. 4. The foot is trod on the earth, and the head speaks from heaven. It is the reproach of Christ ; and it will be laid to thy charge at the day of judgment, that thou hast scoffed, and persecuted, and reproached Christ in his members. It will be a heavy indictment. Men should not regard what they conceive of things ; but what he that must be theh judge mil conceive of things ere long ; and he interprets it as done to his own person. It is true both of good and ill. "Whatsoever good we do to a Christian as a Christian, to a disciple in the name of a disciple, Christ takes it as done to himself, * That is, ' strengthen us in sufi'ering.' — G.
86 COMMENTARY ON
* Inasmucli as you have done it to tlicsc, you Lave done it to me,' Mai. XXV. 40.
It should animate us to do good offices to those that are Christ's. What we do to them, we do to Christ. Let us be wilhng to refresh the bowels of Christ in his members, at home or abroad, as occasion serves ; to main- tain the quarrel of Christ as much as we can, to relieve Christ. He comes to us in the poor, and asks relief. He that shed his blood for us, he that died for us, he that hath given us all, asks a little pittance for himself; that we for his sake would be so good to him in his members, as to do thus and thus ; that for Jonathan's sake we would regard poor, lame Mophibosheth, his son, 2 Sam. ix. 1, seq. Christ, though he be gone, he hath some Mephi- bosheths, some poor, weak members ; and what offices we do them, he accounts done to himself. It runs on his score. He will be accountable for every good word we speak in his cause, for every defence, for every act of bounty. It is a point of large meditation to consider, that the crosses and afflictions of Christians, they are the sufferings of Christ.
Do but consider the Spirit of God intended in this phrase, to dignify all disgraces and indignities that are put upon us in a good cause and quarrel. Could he have said more in few words ? He calls them not disgraces, or losses, or death ; but he puts such a comfortable title upon them, that might make us in love with sufiering anything, and set us on fire to endure anything in a good cause. They are the ' sufferings of Christ.'
' As the sufferings of Christ abound, so om* consolations,' &c. The third general point is, that oar consolations are projMrtionable to our sufferings. ' Om' consolations abound.' We suffer in this world. That is hard. Aye, but they are the sufferings of Christ. There is sweetness. And then an- other degree is, our consolations abound as our sufferings abound. Con- solation is, as I shewed before in the unfolding of the word, an inward support of the soul against trouble felt or feared ; and it must be stronger than the grievance, or else the action of comfort will not follow. There is a disproportion between the agent and the patient, in all prevailing actions, or else there is no prevailing. If the comfort be not above the malady, it is no comfort. And therefore no comforts but divine comforts wiU stand at length, because in all other comforts sedet medicinum morbo* the malady is above the remedy. They make glorious pretences, as the philosophers do, Plutarch and Seneca, and the rest. But they are as apothecaries' boxes. They have goodly titles, but there is nothing within.