VER. 11.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 341
of these are exceeding dreadful and terrible to our nature as mortal, weak, and infirm. Peter knew how it is with us in all our natural principles, when he advised his Lord and Master to spare himself, as he was foretelling of his own sufferings. Here the weakness of our nature would betake itself to a thousand pretences to be spared ; but the gospel requires severely that they be all discarded, and the cross cheerfully taken up, whenever by the rule of it we are called thereunto. And they do but deceive themselves who engage into a profession of it without a readiness and preparation for these things. It is true, God may spare whom he pleaseth and when he pleaseth, as to the bitterness of them; and some, in his tenderness and com- passion, are little, it may be, exercised with them all their days; but this is by especial dispensation and extraordinary indulgence. The rule is plain.—we must be all ready in the school of Christ to say this lesson, and he may eall forth whom he pleaseth unto its repetition. We are, it may be, loath to come forth, loath to be brought to the trial; but we must stand to it, or expect to be turned out of doors, and to be denied by the great Master at the last day. We are, for the most part, grown tender and delicate, and unwilling to come (so much as in our minds) to a resolved conversation with these things. Various hopes and contrivances shall relieve our thoughts from them. But the precept is universal, absolute, indispensable, and such as our entrance into the rest of God doth depend on its due observance. By the dread hereof are multitudes kept in the wilder- ness of the world, wandering up and down between Egypt and Canaan, and at length fall finally under the power of unbelief. These and the like things are very difficult unto our nature as it is weak.
2. All the commands of the gospel are opposite and con- trary to our nature as it is corrupt. And this hath so large an interest in all men, as to make those things very difficult unto them which are wholly opposite thereunto. A sense hereof hath made gome endeavour a composition between the gospel and their lusts, so “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness,” by seeking coun- tenance from thence unto their sins, which have no design but to destroy them. From the corruption of our nature it is that the things which the gospel in its precepts requires us severely to cast off and destroy have a treble interest in us, that it is not easy to overcome,—an interest of love, an interest of usefulness, and an in- terest of power.
(1.) An interest of love. Hence we are commanded to pull out right eyes, if they offend us, Matt. v. 29,—things that are as dear unto us as our eye, as our right eye. And it is a proverbial expression to set out the high valuation and dear esteem we have of any thing, to say that it is unto us as our eye;—as God himself, to express his tender care over his people, says, “ he that toucheth them toucheth
342 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. ly.
the apple of his eye,” Deut. xxxii.10, Zech. ii.8. And-such are the lusts of the flesh naturally to men; whence the precept of the gospel, “Tf thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee,” immediately subjoined to that doctrine of purity and chastity, “Who- soever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,” Matt. v. 28. Now there cannot but. be great difficulty in cutting off and casting away from us such things as have so great an interest of love in us, as these lusts have in cor- rupted nature. Every one is unwilling to part with what he loves; and the more he loves it the less willing is he to part with it, the longer and the more earnestly wiil he hold it. And there is nothing that men naturally love more than their carnal lusts. They will part with.their names, their estates, and venture their lives, all to satisfy them.
(2.) An interest of usefulness. Nature, as corrupt, would persuade a man that he cannot live nor subsist in this world without the help and advantage of some of those things which the gospel forbids to all them that will enter into the rest of God. Hence is the com- mand to cut off the right hand, if it offend, Matt. v. 30; that is, things apprehended as useful unto us as a right hand is to the common services of life. Of this kind is that inordinate love of the world, and all the ways whereby it is pursued, which the gospel doth so condemn. These things are to many what Micah’s gods were unto him, who cried out upon the loss of them, when they were stolen by the Danites, “ Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more?” Take away from men their love of this world, and the inordinate pursuit of it, and they think they have no more; they will scarce think it worth while to live in the world any longer. And this interest also is to be overcome, which it cannot be without great difficulty; and a cleaving unto it is that which hinders multi- tudes from entering into the rest of God.