84 PHILIPPIANS, I'll. 3. [2151.
a great regard for him, and a fixed determination to serve him. One said, " Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest;" but was deterred from executing his purpose, when our Lord told him, " Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Another, when bidden by our Lord to follow him, requested that this might be dispensed with for a season, that he might go home and bury his father. A third made great professions of his readiness to follow Christ; but desired, that he might first go home, and bid his friends farewell q. To all of these our Lord gave such replies as were calculated to expose and counteract the delusions by which they were blinded. And were our excuses tried, as they will ere long be, by the same touchstone, how vain would they appear ! Pleas of duty or affection are often brought forth to justify the secret backwardness which we feel to encounter difficulties for the Lord. But the mask will soon be taken off, and our selfishness will appear in all its naked deformity. Beware then, brethren, lest ye deceive your own souls; and, whilst the fidelity of others is questioned, let it be said of you, as it was of Timothy, " Ye know the proof of him1." Let your whole life be a comment on that declaration of the Apostle, " None of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth unto himself; but whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord : whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's8." Only take care that, in your experience, it be " Christ to live ;" and you need never fear but that it shall be " gain to die*."]
i Luke ix. 57 — 60. r ver. 22.
s Rom. xiv. 7, 8. * Phil. i. 21.