Chapter XIV: Discovering the Unreadiness of Multitudes of Professors for Suffering-Work.
your former experiences, and they will tell you what weaklings you are.
Consid. 7. Lastly, Hath Christ given you more grace than others, then how much more hath he obliged you to honour him thereby? And is this your requital of his love! What! to take the crown from his head, and put it upon your own! Certainly a greater injury cannot be done to Christ than this.
Well then, by all this be persuaded to cease from yourselves, yea, from your religious selves; and to all your other preparations, add this as a choice one; if you do these things, you shall never fall. And thus you see the complete Christian in his equipage for sufferings.
Chapter XIV: Discovering the Unreadiness of Multitudes of Professors for Suffering-Work.
Containing the first use of the point by way of conviction, discovering the unreadiness of multitudes of professors for suffering-work.
YOU have seen, by all that hath been spoken, what the necessary pre-requisites unto a suffering condition are; and what manner of persons you must be, (both for habitual and actual readiness), if ever you honour Christ by bonds, or death for him. And I doubt not but your judgments and consciences yield to the evident necessity of these things, wherein I have placed the Christian's readiness. But, alas! where shall we find among the
throngs and crowds of professors, any considerable numbers thus qualified and prepared? To suffer for Christ is a gift that few have received. We are fallen into the dregs of time. O how little of primitive zeal and simplicity remains among the professors of this age! latter times have produced a sort of professors of another stamp and spirit. These have the light, but they had the love: these see more, but they did and suffered more. How many that are no ornament to religion, do adorn themselves with the name of it!
Now, according to this account given of a ready Christian, divers professing persons will be convicted of their unreadiness and stability to manage suffering-work: As first,
1. The politic and hypocritical professors, whose hearts were never set right at first, and therefore cannot be stedfast when trials come, Psal. 78:8. Their hearts were never sound in God's statutes, and therefore no wonder if they be not only a shame to, but ashamed of their profession, Psalm 119:80. Never wonder if you see that profession which began in hyposrisy, to end in apostasy. These want their habitual readiness for sufferings, and so cannot drink of that cup: Needs must they fall when tried; and when they fall, they fall dreadfully, and often irrecoverably; for they neither have the seed of God in them, nor any promise of God made to them.
And are there not many such to be found in every place? For, (1.) How difficult is it to persuade many of you to any duty that hath loss or hazard attending on it? Doth not the sincere heart stand inclinable and disposed to all the known will of God? Psalm
119:6. Do Christians use to enquire more what is cheap, easy, and safe for them, or what is their duty? Gal. 1:16. Speak conscience, for to thee do I appeal; art thou not conscious of some reserves limitations, and exceptions? Doth not the man, like Naaman, desire the Lord to excuse and pardon him in this or that thing? 2 Kings 5:17. And thinkest thou that this is consistent with sincere obedience, which excepts no duty, nor quarrels with any command, because they all flow equally from the sovereignty of God, Jam. 2:11 and so doth what it doth intuitu voluntatus, upon the sight of God's will. Say conscience, are there not great strugglings, disputes, and contests betwixt thee and fleshly interests in such cases? And art thou not frequently over-borne? O search your hearts in this particular.
Yea, secondly, I appeal to you, whether there be not many among you that choose sin rather than affliction? This is always the hypocrite's option and choice: He judges sufferings the greatest evils, and so orders himself in his election. It was merely to avoid persecution that those hypocrites, Gal. 6:12. constrained others to be circumcised only to gratify the Jews; that so by a sinful compliance with them, the offence of the cross might cease. If Paul would have done so, he might have avoided it too, but he durst not whatever he suffered, Gal. 5:11. O this is a shrewd sign of a false heart, Job 36:21. And the contrary disposition is always found in the upright heart, Heb. 11:25.
Nay, are there not some that have, and others that are ready to throw up their professions, when they see into what difficulties it involves them? Whilst they could live upon the profession of truth, they entertained it; but when truth comes to live upon
them, they thrust it out, and cry, away with this profession, it will beggar and undo us: They then repent of their forwardness, and secretly wish they had never engaged in it. O examine whether your hearts be not thus turned back, and your steps declined. If so, it is manifest you are hypocritical professors, and that it was some outward self-respect at first engaged you in your profession, but can never enable you to hold out when difficult days come. I say it is manifest by this departure from your profession, that some outward self-respect at first allured you to it. As now, when I behold the artificial motions of the wheels in a watch, and see how regularly the needle marks the journal-hours of the sun upon the flat of the quadrant, and see nothing that moves or guides it; it would cause admiration if I had never seen it before, or did not understand the cause and motion; but when I look upon the other side, and there find wheels, ressorts, and counterpoises, and a spring that causes all those motions, I cease to wonder. Certainly some lust or other was the spring of all thy religious motions; stop or take off that, and motion ceases: And if it be so, this scab of hypocrisy will at last break out into that botch of apostasy. Thou canst never hold out long under trials, Matth. 13:21. Oh how many such sad sights may we live to see as trials come! Difficult times are coming on, 2 Tim. 3:1. And woe to such then as want sincerity at the bottom of their profession.
2. And as these have no habitual readiness for sufferings, and, consequently, must be ruined by them, so there are others that may be truly godly, and have the root of the matter in them, who are yet far from an actual readiness, and so continuing, are like to be a reproach to religion when their trial comes: for it is not a
little grace in the sleepy habit that will secure you from falling scandalously by the hand of temptation: and although that seed of God which is in you will recover you again, and prevent total and final apostasy, yet, Oh, consider what a sad thing it is to enter into, and be conquered by temptation, to be led away in triumph by the tempter, and made a reproach to Christ. O it is a sad consideration to think how many there be amongst the people of God, that discover little or no actual preparations for sufferings: As first, 1. Upon how many of the saints is the spirit of slumber poured out? Even the wise, as well as foolish, seem now to be asleep.
There is a twofold spiritual sleep, the first is total, upon wicked men: and it is one of God's sorest and dreadfullest strokes upon their souls, Isa. 29:10.* The Hebrew word there is the same with that which is used of Adam, when God cast him into that deep sleep whilst he took out his rib. And in 2 Tim. 2:26 it signifies such a sleep as that which is occasioned by drunkenness; out of such a sleep doth the Lord awaken all that are saved, and they never fall into it any more. The other is partial, Cant 5:2 and is incident to the people of God, Matth. 25:5. This is nothing else but the torpor or sluggishness of Spirit which seizeth upon the saints; and never did it prevail, I fear, among them more than now. For where is their activity for God? Where is he that stirreth up himself to take hold of God? Isa. 64:7. Where is there such a generation as that, Psal. 24:6. We pray, confer, and hear, for the most part, but, as men speak, betwixt sleeping and waking. Where can you find, except here and there one, that hath a quick and lively sense of God's indignation upon him, or
that trembles at his judgments? Is not that the very case of the most which God describes, Isa. 42 ult.
2. How many are seized by a private and worldly Spirit, every man turning to his own house, and eagerly pursuing the world?
Hab. 1:9. Jer. 45:4, 5. Oh! how are we intangled in the wilderness? How doth the world eat up our time, and eat out our zeal, cowardize and soften our spirits, and render us utterly unfit for the yoke and burden of Christ? You that see so much beauty, and taste so much sweetness in the creature, you will have an hard task when called to deny it: You are not yet prepared to drink of the cup, or take up the cross of Christ.
3. How many poor Christians are of a low and timorous Spirit, ready to tremble at the shaking of a leaf? Ah poor hearts! how unfit are you for bonds or death! This passion of fear that so predominates in you, is the very passion which Satan assaults, and lays siege to in the hour of temptation, as was before noted:
And commonly it is occasioned (where it flows not from the natural constitution) from an excessive love to the world, or some guilt upon the spirit. It is true, the Lord can so assist weak faith, and so subdue strong fears, as that you may be enabled to stand the shock when it comes: (For, as I noted formerly, our strength lies not in any thing inherent in us, but we are strong or weak, according to the divine presence and assistances that we enjoy) but yet if you labour not to mortify this evil, and stir not up yourselves in the use of all appointed means, to rouse your zeal and courage for God, I know no warrant you have to expect such assistances.