so Chrift may be glorified, " Let Christ be magnified in my body, " whether it be by life or death," Phil. i. 20. By converfion Christ enters the foul, as an army doth an enemy's garrifon by storm, and when he is poffefsed of it by 2 Cor. x. 5. grace, he presently divides the whole spoil of felf betwixt himself and his church. This is the first thing that evinces the neceffity of a work of grace to prepare the heart for fufferings. 2. And then in the next place, it is as evident that a man can never be fit to fuffer hard things for Christ until his spirit be enlarged, raised, and ennobled, so that he be able to despise dangers, and look all difficulties in the face. That low and private spirit must be removed, and a public spirit must possess him. If a man be of a feeble and effeminate spirit, every petty danger will daunt and sink him; delicacy and tenderness is as unsuitable to a Christian as to a foldier, 2 Tim. ii. 3. They that mean to enter into the kingdom of God, must refolve to make their way through that brake of troubles betwixt them and it, 2 Tim. iii. 12. They that will be crowned with victory, must stand to it, and play the men, as that word imports, 1 Cor. xvi. 13. Look over all the sacred and human histories, and fee if you can find a man that ever honoured Christ by suffering, that was not of a raised and noble spirit, and in some measure able to contemn both the allurements and threats of men. So those three noble Jews, Dan. iii. 16, 17. So Mofes, Heb. xi. 27. And so our apostle, Acts xx. 24. And the fame heroic and brave spirit was found in the fucceeding ages amongst the witnesses of Christ. When Valence the emperor endeavoured to draw Bafil from the faith by offers of preferment, 'offer these things (faith he) to children; when he threatened him with torments, threaten these things (faith he) to your pur* ple gallants that live delicately.' And the fame Bafil relating the story of the forty martyrs, faith, That when great honours and preferments were offered them to draw them from Christ, their answer was, • Why offer you these small things of the world to us, (O emperor) 'when you know the whole world is contemned by us! So Luther, I money could not tempt him, nor the fear of man daunt him. 'me (faid he in his letter to Staupicius) be accounted proud, cove' tous, a murderer, guilty of all vices, rather than of wicked filence and cowardife in the cause of Chrift.' Thus you see to what an height, and holy greatness, the spirits of fufiering saints in all ages have been raised. Let But now it is grace that thus raises the spirits of men above all the smiles and honours, frowns and fears of men; and no other principle but grace can do it. There is indeed a natural ftoutness and generofity in fome which may carry then, far, as it is faid of Alexander, that when any great danger approached him, his courage would rife, and he would fay, Jam periculum par animo Alexandri; Here is a danger fit for Alexander to encounter: So Pompey, when diffuaded from a dangerous voyage, answered, Neceffe eft ut eam, non ut vivam. It is necessary that I go, not that I live. But this being fed only by a natural fpring, can carry a man to higher than nature, and will flag at last. If applause, and the observation of the world fupply it not, it quickly ebbs and fails. But as grace raises men much higher; fo it maintains it even when there is nothing to encourage without; when forsaken of all creatures and visible fupports, 2 Tim. iv. 10. And this it doth three ways: (1.) By giving him that hath it a view of far greater things, which shrinks up all temporary things, and makes them appear but trifles and small matters, Rom. viii. 18. 2 Cor. iv. 18. By grace a man rifes with Christ, Col. iii. 1. It sets him upon his high places, and thence he looks down upon things below as very poor and inconfiderable. The great cities of Campania seem but little fpots to them that stand on the top of the Alps. (2.) By teaching him to value and meafure all things by another thing than he was wont to do He did once meafure, life, liberty, riches, honours by sense and time; and ( then they feemed great things, and it was hard to deny them, or thus to flight them; but now he values and meafures all by faith and eternity; and esteems nothing great and excellent but what hath a reference to the glory of God, and an influence into eternity. (3.) Grace raises and ennobles the spirit thus, because it is the divine nature; it is the Spirit of Christ infused into a poor worm, which makes a strange alteration on him, transforms him into another manner of perfon; as much difference betwixt his spirit now and what it was, as betwixt the spirit of a child that is filled with fmall matters, and taken up with toys, and of a grave statesman that is daily employed about the grand affairs of a kingdom. } 3. A man can never fuffer as a Christian till his will be subjected to the will of God. He that fuffers involuntarily, and out of neceffity, not out of choice, shall neither have acceptance nor reward from God. Of neceffity the will must be subjected; a man can never fay, Thy will be done, till he can first fay, Not my will. But it is grace only that thus conquers and fubjects the will of man to God's, Plal. cx. 3. This is that which exalts God's authority in the foul, and makes the heart to stoop and tremble at his commands. It is that which makes our will to write its fiat at the foot of every command, and its placet under every order it receives from God. No fooner was grace entered into the foul of Paul, but presently he cries out, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Acts ix. 6. The will is to the foul what the wheels are to the chariot; and grace is to the will what oil is to those wheels. When we receive the Spirit of grace, we are faid to receive an unction from the Holy One, 1 John ii. And then the foul is made as the chariots of Aminadab, Cant. vi. 12. Non tardat uncta rota, it runs freely after the Lord, and cheerfully addreffeth itself to the very fervice. 20. 4. A man can never fuffer as a Christian until his heart be compofed, fixed, and determined to follow the Lord through all hazards : i and difficulties. As long as a man is hefitating and unresolved what to do, whether to go forward, or return back again to the profperous world, when a man is at fuch a pause, and stand in his way, he is very unfit for fufferings. All fuch divisions do both qweaken the soul, and ftrengthen the temptation: The devil's work is more than half done to his hand in fuch a foul, and he is now as unfit to endure hardship for Chrift, as a ship is to ride out a storm that hath neither cable, anchor, nor ballast, to hold and settle it, but lies at the mercy of every wave, Jam. i. 8. "The double-minded man is unstable in all " his ways." But it is grace, and nothing befides, that brings the heart to a fixed resolution and fettlement to follow the Lord, it is grace that establishes the heart, Heb. xiii. 9. and unites it to fear the name of God, Pfal. lxxxvi, 11. This gathers all the streams into one channel, and then it runs with much strength, and sweeps away all obstacles before it. So that look as it is with a wicked man that hath fold himfelf to do wickedly, if he be fet upon any one design of fin, he pours out his whole heart and strength into the profecution of that design, which is the ground of that saying, Liberet me Deus ab bomine unius tantum negotii, let God deliver me from a man of one only defign. He will do it to purpose: So is it alfo in grace; if the heart be composed, fixed, and fully refolved for God, nothing fhall then ftand before him. And herein lies much of a Christian's habitual fitness and ability to fuffer. 5. The neceffity of saving grace in all fufferers for Christ, will farther appear from this confideration, that he who will run all hazards for Chrift, had need of a continual supply of strength and refreshment from time to time. He must not depend on any thing that is failable; for what shall he do then when that stock is spent, and he hath no provifion left to live upon? Now all natural qualifications, yea, all the common gifts of the Spirit, are failable and short-lived things; they are like a fweet flower in the bofom, that is an ornament for a little while, but withers presently: Or like a pond or brook occafioned by a great fall of rain, which quickly finks and dries up, because it is not fed by springs in the bottom, as other fountain-waters are; and hence it is they cannot continue and hold out when fufferings come, Matth. xiii. 21 Because there is no root to nou rish and fupport. The hypocrite will not always call upon God, Job xxvii. 10. Though they may keep company with Chrift a few miles in this dirty way, yet they must turn back at last, and shake hands eternally with him, John vi. 66. These comets may seem to shine for a time among the stars, but when that earthly matter is spent, they must fall and lose their glory. But now grace is an everlasting principle, it hath springs in the bottom that never fail. " I shall be in him (faith Christ) a well of wa"ter springing up into eternal life," John iv. 14. The Spirit of God supplies it from time to time, as need requires. It hath daily 11. So that incomes from heaven, 2 Cor. i. 5. Phil. iv. 13. Col. i. 1 2 : it is our union with Christ the Fountain of grace, that is the true ground of our constancy and long fuffering*. 6. And then lastly, it will appear by this also, that there is an abfolute neceffity of a real change by grace on all that will fuffer for Chrift; because although we may engage ourselves in fufferings without it, yet we can never manage our fufferings like Christians without it. They will neither be honourable nor acceptable to God, nor yet beneficial and comfortable to ourselves or others, except they be performed from this principle of grace: For upon what principle soever beside this any man is acted in religion, it will either cause him to decline fufferings for Christ; or, if he be engaged in them, yet he will little credit religion by his fufferings. They will either be spoiled by an ill management, or his own pride will devour the praise and glory of them. I do not deny but a man that is graceless may fuffer many hard things upon the account of his profeffion, and suffer them all in vain, as these scriptures manifest. See 1 Cor. xiii. 3. Gal. iii. 4. And although you may find many sweet promises made to those ( that fuffer for Christ, yet must confider that those pure and spiritual ends and motives by which men ought to be acted in their sufferings, are always fuppofed and implied in all these promises that are made to the external action. And fometimes it is expressed, I Pet. iv. 16. To fuffer [as a Christian] is to suffer from pure Christian principles, and in a Christian manner, with meekness, patience, self-denial, &c. and this grace only can enable you to do: So that by all this, I hope what I have undertaken in this character, viz. To evince the neceffity of a work of grace to pass upon you, before fufferings for religion come, is performed to fatisfaction. : i CHAP. VI. Wherein the nature of this work of grace, in which our kabitual fitness for fuffering lies, is briefly opened, and an account given of the great advan tage the gracious perfon hath for any, even the hardest work thereby. AVING in the former chapter plainly evinced the neceffity of faving grace to fit a man for fufferings; it will be expected now that fome account be given you of the nature of the work, and how it advantages a man for the discharge of the hardest services in religion: Both which I shall open in this chapter by a distinct explication of the parts of this description of it. This work of grace, of which I am here to speak, confifts in the real What Saving grace is. * We are only fo far fafe as we are united to Chrift. ture and experience, 2 Cor. v. 17. "Old things are past away, be" hold all things are become new;" and it is so sensible a change, that it is called a turning from darkness to light, Acts xxvi. 18, and a new creature formed and brought forth. But to be a little more diftinct and particular, there are several other changes that pass upon men, which inust not be mistaken for this; and therefore, (1.) It is not a mere change of the judgment from error to truth, from Paganism to Chriftianity. Such a change Simon Magus had, yet still remained in the gall of bitterness, and faft bound in the bonds of iniquity, Acts viii. 23. (2.) Nor only of a man's practice, from profaneness to civility: This is common among such as live under the light of the gospel, which breaking into men's confciences, thwarts their lufts, and over-awes them with the fears of hell: Which is no more than what the Gentiles had, Rom. ii. 15. (3.) Nor is it a change from mere morality to mere formality in religion. Thus bypocrites are changed by the common gifts of the Spirit, illuminating their minds, and flightly touching their affections, Heb. vi. 4, 5. (4.) Nor is it fuch a change as juftification makes, which is relative, and only alters the ftate and condition, Rom. v. 1, 2. (5.) Lastly, It is not a change of the effence of a man; he remains effentially the fame person still. But this change consists in the infufion of new habits of grace into the old faculties; which immediately depose fin from its dominion over the foul, and deliver up the foul into the hands and government of Christ, so that it lives no more to itself, but to Chrift. This is that change whereof we speak: And this change (2.) I affert to be real, no fancy, nor delufion; not a groundless conceit, but it is really exiftent, extra mentem, whether you conceit it or not. Indeed the blind world would perfuade us it is fuppofitious and fantastic; and that there is no fuch real difference betwixt one man and another as we affirm grace makes. And hence it is, that whosoever profefseth it is presently branded for a fanatic; and that scripture, Ifa. lvi. 5. "Stand by "thyself, I am holier than thou," &c. clapt in their teeth, in their abfurd and perverse sense of it. But I shall briefly offer these seven things to your confideration, which will abundantly evince the reality of it, and at once both stop the slanderous mouths of ignorant men, and filence those atheistical furmises, which at any time Satan may inject into the hearts of God's own people touching this matter. And first, let it be confidered, that the Spirit of God hath represented to us this work of grace under fuch names and notions in fcripture, as if they had been chosen purposely to obviate this calumny. It is called a creature, Gal. vi. 15. a man, 1 Pet, iii. 4. a new birth, John iii. 3. Christ formed in us, Gal iv. 12. All which express its reality, and that it is not a conceited thing. (2.) It appears to be real by the marvellous effects it hath upon a man, turning him both in judgment, will, affections, and practice, quite counter to what he was before. This is evident in that famous instance of Paul, Gal. i. 23. which is abundantly attested-and |