and been more loth to come out of a prison, than they were to go in! If you did but fee your fupports, and the comforts that fouls ordinarily meet with in their troubles for Chrift, you would not look on them as fuch formidable things.

9. Rule. View the iffue and reward of fufferings by an eye of faith: this also will strongly abate the horror and dread of them, Heb. x. 34. Upon this account it is the faints have so flighted and contemned them, Rom. viii. 18. 2 Cor iv. 16, 17. But then fee that you act your faith, (1.) Upon the certainty of it look at it as a moft real and fubftantial thing, Heb. xi. 1. (2.) View it as a great and glorious reward: And, (3.) As near at hand: And then fay to thy foul, come on my foul, come on; seeft thou the joy fet before thee! the crown of glory ready to be fet on thy head by the hand of a righteous God. Oh, what compare is there betwixt thofe fufferings, and that glory!

10. Rule. Propound to yourselves the best patterns and examples. Keep your eye upon the cloud of witnesses; these are of special use to beget holy courage, Heb. xii. 1. James v. 10. Who would be afraid to enter the lifts, and grapple with that enemy that he hath seen so often foiled, and that by a poor weak Chriftian? See how the enemy, with whom you are to grapple, hath been beaten hand to hand, and triumphed over by poor women and children; they had as great infirmities, and you have as gracious affiftances as thofe that are gone before you.

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Difcovering the necessity of an heart mortified to all earthly and temporal enjoyments, in order to the right managing of a fuffering condition : with several directions for the attaining thereof.

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HE next thing wherein your actual readiness for bonds, or death confifteth, is in the mortification of your af fections to all earthly interefts and enjoyments; even the best and fweetest of them. Till this be done, in fome measure, you are not fit to be used in any such service for the Lord, 2 Tim. i. 21. The living world is the very life of temptations: the travailing pains of death are ftronger and fharper upon none, than those that are full of fense and self. As you fee VOL. VII.

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in nature, what conflicts and agonies strong and lively perfons fuffer when they die; when others, in whom nature is decayed and spent before-hand, die away without half that pain, even as a bird in a fhell. Corruption in the faints, is like the fap in green wood, which refifteth the fire, and will not burn well, till it be dried up. Prepared Paul had an heart mortified in a very high degree, to all the honour and riches of the world, accounting them all but trifles, Gal. vi. 14. i Cor. iv. 3, 4.

The need of this will be evinced by thefe five confiderations. 1. Unless the heart be mortified to all earthly enjoyments, they will appear great and glorious things in your eye and efti mation; and if fo, judge what a task you will have, to deny and leave them all in a fuffering hour. It is corruption with in, that puts the luftre and glory upon things without: it is the carnal eye only that gazes admiringly after them, 2 Cor. v. 16. and hence the luft is put to exprefs the affection, 1 John ii. 16. becaufe all that inordinate affection we have to them, arifes from our high estimation of them, and that estimation from our lufts, that reprefent them as great and glorious. Therefore, certainly, it will be difficult (if not impoffible) to deny them, till they have loft their glory in your eye; and that they will never do, till thofe lufts within you, that put that beauty and neceffity upon them, be first crucified. As for inflance, what a glory and neceffity doth the pride of men put upon the honour and credit of the world, fo that they will ra ther choose to die, than furvive it? But to a mortified foul it is a fmall matter, 1 Cor. iv. 3. So for riches, how much are they adored, till our lufts be mortified? and then they are efteemed but dung and drofs, Phil. iii. 8. It is our corruptions that paint and gild over these things: when these are crucified, thofe will be lightly esteemed.

2. Mortification of corruptions is that which recovers an healthful state of foul: fin is to the foul, what a disease is to the body; and mortification is to fin, what phyfic is to a difcafe. Hence those that are but a little mortified, are in a com parative fenfe called carnal, 1 Cor. iii. 3. and babes, ver. 2. in refpect of weakness. Now, fuffering work being fome of the Chriftian's hardeft labour and exercife, he cannot be fitted for it, until his foul be in an healthful state: a fickly man cannot carry heavy burdens, or endure hard labours and exercises; the fick foldier is left behind in his quarters, or put into the hofpital, whilft his fellows are dividing the fpoils, and obtain ing glorious victories in the field. To this fenfe fome expound

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Rom. viii. 13. "If ye live after the flesh, ye fhall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, ye "fhall live." Whereas death is put to note a languishing state of foul, whilft mortification is neglected; fo life is put to exprefs an healthful and comfortable ftate; vivere pro valere; fo that upon this account alfo the neceffity of it appears.

3. Your corruptions must be mortified, elfe they will be raging and violent in the time of temptation, and, like a torrent, fweep away all your convictions and refolutions. It is fin unmortified within, that makes the heart like gun-powder; fo that when the fparks of temptation fly about it, (and they fall thick in a fuffering hour) they do but touch and take. Hence the corruptions of the world are faid to be through luft, 2 Pet. i. 4. With these internal unmortified lufts, the tempter holds corre fpondence; and these be the traitors that deliver up our fouls into his hands.

4. Unless you be diligent and fuccefsful in this work, though you should fuffer, yet not like Chriftians; you will but difgrace religion, and the caufe for which you fuffer; for it is not fimple suffering, but fuffering as a Christian, that reflects credit on religion, and finds acceptation with God. If you be envious, fretful, difcontented, and revengeful, under your fufferings, what honour will this bring to Chrift? Is not this altogether unlike the example of your Lord? Ifa. liii. 7. and the behaviour of fuffering faints? 1 Cor. iv. 13. Yet thus it will be, if your pride, paffion, and revenge, be not firft subdued: for what are the breakings forth of fuch diftempers of fpirit, but as the flushes of heat in the face from an ill-affected liver? Moft certain it is, that all these evils are in your natures, and as certain it is, they will rife like mude and filth from the bottom of a lake, when fome eminent trials fhall take you to the bottom; Natura vexata prodit feipfam.

5. Laftly, Mortification must be studied and plied with diligence; elfe you will find many longings and hankerings after earthly enjoyments and comforts, which will prove a snare to you: what is fin, but the corrupt and vitiated appetite of the creature, to things that are earthly and fenfual, relishing more fweetnefs and delight in them, than in the bleffed God? And what is fanctification, but the rectifying of the fe inordinate affections, and placing them on their proper object? A regenerate and mortified Chriftian taftes not half that sweetness in forbidden fruits that another doth: fet but money before Judas, and fee how eagerly he catches at it" What will ye give me,

"and I will betray him?" Set but life, liberty, or any fuch bait before an unmortified heart, and how impotent is he to withstand them, as offered in a temptation? Oh thofe unmortified lufts! how do they make men hanker, long, and their lips water (as we use to fay) after these things? This makes them break prifon, decline fufferings, though upon the baseft terms: whereas a mortified Chriftian can fee all these things fet before him, yea, offered to him, and refuse them, Heb. x. 35. It is with them much as it was with old Brazillai, 2 Sam. xix. 35. When nature is decayed, they find but little pleasure in natural actions, Ecclef. xii. 1. And look as the body of fin decays and languishes, fo do these longings alfo: It weans the foul from them all, and enables it to live very comfortably without them, Pfal. cxxxi. 1. Phil. iv. 12. There needs no more to be faid to evince the neceflity of nortification, and dif cover what influence it hath into a Chriftian's readiness for fufferings.

It remains therefore, that I open to you fome of the prin cipal corruptions, about which it mostly concerns you to be flow pains ere fufferings come. Now look as there are four principal enjoyments, in which you are like to be tried, viz. Eftate, name, liberty, life; fo the Chriftian work in fuffering times lies in mortifying thefe four special corruptions, viz. First, The love of the world. Secondly, Ambition. Thirdly, Inordinate affectation of freedom and pleasure. Fourthly, Excel

five love of life.

1. For the love of this world, away with it, crucify it, cru cify it down with this idol, and let it be dethroned in all that intend to abide with Chrift in the hour of temptation: how elfe will you take the spoiling of your goods? How will you be able to part with all for Chrift, as thefe bleffed fouls did? It grieves my heart to fee how many profeffors of religion are carried captive at the chariot-wheels of a bewitching world. Oh! good had it been for many profeffors, if they had never tafted fo much of the fweetnefs of it. Sirs, I beg you, for the Lord's fake, down with it in your eftimations, down with it in your affections, else temptations will down with you ere long. I fhall offer five or fix helps for the crucifying of it.

. First, Confider your efpoufals to Chrift, and how you have chofen and profeffed him for your Lord and husband: therefore your doating upon the world is no lefs than adultery 2gainst Christ, James iv. 4. If Chrift be your husband, he must be a covering to your eyes; an unchafte glance upon the world

wounds him.

Secondly, The more you prize it, the more you will be tormented by it; did you prize and love it lefs, it would disquiet and vex you lefs: it is our doating on it, that makes it draw blood at parting.

Thirdly, Get true fcripture-notions of the world, and rectify your judgments and affections by them. If you will have the true picture and representation of it drawn by the hand of God himself, fee 1 John ii. 16. it is nothing else but lust that puts that luftre upon it: It hath but a phantaftic glory, and that also paffeth away. What is become of them that ruffled it out in the world but one hundred years ago? What could the world do for them? Are they not all gone down to the fides of the pit? "But he that doth the will of God abideth "for ever."

Fourthly, Study and contemplate Chrift, and the things above more this would veil all its glory, and kill it at the root, Phil. iii. 18, 19. Juft as a man that hath been gazing upon the fun, when he takes off his eye from that bright and glorious creature, and looks to the earth, there is a veil of darkness overspreading the face of it, that he can see nothing. I wonder how fuch as pretend to live above, and enjoy communion with God, can ever relifh fuch sweetnefs in the world, or have their hearts enticed and captivated by it.

Fifthly, Remember always, that by your love and delight in worldly things, you furnish the devil with the chiefeft bait he hath to catch and deftroy your fouls. Alas! were your hearts but dead to these things, he would want an handle to catch hold on. What hath he more to offer you, and tempt you from Chrift with, but a little money, or fome fuch poral rewards? and how little would that foul be moved by such a temptation, that looks on it all but as dirt?

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Sixthly, Laftly, Take notice of the approaches of eternity : remember you are almost at the end of time: and when you come to launch out into that endless ocean, how will these things look then? It feems glorious, whilft you are in the chace and purfuit of it; but upon a death-bed, you will overtake and come up with it, and then you will fee what a deceitful and vain thing it is: ftand by the beds of dying men, and hear how they speak of it. Oh! the difference betwixt our apprehenfions then, and now! Thus labour to wean off your affections, and crucify them to the world.

2. Mortify your ambition and vain affectation of the repute and credit of the world: Oh ftand not on fo vain a