APPLICATION: True Christians Few, Shown From The Gospel Holy Readiness To Suffer 2/2

2. Sort. Carnal gospellers, who keep possession of their lusts while they make profession of Christ.  A generation these are that have nothing to prove them­selves Christians by, but their baptism, and a Christian name which they have obtained thereby; such as, were they to live among Turks and heathens, their language and conversations—did they but conceal whence they came—would never bewray them to be Christians.  Can it now be rationally thought then that these are the men and women who stand ready to suffer for Christ and his gospel?  No sure; they who will not wear Christ’s yoke will much less bear his burden.  If the yoke of command that binds them to duty be thought grievous, they will much more think the burden of the cross insupportable.  He that will not do [work] for Christ, will not die for Christ.  That servant is very unlike to fight to blood in his master’s quarrel, that will  not work for him so as to sweat in his service.
3. Sort. The politic professor—a fundamental article in whose creed is, to save himself, not from sin, but from danger.  And therefore he studies the times more than the Scriptures; and is often looking what corner the wind lies in, that accordingly he may shape his course, and order his profession, which, like the hedgehog’s house, ever opens toward the warm side!
4. Sort. The covetous professor, whose heart and head are so full of worldly projects, that suffering for Christ must needs be very unwelcome to him, and find him far enough from such a disposition.  You know what the Egyptians said of the Israelites, ‘They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in,’ Ex. 14:3.  More true is it of this sort of pro­fessors.  They are entangled in the world, this wilderness hath shut them in.  A man whose foot in a snare is as fit to walk and run as they to follow Christ, when to do it may prejudice their worldly interest.  Our Saviour, speaking of the miseries that were to come on Jerusalem, saith, ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days,’ Matt. 24:19—because it would be more difficult for them to escape the danger by flight.  But many more woes to them, who in days of trial and persecution for the gospel, shall be found big with the world, or that give suck to any covetous inordinate affection to the crea­ture.  Such will find it hard to escape the temptation that these will beset them with.  It is impossible in such a time to keep estate and Christ together; and as impossible for a heart that is set upon the world, to be willing to leave it for Christ’s company.
5. Sort. The conceited professor, who hath a high opinion of himself, and is so far from a humble holy jealously and fear of himself, that he is self-confident.  Here is a man shod and prepared he thinks, but not with the right gospel shoe.  ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’ I Sam. 2:9.  He that, in Queen Mary’s days, was so free of his flesh for Christ [that], as he said, he would see his fat—of which he had a good store—melt in the fire rather than fall back to Popery, lived, poor man, to see this his reso­lution melt, and himself cowardly part with his faith to save his fat.  Those that glory of their valour, when they put on the harness, ever put it off with shame. ‘The heart’ of man ‘is deceitful above all things,’—a very Jacob, that will supplant its own self.  He that cannot take the length of his own foot, how can he of himself fit a shoe to it?