Why We Are To Be Always Ready For Trials—REASONS FROM THE EXCELLENCY OF SUCH A SPIRIT 1/3

Second. There are reasons why Christians should always be prepared for trials, taken from the excellency of the frame of spirit which such a holy readiness would import.

           First. This readiness of heart to stoop to the cross evidenceth a gracious heart.  And a gracious spirit, I am sure, is an excellent spirit.  Flesh and blood never made any willing to suffer either for God or from God.  He that can do this, hath that ‘other spirit’ with Caleb, which proves him of a higher des­cent than this world, Num. 14:24. A carnal heart can neither act nor suffer freely; voluntas libera, in quan­tum liberata—the will is no more free than it is made free by grace (Luther).  So much flesh as is left in a saint, so much awkness and unwillingness to come to God's foot; and therefore where there is nothing but flesh, there can be nothing but unwillingness.  He that can find his heart following God in his command or providence cheerfully, may know who hath been there (as one said of the famous Grecian limner). This is a line that none but God could draw on thy soul.  The midwives said of the Israelitish women, they were not like the Egyptian in bringing forth their children, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives could come in unto them, Ex. 1:19.  Truly thus lively and ready is the gracious heart in anything it is called to do or suffer.  It is not delivered with so much difficulty of a duty as a carnal heart, which must have the help and midwifery of some carnal arguments, or else it sticks in the birth.  But the gra­cious heart has done before these come to lend their helping hand.  Pure love to God, obedience to the call of his command, and faith on the security of his promise, facilitate the work, so that, be it never so burdensome to the flesh, yet it is not grievous to their spirit.  It is ever ready to say, ‘Thy will be done, and not mine.’  The apostle makes this free submission to the disclosure to the disposure of God’s afflicting hand to evidence a son's spirit, ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons,’ Heb. 12:7. Ob­serve, he doth not say, ‘If you be chastened,’ but, ‘If ye endure chastening.’  Naked suffering doth not prove sonship, but ÛB@µ,<,4< B"4*,\"< doth—to endure it so as not to sink in our courage, or shrink from under the burden God lays on, but readily to offer our shoulder to it, and patiently carry it, looking with a cheerful eye at the reward when we come—not to throw it off, but to have it taken off by that hand which laid it on, all which the word imports.  This shows a childlike spirit.  And the evidence thereof must needs be a comfortable companion to the soul, especially at such a time, when that sophister of hell useth the afflictions which lie upon it as an argument to disprove its child's relation to God.  Now—to have this answer to stop the liar's mouth at hand—Satan, if I be not a child, how could I so readily submit to the Lord's family discipline?  This is no small mercy.

           Second. This frame of spirit makes him a free man that hath it.  Now no mean price useth to be set upon the head of liberty.  The very birds had rather be abroad in the woods with liberty—though lean with cold and care —to pick up here and there a little livelihood, than in a golden cage with all their attendance.  Now truly there is a bondage which few are sensible of, and that is a bondage to the creature —when a man is so enslaved to his enjoyments and low contentments here on earth, that they give law to him that should give law to them, and measure out his joy to him (what he shall have), little or much, as he abounds with or is cut short of them.  Thus, some are slaves to their estates; it is said, ‘Their heart goes after their covetousness’—that is, as the servant after the master, who dares not be from his back.  Their money is the master, and hath the best keeping. Their heart waits on it, shall I say as a servant after his master? yea, as a dog at his master’s foot.  Others are as great slaves to their honours, so poor-spirited that they cannot enjoy themselves if they have not the cap and knee of all they meet.  Such a slave was Haman, the great favourite of his prince.  Who but he at court?  At the expense of a few words he could get the king’s ring to seal a bloody decree for the massacring of so many thousands of innocent persons, against all sense and reason of state, merely to fulfill his lust. Had not this man honour enough put upon him to content his ambitious spirit?  No, there is a poor Jew at the king’s gate will not make a leg to him as he goes by, and so roils his proud stomach, that he has no joy of all his other greatness, ‘Yet all this availeth me nothing,’ saith the poor-spirited wretch, ‘so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate,’ Est. 5:13.