Why We Are To Be Always Ready For Trials—REASONS FROM THE EXCELLENCY OF SUCH A SPIRIT 2/3

  A third sort are as much in bondage to their pleasures.  They are said to ‘live in pleasure on the earth,’ James 5:5.  Their life is bound up in their pleas­ures.  As the rush grows in the mud, and the fish lives in the water, they cannot live without their pleasures. Take them from their feasts and sports, and their hearts, with Nabal’s, die like a stone in their bosoms. Now this frame of spirit we are speaking of breaks all these chains, and brings the Christian out of every house of bondage.  It learns him to like what fare God sends.  If prosperity comes, he ‘knows how to abound,’ so, that if he be, by a turn of providence, thrown out of the saddle of his present enjoyments, his foot shall not hang in the stirrup, nor his enslaved soul drag him after it with whining desires.  No, through grace he is a free man, and can spare the company of any creature, so long as he may but have Christ’s with him.  Blessed Paul stands upon his liberty.  ‘All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any,’ I Cor. 6:12.  I know the place is meant of those indifferent things, concerning which there was a present dispute.  There is but another sense, in which all things here below were indifferent things to that holy man; honour or dishonour, abundance or want, life or death.  These were indifferent to Paul, he would not come under the power of any one of them all.  It did not become a servant of Christ, he thought, to be so tender of his reputation as to write himself undone when he had not this or that—not to be so in love with abundance as not to be ready to welcome want—not to be en­deared so to life as to run from the thoughts of death —nor to be so weary of a suffering life as to hasten death to come for his ease.  That mind is to be called superior which chooses rather to meet and show the experiences of life, than to escape them.

           Third. This readiness to suffer, as it ennobles with freedom, so it enables the Christian for service. It is a sure truth [that] so far and no more is the Christian fit to live serviceably, than he is prepared to suffer readily.  Because there is no duty but hath the cross attending on it; and he that is offended at the cross, will not be long pleased with the service that brings it.  Prayer is the daily exercise of a saint.  This he cannot do as he should, except he can heartily say, ‘Thy will be done.’  And who can do that in truth, unless ready to suffer?  Praising God is a standing duty; yea, ‘in everything we must give thanks,’ I Thes. 5:18.  But, what if affliction befalls us?  How shall we tune our hearts to that note, if not ready to suffer? Can we bless God, and murmur?—praise God, and repine?  The minister’s work is to preach, ‘Woe to him if he do not;’ and if he do preach, he is sure to suffer.  Paul had his orders for the one, and his mittimus for the other, together.  He was sent at the same time to preach the grace of God to the world and to endure the wrath of the world for God.  So God told Ananias, ‘that he should bear his name before the Gentiles,’ and ‘suffer great things for his name’s sake,’ Acts 9:15, 16.  And if the gospel did not please the ungrateful world out of Paul’s mouth, who had such a rare art of sweetening it, it were strange that any who fall so far short of his gifts to move in the pulpit, and of his grace to win upon the hearts of men when out, should, if they mean to be faithful, think to go without the wages which the world paid him for his pains—reproach and contempt, if not downright blows of bloody persecution, as he met with.  And is not this shoe needful for the preacher’s foot, that is to walk among so many hissing serpents? Who but a Paul, that had got over the fond love of life, and fear of a bloody death, would have been so willing to go into the very lion's den, and preach the gospel there, where in a manner, he invited death to come unto him?—I mean at Rome itself, the seat of cruel Nero.  ‘So much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’ Rom. 1:15, 16.

           In a word, it is the duty of every Christian to make a free profession of Christ.  Now this cannot be done without hazard many times.  And if the heart be not resolved in this point—what to do; the first storm that riseth will make the poor man put in to any creek or hole, rather than venture abroad in foul weather. ‘Among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue,’ John 12:42.  Poor souls, they could have been content if the coast had been clear to have put forth, but had not courage enough to bear a little scorn that threatened them.  O what folly is it to engage for God, except we be willing to lay all at stake for him!  It is not worth the while to set out in Christ’s company by profession, except we mean to go through with him, and not leave him unkindly when we are half way, because of a slough or two.