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half so much as you have done yourselves! O, methinks the man or woman that knoweth themselves, and knoweth what it is to repent; that ever saw the greatness of their own sin and folly, should have no great mind or leisure to aggravate the failing of their friends, or the injuries of their enemies, considering what they have proved to themselves! Have I forfeited my own salvation, and deserved everlasting wrath, and sold my Saviour and my soul for so base a thing as sinful pleasure, and shall I ever make a wonder of it, that another man doth me some temporal hurt? Was any friend so near to me as myself; or more obliged to me? O sinful soul, let thy own, rather than thy friend's deceit and treachery, and neglects, be the matter of thy displeasure, wonder and complaints!

And let thy conformity herein to Jesus Christ, be thy holy ambition and delight: not as it is thy suffering, nor as it is caused by men's sin; but as it is thy conformity and fellowship in the sufferings of thy Lord, and caused by his love.

I have already shewed you that sufferers for Christ, are in the highest form among his disciples. The order of his followers usually is this: 1. At our entrance, and in the lowest form, we are exercised with the fears of hell, and God's displeasure, and in the works of repentance for the sin that we have done. 2. In the second form, we come to think more seriously of the remedy, and to inquire what we shall do to be saved, and to understand better what Christ hath done and suffered, and what he is and will be to us; and to value him, and his love and grace. And here we are much inquiring how we may know our own sincerity, and our interest in Christ, and are labouring for some assurance, and looking after signs of grace. 3. In the next form or order we are searching after further knowledge, and labouring better to understand the mysteries of religion, and to get above the rudiments and first principles: and here if we escape turning bare opinionists or heretics, by the snare of controversy or curiosity, it is well. 4. In the next form we set ourselves to the fuller improvement of all our further degrees of knowledge; and to digest it all, and turn it into stronger faith, and love, and hope, and greater humility, patience, self-denial, mortification, and contempt of earthly vanities, and hatred of sin; and to walk more watchfully

and holily, and to be more in holy duty. 5. In the next form we grow to be more public-spirited: to set our hearts on the church's welfare, and long more for the progress of the Gospel, and for the good of others; and to do all the good in the world that we are able, for men's souls or bodies, but especially to long and lay out ourselves for the conversion and salvation of ignorant, secure, unconverted souls. The counterfeit of this, is, an eager desire to proselyte others to our opinions, or that religion which we have chosen, by the direction of flesh and blood, or which is not of God, nor according unto godliness, but doth subserve our carnal ends. 6. In the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful love of God in Christ, and to relish and admire that love, and to be taken up with the goodness and tender mercies of the Lord, and to be kindling the flames of holy love to him that hath thus loved us; and to keep our souls in the exercise of that love: and withal to live in joy, and thanks, and praise to him that hath redeemed us and loved us; and also by faith to converse in heaven, and to live in holy contemplation, beholding the glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the glass which is fitted to our present use, till we come to see him face to face. Those that are the highest in this form, do so walk with God, and burn in love, and are so much above inferior vanities, and are so conversant by faith in heaven, that their hearts even dwell there, and there they long to be for ever. 7. And in the highest form of the school of Christ, we are exercising this confirmed faith and love, in sufferings, especially for Christ; in following him with our cross, and being conformed to him, and glorifying God in the fullest exercise and discovery of his graces in us, and in an actual trampling upon all that standeth up against him, for our hearts: and in bearing the fullest witness to his truth and cause, by constant enduring, though to the death. Not but that the weakest that are sincere, must suffer for Christ if he call them to it: martyrdom itself is not proper to the strong believers. Whoever forsaketh not all that he hath for Christ, cannot be his disciple. (Luke xiv. 33.) But to suffer with that faith and love forementioned, and in that manner, is proper to the strong: and usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the trials of the strong; nor set his infants on so hard a service, nor put them in the

front or hottest of the battle, as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians. The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such: it is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ, at least in any high degree. I have digressed thus far to make it plain to you, that our conformity to Christ, and fellowship with him in his sufferings, in any notable degree, is the lot of his best, confirmed servants, and the highest form in his school among his disciples; and therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred, nor to be the matter of impatience, but of holy joy; and in such infirmities we may glory. And if it be so of sufferings in the general (for Christ), then is it so of this particular sort of sufferings, even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest, dearest friends, when we come to be most abused by the enemies.

For my own part, I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ, so I take myself to be yet much short of what I expect he should advance me to, as long as my friends no more forsake me. It is not long since I found myself in a low (if not a doubting) case, because I had so few enemies, and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ (though I had much of other sorts): and now that doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which

God hath let loose against me. But yet, methinks, while my friends themselves are so friendly to me, I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to.

But let us look further into the text, and see what is the cause of the failing and forsaking Christ in the disciples ; and what it is that they betake themselves to, when they leave him.

"Ye shall be scattered every man to his own."

Self-denial was not perfect in them, selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail. They had before forsaken all to follow Christ; they had left their parents, their families, their estates, their trades, to be his disciples: but though they believed him to be the Christ, yet they dreamt of a visible kingdom, and did all this with too carnal expectations of being great men on earth, when Christ should begin his reign; and therefore when they saw his apprehension and ignominious suffering, and thought now they were frustrate of their hopes, they seem to repent that they had followed him (though not by apostacy and an habitual or

plenary change of mind, yet) by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension, which vanished when grace performed its part. They now began to think that they had lives of their own to save, and families of their own to mind, and business of their own to do. They had before forsaken their private interests and affairs, and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ, and lived in communion with him, and one another: but now they return to their trades and callings, and are scattered every man to his own.

Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies, of all fidelity and friendship: there is no trusting that person in whom it is predominant: and the remnants of it, where it doth not reign, do make men walk unevenly and unsteadfastly towards God and men. They will certainly deny both God and their friends, in a time of trial, who are not able to deny themselves: or rather he never was a real friend to any, that is predominantly selfish. They have always some interest of their own, which their friend must needs contradict, or is insufficient to satisfy. Their houses, their lands, their monies, their children, their honour, or something which they call their own, will be frequently the matter of contention; and are so near them, that they can for the sake of these, cast off the nearest friend. Contract no special friendship with a selfish man; nor put any confidence in him, whatever friendship he may profess. He is so confined to himself, that he hath no true love to spare for others: if he seem to love a friend it is not as a friend, but as a servant, or at best as a benefactor. He loveth you for himself, as he loveth his money, or horse, or house, because you may be serviceable to him: or as a horse or dog doth love his keeper, for feeding him : and therefore when your provender is gone, his love is gone; when you have done feeding him, he hath done loving you; when you have no more for him, he hath no more for you.

Object. But (some will say) it is not the falseness of my friend that I lament, but the separation, or the loss of one that was most faithful: I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary friends; and therefore the more highly prize those few that are sincere. I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers; and that one is dead, or taken from me, and I am left as in a wilderness, having no mortal man that I can trust, or take much comfort in.'

Answ. Is this your case? I pray you answer these few

questions, and suffer the truth to have its proper work upon your mind.

Quest. 1. Who was it that deprived you of your friend? Was it not God? Did not he that gave him you, take him from you? Was it not his Lord and Owner that called him home? And can God do any thing injuriously or amiss? Will you not give him leave to do as he list with his own? Dare you think that there was wanting either wisdom, or goodness, justice or mercy, in God's disposal of your friend? Or will you ever have rest, if you cannot have rest in the will of God?

2. How know you what sin your friend might have fallen into, if he had lived as long as you would have him? You will say, that God could have preserved him from sin. It is true; but God preserveth sapientially, by means, as well as omnipotentially and sometimes he seeth that the temptations to that person are like to be so strong, and his corruption like to get such advantage, that no means is so fit as death itself, for his preservation. And if God had permitted your friend by temptation to have fallen into some scandalous sin, or course of evil, or into errors or false ways, would it not have been much worse than death to him and you? God might have suffered your friend, that was so faithful, to have been sifted and shaken, as Peter was, and to have denied his Lord; and to have seemed in your own eyes as odious as he before seemed amiable.

3. How know you what unkindness to yourself your dearest friend might have been guilty of? Alas! there is greater frailty and inconstancy in man, than you are aware of. And there are sadder roots of corruption unmortified, that may spring up into bitter fruits, than most of us ever discover in ourselves. Many a mother hath her heart broken by the unnaturalness of such a child, or the unkindness of such a husband, as if they had died before, would have been lamented by her, with great impatience and excess. confident soever you may be of the future fidelity of your friend, you little know what trials might have discovered. Many a one hath failed God and man, that once were as confident of themselves, as ever you were of your friend. And which of us see not reason to be distrustful of ourselves? And can we know another better than ourselves? or promise more concerning him?

How

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