queting house, the dungeon his pavilion; there they drink and are satisfied. The stocks and the rack are the organs that make them the sweetest music. Many a saint has been sadly disappointed at the first, hoping to meet with Christ at the door; but behold, a dreadful sight-behold, sin lieth at the door-all his sins, all that ever he did against Christ, all his unthankfulness, unfaithfulness, unkindness, rebellion against his Lord, stand forth and stare him in the face.

Christians, beware of sin now; it will meet you in the day of adversity, the cross will tell you all that ever you did. "I remember my faults this day: now I remember all my pleasant things-my Sabbaths, my ordinances, my liberty, the dear society I once enjoyed but trifled and wasted away. Oh, my pride and my wantonness, my idleness, my earthliness, my hypocrisy, wherefore are you come thus to affright and torment me? Lord, whither am I come? O how dreadful is this place! Is this my prison-entertainment? Are these my prison-comforts? O what a hard lodging am I like to have with such companions! O the wormwood and the gall; a dark habitation, a bitter cup indeed, is now given unto me. Is this the comfort of the cross? Are these the sweets so much talked of?" Yet be not dismayed, however roughly thou art handled at the door; it is better within; the devil is going out in this storm; thy sins meet thee now, but it is only to shake hands and part; after this agony, expect the angels to come and minister to thee. Complain not if thou yet find no sweet, thou hast

not drank deep enough; in the next room thou mayest meet thy Lord, and then tell me if it come short of all that hath been told thee.

But shall I give you a more particular view of some of the special comforts of the cross, or our sufferings for Christ? I shall only first premise a word to let you understand what I mean by the sufferings of Christ. We then suffer for Christ, when we suffer for Christ's cause; when we suffer because we will be Christians, will be holy and righteous; when we suffer because we will not sin; and when we suffer upon Christ's call, when he cuts out a cross for us and lays it upon us. Then Christ calls us to suffering when he puts us to this choice, either to suffer or to sin; when either our backs or our consciences must suffer; when we must suffer, or he must suffer by us. "If any man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross." Christ is not, and Christians must not be prodigal of their blood their blood is his; their estates, their names, their liberties are all his, and to him they must be accountable how they part with them. It is not every cross that thou canst call "thy" cross; we must not leave our way to seek a cross: when Christ has laid a cross athwart a Christian's way that he should go, and he must either make a stand or turn aside, or submit his neck to it, then he says, There is thy cross; take it up, and get thee gone. Whatever cross be before thee, if thou hast a way open to avoid it without sin, that is none of thy cross; thou mayest not take it up, or if thou dost, thou wilt have no thanks for thy pains.

Christians should be wary here. Though it be an evidence of a gracious spirit to be always of a ready and forward mind to suffer for Christ; and when he demands, Who will go with me-who will bear my cross? cheerfully to answer, I will go, Lord, let me bear it; yet should we take heed that, as we hang not back when he says Go, so we run not before he send us. Though it be a high honor to suffer for the gospel, yet no man taketh this honor upon himself, but he that is called of God. I would not go to a prison without a mittimus from heaven, lest, if my suffering be of myself, I be there left to shift for myself. If Christ should meet me in prison or in banishment, and demand of me, "What doest thou here, Elijah? friend, how camest thou in hither?" what should I say if I could not say this, Thou, Lord, hast brought me hither; my conscience, my duty hath brought me here ?

But understand me here with this caution: that when the cause for the main is Christ's, though the call seems doubtful, yet when the sufferer hath carefully inquired the mind of God, truly follows the dictates of an enlightened conscience, and sincerely designs the honor of Christ and his gospel, although he should err in some circumstances of his case, and for fear of iniquity should choose affliction when possibly he might have avoided both, God will surely own his sufferings, and accept his readiness of mind.

Yet still take heed of careless or wilful errors; take heed of preparing nails for thine own cross, thorns, scourges, spears for thine own head or heart. Take

heed both how thou shunnest, and how thou espousest a suffering state. Go not into it upon heedless mistakes; go not into it for good company, much less upon any carnal designs; let not thy pride or ostentation, or the bias of any fleshly considerations, lead thee into the house of correction, lest thou find them the rods to lash thee when thou art there.

Christians, consider if there be not sometimes some uncomfortable miscarriages in this matter; and whether it has not been the lot of some of Christ's-with how much justice or charity let the Lord be judge—to be censured and reproached as unfaithful or as fearful, on no other account but for walking by this rule: not to go to prison without a warrant, that is, not to cast themselves into a suffering state, while God hath left a way open to escape without sin. I confess, the more dangerous and the more ordinary error is on the other hand: we are more apt-especially when afflictions are more sharp, and bite in earnest, and then will be the great trial—rather sinfully to shift ourselves of them, than unwarrantably to run ourselves upon them; but yet let it be considered whether there be not an error on this hand also.

It is true, where the cause is the same as to the main, different circumstances may make that to be one man's sin, which is another man's duty; yea, that may be a duty to the same man at one time, which, supposing him in different circumstances, might have been his sin at another. And it is not seldom, through the unavoidable difference of our apprehensions, and the difficulty of discerning our cases, that Christians

equally careful to know and do the will of God, when the case and the circumstances also are mostly the same, do judge differently about their call to suffering. Here let no man be so tyrannical to others, as to expect that they should go cross to their own, to comply with their brethren's judgments and consciences. Let us not put one another on this unmerciful necessity, either to break our peace with God or our friends. Let it be sufficient to us faithfully to follow our own light, without judging or quarrelling with those who are otherwise minded. Beware of bitterness. Be not cruel to consciences; smite not with the tongue, nor let an evil thought arise in thy heart, upon any such account as this. Thine arrows

will recoil and fly back in thine own face. Blemish not thine own sufferings by blasting thy brother's liberty. Let not the wariness of some be condemned for cowardice, nor the forwardness of others for pride or hypocrisy; but let us be clothed with humility, let us put on a spirit of self-suspicion, and of charity to our brethren; and let this Christian frame be the more studiously maintained, the more our practices, differing according to the variety of our apprehensions, seem to condemn each other and so provoke to uncomfortable schisms and contentions, and the more pernicious such schisms are likely to prove in the issue.

These things premised, I shall now show you what the special comforts of the cross are. You may expect

your suffering state to be sweetened with,

1. A more plentiful diffusion of special grace.