and believe me though there may be a great deal of weight in the reproaches of Christ to press us down yet there is abundance of worth in them to inrich us though they may be as thorns here yet they shall be as a crown of glory to us hereafter See what our Saviour saith in Matth. 5.11 12. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake foe theirs is the kingdome of heaven Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven Christ doth not say if ye be rich and honourable in the world you shall be blessed but Christ saith if thou art reproached thou shalt be blessed Thou mayest be rich and honourable in the world and yet be everlastingly miserable but if thou art reproached for Christ thou shalt be rewarded with Christ If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him 2 Tim. 2.12 Sixthly and lastly I observe from hence That God hath a recompence of reward for his people If we suffer for Christ we shall also reign with Christ If we be reproached with Christ here we shall be rewarded with Christ hereafter See what our blessed Saviour saith Matth. 19.29 Every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or friends for my sake shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit eternal life I might be longer on this point but I procéed to the Vses which shall flow from hence for our edification And the first Vse is this Is it so then that Faith is such an excellent grace then let me exhort you all in the name of Christ to believe to get Faith Beloved Faith is not onely excellent in it self but it will also make you excellent The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour Prov. 15.26 Believers were the onely excellent persons in whom David delighted Psalm 16.3 Without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 For whatsoever is not of faith is sin and God cannot be pleased with sin In a word if ever you would be saved get faith for without faith there is no salvation it is unbelief which is the soul-damning sin He that believeth shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned The Sentence of damnation is already past against all unbelievers He that believeth not is condemned already John 3.18 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.36 For the Lords sake sinners believe if you have any regard to your own good believe if you have any love or pitty to your precious souls believe if you would not be eternally miserable believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be eternally blessed Secondly Is it so that the condition of Gods Children in this life is an afflicted condition what then shall the condition of wicked men be in the life to come If judgment thus begin at the house of God what then shall be the end of sinners If the righteous be thus scarcely saved where then shall the sinner and ungodly appear If God be thus severe to his Children how terrible will he then be to his enemies If through so many tribulations the people of God enter into heaven then into what woeful miseries doe sinners plunge themselves into for a few sinful pleasures for a few séeming sinful pleasures they heap to themselves eternal torments O consider this you that forget God In this life the people of God are afflicted but in the life to coure they shall be rewarded Lazarus he was afflicted with hunger and sores yea scorned and contemned by Dives but in the life to come Lazarus is rewarded but Dives is tormented The time will come when Gods people shall have pleasures everlasting pleasures when the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the Nations that forget God Psalm 9.17 The Lord tryeth the righteous saith David but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth Upon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their cup Psalm 11.6 Thirdly Is it better to suffer than to sin then this may inform us of the great evil of apostacy they that will turn from the truth rather than suffer for the truth such I say never did imbrace the truth in the love of it they went out from us but they were not of us Many will own Christ and the word of Christ when they may do it without fear but when trouble and persecutions come then they fall away But whosoever they are that in this case go about to save their lives shall lose them they that deny Christ for fear of persecution Christ will deny him before his Father Apostacy was the sin of the Devil and they that apostatize from Christ for fear of persecution shall have the Devils reward Thou wilt not suffer for Christ but Christ will make thée suffer eternally Thou thinkest life is swéet and indéed so it is but remember eternal life is much more sweeter and the soul is more precious than life Christ laid down his life to save souls therefore Christians should lay down ten thousand lives if it were possible to have so many rather than lose their souls By apostacy from the truth thou mayest save thy life but in so doing thou losest thy soul which is of more value than ten thousand lives Did Christ lay down his life for us and shall not we much more lay down our lives for him Did Christ who is the prince of life become obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse for us then let nothing separate us from the love of Christ Christians should shew themselves to be the servants of Christ by afflictions persecutions be the way what it will fair or foul thick or thin Christians should persevere The Apostles loved not their lives unto the death in the cause of Christ and he that is afraid of his life in the cause of Christ is surely afraid of heaven If he that endures to the end shall be saved then certainly he that falls away shall be damned If we fear them who can onely kill the body more than God who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell what will become of us In a word let me encourage you all in the words of the holy Ghost as you may finde it Revel 3.10 what saith God there Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tryed and ye shall have tribulation ten dayes But be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life Fourthly Is it so that all sinful pleasures are short and vain are they but for a season then
and by them questioned for doing their duty namely for preaching the Gospel you will finde in the 29. ver that St. Peter and the other Apostles answered and said We ought to obey God rather than men And after that when they were beaten and commanded not to preach any more in the name of Iesus what did the Apostles do did they obey no. They rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ And as you may see in the last verse of that Chapter That daily in the Temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ Several other instances I might give you but I proceed In the next place the next thing considerable is the eminency of Moses faith in the 24 25 26. verses By faith Moses when he was come to years refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter where by the way observe that it is more honour to be a Christian than to be a Courtier It is more honourable to be the son of God by grace and adoption than to be the son of the greatest Monarch or Emperour in the World There is none so nobly descended in all the world as the people of God they are of the Blood Royal of Heaven others they may take their pedegree from Kings and Monarchs and the great ones of the world but the people of God are all descended from him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords the blessed and onely potentate 1 Timothy 6.15 Yea the people of God are all of them Kings and Priests unto God Revelations 1.6 Here likewise we might observe what low thoughts Christians ought to have of every thing be it never so honourable in comparison of Iesus Christ It had been an honour yes an exceeding great honour if we may account worldly greatness and honour for Moses to have been reputed the son of Pharaohs daughter but how inconsiderable a thing was this in the eyes of Moses who was more nobly descended being born of God a chosen servant of Iesus Christ to go in and out before his people Israel but I proceed Now the eminency of Moses faith you may see in these following particulars first Moses here sees the various difficulties and dangers which were then like to fall upon him for his faith Will Moses forsake Pharaoh and embrace Iesus Christ then Moses must suffer affliction this Moses foresees and this makes his faith more glorious As the people of God are by faith assured of Christ so likewise being once in Christ they are sure to bear the Crosse of Christ Christ and his Cross are inseparable All taht will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution 2 Timothy 3.11 See what our blessed Saviour saith in the Gospel of Saint Luke If any man will come after me that is if any man will be a good Christian let him deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow me Luke 9.23 He that will follow Christ must bear the Cross as the blessed Apostles did they rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ And truly the people of God may well rejoyce in their sufferings for why Christ hath born the brunt of all he hath made our burthen light although Christ by his sufferings hath not fréed the people of God from sufferings yet he hath made their sufferings to become easie Iust as it is with a man carrying a great trée on his back and you may sée little children to bear up the small twigs of the trée alas there is no weight in them the weight of all the whole but then lies on the mans shoulders so beloved it is with Christians Christ carries the load the weight of all their afflictions they do but bear up the little end the small twigs of it therefore the Apostle excellently calls his afflictions light Our light affliction saith he which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Secondly the eminency of Moses faith appcars also in this namely the great willingness and forwardness of Moses in that it is said He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people which intimates unto us the readiness of Moses to become the servant of Iesus Christ Certainly this was a very great at of faith in Moses a carnal eye would rather have chosen to have béen the son of Pharaohs Daughter an eye of sense which sées no better would rather have chosen greatness and eminency in the world then the meanness and poverty of Gods people rather to have béen Pharaohs Grandchilde and honourable at Court then to have béen the poor afflicted sons of Gad. Carnal men men whose God is their wealth and whose hearts are set upon their riches would rather chuse to be rich with Dives than to be poor with Lazarus but a gracious Soul had rather want bread with Lazarus than to want grace with Dives It is not all the riches in the world that can content and satisfie the soul of a Saint a few will sée it better for him if God sées it good for him to beg his bread with poor Lazarus on earth than to beg his water with rich Dives in hell A godly man by faith sées that glory which is to come they know that when this earthly tabernacle of theirs shall be dissolved that they have a building with God in heaven an inheritance which is uncorruptible and undefiled which passeth not away reserved in heaven for them who do believe but a wicked man he sees onely by an eye of sense he sees no farther than his riches he thinks if he may be great and honourable here in the world he esteems this the onely happiness and he thinks nothing better than to be rich and indeed he may well think so for he knows of no better condition The world with the honours and pleasures of it are even a heaven to the men of this world I and indeed it is all the heaven they shall have Son remember saith Abraham to Dives in the 16. of St. Luke that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things Dives would very fain have enjoyed heaven after his death and yet he would live upon earth in such a sumptuous delicious manner as if this would had been his onely heaven And true it is the postion of a wicked man is in this life God gives wicked men their portion in this life but he reserves a portion for his Saints in the life to come Wicked men are very like to some prodigal spendthrifts who spend all their portion before they come to years but the portion of Gods people is reserved for them till they come to age God sees it good yea best for his Children to have their portions reserved for them till they come to years and that is till they come to heaven He gives his people as much of the world as may serve to bear their charges to
rather than they would sin against God by worshipping of Nebuchadnezzars golden Image would undergo the furious flames of his burning fiery furnace So the blessed Apostles as you heard before rathen than they would obey the wicked commands of men in not preaching the Gospel willingly rejoyced in suffering affliction for so doing Many more examples I might give you but these I hope may suffice and if there had been no other example than what is set down in the words of the Text this heavenly truth had been sufficiently confirmed In the fourth place I come to prove the vanity of all sinful pleasures and that may appear first from the shortness of them and secondly from the bitternesse of their end They are but for a season they come to an end nay they shall end in endless woe and misery Though sin be sweet for the present yet its bitter yea bitternesse it self in the latter end Though sin may be pleasant for a season yet remember I beseech you it will be painful to eternity The pleasures of sin they have an end but the pains and torments which sin procures they have no end When sinners have undergone the wrath of God ten thousand times ten thousand millions of years yet then are their torments as far off from having an end as they were at first The torments for sin are eternal and I beseech you remember enternity hath no end what pleasure then can there be in that which brings eternal pains with it Sinners even when they delight themselves in their sins even then are they pulling destruction upon themselves even eternal destruction Every step in sin how sweet how delightful soever it be in the eyes of the sinner is a stop to misery enternal misery They that hasten to sin hasten to sorrow yea they run to hell As Solomon saith They love death he doth not mean that sinners love death as death there is no beauty or amiableness at all in death simply considered in it self but yet they may be truly said to love death who love sin and delight in sin and live in sin The wages of sin ye know is death Rom. 6.23 Delight in sin is a hasting into the armes of death Sinners by their delight in sin do as it were woe death and invite death and the grave even hell and destruction so that even sinners themselves though now for a while Satan blindes their eyes yet at last when it is too too late they shall be forced to confess and say that there is neither pleasure nor profit in sin The Devil makes the sinner believe that there is a great deal of pleasure and profit in sin you shall get by it saith the Devil but let sinners once truly cast up their accounts how that eternal damnation will be their wages and then let them see what they have gotten by sin It is possible I confess that some may say they have gotten hundreds and thousands by it they have gotten Houses and Lands Honour Esteem among men pleasure and profit in the world but what a miserable gain is that which is gotten with the loss of the soul Read that dreadful Scripture in St. Matthews Gospel Mat. 16.26 and then see if there be any thing gotten by sin What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul Will thy Riches which thou hast gotten by sin by oppressing the poor and defrauding thy neighbour redeem thy soul from death surely no. Thou mayest delight thy self in enlarging thy barns as that rich Fool did But thou Fool this night shall thy Soul be required of thee then whose shall they be There is no loss like the loss of the soul There is nothing to be gotten by sin thou mayest lose thy soul by sin and lose heaven by thy sin and lose the love and favour of God by sin Sin may pretend pleasure and profit but surely it brings ruine and destruction Those rich men which Saint James speaks of James 5.1 2 3 4 5. Versses they thought that gain which they got by defrauding their labourers of their wages to be very sweet they lived in pleasures they inriched themselves by the sweat of other mens labours but what have they any cause to rejoyce in this No saith the Apostle Go too now ye rich men weep and howl for your misery which shall come upon you They thought to heap up riches by their injustice and cruelty but they heaped up onely a little fuel for the eternal fire Dives he thought himself altogether happy when he enjoyed the world at will when he fared deliciously every day but what did this profit Dives death robs him of all and he himself is taken away from his sinful pleasures and thrown headlong into eternal torments he would enjoy the pleasure of sin while he lived and now he must undergo the torments of sin for ever O consider this you that delight in sin canst thou endure to dwell for ever in the everlasting burning if thou canst endure the wrath of God for ever if thou art able to stand before the Lord in the day of his fierce anger then take pleasure in sin if thou canst prevent God from bringing thee to judgement then let thy heat rejoyce in sin but if after all thou must come to judgement then take heed of sin Do not conceit that sin to be pleasant whose pains will be eternal in vain do men flatter themselves that they may sin and not suffer did ever any man rebel and enjoy peace can any offend God and have his blessing surely no sin shall not go unpunished if men will sin they shall suffer The soul that sinneth shall dye Sin destroyed the Angels those holy Spirits sin made them unholy devils Sin cast Adam out of Paradice Sin destroyed the old World Sin consumed Sodome and Gomorrah Sin brings Wars Plagues Famine Destruction upon Nations Sin ruins our names sears our Consciences and in a word it destroys body and soul for ever And then fifthly I observed That the reproaches of Christ are greater riches than all the honours of the world The best of Gods Saints have been reproached as holy Job and David was not onely reproached but was a reproach both to his enemies and to his neighbours He was made the song of the Drunkards The Apostles they were also reproached but here is that which sweetens all Christ hath born the brunt of all Christ accounts all our reproaches to be his The greatest part of Christs suffering for us was to bear our reproach so the greatest part of our sufferings is to bear the reproach of Christ Hence the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts us to go forth unto him bearing his reproach Heb. 13.13 And Indeed reproach in it self is so great a burthen that were it not for his that Christ accounts it his we should never be able to bear it Hence Moses looked on his reproach as the reproach of Christ