not to God and some labour to keep conscience void of offence to God but not to man but the yoke of Christ extends to both it lies equally on both shoulders and teaches how to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and man Acts 24.16 Secondly This Yoke is extensive in regard of the subject It reaches to every man and to every thing in man First To every man to every age of man young and old children and fathers tender years and gray hairs it doth not only lay duty upon young shoulders Eccles 12.1 Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth but upon old ones too They shall bring forth fruit in old age Psal 92.14 To every Sex male and female young men and maidens as David says Psal 148.12 and therefore the fourth Commandment is Exod. 20.10 Thou nor thy son nor thy daughter thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant To every Estate this Yoke of Christ reaches duty to them that are out of the Yoke and under the Yoke to the unmarried and to them who are married As the unmarried are to care for the things of the Lord 1 Cor. 7.32 34. so are the married also 1 Cor. 7.29 And therefore it is charged as a great sin upon him who when he was invited to the Wedding-supper refused the Call of Christ upon that pretence I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come Luke 14.20 To every degree and rank of men high and low rich and poor great and small Psal 148.11 Kings of the earth and all people The Law of Christ lays the same Yoke upon all There are none below it because of their meanness none above it because of their greatness Some plead priviledge and exemption from humane Laws and therefore they are compared as Solons Laws were to Spiders webs wherein the lesser flies are intangled and held but the great ones break through But there are none can plead priviledge or pretend immunity from the Law of Christ for it extends to every man Secondly It extends to every thing in man To the outward Members and inward Faculties To the Eye He that looks on a woman to lust after her committeth adultery in his heart Mat. 5.28 To the Ear Incline your ear and come to me hear and your souls shall live Isai 55.3 To the Tongue Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth Ephes 4.29 Let your speech be alway with grace seasoned with salt Coloss 4.6 To the Hands Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth Ephes 4.28 To the Feet Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path Psal 119.105 And to the inward Parts also To the Vnderstanding Through thy precepts I get understanding Psal 119.104 To the Will. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power Psal 110.3 To the Conscience for that is guided by the Word and accuses or excuses according to the Word Conscience is a rule ruled but it is the Law of God that is the rule ruling To the Affections It teaches us what to love and what to hate what to desire and what to eschew How to rejoyce and how to mourn what to hope after and what to fear God is to be the object of some affections as love Col. 3.2 desire hope joy and delight And sin of others as anger hatred sorrow and fear and both sorts are under the directions of the Word Nay it extends to the very Thoughts To worldâ—y thoughts carking thoughts Matt. 6.25 28 31 34. To vain thoughts Jer. 4.14 To evil thoughts Matt. 9 4. And so brings every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 Thus every thing in man comes under the Yoke of Christ Thirdly This Yoke of Christ is extensive as to the Commands it reaches to every Command First To relative Precepts as well as absolute It doth not only teach us to hear and pray and repent and believe and love God and serve him but it extends to every relative Duty It teaches men subjection to Rulers and Rulers their duty to their Subjects It teaches Parents how to govern and Children how to obey it teaches Masters how to command and Servants how to submit It instructs the Husband how to love and the Wife how to be subject It teaches Ministers how to guide and watch and their People how to obey and submit It lays a special Law upon every person to fill up his relation with all becomingness it allows no churlish sour morose carriage in Superiors to them that are beneath them nor any unfaithfulness or disobedience in Inferiors to them that are above them Secondly It reaches to positive Precepts as well as negative and so provides against our sinful omissions as well as against our carnal practices Negatives in Religion are not sufficient though few go farther like the Pharisee Luke 18.11 not oppressive not unjust not unclean But alas this will not serve turn the barren tree that bears no fruit is as well cut down Luke 13.7 as the tree that bears evil fruit Matt. 3.10 The rich man was cast into Hell not for oppressing Lazarus but for not relieving him he did not exercise cruelty but he shewed no mercy Not only the evil servant is cast into Hell for persecuting his fellow-servant Mat. 24.49 as many now a-days do but the slothful servant hath the same doom that hid his talent in a napkin Mat. 25.30 Our obedience should carry a correspondency with Gods mercies which are not only privative but positive He hath not only delivered us from Hell 1 Thess 2.12 but called us to his Kingdom and Glory And Christ is not come only to save us from death Joh. 3.16 Joh. 10.10 but come that we might have life God promiseth Abraham to be his shield and his exceeding great reward Gen. 15 1. A shield to keep off all evil an exceeding great reward in the communication of all good Thus Grace is intirely dispensed in positive mercies as well as privative and our obedience should be proportionable We should not only abstain from sin but exercise our selves to godliness 1 Tim. 4.7 Amos 5.15 Rom. 12.9 Therefore every command of God is positive as well as negative it hath a Precept as well as a Prohibition if not in express terms yet in sense and meaning When he forbids sin he doth therein command all contrary duties that we may as well owne God as abandon lust and keep up a fellowship with him as well as break our confederacy with corruption Thirdly It reaches to commands for suffering as well as commands for doing For you must know that the Cross of Christ is a part of the Yoke of Christ If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Matt. 16.24 We
CHAP. XIV Shews our subjection to Christ by such signs as are the genuine effects of it CHAP. XV. Exhorts such as have taken up this Yoke to thankfulness to God who inclined their hearts thereunto The wisdom of taking up this Yoke manifested CHAP. XVI Directs our obedience as to Principles matter manner and end CHAP. XVII Exhorts to perseverance under the Yoke of Christ with arguments to press it and directions to guide in it CHAP. XVIII Contains matter of counsel to Christless sinners with motives and directions to further it THE GOOD OF Early Obedience LAMENT iii. 27. It is good for a man that he bear the Yoke in his Youth CHAP. I. Somewhat Prooemial The Yoke explained what it is Literally taken what Metaphorically THE Apostle tells us that great is the Mystery of Godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 and it is so not only in credendis the things which are to be believed but in agendis the matters that relate to practice There are Mysteries in the Precept as well as in the Promise Psal 55.22 If a man be commanded to cast his burthen upon the Lord then he himself hath none to bear and yet the Lord Christ lays a burthen upon every Believer Matth. 11.30 Rev. 2.24 where he is a Redeemer he sets the soul free from every Yoke it is under and if the Son make a man free John 8.36 he is then free indeed And yet none are more under the Yoke than the Lords Freemen being not without Law 1 Cor. 9.21 but under the Law to Christ When he takes off one he puts on another Take my Yoke upon you Matth. 11.29 Though Christ breaks our Fetters yet he brings us into Bonds though he delivers us from thraldom and slavery yet not from duty he redeems us from the power of sin but not from the power of the Precept and therefore to argue from liberty to licentiousness is a kind of Logick found only in the Devil's School Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid The right reasoning is from mercy to duty Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your Body and your Spirits which are Gods 1 Cor. 6.20 Redemption and service are in the design of the Gospel Luke 1.74 75. linked together That we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life The freedom purchased by Christ makes service necessary for he quits us of our burden but not of our obedience he doth not set us free from service but changes our work and our Master Rom. 6.19 As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness So that ye are Servants still It was the interest of the Flesh and fleshly lusts that was served before but now it is the interest of God and holiness the freedom then is from the Government of the God of this World who rules in the Children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 unto a voluntary submission and resignedness to the Divine conduct from the brutish drudgery of sin to the excellency of such an Empire Psal 19.11 whose Precepts carry their own reward with them besides the Glory that ensues So then the Yoke that hath a curse in it that Christ hath took off but the Yoke of obedience that he hath call'd us to put on and herein he hath excellently accommodated things to the great advantage of man For as it is his misery and burthen to be under the former Yoke which what it is I shall shew anon so it is as much his interest and happiness to be under the latter and therefore the earlier he takes it up the sooner he begins to be happy It is good for a man that he bear the Yoke in his Youth I shall not speak any thing of this Book in general only a little about the manner of penning it which is somewhat unusual each Chapter the last only excepted being penned according to the Order in which the Letters stand in the Hebrew Alphabet as some of the Psalms of David are For what reason the Spirit of God should direct the Pen-man of it this way it doth not appear Hierom labours to find out great mysteries in it but doth but beat the Air. This way of writing seems to be very useful for the help of the memory and may seem to hint as if God would have such Scriptures peculiarly remarked and remembred and that is the best reason I can give But whereas the first second and fourth Chapters begin with a single Alphabet the several Verses beginning with several Letters in their Order this third Chapter consisteth of a threefold Alphabet every three Verses in course beginning with the same Letter This Text which I have pitched upon falls under the Letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Hierome makes to stand for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Good and accordingly the 25th 26th and the 27th Verses do all begin in the Hebrew with the word Tobh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So in the 25th Verse Tobh Jehovah Lekovau Good is the Lord to them that wait for him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the 26th Verse Tobh vejahhil vedumam It is good a man should both hope and quietly wait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so here in the Text Tobh Laggebher Ki-jissa gnol bingnoraiu Good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth The only difficulty in the Text that needs explaining is What Yoke it is that is here meant The Yoke is sometimes taken Literally and sometimes Metaphorically A Literal Yoke is an Instrument of Wood or Iron fitted to the Necks of Creatures either to tame them or work them or punish them These are the three chief uses of the Yoke First It is for the taming of wild Beasts and making them tractable The Yoke and the Collar bow down the hard Neck Ecclus 33.25 Ephraim complains of himself As a Bullock unaccustomed to the Yoke Jer. 31.18 that is untamed and unruly Secondly It is an Instrument of labour by which Beasts do draw burthens Deut. 21.3 Take an Heifer that hath not drawn in the Yoke And hence ye read in Scripture of a Yoke of Oxen 1 Sam. 11.7 Luke 14.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jugum Boum from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 niph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 copulavit And so in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quia est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly It is an Instrument of punishment Deut 28.48 Thou shalt serve thine Enemies in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things and he shall put a Yoke of Iron upon thy neck until he hath destroyed thee These are the uses of the Literal Yoke But then there is a Metaphorical Yoke and
that is your season His killing and breaking time is your weeping and mourning time but when his healing time comes then is your time to laugh and dance Be willing therefore to be slain by the coming of the Commandment Rom. 7.9 and to lye dead under the Spirits wounds till the healing and reviving time comes Is there not a promise that the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings Mal. 4.2 and that he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoycing Psal 126.6 bringing his sheavs with him And therefore do not dare to use any indirect means in hopes of relief he that would see a good issue of this work must stay the time Lam. 3.26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. 4. While you are under the Yoke of the Spirit give diligence to make a right use of it by improving your convictions while you are under them lest the Spirit cease his work and leave you and so your convictions die and wither and come to nothing This is a very common case for whence is it that convictions do so seldom end in conversion Many are convinced and yet few converted they have many and strong convictions yet perish under them they are made to see their lost estate and yet never come to Jesus Christ Now whence is this but from the slighting and not improving their convictions Of all duties therefore be sure make Conscience of this when the Spirit strives then do you strive when he works then is your time to work I pray consider four things First Prov. 17.16 What a price to get wisdom this work of the Spirit puts into our hands and shall it be a price in the hand of fools that have no heart to it no desire to obtain it The strivings of the Spirit time your seasons of grace For though every day is a time to repent and believe in yet a man hath not his special seasons and opportunities for this every day Opportunity is more than time it is the nick and season of time it is time fitted for action a conjunction of time and means together to bring a thing about When God shews a man his undone condition by reason of sin and makes a tender of Christ to him and the Spirit strives with him to bring him to accept the tender then is his season As the Lord said to David 2 Sam. 5.24 When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees then thou shalt bestir thy self for then shall the Lord go out before thee Secondly Consider how easie the conversion is of those sinners that comply with and duly improve the seasons of the Spirit All things are easie in the Spirits seasons Great births are brought forth with easie travail How came Sarah barren Sarah to have a Son at ninety years old Gen. 18.10 why God came according to the time of life and Isaac is born So when the Spirit comes according to the time of life when his season is to bring life to a dead Soul then it lives you must know that Isaac was not so much the Son of Abrahams loyns as of Gods promise begotten by the Power of God making good the promise and therefore called a child of promise Gal 4.28 So is every Believer born not of the will of the flesh Joh. 1.13 but of God By the power of God put forth through the promise And hence all things in conversion become easie How difficult soever they are to the Creature yet in the Spirits season they are easie because of a Divine power How hard a work is it to repent and turn from sin a very difficult duty therefore compared to cutting off a limb But yet in the Spirits season how easie is it Zacheus says Christ make haste and come down Luk. 19. â— here is the season of Christ upon his Soul and how easily is his repentance brought about vers 8. Behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have taken ought fiom any man by false accusation I restore him fourfold How hard a work is the work of believing no duty more difficult It is easier to keep all the commands of the Law than that one command of believing And yet when the season of the Spirit comes how easie is it For now all things concur to bring it about the Commandment comes the eyes are opened sin is made burdensom the need of Christ is felt and by these means the Spirit draws and then the sinner runs Ah how easie are all things in conversion made by the Spirits seasons to the Soul that complies with them and improves them Thirdly Consider this is the highest and last of means for conversion 1 It is the highest it is that which puts efficacy into all other means which without it can operate nothing It is that which can make the weakest means as successful against the proudest lusts as the Rams horns were against Jericho though her walls reached to Heaven 2 It is the last means that God ever uses to convert sinners he hath appointed no other means to succeed this and therefore if you sin against your convictions you quench the Spirit and he may be so quenched as never to be kindled again and then your conversion becomes a thing impossible And therefore Fourthly Consider what a mischief it brings upon you not to improve the convictions of the Spirit Is it not a mischief when all the Ordinances and means of Grace are rendred fruitless and unsuccessful This is an effect of not improving the Spirits convictions Nay is it not a mischief to turn the edge of that Word against your Souls that was designed against your sins This is a fruit of not improving the Spirits convictions Is it not a mischief when the heart grows harder and harder under softning means This is a fruit of not improving the Spirits convictions Is it not a mischief to be delivered up to a cannot in believing Why he that improves not the convictions of the Spirit provokes him finally to depart and then the sinner is delivered up to a cannot in believing Therefore they could not believe Joh. 12.39 Is it not a mischief when the Oath of God seals up a persons or a peoples destruction Why thus it is when the convictions of the Spirit are not improved I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest Psal 95.11 And who were these They were a people that had long resisted the strivings of the Spirit O therefore be diligent to improve your convictions while you are under them And if you ask me how they must be improved I shall give only this one answer and that is By hastening to Jesus Christ for pardoning and converting Grace You never improve your convictions aright till you are brought by them to a saving
he tastes in it So it is with a regenerate man sweetness becomes a motive to obedience and duty is drawn forth by delight I delight to do thy will O my God And mark whence this delight springs Thy Law is within my heart Psal 40.8 The Law was not only his Command but his nature God writes his Law in the Word and so it becomes our rule but when he writes it in our hearts then it becomes our nature And this is it that makes obedience sweet and pleasant because it is now natural There is an inward Principle suited to the outward Precept Thirdly Consider the pleasures with which this service is attended It is not more natural for sin to bring forth sorrow and trouble than for Religion to afford pleasure and sweetness It denies no lawful pleasure which others injoy It affords pleasures which others cannot injoy First It denies no lawful pleasures which others injoy doth the sinner take pleasure in the creature So doth the good man more truly for Religion moderates the affections and teaches the right use of the creature and thereby heightens the pleasure of the injoyment it curbs and restrains our excesses and moderated affections make our fruition the more sweet because hereby sin is excluded which imbitters the injoyment There is no pleasure which a wicked man sins in injoying but a good man may injoy without sin and where there is least sin there is most sweetness Nay farther Religion spiritualizeth the injoyment and thereby a good man hath more sweetness in the creature than any other can have as the Bee hath more delight in the flower than other creatures can because they have only the sweetness of the scent but the Bee hath the sweetness of the honey with the scent Natural man hath only a natural sweetness but the spiritual man hath a spiritual sweetness with the natural and so injoys a higher pleasure in the creature than any natural man can Secondly Religion hath its peculiar pleasures which none but good men can partake of It gives pleasure and delight in God when the creature affords none The sensual man is beholden to the Fig-tree and the Vine and the Olive to the Field the Fold and the Stall if these fail his comfort fails But the good man hath a never-sailing Spring of delight when all these streams are cut off Although the fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the olive shall sail and the fields shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls Here are all his streams cut off now where is his never-failing Spring why it is in God Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation Habak 3.17 18. No delight so sweet as delight in God The dim light of Moon and Stars are a comfortable ministry in a dark night and we are glad to walk by the light of them but when once the light of the Sun breaks out who regards the Moon or Stars then Creature-comforts are pleasant things to a sensual Spirit that knows no better injoyment but when once God discovers himself to the Soul and sheds abroad his love in the heart Rom. 5.5 what poor things are these then The pleasure of walking with God and the pleasure of a witnessing Conscience without naming any more outvie all the pleasures in the World for sweetness and delight And these are peculiar to Religion and a life of godliness Prov. 14.10 no stranger intermeddles with this joy 1. In Religion and the practice of Godliness a good man walks with God There is a twofold walking with God and both exceeding sweet In Holiness and Obedience In Comfort and Experience First There is a walking with God in Comfort and Experience and this consists in sensible communion and fellowship with God This is that our Lord Christ injoyed much of John 16.32 I am not alone because the Father is with me He had much of it in that Voice from Heaven Mat. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased He had much of it in the Transfiguration Mat. 17.2 He was transfigured before them this imports a wonderful letting forth of the glory of God upon him and so speaks an high degree of communion Exod. 34.29 Moses had a great measure of this transfiguring communion in the Mount when his face shone and Paul when he says he cannot tell whether he was in the body or out of the body 2 Cor. 12.3 4. but speaks as though he had been really in Heaven These are extraordinary manifestations of God which are fitted only to special seasons and though they are exceeding sweet and fill the Soul with great transports of joy yet they are not designed for continuance nor alotted to many But there is a more ordinary communion with God which every good man may lay claim to The Apostle John speaks of it as the undoubted priviledge of every Believer 1 Joh. 1.3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ And Christ promises it to all that obey his Commands John 14.21 He that hath my commandments and keepeth them loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him And v. 23. We will come unto him and make our abode with him These expressions import a special presence of God and peculiar emanations of his love filling the Soul with such a sweetness and delight as none else can experience Hence that of Judas not Iscariot to Christ in v. 22. Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us and not to the world This is a comfort the world knows nothing of Indeed a Believer himself hath no security of injoying it always As one Believer injoys it more than another and the same Believer injoys it more at one time than another so sometimes he injoys it not God never promised to any man such a vouchsafement of his comsorting presence as should know no interruption for if so then God would leave himself without a liberty to shew his dislike of sin That promise Heb. 13.5 I will never leave thee nor forsake thee secures to a Believer the duration of his union but not of his communion it intitles him to the certainty of his presence and care of his Providence but not to the light of his countenance It makes over to him the constant supports of his Power and Grace but not always the actual possession of joy and comfort Secondly There is a walking with God in Holiness and Obedience Thus it is said Enoch walked with God three hundred years Gen. 5.22 that is by an holy conformity to his will * To live to the will of God loving what God loves hating what God hates doing what God commands this is the highest kind of walking and communion with God
them in the Lord and they shall walk up and down in his name What or who can be too hard for such as walk in the ways and worship of Christ with the strength of Christ Now the Lord Christ helps two ways 1. By his powerful intercession he is ever praying and pleading for you Heb. 7.25 2. By his Almighty Spirit for how are your sins mortified but by the Spirit Rom. 8.13 And how are your hearts quickened in duty but by the Spirit Joh. 6.63 And how are you guided in the ways of God but by the Spirit Joh. 16.13 And how are you taught but by the Spirit 1 Joh. 2.27 And who upholds you in your course but the Spirit Psal 51.12 Besides the grace the Spirit works in you at first you have spiritual incomes and supplies of the Spirit daily Phil. 1.19 And is not the Believers help then greater than his work now it was not so under the Law there was great service but little assistance but now the Christians help is greater then his work Phil. 2.13 for it is God that works in you to will and to do The works of Gospel Obedience are more sublime more spiritual and therefore more difficult than any of the works of the Law but so far as we have Communion with the power and strength of the Spirit to actuate and inable us they are all easy and pleasant Gospel duties may be difficult in respect of divine imposition but they are easy in regard of divine cooperation The Father sets the Child a Copy and bids it write the Child knows not how but yet takes the Pen and then the Father guides the hand and the Child writes after the Copy Lord sayes Austin give what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt 4. The wisdom of taking up Christs yoke appears in this that under this yoke though the weakness of your obedience is great yet the truth of your obedience is accepted God looks at truth in the inward parts Psal 51.6 O the many weaknesses that God passes by in his people where he finds the heart and affection true to him though there be much commanded yet the least you do is accepted Were it not for this there could be no serving him If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities who could stand But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared Psal 130.3 4. God will not take advantage of your fallings and infirmities I will spare them as a man spares his son that serves him Mal. 3.17 O what a sweetness must this put into service how easie must it needs make the yoke of Christ when the least we do is accepted as a handful of goats hair was for the Temple when it came from a willing heart What reason therefore have we to bless the Lord that ever inclined our hearts to stoop to the yoke of Christ The wisdom of taking up Christs yoke is evident in this that herein true liberty consists This may seem a Paradox for sinners do therefore indulge themselves in their lusts because there is liberty and they therefore refuse Christs yoke because it abridges their liberty they cannot live as they list Now you must know there is a twofold liberty 1. A carnal liberty wherein a corrupt base heart takes a latitude to it self to live and act according to its own vitious inclinations without any restraint or controul Indeed the yoke of Christ is an enemy to this liberty and it were not worth the taking up if it should not for this liberty is only the licentiousness of lust and no man such a slave as he that is thus at liberty He is a servant to corruption 2 Pet. 2.19 Under the devils rule led captive by him at his will 1 Tim. 2.26 He is held in the chains of Hell and will you call this liberty are not the Saints at liberty in Heaven and yet there is none of this liberty there will ye call this liberty to be loaded with the guilt of sin to be bound over to damnation to be vexed daily with an accusing Conscience to have all the threats of the word lye against thee to have wrath hanging over thy head every moment and God ready to throw thee into Hell is this liberty when thou art in such a dreadful case that thou darest not think of dying for fear of hell and damnation better be the veryest gally slave in the world then thus at liberty But then 2. There is a Spiritual liberty which is wrought out for us by Christ the purchase of his blood John 8.36 If the son make you free then are ye free indeed And he that partakes of this liberty may well be said to be free indeed for he is freed from the curse of the Law Gal. 3.10 He is freed from the condemning power of sin Rom. 8.1 He is freed from the Spirit of Bondage Rom. 8.15 And he is freed from the dominion of sin Rom. 6.14 And a man never enjoyes this liberty till he comes under the yoke of Christ and is there not reason to bless God for drawing the heart to Christ 6. The wisdom of taking up Christs yoke appears in this that the longer you are under it the easier you will find it I will make it out in three things 1. The longer you wear it the lighter it will be it is not so in other matters A little burden in tract of time is heavy and the longer it lyes the heavyer it is because of a wast of strength by long bearing but Christs burden the longer it is born the lighter it is because though the burden is not diminished yet your strength is increased Psal 84.7 Job 17.9 They go from strength to strength He that hath clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger And as spiritual strength increases so spiritual difficulties must needs abate 2. The more progress you make in obedience the greater testimony you shall have from conscience of the uprightness of your hearts with God and you can't imagine unless you ever felt it what peace this brings in 2 Cor. 1.12 Nothing gives conscience that advantage to witness aloud to our case as godly sincerity in our obedience to Christ 3. Much obedience brings in much comfort The more seed the more sheaves that Christian is likest to injoy most comfort that walks most close with God in the way of obedience He hath comfort in the most difficult duties even in his sufferings for Christ and they are the most pinching part of his Yoke And yet as the sufferings of Christ abound in us so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ 2 Cor. 1.5 And therefore Christ bids us rejoyce even in persecution Matth. 5.11 12. He hath comfort in the worst of times To the upright there ariseth light in darkness Psal 112.4 When the figtree doth not blossom Hab. 3.18 yet then he can joy in the God of his salvation CHAP. XVI Directs our obedience as to principles matter