Purpuram

colunt, non Deum.

sunny side in Dioclesian's time they can be Pagans; in Constantine's, Christians; in Constantius's, Arians; in Julian's, Pagans again. It is the good heart only that is fit for sufferings. Now two things are requisite to make a good heart; it must be purged from sin; and again, it must be furnished with principles of grace. 1. It must be purged from sin; from the guilt and power of it: it must be purged from the guilt of sin. A man that hath inward wounds is unfit to bear out

ward ones. Guilt upon conscience, like a boil upon the back, makes one incapable to bear the burden of a cross. They, that are partakers of Christ's sufferings in martyrdom, had need first partake of them for remission: they, that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, by suffering for him, had need first wash their consciences in it to take away their guiltiness. It is not imaginable that a man can piously

embrace a temporal death, when immediately after it he shall fall into an eternal one or that he can patiently bear the wrath of man, when the wrath of God is to ensue upon it. It was a very forlorn case with the Egyptians, when they were drowning in the sea, and God looked through the cloud upon them; and so it will be with Christians, if the world be as a troubled sea to them, and withal God look with an angry face upon them: therefore it much concerns them to get a pardon sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ, that, when they come to suffer, they may have nothing to bear but the single cross, without any pressure of guilt upon conscience to aggravate it. Again, it must be purged from the power of sin. Every lust is a Dalilah, an Exhauster (as the Hebrew word signifies); it takes away the heart, drains and debases the man, makes him vile and impotent, and by conse

quence altogether incapable of so heroical a thing as suffering for God is: he that hath sin reigning in his heart, will comply with it reigning in the world; he that carrieth an idol within will fall down to an outward one: such a one will do any thing rather than suffer; the power of sin must be broken, that a man may be ready to take up the cross. Further, the heart, that it may be good, must not only be purged from sin, but furnished with principles of grace. The old heart will not hear, or pray, or give alms, or do any thing for God in a right manner, much less will it suffer for him. A man must have gracious principles, such as holy knowledge, faith, fear, love, zeal, hope, humility, obedience, and patience, are, that he may be ready for suffering. There is a double preparation for it, habitual and actual; habitual stands in the having those principles, and actual in the using of them. He that

hath them hath a divine temper disposing him for every piece of the divine will; he is in the frame of his heart above creatures, and hath no centre but in his Creator; he is higher than time and this lower world, and lies upon the borders of heaven and eternity; his great concerns are not in the smiles and frowns of men, but in the will and favour of God: his fear is of greater evil than the world can inflict; and his expectation is of greater good than the world can bestow: his principles make him habitually ready for suffering, and when occasion comes, the use of them will make him actually So. Such a one may say at the fiery trial, as the famous Jerom of Prague did when the wood was laid to him, "Salve festa dies," Welcome thou joyful day of suffering for Christ. This is the second thing, we must secure good hearts.

III. We must secure a good God

to be with us in our sufferings. A good cause will not bear us up without a good heart, nor will a good heart stand without a good God to support it. The prayer of David is very remarkable, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee," Psal. xxv. 21. Integrity is a preservative; but we must wait on God to have our very integrity preserved; and pray, as the holy Psalmist doth in the precedent verse, "O keep my soul;" the most upright soul needs it. Graces keep the heart, but those very graces must be kept by the keeper of Israel. The God of grace is as necessary to the new creature as the God of nature is to the old if he withdraw, faith will fail, love will cool, hope will wither, zeal will be extinct, and all graces will vanish, as the beams do upon the absence of the sun; the gracious presence of God is necessary to us at all times, especially in times.