An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

That a true and faithful owning of Christ and his way, is accompanied with ¹sufferings; yea, sometimes overflowing and excessive sufferings.

That a true and faithfull owning of Christ and his way, is accompanied with ¹sufferings; yea, sometimes overflowing and excessive sufferings.

1. 1The true and faithful owing of Christ, is sometimes accompanied with great sufferings.The true and faithfull owing of Christ, is sometimes accompanied with great sufferings.

The Apostle takes it here for granted; supposeth it as a received truth, that Christs way, and sufferings, are always together: As the Sun and shadow; as the Rose and pricks. So that what was said of Christ, is true also of every Member; It behoved him to suffer, and so enter into glory. Christianus is Crucianus, said Luther of old. I only add in the Doctrine, A true and unfeigned receiving of Christ: For, if so be we take only some truths, and some parts of Christs way, and leave those which most enrage and trouble the world; if we take his Doctrine, and not his Discipline, his truth, and not his godly order, the world is less moved. So if of his truths, we take some that are more speculative, and leave the rest which are more practical and searching; if we go no further, we may have some good entertainment in the world. Si di•idio Christoessemus contenti facilè transigeremus omnia, said Calvin on a particular occasion. Or, again, If men take up the whole profession of Christ, but upon politic and carnal ends, to hold Christ and his advantages, to be not [Greek or Hebrew], but [Greek or Hebrew], as Nazia•zen said, such will not be put to suffering. As the great heathenish Pleader Sy• for Romans Idolatry, to