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 the salvation of believers is promoted and advanced by their sufferings ¹for Christ.

1. 1The salvation of believers is promoted by their sufferings for Christ.

Let none with Simon the Cyrenean be compelled to bear Christs cross; let them not grudge and repine, thinking they suffer more than Christ will ever make them amends for, that they are losers by him; for no less than eternal salvation is exalted hereby; thou hast gold and precious stones for parting with this earth. The Text I promised to confirm this truth, and is a parallel with mine, is 2 Cor. 4. 17. where the Apostle showeth the unspeakable benefit that we have by our afflictions for God, Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more, and eternal weight of glory. It is but a light affliction; light in comparison of hell torments. Are thy sufferings like to the sufferings of the damned in hell? yet thou hast deserved them. And then light in comparison of the weight of glory. There is no proportion between ⟨p. 229⟩that everlasting blessedness, and thy afflictions: If thou shouldst for millions of years endure such torments as the Martyrs did, yet that was not equivalent to one hours being in Heaven. Again, he saith, It is but for a moment.] All thy afflictions are not eternal afflictions: Thou shalt not for ever and ever be thus in a suffering condition, compare it with eternity, It is but a moment. Now these afflictions thus diminished by him, do yet work for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Oh the goodness of God, not the merit of man, that blesseth such contemptible things with an everlasting reward! It is true, the Papists do most arrogantly from the word [Greek or Hebrew] infer, that afflictions have a causal and meritorious influence upon our salvation; that we are to abhor such thoughts, as that we should have Heaven, Per modum eleemosynae, but coronae, Not by way of alms, but by way of a crown for our striving and conquering. But let men presumptuously dispute this in their Books; when they are to give up an account to God, and to stand before his bar, they will then plead mercy, and not justice; but the Word doth not signify causality: only that order God hath appointed, that by these sufferings we shall come to glory. And indeed to inter any causality or merit from that Word, would be plainly to derogate from the Apostles intention, which is to show the great disproportion that is between these light afflictions, and that eternal glory, there is no equality between them;