The excellency of holy courage in evil times by Jeremiah Burroughs

20. Again let us take heed we do not increase the difficulty by our disorderly carriage, this we are many times guilty of, that when God sets us about any work and there be some hardness in it, we make it abundantly more hard by our untoward carriages: As a man that is fettered, by pulling and haling he pulls the skin off his legs, and by that means makes it harder to bear his fetters then before, the people of Israel that went out ⟨p. 180⟩of Egypt, and went to Canaan through the wilderness, it was a hard journey, but they made it abundantly harder, by their carriage. From Egypt unto the borders of Palestine was but seventy miles, and to Jerusalem but a hundred miles, and yet by their ill carriage they made it a business of forty years: so though indeed we are to go through a wilderness, & a difficult work, yet through our ill carriage we make it more difficult. Let us take heed we do not make it more difficult really, by our complaints of it; we complain things are difficult when indeed they are not so in themselves, but because of the sluggishness of mens spirits in making complaints of the difficulty of the work.

20. Again let us take heed we do not increase the difficulty by our disorderly carriage, this we are many times guilty of, that when God sets us about any work and there be some hardness in it, we make it abundantly more hard by our untoward carriages: As a man that is fettered, by pulling and haling he pulls the skin off his legs, and by that means makes it harder to beare his fetters then before, the people of Israel that went out ⟨p. 180⟩of Egypt, and went to Canaan through the wilderness, it was a hard iourney, but they made it abundantly harder, by their carriage. From Egypt unto the borders of Palestine was but seventy miles, and to Jerusalem but a hundred miles, and yet by their ill carriage they made it a businese of fourty yeares: so though indeed we are to go through a wilderness, & a difficult work, yet through our ill carriage we make it more difficult. Let us take heed we do not make it more difficult really, by our complaints of it; we complaine things are difficult when indeed they are not so in themselves, but because of the sluggishness of mens spirits in making complaints of the difficulty of the work.