Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…

But then at the day of Judgement, O the glory of those that suffer for Christ, they shall have Crowns upon their heads, and Palms in their hands, and all their persecutors stand as base creatures before them! O the embracings that there shall be then. If a father send his child abroad about business, and the child meet with much difficulty, and comes home in a rainy tempestuous day, how gladly his father receives him, and all are busy to tend on him, and to make a fire, and get him dry clothes! So when the people of God meet with such hardship in the world, when they shall come and meet with Christ for whom they have suffered, how shall they be entertained? What riches of glory shall they enjoy in the highest heavens for ever hereafter? our sufferings are but the seeds of our glory; and the deeper the furrows are, the more plentiful will the Harvest be: and therefore Gordius ^*the Martyr said, It is to my loss, if you bate me any thing in my sufferings. Are you reproached for Christ? Blessed are you; for the Brand of reproach (says Basil^*) shall be turned into the glory of an Angel. A gracious heart counts it more riches to be conformable to Christ, then to have Crowns upon his head: As in Phil. 3. 8. he counted all the things of the world dogs meat, for the fellowship of Christs sufferings; he did not count all the world dogs meat, for the glory he should ⟨p. 456⟩have by Christ only; but for the fellowship he should have in the sufferings of Christ. Truly happy is that ³soul, and to be equalled with Angels, says Jerome, who is willing to suffer, if it were possible, as great things for Christ, as Christ hath suffered for it. Vera est illa anima faelix, & Angelis aequanda quae pro nomine & opere Christi tanta quanta pro nobis ille sustinuit, voluit sustinere, Hyeronym. Epist. ad Oceanum. Such as have been followers of eminent men, they highly esteemed to be like their Masters, though in things that were some dishonour; As Plato was a man of a crooked back, and his Scholars counted it an ornament for to go crooked. And Aristotle had a lisping speech, and his Scholars thought it an honour to have a lisping speech. And Alexander had somewhat a wry neck, and a harsh speech, and his soldiers thought it an honour to be like him: how much more should the godly count their sufferings an honour, because they are conformable to Christ? For Application.