A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

3. It presseth you again to a like Readiness in Christ's Service, as the Lord Christ showed in the service of our Souls. Why should we be so backward to come to the Throne of Grace, when Jesus Christ was not backward to go to the Cross? We go grudgingly, when he went so willingly to suffer for us. When the Business was propounded to him, he said, Psal. 40.7, 8. Lo I come: in the Volume of the Book it is written of me, I delight to do thy Will, O my God. So when there's a warm Suggestion upon your Hearts; Psal. 27.8. Thou saidst, Seek my Face; my Heart said unto thee, Thy Face, Lord, will I seek. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? said Paul when he surrendered himself up to God, Acts 9.6. If Christ was longing, when will the World be made, and the Bounds of their Habitation fixed, that I might dwell with them? O we do not long for Heaven as Christ longed for Earth: He could expect nothing but hard Usage, Grief and Death; he came to taste the Vinegar and Gall, and we do not long to taste of the Feast of Love. If Love brought down Christ to us, why cannot it carry us up to God? When you are backward to believe and pray, let it shame you that Christ was so willing. And in the Lord's Supper, let it shame us, that we have less Appetite to feast our Souls with the Benefits of the Cross, than Christ had to endure the Death of the Cross. Can we say with Christ, With desire have I desired to eat this Passover? Here is a Cup of Consolation tempered with Christ's Hand, and we have no earnest Groans after it. Christ could say, It is my Meat to do the Will of God; and certainly it should be so to us. In the Lord's Prayer, Thy Will be done, immediately goes before a Petition for daily Bread; to show it should be more desirous for us to do God's Will, than to eat our daily Bread. Christians, when will you learn of Christ? We plead and stand disputing every Inch with God. When you feel any Reluctancy and Regret of Spirit, remember, Christ offered up himself willingly. Christ's Work was sad Work; but he did not say it is a hard Work, and is like to cost me dear, and I shall meet with an unthankful World, and my Doctrine is like to be despised among the Nations; he pleaded none of these Discouragements. O when shall we learn to do as Christ, not to reason, but run the Ways of God's Commandments?