2. Salt hath an acrimony, and doth macerate things and pierce into them; and so the grace of Mortification is painful and troublesome to the carnal nature: how healthful and useful soever it be to the Soul, no Question it is distasteful to curb our Affections, and govern our Hearts in the fear of God, and to row against the stream of Flesh, and Blood; but, ⟨p. 90⟩yet it is wholesome, it is a crucifying of the Flesh, to handle it, as Christ suffered on the Cross, to give it Vinegar and Gall, but yet this is necessary, this is the 1thing which our Lord intends here in the Context, that the Sacrifice must be consumed or macerated; we either must suffer the pains of Hell, or the pains of Mortification; we must be salted with Fire, or salted with Salt. 'Tis better to pass to Heaven with difficulty and austerity, than to avoid these difficulties, and run into Sin, and so be in danger of eternal Fire. The strictness of Christianity is nothing so grievous as the punishment of Sin. The Philosophers when they speak of the nature of Man, observe, that in the concupiscible part [Greek or Hebrew], something like moisture inclines to pleasure, in the irascible [Greek or Hebrew], something like Cold inclines to fear; this Salt is to fetch out both, by checking our sensual inclination, and also our worldly fears. We must crucify the Flesh with the Fashions and Lusts thereof: they that are Christ's have done so. We should rather displease our selves, and displease all the World, than displease God, or be unfaithful in our duty to Christ. No profit, no pleasure, or secular concernment is so necessary, so comfortable, so useful to us as Salvation.
2. Salt hath an acrimony, and doth macerate things and pierce into them; and so the grace of Mortification is painful and troublefome to the carnal nature: how healthful and useful soever it be to the Soul, no Question it is distasteful to curbe our Affections, and govern our Hearts in the fear of God, and to row against the stream of Flesh, and Blood; but, ⟨p. 90⟩yet it is wholesome, it is a crucifying of the Flesh, to handle it, as Christ suffered on the Cross, to give it Vinegar and Gall, but yet this is necessary, this is the 1thing which our Lord intends here in the Context, that the Sacrifice must be consumed or macerated; we either must suffer the pains of Hell, or the pains of Mortification; we must be salted with Fire, or salted with Salt. 'Tis better to pass to Heaven with difficulty and austerity, than to avoid these difficulties, and run into Sin, and so be in danger of eternal Fire. The strictness of Christianity is nothing so grievous as the punishment of Sin. The Philosophers when they speak of the nature of Man, observe, that in the concupiscible part 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, something like moisture inclines to pleasure, in the irrascible 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, something like Cold inclines to fear; this Salt is to fetch out both, by checking our sensual inclination, and also our worldly fears. We must crucify the Flesh with the Fassions and Lusts thereof: they that are Christ's have done so. We should rather displease our selves, and displease all the World, than displease God, or be unfaithful in our duty to Christ. No profit, no pleasure, or secular concernment is so necessary, so comfortable, so useful to us as Salvation.
- 1Gal. 5. 24.
