But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.
— Acts 9:15-16
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
— Acts 20:24
I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
— 1 Corinthians 15:31
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
— 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, 16
Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
— 2 Corinthians 11:23-27
According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
— Philippians 1:20-21
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
— Colossians 1:24-25
The Necessity of an Heart Mortified to All Earthly and Temporal Enjoyments, by John Flavel. The following contains Chapter Ten of his work, “Preparations for Sufferings, Or The Best Work in the Worst Times, Wherein the Necessity, Excellency, and Means of our readiness for Sufferings are evinced and prescribed; our Call to suffering cleared, and the great unreadiness of many professors bewailed.”
Chapter Ten
Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
— Acts 21:13
Discovering the necessity of an heart mortified to all earthly and temporal enjoyments, in order to the right managing of a suffering condition; with several directions for the attaining thereof.
THE next thing wherein your actual readiness for bonds, or death consisteth, is in the mortification of your affections to all earthly interest and enjoyments; even the best and sweetest of them. Till this be done, in some measure, you are not fit to be used in any such service for the Lord, 2 Tim. 2:21. The living world is the very life of temptations: the travailing pains of death are stronger and sharper upon none, than those that are full of sense and self. As you see in nature, what conflicts and agonies strong and lively persons suffer when they die; when others, in whom nature is decayed and spent before-hand, die away without half that pain, even as a bird in a shell. Corruption in the saints, is like sap in the green wood, which resisteth the fire, and will not burn well, till it be dried up. Prepared Paul had an heart mortified in a very high degree, to all the honour and riches of the world, accounting them all but trifles, Gal. 6:14. 1 Cor. 4:3, 4.
The need of this will be evinced by these five considerations.
1. Unless the heart be mortified to all earthly enjoyments, they will appear great and glorious things in your eye and estimation; and if so, judge what a task you will have, to deny and leave them all in a suffering hour. It is corruption within, that puts the lustre and glory upon things without: it is the carnal eye only that gazes admiringly after them, 2 Cor. 5:16 and hence the lust is put to express the affection, 1 John 2:16 because all that inordinate affection we have to them, arises from our high estimation of them, and that estimation from our lusts, that represent them, as great and glorious. Therefore, certainly, it will be difficult (if not impossible) to deny them, till they have lost their glory in your eye; and that they will never do, till those lusts within you, that put that beauty and necessity upon them, be first crucified. As for instance, what a glory and necessity doth the pride of men put upon the honour and credit of the world, so that they will rather choose to die, than survive it? But to a mortified soul it is a small matter, 1 Cor. 4:3. So for riches, how much are they adored, till our lusts be mortified? and then they are esteemed but dung and dross, Phil. 3:8. It is our corruptions that paint and gild over these things; when these are crucified, those will be lightly esteemed.
2. Mortification of corruptions is that which recovers an healthful state of soul: sin is to the soul, what a disease is to the body; and mortification is to sin, what physic is to a disease. Hence those that are but a little mortified, are in a comparative sense called carnal, 1 Cor. 3:3 and babes, ver. 2 in respect of weakness, Now, suffering work being some of the Christian’s hardest labour and exercise, he cannot be fitted for it, until his soul be in an healthful state: a sickly man cannot carry heavy burdens, or endure hard labours and exercises: the sick soldier is left behind in his quarters, or put into the hospital, whilst his fellows are dividing the spoils, and obtaining glorious victories in the field. To this sense some expound Rom. 8:13. “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Whereas death is put to note a languishing state of soul, whilst mortification is neglected; so life is put to express an healthful and comfortable state; vivere pro valere; so that upon this account also the necessity of it appears.
Your corruptions must be mortified, else they will be raging and violent in the time of temptation, and, like a torrent, sweep away all your convictions and resolutions. It is sin unmortified within that makes the heart like gun-powder; so that when the sparks of temptation fly about it, (and they fall thick in a suffering hour) they do but touch and take. Hence the corruptions of the world are said to be through lust, 2 Pet. 1:4. With these internal unmortified lusts the tempter holds correspondence; and these be the traitors that deliver up our souls into his hands.
Unless you be diligent and successful in this work, though you should suffer; yet not like Christians; you will but disgrace religion, and the cause for which you suffer; for it is not simple suffering, but suffering as a Christian, that reflects credit on religion, and finds acceptation with God. If you be envious, fretful, discontented, and revengeful, under your sufferings, what honour will this bring to Christ? Is not this altogether unlike the example of your Lord? Isa. 53:7 and the behaviour of suffering saints? 1 Cor. 4:13. Yet thus it will be, if your pride, passion, and revenge, be not first subdued: for what are the breakings forth of such distempers of spirit, but as the flushes of heat in the face from an ill-affected liver? Most certain it is, that all the evils are in your natures, and as certain it is, they will rise like mud and filth from the bottom of a lake, when some eminent trials shall rake you to the bottom; Natura vexata, prodit seipsam.
Lastly, Mortification must be studied and plied with diligence; else you will find many longings and hankerings after earthly enjoyments and comforts, which will prove a snare to you: what is sin but the corrupt and vitiated appetite of the creature, to things that are earthly and sensual, relishing more sweetness and delight in them, than in the blessed God? And what is sanctification, but the rectifying of these inordinate affections, and placing them on their proper object? A regenerate and mortified Christian tastes not half that sweetness in forbidden fruits that another doth: set but money before Judas, and see how eargerly he catches at it —— “What will ye give me, and I will betray him?” Set but life, liberty, or any such bait before an unmortified heart, and how impotent is he to withstand them, as offered in a temptation? Oh those unmortified lusts! how do they make men hanker, long, and their lips water (as we use to say) after these things? This makes them break prison, decline sufferings, though upon the basest terms; whereas a mortified Christian can see all these things set before him, yea, offered to him, and refuse them, Heb. 10:35. It is with them much as it was with old Barzillai, 2 Sam. 19:35. When nature is decayed, they find but little pleasure in natural actions, Eccles. 12:1. And look as the body of sin decays and languishes, so do these longings also: It weans the soul from them all, and enables it to live very comfortably without them, Psal. 131:1. Phil. 4:12. There needs no more to be said to evince the necessity of mortification, and discover what influence it hath into a Christian’s readiness for sufferings.
It remains therefore, that I open to you some of the principal corruptions, about which it mostly concerns you to bestow pains ere sufferings come. Now look as there are four principal enjoyments, in which you are like to be tried, viz. Estate, name, liberty, life; so the Christian work in suffering times lies in mortifying these four special corruptions, viz. First, The love of the world. Secondly, Ambition. Thirdly, Inordinate affection of freedom and pleasure. Fourthly, Excessive love of life.
1. For the love of this world, away with it, crucify it, crucify it: down with the idol, and let it be dethroned in all that intend to abide with Christ in the hour of temptation: how else will you take the spoiling of your goods? How will you be able to part with all for Christ, as these blessed souls did? It grieves my heart to see how many professors of religion are carried captive at the chariot-wheels of a bewitching world. Oh! good had it been for many professors if they had never tasted so much of the sweetness of it. Sirs, I beg you for the Lord’s sake, down with it in your estimations, down with it in your affections, else temptations will down with you ere long. I shall offer five or six helps for the crucifying of it.
First, Consider your espousals to Christ, and how you have chosen and professed him for your Lord and husband: therefore your doating upon the world is no less than adultery against Christ, James 4:4. If Christ be your husband, he must be a covering to your eyes; an unchaste glance upon the world wounds him.
Secondly, The more you prize it, the more you will be tormented by it; did you prize and love it less, it would disquiet and vex you less: it is our doating on it that makes it draw blood at parting.
Thirdly, Get true scripture-notions of the world, and rectify your judgments and affections by them. If you will have the true picture and representation of it drawn by the hand of God himself, see 1 John 2:16 it is nothing else but a phantastic glory, and that also passeth away. What is become of them that ruffled it out in the world but one hundred years ago? What could the world do for them? Are they not all gone down to the sides of the pit? “But he that doth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Fourthly, Study and contemplate Christ and the things above more: this would veil all its glory, and kill it at the root, Phil. 3:18, 19. Just as a man that hath been gazing upon the sun, when he takes off his eye from that bright and glorious creature, and looks to the earth, there is a veil of darkness overspreading the face of it, that he can see nothing. I wonder how such as pretend to live above, and enjoy communion with God, can ever relish such sweetness in the world, or have their hearts enticed and captivated by it.
Fifthly, Remember always, that by your love and delight in worldly things, you furnish the devil with the chiefest bait he hath to catch and destroy your souls. Alas! were your hearts but dead to these things, he would want an handle to catch hold on. What hath he more to offer you, and tempt you off from Christ with but a little money, or some such poor temporal rewards? and how little would that soul be moved by such a temptation, that looks on it all but as dirt?
Sixthly, Lastly, Take notice of the approaches of eternity: remember you are almost at the end of time: and when you come to launch out into that endless ocean, how will these things look then? It seems glorious whilst you are in the chase and pursuit of it: but upon a death-bed you will overtake and come up with it, and then you will see what a deceitful and vain thing it is: stand by the beds of dying men, and hear how they speak of it. O! the difference betwixt our apprehensions then and now! Thus labour to wean off your affections, and crucify them to the world.
2. Mortify your ambition and vain affectation of the repute and credit of the world: Oh stand not on so vain a thing as this: judge it but a small thing to be judged of man, to have your names cast out as evil: let not scoffs and reproaches be such terrible things to you. It is, without doubt, a great trial; else the Holy Ghost had not added a peculiar epithet to it, which is not given to any other of the sufferings of the saints: not cruel tortures, nor cruel stonings, burnings, slaying with the sword; but cruel mockings, Heb. 11:36. Yet learn to be dead to, and unaffected with these things; set the reproaching world as light and as low as it sets you: Despise the shame, as your master Christ did, Heb. 12:2. And to promote mortification in this, take these helps.
Consider this is no new or strange thing that hath happened to you: the holiest of men have past through the like, if not worse trials, Heb. 10:33. Psal. 44:14. Reproaches have been the lot of the best men. They called Athanasius, Sathanasius; Cyprianus, Coprianus, a gatherer of dung; blessed Paul, a pestilent fellow; Dr. Story threw a faggot at sweet Mr. Denlie’s face as he was singing a psalm in the midst of the flames, saying, I have spoiled a good old song.
It may be religion hath been reproached and scoffed at for your sakes; and if so, think it not much to be reproached for religion’s sake.
It is much better to be reproached by men for discharging duty, than by your own consciences for the neglect of it; if all be quiet within, never be moved at the noise and clamour without: If you have a good roof over your head, be not troubled though the winds and storms bluster abroad, 1 Pet. 4:14. Take heed what you do, and be heedless what the world says.
Always remember, that you neither stand nor fall at the world’s judgment, and therefore have the less reason to be troubled at it, 1 Cor. 4:3. If your condition were to be cast to eternity by it, it were somewhat.
There is a worth and excellency in the reproaches of Christ, as bad as they seem; and such an excellency, as it is not to be matched by any earthly enjoyment, Heb. 11:26. The reproaches of Christ are of more worth than the treasures of Egypt, though Egypt then was the magazine of the world for treasures. The apostles counted them their honours, Acts 5:41. When Ludovicus Marsacus, a knight of France, saw those that were to suffer with him in the chains, and that they put none upon him, because of the nobility of his birth, he said to the executioner, Cur me non quoque torqui donast et illustris illius ordinis militem non creas? ‘Why do ye not honour me with a chain too, and create me a knight of that noble order?’
6. Lastly, Should scoffs and reproaches scare you from Christ and duty; then, though you should escape the reproaches of men, yet shall you fall under the everlasting contempt of God, angels, and good men. Therefore, “Fear ye not the reproaches of men that shall die, nor be afraid of their revilings, for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool, but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation,” Isa. 51:7, 8.
3. Mortify your inordinate affections of liberty, pleasure, and delicate living. O let not a prison seem so formidable to you. It is true, as Christ told Peter, in John 21:18. “When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.” You have now your liberty to go whither you will, and it is a precious mercy if well improved; the birds of the air (as one saith) had rather be in the woods at liberty, though lean and hungry, than in a golden cage with the richest fare. But yet, if God will call you to deny this also for Christ, see that you be ready to be bound as Paul was, and receive the chain and bonds of Christ with thanksgiving: To which end consider,
1. That the affliction, in such cases of restraint, is more from within, than from without you. There is no place but may be delectable to you, if your heart be heavenly, and the presence of God be engaged with you. What a sweet night had Jacob at Bethel! Paul and Silas in the stocks! See that precious letter of Pomponius. Algerius.
Transtulit in cœlum Christi præsentia claustrum;
Quid faciet cœlo? quæ cœlum jam creat antro.
It is your own unbelief and impatiency that gives you more trouble than the condition.
No keeper can keep the comforter from you, if you be the Lord’s prisoners, Acts 16. If they could bar out the Spirit from you, it would be a dismal place indeed: But ordinarily, there the saints have their clearest visions of God, and sweetest presence of the Spirit. You are the Lord’s freemen, whilst men’s prisoners: All the world cannot divest you of the state of liberty Christ hath purchased for you, John 8:36.
Though a prison looks sad and dismal, yet it is not hell: Oh bless God for that, that is a sad prison indeed! Beloved, men have their prisons, and God hath his: God’s prison is a terrible prison indeed, thousands are now there in chains, 1 Pet. 3:19 and there you deserved to have been sent long ago: If God exchange an hell for a prison, have you any cause to complain?
How obdurate and cruel soever men are to you, yet the Lord Jesus is kind and tender-hearted to his prisoners; he puts the kindnesses that any shew them upon his own account, Matth. 25:36. “He looks down from heaven to hear the sighings and groanings of his prisoners,” Psal. 102:20. He will tenderly sympathize with you in all your prison-straits and troubles.
A prison hath been handselled and perfumed by the best and holiest of men in all ages, 1 Kings 22:27. Jer. 32:2. Mat. 4:12. Acts 5:18 and 26:10. God hath made it a settled school of discipline to them.
Should, you, to avoid a prison, commit a sin, instead of being man’s prisoner, you shall be clapt up by God, for he hath a prison for your souls even in this world, Psal. 142:7. And this is ten thousand times more dreadful than any dungeon in the world. Oh it is a dark prison! nothing to let in the least beam of God’s countenance upon your poor souls. What a sad exchange have you made then?
Consider what a ground of comfort God hath laid in that word, Rev. 2:10 to obviate the fears and terrors incident to us in such a condition: God hath limited Satan and his instruments, both for time, number, and all circumstances of the trial.
Lastly, You do not know what a mercy may be in it: It may be a time of retirement from the world, and the clamours and distractions that are abroad. These days of imprisonment may be your holy-days; as a prisoner of Christ once called them.
4. Get an heart mortified to the excessive and inordinate love of life: This, I confess, is the highest and hardest point of self-denial, because it wraps up all other self-interests in it. But yet consider,
First, Though life be very dear, yet Jesus Christ is ten thousand times dearer than thy life: If you be a saint he is the life of thy life, and the length of thy days; and in comparison of him and his glory, saints should, and have despised and slighted their lives, Luke 14:26. Rev. 12:11.
Secondly, Die you must: and if by shrinking from Christ you should protract a miserable life for a few days longer, in the mean time losing that which is better than life, Psal. 63:3. Mat. 10:39. Oh! when you lie upon your death-bed, you will wish that you had obeyed God’s call, and so have departed in peace.
Thirdly, If you have cordially covenanted with Christ, (as all sincere believers have done,) then you have yielded up your lives to him, to be disposed of for his glory, Rom. 14:7. So that, look as Christ both lived and died for you; so ought you to live as Christ: And all the excellency you see in life consists in that reference and subserviency it hath to his glory. I say then, if you have understandingly and cordially transacted in a covenant-way with him, your care will not be so much how to shun death, as by what death you may most glorify God, John 21:19. And certainly you can never lay them down upon a more honourable and comfortable account than in his cause, and for his sake. It was a great trouble to Luther, that he carried his blood to his grave.
Fourthly, To die for Christ, is one of the highest testifications of your love to Christ, that you are capable of, John 13:37. Yea, it is such a testification of your love to the Lord Jesus, as angels are not capable of making.
Fifthly, Why should you decline even a violent death for Christ, when as the bitterness of death is past, and there is no hell following the pale horse? It cannot separate you from Christ, Rom. 8:38.
Sixthly, Think what a death Christ suffered for you: In which the fulness of the wrath both of God and man met together, so that he was sore amazed; yet with desire did he desire it for your sakes.
7. Lastly, Think what a life you shall have with Christ as soon as this is delivered up to, and for him, 2 Tim. 2:12. It is but wink, and you shall see God.
Oh that these things might provoke you to follow on, and ply the work of mortification.
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