15. He chooses the worst of sorrows, rather than commit the least sin
Another singular action of a sanctified Christian, is, To chuse the worst of sorrows, before he will commit the least of sins.
The wicked entirely reverse this; for they will prefer the greatest sin to the least sufferings. This is to leap out of the burning pan into the consuming flame. By seeking to shun an external calamity, they rush into eternal misery. Spira, by labouring to preserve his outward estate, exposed himself to the most bitter reproaches of conscience. This is as if a man should lose his head to preserve his hat; or, as if the mariner should sink the sailing vessel to avoid the rising storm.
Above every evil, we should consider sin as the greatest evil. Sin is the only butt at which all the arrows of divine vengeance are shot. Sinners are those spiders which weave their own webs, and are afterward entangled in them. Our own destruction is but the fruit of our own transgression.
Sin has every evil subjoined to it; it is the fountain and origin of them all. Thus the prophet viewed it: Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? When man had no evil within him, he had no evil upon him. He began to be sorrowful, when he began to be sinful. When the soul shall be fully released from the guilt of iniquity, the body shall be wholly delivered from the burthen of infirmity. Sorrow shall never be a visitant, where sin is not an inhabitant. The former would be a foreigner, if the latter were not a sojourner.
God is as far from beating his children for nothing, as he is from beating them to nothing. A hole in the ship will sink it to the bottom. A small bite from a serpent will affect the whole body. There is no way to calm the sea, but by excommunicating Jonah from the ship. If the root be killed, the branches will soon be withered. If the spring be diminished, there is no doubt but the streams will soon fail. Where the fuel of corruption is removed, there the fire of affliction is extinguished.
The wages of sin is death. As the works of sin are dishonourable; so the wages of sin are mortal. The corruption of nature is the cause of the dissolution of nature. The candle of our lives is blown out by the wind of our lusts. Sin is that noxious weed, which overtops the choicest corn;—that offensive smoke, which depresses the rising flame;—and that dismal cloud, which overshadows the beaming sun.
Were it not for sin, death would never have had a beginning: were it not for death, sin would never have an ending. Man, as a creature, is a debtor to the commands of God, as a sovereign; but as a sinner, he is a debtor to the severity of God, as a judge.
What is so sweet a good as Christ? and what is so great an evil as lust? Sin has brought many a believer into suffering; and suffering has instrumentally kept many a believer out of sin. It is better to be preserved in brine, than to rot in honey. The bitterest medicine is to be preferred by all wise men, before the sweetest poison. In the same fire wherein the dross is consumed, the precious gold is refined.
There are many thousands of souls, who had never obtained the hopes of heaven, if they had not been brought thither by the gates of hell. As every mercy is a drop derived from the ocean of God's goodness; so every misery is a dram weighed out by the supreme wisdom of God's providence.
When Exdoxia angrily threatened St. Chrysostom with banishment, he calmly replied; 'Go tell her, I fear nothing but sin.' He who serves God, need fear nothing so much as sin.
Those who launch out into any undertaking, should always previously look well to their tackling, lest a destructive storm should overtake them in their voyage. A bad conscience imbitters the sweetest comforts; but a good conscience sweetens the bitterest crosses. How great a wound do vices make in the conscience; yea, even in our infant years! Though the hardened sinner be not afraid to do evil; yet he will be afraid to suffer evil. What need those fear a cross on the back, who feel a Christ in their heart?
The water without the ship may toss it; but it is the water within the ship which sinks it. It is better to have the body consumed to ashes for the sake of Christ; than to have the soul dwell in everlasting burnings, through being ashamed of Christ. Though Christians have no warrant to expect that they shall live here without afflictions; yet in the exercise of them, faith will teach them to live above afflictions.
That noble servant of Christ, Ignatius, gloried in reproaches for his Lord. I verily delight to suffer for Christ; but I know not whether I am worthy to suffer. Every Christian's Patmos is his way to paradise.
Suppose the furnace be heated seven times hotter? yet God can make the sufferer seventy times happier. Those who are here crossed for well-doing, shall hereafter be crowned with the well-dying. There are none more welcome to the spiritual Canaan, than those who swim to it through the red sea of their own blood.
Christian Reader, when you come into the world, you do but live to die again: and when you leave the world, you do but die to live again. What is the grain the worse, for the fan by which it is winnowed? or the gold, for the fire by which it is refined?
Pendleton, a self-confident professor, promised to fry out his fat body in the flames of martyrdom, rather than betray religion; but when the trial approached, he changed his note, and said, 'I came not into the world burning, neither will I go out of the world flaming.'
Those who refuse to give up their lusts for Christ, will never be inclined to give up their lives for Christ. Paul and Silas had their prison songs in their prison sufferings. Those caged birds sang with as much melody, as any which have sky liberty. Thus Ignatius, in his epistle to the persecutors of the church, gloried, saying, The wild beasts may grind me, as corn between their teeth: but I shall by that become as choice bread, in the hand of my God.
I have read an account of a woman, who was imprisoned for her religion; and being in travail, she cried out with pain. The keeper derided her, saying, 'How can you endure the fire, seeing you make so much noise in bringing forth a child?' 'Very well,' said she, 'for now I suffer as a sinner, but then I shall suffer for my Saviour.' There is more real evil in a particle of corruption, than in an ocean of tribulation. In suffering, the offence is offered to us; in sinning, the offence is committed against God.
In suffering, there is an infringement of man's liberty; in sinning, there is a denial of God's authority. The evil of suffering is transient; but the evil of sin is permanent. In suffering, we lose the favour of men; but in sinning, we hazard the favour of God.
The rose is sweeter under the still where it drops, than upon the stalk whereon it grows. The face of godliness is never so beautiful as when it is spit upon. The best of wheat is that which sustains all the drifts of wintry snow.
That was an heroic saying of Vincentius, to his hardened persecutors: 'You may rage and do your worst: but you shall find the spirit of God administering more strength to the tormented, than the spirit of the devil affording strength to my tormentors.' Where professors chuse that which is truly best; there let malicious persecutors do their worst. Though you may feel their might, yet you need not feel their malice. They can have no just grounds of fear, whose confidence is in God. Life is only to be desired, by those to whom death would be no gain.
It is reported of Hooper the martyr, that when he was going to suffer, a certain person addressed him, saying, 'O Sir, take care of yourself, for life is sweet, and death is bitter.' 'Ah, I know that,' replied he; 'but the life to come is full of more
G sweetness than this mortal life; and the death to come is full of more bitterness than this uncommon death.' A man may suffer without sinning; but he cannot sin without suffering.
When Philip inquired of Demosthenes, whether he was afraid to lose his head; he answered, 'No; for if I do lose it, the Athenians will bestow an immortal one upon me.'
That was animating language which dropped from the lips of the three children, or rather of the three champions: O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image, that thou hast set up. Either they must sin foully, or suffer sadly. They must either bow to a golden image, or burn in a flaming furnace. But they were as far from worshipping his gods, as he was from worshipping their God.
The beloved Daniel chose rather to lie in the den of lions, than shamefully desert the cause of the Lamb. Shall not we, for his sake, bear the wrath of man, who for our sakes bore the wrath of God? Though obedience be better than sacrifice, yet sometimes for a man to sacrifice himself is the best obedience. He that loses a base life for Christ, shall hereafter find a better life in Christ.
When Herod and Nicetes attempted to turn Polycarp from the faith, by insinuating that 'there was no evil in calling Cæsar, Lord, and offering sacrifices to him; he replied, that 'He had served Jesus Christ for many years, and had always found him a good master; that he should therefore submit himself to all the tortures they should inflict, rather than deny him.'
Moses, that memorable worthy, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. What is a cup of physic, which removes a disease, compared with a cup of poison, which takes away the life? Those who live upon God in the use of the creature, can also live upon him in the loss of the creature. That was a noble expression of a noble Christian: 'Whatsoever I thankfully receive, as a token of God's love to me; I part with contentedly, as a token of my love to him.'
For a righteous man, scarcely will one die; yet peradventure, for a good man, some would even dare to die. Shall one even dare to die for a good man? and shall we refuse to die for a good God?
Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection. Some would have used any picklock, to have opened a passage to their liberty; but they knew too much of another world, to bid at so high a rate for the present.
It is reported of Hormisdas, a nobleman of Persia, who being degraded of all his promotions, because he would not change his profession; that afterward his persecutors restored them all again, and solicited him to deny Christ: but he rent his purple robe, and laid all his honours at the feet of the Emperor, saying, 'If you restore these honours, with an intention to make me desert my Saviour;
I beg leave to decline accepting them, upon such conditions.'—Good man! he thought, and that justly too, that Christ without worldly honour was better, than worldly honour without Christ.
It is recorded concerning one of the martyrs, that when he was going to the stake, a nobleman besought him, in a compassionate manner, to take care of his soul. 'So I will,' he replied, 'for I give my body to be burnt, rather than have my soul defiled.' How many professors are there, who would rather have sinful self satisfied, than crucified!
As the power of grace comes in at one door, the love of vice will go out at another. The only way to have the house of Saul weakened, is to get the house of David strengthened. Those Philistines, who wanted fortitude to meet Samson when he was in vigour, could insultingly dance round him when he was in affliction.
Reader, consider seriously, that it is sin which in this life debases a person, and in the next life destroys him. Their state must be awful, whose end is damnation; because their damnation is without end. No condition can be so intolerably doleful, as that which is unalterably painful.
A certain person, on seeing a Christian woman go cheerfully to prison, said to her, 'O you have not yet tasted of the bitterness of death.' She as cheerfully answered, 'No, nor never shall; for
Christ hath promised that those who keep his sayings shall never see death.' A believer may feel the stroke of death; but he shall never feel the sting of death. The first death may bring his body to corruption; but the second death shall never bring his soul to destruction. Though he may endure the cross; yet he shall not endure the curse. There can be no condemnation to those Christians, who belong to Christ.
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