BAXTER'S FAREWELL SERMON. 503 and heat ; to be averse'to death as death, as Christ himself was; and at last to undergo it and lie down in the dust. There are many sorrows which are the fruits ofsin, which,yet, in themselves, are neither sin nor duty. 4. There are castigatory sorrows from the hand'of God, which have a tendency to our cure, ifWe use them according to his ap- pointment.. Such are all the foresaid natural sufferings, consider- ed as God's means and instruments of our benefit. He woundeth the body to heal the soul : he lanceth the sere, to let out the cor- ruption : be letteth us blood to cure our inflammations and aposte- mated parts. 'He'chasteneth all that he loveth and receiveth; (Heb. xit. 1 -14.) and we must be subject to a chastening Father, if we will live for he 'dothit for our profit, "that we may be par- takers Of his holiness.'? 5. There are honorable and gainful sufferings, from blind, malici- ous, wicked men, for the cause of Christ and righteousness, such as the gospel frequently warneth believers to expect. These are the sorrows that have the promises of fullest joy, not that the meré suffering in itself is acceptable toGod ; but the love which is mani- fested by suffering for him, is that which he cannot but accept ; so that the same measure of sufferings are more or less acceptable, as there is' more or less love to God expressed by'them, and as 'the honor of Christ is more or less intended in them. For to give the body to be burned without love, will profit us nothing. But when the cause is Christs, and the heart intendeth him as the end of the suffering, (1 Cor. xiii. 3.) then " blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' saké, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," &c. Matt. v: 10-12. 6. There are penitential and medicinal sufferings, for the killing of sin, and helping on the Work of grace,'which ale made our duty. In the former we are to be but submissive .patients, but in these we must be obedient agents, and must inflict them on ourselves. Such are the sorrows of contrition and true repentance ; the exer- cises of fasting, abstinence, and 'humiliation ; the grief of the soul for God's displeasure, for the hiding of his face, and the abatement of his, graces in us ; and all the works of mortifyingself-denial, and forbearing all forbidden pleasures which God doth cali his servants to, though in the primitive and principal part of holiness there is nothing but What is sweet and pleasant to a soul, so far as it is holy ; ('as the love of God and the love of others, and worshiping God, and doing good, and joy, and thanks; and praise, and 'obedience, &o.) Yet the medicinal parts of grace, or holiness, have -some- thing necessarily in them that is bitter, even to nature'as nature, and not,only as corrupt, such as are contrition, self-denial, mor- tification, abstinence, as aforesaid.
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