The Heavenly Footman | Page 9

heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths; for she hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain (that is, kept out of heaven) by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." Soul, take this counsel, and say, 'Satan, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, pride, friends, companions, and every thing else,--let me alone, stand off, come not nigh me; for I am running for heaven, for my soul, for God, for Christ--from hell and everlasting damnation! If I win, I win all; and if I lose, I lose all! Let me alone for I will not hear.' So run.
THE SEVENTH DIRECTION.--In the next place, _be not daunted, though thou meetest with ever so many discouragements in thy journey thither_. That man that is resolved for heaven, if Satan cannot win him by flatteries, he will endeavor to weaken him by discouragements, saying, 'Thou art a sinner,' 'thou hast broken God's law,' 'thou art not elected,' 'thou comest too late,' 'the day of grace is past,' 'God doth not care for thee,' 'thy heart is naught,' 'thou art lazy,' with a hundred other discouraging suggestions. And thus it was with David, where he saith, "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord, in the land of the living." As if he should say, 'The devil did so rage, and my heart was so base, that had I judged according to my own sense and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted. But I trusted to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as good as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner; and this is that which encouraged me, and kept me from fainting.'
And thus must thou do when Satan, or the law, or thy conscience, do go about to dishearten thee, either by the greatness of thy sins, the wickedness of thy heart, the tediousness of the way, the loss of outward enjoyments, the hatred that thou wilt procure from the world or the like; then thou must encourage thyself with the freeness of the promises, the tender-heartedness of Christ, the merits of his blood, the freeness of his invitations to come in, the greatness of the sin of others that have been pardoned; and that the same God, through the same Christ, holdeth forth the same grace as free as ever. If these be not thy meditations, thou wilt draw very heavily in the way to heaven if thou do not give up all for lost, and so knock off from following any farther. Therefore, I say, take heart in thy journey, and say to them that seek thy destruction, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."
THE EIGHTH DIRECTION.--_Take heed of being offended at the cross that thou must go by, before thou come to heaven_. You must understand (as I have already touched) that there is no man that goeth to heaven but he must go by the cross. The cross is the standing way-mark, by which all they that go to glory must pass.
"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." If thou art in thy way to the kingdom, my life for thine, thou wilt come at the cross shortly. The Lord grant thou dost not shrink at it, so as to turn thee back again. "If any man will come after me," saith Christ, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." The Cross! it stands, and hath stood, from the beginning, as a way-mark to the kingdom of heaven. You know if one ask you the way to such and such a place, you, for the better direction, do not only say, 'this is the way,' but then also say, 'You must go by such a gate, by such a stile, such a bush, tree, bridge,' or such like. Why, so it is here. Art thou enquiring the way to heaven? Why, I tell thee, CHRIST IS THE WAY; into him thou must get, even into his righteousness, to be justified. And if thou art in him, thou wilt presently see the cross. Thou must go close by it; thou must touch it; nay thou must take it up, or else thou wilt quickly go out of the way that leads to heaven, and turn up some of those crooked lanes that lead down to the chambers of death.
Now thou mayst know the cross by these six things: 1. It is known in the doctrine of justification. 2. In