“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”  Let him first sit down and count up the cost and the charge he is like to be at, if he follow me; for following of me is not like following of some other masters.  The winds set always on my face; and the foaming rage of the sea of this world, and the proud and lofty waves thereof do continually beat upon the sides of the bark that myself, my cause, and my followers are in; he therefore that will not run hazards, and that is afraid to venture a drowning, let him not set foot into this vessel.

Some, when they come at the cross, will either there make a stop and go no further, or else, if they can, step over it; if not, they will go round about.  Do not thou do this, but take it up and kiss it, and bear it after Jesus.

Where is the man that walketh with his cross upon his shoulder?  Where is the man that is zealous of moral holiness?  Indeed, for those things that have nothing of the cross of the purse, or of the cross of the belly, or of the cross of the back, or of the cross of the vanity of household affairs—­for those things, I find we have many, and very busy sticklers; but otherwise, the cross, self-denial, charity, purity in life and conversation, is almost quite out of doors among professors.  But, man of God, do thou be singular as to these.

Obedience in little things.

Little things do ofttimes prove us most; for we, through the pride of our hearts, are apt to overlook little things, because, though commanded, they are but little.

Sometimes God would have men exact to a word, sometimes even to a tack or pin or loop, sometimes to a step.  Be careful, then, in little things, but yet leave not the other undone.

Motives to Holt living.  When God shows a man the sin he has committed, the hell he has deserved, the heaven he has lost—­and yet that Christ and grace and pardon may be had—­this will make him serious, this will make him melt, this will break his heart, this will show him that there is more than air, than a noise, than an empty sound in religion; and this is the man whose heart, whose life, whose conversation and all will be engaged in the matter of the eternal salvation of his precious and immortal soul.

Though there are many mercies that lay an obligation upon men to be holy, yet he that shall want the obligation that is begotten by the faith of redeeming mercy, wanteth the main principle of true holiness; nor will any other be found sufficiently to sanctify the heart to the causing of it to produce such a life; nor can such holiness be accepted, because it comes not forth in the name of Christ.  That which constrained David was forgiving and redeeming mercy, and that which constrained Paul was the love that Christ showed to him in dying for his sins and in rising from the dead.

Paul also beseecheth the Romans by the redeeming, justifying, preserving, and electing mercy of God, that they present their body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which, saith he, is your reasonable service.  Hence all along, they that are exhorted to holiness in the New Testament, are exhorted to it upon the supposition of the benefit of redemption which they have received by Jesus Christ.  Walk in love, as Christ loved us.