going and running, thou shalt find the way still the easier,
and still the sweeter.

4. Mark Christ's own words: It is a yoke, though an easy one, and a
burden, though a light one: a yoke to the flesh, but easy to the spirit; a
burden to the old man, but light to the new man. He poureth in wine and
oil into our wounds: oil to cherish them, and wine to cleanse them. He can
both plant us as trees of righteousness, and at the same time lay the axe
to the root of the old tree: he will have mercy upon the sinner, but no
mercy upon the sin; he will save the soul, but yet so as by fire.

And thus much, in general, of the difficulty and hardship of the way of
Christ,--the great point held forth in this text; which I have the rather
insisted upon, as a necessary foundation for those particulars which I am
to speak of. Were this principle but rightly apprehended, it were easy to
persuade you when we come to particulars.

Some Papists have alleged this text for their purgatory. Here is indeed a
purgatory, and a fire of purgatory, and such a purgatory that we must
needs go through it before we can come to heaven. But this purgatory is in
this world, not in the world to come. The flesh must go through it, and
not the soul separated: and it must purge us from mortal, not from venial
sins; and by a spiritual, not a material fire.

I will now come to the particulars: Christ is to us as a refiner's fire,
and as fuller's soap, three ways: in respect of, 1. Reformation; 2.
Tribulation; 3. Mortification;--which make not three different senses, but
three harmonious parts of one and the same sense.

I begin with _reformation_; concerning which I draw this doctrine from the
text:--

"The right reformation of the church, which is according to the mind of
Jesus Christ, is not without much molestation and displeasure to men's
corrupt nature. It is a very purgatory upon earth: it is like the fire to
drossy silver, and like fuller's soap to slovenly persons, who would
rather keep the spots in their garments than take pains to wash them
out."(1406)

Look but upon one piece of the accomplishment of this prophecy, and by it
judge of the rest. When Christ cometh to Jerusalem, "meek, and sitting
upon an ass" (as the Prophet said), all the city is troubled at his
coming, Matt. xxi. 5,10; when he had but cast out the buyers and sellers
out of the temple, the priests and scribes begin to plot his death, Luke
xix. 45, 47; nay, where Christ and the