ee! When Christ bids thee pluck out thy
right eye, and cut off thy right hand, say not in thy heart, How shall I
do without my right eye, and my right hand? Nay, thou shalt do well
enough, thou shalt even enter into life without them, thou shalt be a
gainer, and no loser. Say not thou, How shall I go through this refining
fire? Fear not, thou shall lose nothing but thy dross. Thus get thy heart
wrought to a willingness, and a condescending, in the point of
mortification.

Lastly, If you say, But after all this, how shall I attain unto it? Put
thyself in the hands of Jesus Christ, trust him with the work; if you mark
the text here, and the verse that followeth, Christ is both the refiner,
and the refiner's fire: thou shalt be refined by him, and thou shalt be
refined in him. Thou deceivest thyself if thou thinkest to be refined any
other way but by this refiner, and in this refiner's fire. The blood of
Christ doth not only wash us from guilt, but purge our consciences "from
dead works, to serve the living God," Heb. ix. 14; "And they that are
Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." Gal.
v. 24. Here you may see the thing is feasible and attainable, and not only
by an apostle or some extraordinary man, but by all that are Christ's.
Being his, and in him, they are enabled, through his strength, to crucify
the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof.

FOOTNOTES

1 It is right to state that a large proportion of those who ultimately
formed the presbyterian party, had been brought up in the Church of
England, and had received episcopal ordination.

2 There is another anecdote commonly repeated respecting a signal
defeat which Gillespie is said to have given to one of the
Independent divines, when recent from his travel to London. That he
did repeatedly refute their arguments is quite certain, of which
both Lightfoot's notes and his own record many instances, but no
such event could have occurred as that with which the anecdote is
commonly introduced; for both Henderson and Gillespie arrived at the
same time, and were received formally, and with great respect into
the Assembly, before any of the controverted points had begun to be
discussed at all. It is easy to conceive how imaginary incidents may
be added by tradition, to an anecdote essentially true; and our
endeavour has been to restore the a