and being of many things consists in union,--separate them, and
they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus
in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these
things that God hath conjoined, so that if any man pretend to one thing of
it, and neglect the other, he hath really none of them. And to hold to the
subject in hand, there are three things, which, joined together in the
hearts of Christians, have a great deal of force: the duty of a Christian,
and his reward, and his dignity. His work and labour seems hard and
unpleasant, when considered alone, but the reward sweetens it, when it is
jointly believed. His duty seems too high, and his labour great, yet the
consideration of the real dignity he is advanced unto, and privilege he
has received, will raise up the spirit to great and high attempts, and to
sustain great labours. Mortification is the work and labour, life, eternal
life, is the reward. Following the Spirit is the Christian's duty, but to
be the son of God, that is his dignity.

Mortification sounds very harsh at first. The hearts of men say, "It is a
hard saying, who can hear it?" And indeed I cannot deny but it is so to
our corrupt nature, and therefore so holden out in Scripture. The words
chosen to press it express much pain and pains, much torment and labour.
It is not so easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as
many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is
a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart, and you know how it disabled
a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender
mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision or cutting off a member, and
these the most dear and precious, be it the right hand or right foot,
which is a living death, as it were, even to kill a man while he is alive.
It is a new birth, and the pains and throes of the birth are known.
Regeneration certainly hath a travailing pain within it, insomuch that
Paul travailed in pain till it were accomplished in these, Gal. iv. 19.
Though men conceive sin in pleasure, yet they cannot be rid of that deadly
burden without throes and pains, and to half this work, or to be remiss or
negligent in it, is as foolish and unwise as for a child to stay long in
the place of breaking forth, as the Lord complains of Ephraim, Hos. xiii.
13. "He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the
breaking forth of children.