scipline, his cross, whether it be for his sake,
or whether it be the general cross of our pilgrimage here, and the
vicissitudes and changes of this life, it is not in our arbitrament to
bear a cross, or have a cross or not. Have it we must, bear it we must,
whether we choose or refuse it. There is no man can be exempted from some
yoke of this kind. No man can promise himself immunity from some cross or
other, if not in poverty, yet in abundance, if not in contempt and
reproach yet in honour and greatness. There is nothing of that kind that
will not become weighty with itself alone, though nothing be superadded to
it. So then, since every man must have a yoke, he hath only the advantage
who takes it up, and bears it patiently. For if he thus sweetly comply and
yield to God's will, he will not so much bear his cross, as his cross will
bear him. If thou take it up, it will take thee up and carry thee. If thou
submit and stoop willingly to God's good pleasure, thou wilt make it a
more easy yoke, and light burden. _Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem
trahunt._(445) If thou be patient, his dispensation will gently and
sweetly lead thee to rest, but an impatient soul is dragged and drawn
after it against the hair, and yet he must follow it. There is this mighty
disadvantage in our impatient unsubjection to God's will, that it makes
that a yoke which is no yoke, no cross a cross, an easy yoke hard, and a
light burden heavy, and yet notwithstanding we must bear it. A yoke, a
cross, we cannot escape, whithersoever we go, whithersoever we turn
ourselves, because we carry ourselves about with us, and our own crooked
perverse apprehensions of things which trouble us more than the things
themselves. Now consider the reasonableness of taking on the yoke of
Christ's obedience. Should we not with David, offer ourselves willingly,
and present ourselves even before we are called? "Lo I come, to do thy
will, O God. I delight in thy law, it is in my inward part," Psal. xl. 8.
There is no yoke so reasonable, if you consider it as imposed by Christ
our King and Lawgiver. Hath he not redeemed us from the house of bondage,
from the vilest and basest slavery, under the most cruel tyrants, Satan,
and death, and hell? Heb. ii. 15. Hath he not asserted and restored us
into the true liberty of men, and of the sons of God? The Son hath made us
free, (John viii. 32) when we were under the most grievous yoke of sin and
wrath, and the eternal curse of God. He