4. To illustrate this a little further. The will of God is a path leading straight to God. The will of man which once ran parallel with it, is now another path, not only different from it, but in our present state directly contrary to it. It leads from God; if therefore we walk in the one, we must necessarily quit the other. We cannot walk in both. Indeed a man of faint heart and feeble hands, may go in two ways, one after the other. But he cannot walk in two ways at the same time: he cannot at one and the same time, follow his own will, and follow the will of God; he must chuse the one or the other: denying God’s will, to follow his one, or deny himself, to follow the will of God.
5. Now it is undoubtedly pleasing for the time, to follow our own will, by indulging in any instance that offers, the corruption of our nature. But the following it in any thing, we so far strengthen the perverseness of our will: and by indulging it, we continually increase the corruption of our nature. So by the food which is agreeable to the palate we often increase a bodily disease. It gratifies the taste; but it inflames the disorder. It brings pleasure: but it also brings death.
6. On the whole then, to deny ourselves is, to deny our own will, where it does not fall in with the will of God, and that, however pleasing it may be: it is, to deny ourselves any pleasure which does not spring from, and lead to God: that is, in effect to refuse going out of our way, though into a pleasant, flowry path: to refuse what we know to be deadly poison, though agreeable to the taste.
7. And every one that would follow Christ, that would be his real disciple, must not only deny himself, but take up his cross also. A cross is, any thing contrary to our will, any thing displeasing to our nature. So that taking up our cross goes a little farther than denying ourselves: it rises a little higher, and is a more difficult task to flesh and blood: it being more easy, to forego pleasure, than to endure pain.
8. Now in running the race which is set before us, according to the will of God, there is often a cross lying in the way, that is, something which is not joyous, but grievous, something which is contrary to our will, which is displeasing to our nature. What then is to be done? The choice is plain; either we must take up our cross, or we must turn aside from the way of God, from the holy commandment delivered to us: if we do not stop altogether, or turn back to everlasting perdition.
9. In order to the healing of that corruption that evil disease which every man brings with him into the world, it is often needful, to pluck out as it were a right-eye, to cut off a right-hand: so painful is either the thing itself which must be done, or the only means of doing it: the parting, suppose with a foolish desire, with an inordinate affection: or a separation, from the object of it, without which it can never be extinguished. In the former kind, the tearing away such a desire or affection, when it is deeply rooted in the soul, is often like the piercing of a sword, yea, like the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, the joints and marrow. The Lord then sits upon the soul as a refiner’s fire, to burn up all the dross thereof. And this is a cross indeed: it is essentially painful: it must be so in the very nature of the thing. The soul cannot be thus torn asunder, it cannot pass through the fire, without pain.
10. In the latter kind, the means to heal a sin-sick soul, to cure a foolish desire, an inordinate affection, are often painful, not in the nature of the thing, but from the nature of the disease. So when our Lord said to the rich young man, Go sell that thou hast and give it to the poor, (as well knowing, this was the only means of healing his covetousness) the very thought of it gave him so much pain, that he went away sorrowful: chusing rather to part with his hope of heaven, than his possessions on earth. This was a burden he could not consent to lift, a cross he would not take up. And in the one kind or the other every follower of Christ will surely have need to take up his cross daily.
11. The taking up differs a little from bearing his cross. We are then properly said to bear our cross, when we endure what is laid upon us without our choice, with meekness and resignation. Whereas we do not properly take up our cross, but when we voluntarily suffer what it is in our power to avoid: when we willingly embrace the will of God, though contrary to our own: when we chuse what is painful, because it is the will of our wise and gracious Creator.
12. And thus it behoves every disciple of Christ, to take up, as well as to bear his cross. Indeed in one sense, it is not his alone; it is common to him and many others: seeing there is no temptation befals any man εἰ μή ἀνθρώπινος· but such as is common to men, such as is incident and adapted to their common nature, and situation in the present world. But in another sense, as it is considered with all its circumstances, it is his; peculiar to himself: it is prepared of God for him: it is given by God to him, as a token of his love: and if he receives it as such, and (after using such means to remove the pressure as Christian wisdom directs) lies as clay in the Potter’s hand, it is disposed and ordered by God for his good, both with regard to the quality of it, and in respect to its quantity and degree, its duration, and every other circumstance.
13. In all this we may easily conceive our blessed Lord to act as the physician of our souls, not merely for his own pleasure, but for our profit that we may be partakers of his holiness. If in searching our wounds he puts us to pain, it is only in order to heal them. He cuts away what is putrified or unsound, in order to preserve the sound part. And if we freely chuse the loss of a limb, rather than the whole body should perish, how much more should we chuse, figuratively, to cut off a right-hand, rather than the whole soul should be cast into hell?