things that shall befall me, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me:  but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God.”  O blest spirit! here is the work of faith.  Alas! when we come to part with anything for the cause of God, how hardly comes it from us!  “But I (saith he) pass not, no, nor is my life dear unto me.”  Here, I say, is the work of faith, indeed, when a man is content to do anything for God, and to say if imprisonment, loss of estate, liberty, life, come, I pass not, it moveth me nothing, so I may finish my course with comfort.  Hence it was that the saints of God in those primitive times “took joyfully the spoiling of their goods.”  Methinks I see the saints there reaching after Christ with the arms of faith, and how, when anything lay in their way, they were content to lose all, to part with all, to have Christ.  Therefore saith Saint Paul, “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”  Mark, rather than he would leave his Savior, he would leave his life, and tho men would have hindered him, yet was resolved to have Christ, howsoever, tho he lost his life for Him.  Oh, let me have my Savior, and take my life!

The last step of all is this:  when the soul is thus resolved not to dodge with God, but to part with anything for Him, then in the last place there followeth a readiness of heart to address man’s self to the performance of whatsoever duty God requireth at his hands; I say this is the last step, when, without consulting with flesh and blood, without hammering upon it, as it were, without awkwardness of heart, there followeth a readiness to obey God; the soul is at hand.  When Abraham was called, “Behold (saith he) here I am.”  And so Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth,” and so Ananias.  “Behold, I am here, Lord.”  The faithful soul is not to seek, as an evil servant that is gone a roving after his companions, that is out of the way when his master would use him, but is like a trusty servant that waiteth upon his master, and is ever at hand to do His pleasure.  So you shall see it was with Abraham, when the Lord commanded him to go out of his country, “he obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went”; he went cheerfully and readily, tho he knew not whither; as who would say, if the Lord calls, I will not question, if He command I will perform, whatever it be.  So it must be with every faithful soul—­we must blind the eye of carnal reason, resolve to obey, tho heaven and earth seem to meet together in a contradiction, care not what man or what devil saith in this case, but what God will have done, do it; this is the courage and obedience of faith.  See how Saint Paul, in the place before named, flung his ancient friends from him, when they came to cross him in the work