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Let us turn our eyes to our great Exemplar, the Lord Jesus Christ … Here, you see, is our pattern. But what resemblance do we bear to him? The leaving of all the glory of heaven, the taking of our nature with all its sinless infirmities, the dying under the weight of our sins, even of the sins of the whole world, were not too great acts of self-denial for him to perform; and that, too, even for his enemies. But we, what have we done? What have we suffered, for the glory of Christ, and the salvation of men? Say, whether we all have not reason to blush and be ashamed at our extreme want of conformity to him in these respects?

Salvation is undoubtedly all of grace. It is offered freely in the Gospel to the chief of sinners, without money and without price … But all who accept this great salvation, must prove the reality of their faith by carrying the cross after Christ. They must not think to enter heaven without trouble, pain, suffering, and conflict on earth. They must be content to take up the cross of doctrine, and the cross of practice,—the cross of holding a faith which the world despises, and the cross of living a life which the world ridicules as too strict and righteous overmuch. They must be willing to crucify the flesh, to mortify the deeds of the body, to fight daily with the devil, to come out from the world, and to lose their lives, if needful, for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s.—These are hard sayings, but they admit of no evasion. The words of our Lord are plain and unmistakeable. If we will not carry the cross, we shall never wear the crown.