XII. The cross of Christ is of another nature; it truly overcomes the world, and leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements; they that bear it are not thus chained up, for fear they should bite; nor locked up, lest they should be stolen away: no, they receive power from Christ their captain, to resist the evil, and do that which is good in the sight of God; to despise the world, and love its reproach above its praise; and not only not to offend others, but love those that offend them: though not for offending them. What a world should we have if every body, for fear of transgressing, should mew himself up within four walls! No such matter; the perfection of the Christian life extends to every honest labour or traffic used among men. This severity is not the effect of Christ's free spirit, but a voluntary, fleshly humility: mere trammels of their own making and putting on, without prescription or reason. In all which it is plain they are their own lawgivers, and set their own rule, mulct, and ransom: a constrained harshness, out of joint to the rest of the creation; for society is one great end of it, and not to be destroyed for fear of evil; but sin that spoils it, banished by a steady reproof, and a conspicuous example of tried virtue. True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it; not to hide their candle under a bushel, but to set it upon a table in a candlestick. Besides, it is a selfish invention; and that can never be the way of taking up the cross, which the true cross is therefore taken up to subject. But again, this humour runs away by itself, and leaves the world behind to be lost; Christians should keep the helm, and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world, and leave those that are in it without a pilot, to be driven by the fury of evil times, upon the rock or sand of ruin. In fine, this sort of life, if taken up by young people, is commonly to cover idleness, or to pay portions, to save the lazy from the pain of punishment, or quality from the disgrace of poverty; one will not work, and the other scorns it; if aged, a long life of guilt sometimes flies to superstition for a refuge, and after having had its own will in other things, would finish it in a wilful religion to make God amends.