Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Ver. 4. Ye have not yet resisted] q.d. You may do, and must look to do. And if you cannot endure words for Christ, how will you endure wounds? If you have run with the footmen, and they have tired you, how can ye contend with horses? Jeremiah 12:5 .
Striving against sin] That is, against sinners that persecute you, or the sin that doth so easily beset you, and solicit you to spare yourself, and rather to yield a little than to suffer so much. The tabernacle was covered over with red (and the purple fathers tell us they take that colour clothes for the same intent), to note that we must defend the truth even to the effusion of blood. If we cannot endure martyrdom (if called thereunto) and sweat a bloody sweat for Christ's sake, we cannot be comfortably assured that we are of his body. Christo submittemus (said that Dutch martyr) sexcenta si nobis essent colla: We will submit to Christ, though we should suffer never so many deaths for his sake. John Leaf, a young man burnt with Mr Bradford, hearing his own confession, taken before the bishop, read unto him, instead of a pen took a pin, and so pricking his hand, sprinkled the blood upon the said bill of his confession, willing the messenger to show the bishop that he had sealed the same bill with his blood already. See the story of William Pikes, Acts and Men., p. 1853.