our love to his people, cool our love to the things of God, and induce us to act like those that are most unlike him? Oh! the deadness and barrenness that attend men under great outward mercies. Oh! how the riches of the world choke the word; so that men live under the most soulsearching, and soul-enriching means, with lean souls. They have full purses, but their hearts are empty of grace. In Gen. xiii. 2. it is said, that Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.' According to the Hebrew, it is, 'Abraham was very heavy;' to shew, that riches are a heavy burden, and a hinderance many times to heaven and happiness.t

King Henry the fourth asked the Duke of Alva, If he had observed the great eclipse of the sun which had lately happened?' No, (said the duke) I have so much to do on earth, that I have no leisure to look up to heaven.' Ah! that this were not true of most professors in these days; it is sad to think, that their hearts and time are so much taken up with earthly things, that they have scarce any leisure to look up to

* That four good mothers begat four bad daughters; great familiarity begets contempt, truth hatred, virtue envy, ri hes ignorance. A French proverb.

† Policrates bestowed five talents for a gift upon one Anacreon, who for two nights after was so troubled with care how to keep them, and how to bestow them that he carried them back again to Policrates, saying, They were not worth the pains he had already taken for them."

heaven, or after Christ, and the things that belong to their everlasting peace.

Riches, though well got, yet are but like manna, those that gathered little had no want, and those that gathered more, it was of no use to them. The world is troublesome, and yet it is loved; what would it be, if it were peaceable? You embrace it, though filthy; what would you do if it were beautiful? You cannot keep your hands from the thorns; how earnest would you be then in gathering the flowers?* The world may fitly be likened to the serpent Scytale, whereof it is reported, that when she cannot overtake the flying passengers, she doth with her beautiful colours so astonish and amaze them, that they have no power to pass away, till she has stung them. Ah! how many thousands are there now on earth, that have found this true by experience; they have spun a fair thread to strangle themselves, both temporally and eternally, being bewitched by the beauty and glory of this enticing world.

Rem. 5. Consider, that all the felicity of this world is mixed: our light is mixed with darkness, our joy with sorrow, our pleasures with pain, &c. If our light be spiritual, clear, and quick, we may see in the felicity of this world, our wine mixed with water, our honey with gall,

*Sicily is so full of sweet flowers that dogs cannot hunt there: and what do all the sweet contents of this world but make us lose the scent of heaven.

our sugar with wormwood, and our roses with thorns. Sorrow attends worldly joy, danger, worldly safety; loss, worldly labours; tears, worldly purposes. As to these things men's hopes are vain, their sorrow certain, and their joy feigned.. The apostle calls this world,' A sea of glass;' a a sea for the trouble of it, and glass for the brittleness and bitterness of it. The honours profits, pleasures, and delights of this world, are true gardens of Adonis, where we can gather nothing but trivial flowers, surrounded with many briars.'

Rem. 6. Get better acquaintance, and assurance of more blessed and glorious things.* That which raised up their spirits, Heb. x. and xi. to trample upon all the beauty and glory of the world, was the acquaintance with and assurance of better and more durable things; they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves, that they had in heaven a better and a more enduring substance. They looked for a house that had foundations, whose builder and maker was God: and they looked for another country, even an heavenly. They saw him that was invisible, and had an eye to the recompence of reward.' And this made them count all the glory and bravery of this worid, too poor and contempuble for them to set their hearts upon.

* 1 et heaven be a man's object and earth will soon be his abject.

ter being at one time in some wants, it happened thai good sum of money was unexpectedly sent him by

The main reason why men doțe upon the world, and damn their souls to get it, is, because they are not acquainted with a greater glory.' Men ate acorns, till they were acquainted with the use of wheat. Ah! were men more acquainted with what union and communion with God what it is to have a new name, and a new stone, that none knows, but he that hath it;" did they but taste more of heaven, and live more in heaven, and had more glorious hopes of going to heaven, how easily would they have the moon under their feet?

means;

It was an excellent saying of Lewis of Bavaria, emperor of Germany, 'Such goods are worth getting and owning, as will not sink, nor wash away, if a shipwreck happen, but will wade and swim out with us.' It is recorded of Lazarus, that after his resurrection from the dead, he was never seen to laugh, his thoughts and affections were so fixed in heaven, though his body were on earth; and therefore he could not but slight temporal things, his heart was so bent and set upon eternals.' There are goods of the throne of grace, as God, Christ, the Spirit, adoption, justification, remission of sin, peace with God, and peace with conscience and there are goods of the foot-stool, as honours, riches, the favours of creatures, and other comforts and

a nobleman of Germany, at which being something amazed, he said, "I fear that God will give me my reward here, but I protest I will not be so satisfied.”

accommodations of this life. Now he that hath acquaintance with, and assurance of the goods of the throne, will easily trample upon the goods of the foot-stool.* Ah that you would make it your business and work, to mind and make more sure to your own souls, the great things of eternity, that will yield you joy in life, peace in death, and a crown of righteousness in the day of Christ's appearing; that will lift up your souls above all the beauty and bravery of this bewitching world, and raise your feet above other men's heads. When a man comes to be assured of a crown, a sceptre, the royal robes, &c. he then begins to have low, mean and contemptible thoughts of those things that before he highly prized; so will assurance of more great and glorious things, raise in the soul a holy scorn and contempt of all these poor, trifling things, which the soul before valued above God, Christ, heaven, &c.

Rem. 7. Seriously consider, that true happiness and satisfaction is not to be had in the enjoyment of any worldly good. True happiness is too big and glorious a thing to be found in any thing that is below that God that is a Christian's chiefest good. The blessed angels,

• When Basil was tempted with money and preferment, saith he, "Give me money that may last for ever, and glory that may eternally flourish; for the fashion of this world passeth away, as the waters of a river that run by a city."

True happiness lies only in our enjoyment of a "suitable good, a pure good, a total good, and an eternal good ;