ever so rich an heir, as the soul of man, should run away with so servile a thing as money is, or give the least consent to a match so far below her birth and breeding. § 8. Let authority be added to wealth, and great honours to great revenues, yet will the product of both sums be not soul-satisfaction and blessedness, but vanity and vexation of spirit. How often is the sword put into mad men's hands, and bramble advanced to rule over better trees, and walls of mud shined upon while marble pillars stand in shade? How often do goats clamber up the mountains of preferments, whilst the poor sheep of Christ feed below? Yea, how often is greatness acquired by base, and confounded by weak means? Flattery held Absolom's stirrup. * He that is every one's master now, was a while since, at every one's service. Well might Stella call ambition, charity's ape ;† for it also believeth all things, hopeth all things, yea, and beareth all things too till what it hoped for be attained, then grows intolerable itself. It may further be observed, that God usually taketh a course to break the staff of such pride, by confounding the powers of worldly potentates, not with lions and tigres, but as Pharoah's of old, by frogs and lice. The apostle, I remember, * Ambitio te ad dignitatem nisi per indigna non ducit. Senec. Natural. quæst. in Præfat. lib. 1.—† Ambitio charitatis simia, Charitas patiens est pro æternis, ambitio pro terrenis. Didac. Stella de Contemptu mundi, part 1. page 88. F saith, "an idol is nothing," and yet the silversmiths cried out," great is Diana of the Ephe"sians." Diana then was a great nothing. Such are those men of place idolized by common people, when the Lord begins to blow upon them in his wrath, like those nobles of Idumea, concerning whom Isaiah said, “all her princes shall "be nothing." 9. Secondly, as for those saints whose wings are still somewhat clogged with the bird lime of this world, I humbly desire them to consider, how ill it becomes the offspring of heaven to go licking up the dust of this earth, the woman's seed to content itself with the serpent's food; any one of the posterity of Japhet, after he hath been persuaded into the tents of Sem, to bring on himself Canaan's curse, 66 a servant of servants "shalt thou be," by subjecting his soul to that which God made to serve its servant, the body. Verily, if this present world, or any thing in it be over precious in thy sight, O Christian, thou art become vile in the eyes of God, yea, in thine own: for none can set a high price upon things without him till he have first undervalued his soul. Time was when Satan shewed our Saviour all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them. If ever the world appear unto thee * Isaiah xxxiv. 12. + Cujus anima in occulis ejus est pretiosa, in ejus oculis mundus est parvus. Dictum Hebræorum apud Buxtorf. in florileg. page 225. Pecuniam habes? vel teipsum vel pecuniam vilem habeas necesse est. Senec. temptingly glorious, suspect it for one of Satan's discoveries. Sure I am the Scripture useth diminishing terms, when it speaks of creaturecomforts; as in styling the pomp of Agrippa* and Bernice much fancy, no reality; in calling men's temporal estates, this world's goods, t not theirs but the world's, deceitful and uncertain richest, thick clay §, and dust of the earth ||, wind, grass, and the flower of grass**, the least things ++, hardly things. Solomon brings them down to the lowest degree of entity, yea, to nullity, saying, "Labour not to be rich, wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?"‡‡ § 10. Let Diotrephes then say, It is good for me to have the pre-eminence, Judas, it is good for me to bear the bag, Demas, it is good for me to embrace this present world. But do thou, O my soul, conclude with David, "It is good for me to draw near to God."§§ Thou art now as a bird in the shell, a shell of the flesh which will shortly break, and let out the bird: this crazy bark of my body ere long will be certainly split upon the fatal rock of death; then must thou its present pilot forsake it, and swim to the shore of eternity. Therefore, O everlasting creature, see and be sure thou content not thyself with a transitory portion. I do not, Lord, thou knowest I do not. Acts xxv. 23. + 1 John iii. 17. || Habak. ii. 6. ** Eccles. v. 16. ++ James i. 11. Matth. xiii. 22. Amos ii. 7. Luke xvi. 10. 15. Prov. xxiii. 4, 5. §§ Psal. lxxiii. 28. Of a small handful of outward things, I am ready to say, It is enough, but that which I long so passionately for, is a large heart full of God in Christ. Thou art my sun, the best of creatures are but stars, deriving the lustre they have from thee did not thy light make day in my heart, I should languish for all them in a perpetual night of dissatisfaction. There are within me two great gulfs, a mind desirous of more truth, and a will capable of more good then finite beings can afford; thou only canst fill them, who art the first truth, and the chief good. In thee alone shall" my soul be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.*" * Psalm lxiii. 5. APHORISM II. We are conducted to the fruition of God in Christ, by the Christian religion, contained in the divine oracles of holy scripture. EXERCITATION I. The safe conduct of saints signified by the pillar in Exodus, performed by the counsel of God himself, the abridgement whereof we have in the doctrine of Christian religion. How that tends to blessedness. $1. THERE is no possibility of arriving at blessedness without a safe conduct, nor at glory without guidance; no infallible guidance but by the counsel of God himself. All which the Psalmist is like to have had in his eye, when in his humble address to God, he expresseth himself in this manner, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me glory."* The husband's duty in relation to his wife is to be "the guide of her youth."+ Such hath Christ (one of whose names is Counsellor) been to his church in former times, is at + Prov. ii. 17. * Psalm lxxiii. 24. Isa. ix. 6. me to |