This prospect is so well secured to us, that our hopes may now begin to take possession of our inheritance. And this is the encouragement given us by the Apostle, to set our affection on things above. He has another reason, which is indeed but a member of the same argument. For if we are risen with Christ in our baptism to a new life; it is equally true, that in the same baptism we are dead with him to the things of this life. And thence he argues, if ye be dead with Christ, why, as though living in the world are ye subject to such things as are to perish with the using? This subjection to perishable things, is the great mistake of mortal man; separating him from the knowledge and love of God; and consequently, from all the great objects of the world to come. It is not possible to know the things of God, while our hearts are set upon the world. Ignorance of God will cherish earthly affections; and earthly affections will end in a separation from God. One of these cases was exemplified in the heathens; the other in the Jews. The heathens did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and so were given up to vile affections: the Jews had set their affections on the world, and so lost the knowledge of God. It signifies VOL. V. D signifies not which end we begin at: for the issue is the same either way. Upon the whole then, it is the proper business of man in this world, to set his affections on things above: in this is our wisdom, our wealth, our hope, and our happiness: therefore it should be an affront to the understandings of rational men, to desire them to follow what is so desirable in itself. Let me then take it for granted, that they who hear me, wish to attain to this heavenly practice, and only want to know how it is to be done. To this the answer is short: consider what your hope is as Christians, and learn what this world is, and then your affections cannot make any mistake, without doing it wilfully. To know that you have an inheritance in a better world, purchased by the death of Christ, and sealed to you by his Resurrection; I say, to know this, and not to desire it is impossible. And on the other hand, to see that the Things of this world are vain, deceitful and perishable; and yet to admire and seek them, is equally impossible. How then does it happen, that we see so few aspiring to the things above, and such multitudes swallowed up by the things on the earth? What can be said, but that men are blind to the the deceitfulness of the world, and to the glories of heaven; and so like the blind are wandering out of the way. That any should be found so senseless as to prefer earth to heaven, and sensuality to immortality, is a certain proof, that there is some radical error in our nature, derived to us from the mistake of our first parents, and never to be corrected but by the power of divine Grace, and the diligent study of the word of God. Every man is born with that clay upon his eyes, which must be washed away by him, who was sent from heaven for that purpose; and then he may see all things clearly. Then he may shake off that folly of preferring dust and ashes to the riches of eternity; when things eternal, and things temporal are compared, it seems the easiest thing in the world to chuse between them; and yet it is the hardest; because it is impossible to love the things of heaven, without that principle of faith, which gives us a sight of them. In this is the great difference between the Christian and the man of the world; that the one walks by sense, and the other by faith. The Christian ascends through faith and hope to the love of God; and when he has attained to that, his affections are placed, where they ought to be. If you would plainly understand the dif ference between these two sorts of men, view them upon their death-beds. When death approaches, the Christian finds himself drawing nearer to the objects he has desired: but the man of the world is hasting toward those terrors of the Lord, which he has vainly endeavoured to forget. The one parts with what he never valued, and in exchange looks for that which never can decay: the other is torn away against his will from all he has delighted in, never more to be delighted with any thing. The one leaves his friends, with a certainty of meeting such of them, as are worth finding, in a better world: the other leaves all good men, without the hope of conversing with them any more. The one is at length conveyed by Angels to the bosom of Abraham; the other goes, where he went, who had received the good things in this life. Who can make this comparison without saying, in the words of Balaam, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! Let us then remember, my friends, and let us never forget it, that the righteous. dies this death, because in his life-time, he set his affection on things above. Which that we |