Category: world (Page 2 of 3)

(1.) The example of his own choice. The Lord of heaven and earth despised and neglected the glory and riches of this world. He passed through the world to sanctify it as a place of service; but chose not pomp of living, nor the happiness of it, lest we should choose it as our rest and portion: ‘They are not of the world, as I am not of the world,’ John xvii. 16. Those that are dearest unto God must look by crosses and trials to be fitted for another world. If a man say never so much for contempt of the world, yet live in the love of it, his saying is nothing.

But Christ would be a pattern of his own doctrine. Contempt of the world is a lesson of great consequence; salvation lies upon it: 1 John ii. 15-17, ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world: if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world; and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ Whether we are high or low, full or kept bare, it concerns us all to learn it. Though we flow in wealth, we should be as having nothing, and sit loose from the creature. If we are poor, we must count grace a preferment: James i. 9, 10, ‘Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted; but the rich, in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.’

There is required of all an hearty preparation for, when they are not called to a patient enduring of, afflictions for Christ’s name: Phil. iv. 12, ‘I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.’ This is of a hard digestion to a natural man.

Now Christ’s example is a great help to us to check our worldly desires; let us not affect greater eminency in the world than Christ had; and to check the vanity of fulness, or our carnal complacency, that it may not be a snare to us: 1 Tim. v. 6, ‘The woman that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.’ Christ was a man of sorrows; do you profess Christ, and yet are you addicted to vain pleasures, and not able to deny them?

(2.) As it is an argument to confirm us in the certainty of the happiness of the world to come. It were best to choose the easiest life here if we did not believe eternity, to live a life of pomp and ease. The troubles and miseries of the godly have been counted a sure argument to confirm it: 1 Cor. xv. 19, ‘If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.’ God would not make us miserable by our duty. And 2 Thes i. 5, ‘It is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God.’ If the consideration of godly men’s sufferings in this world be of moment to such an inference, much more the sufferings of Christ, who was not only a man good and innocent beyond example, instructing the souls, curing the bodies of so many men, but also the Son of God. His exaltation is a pledge of our happiness, and his humiliation an argument he is gone there as our forerunner.

(1.) Proposition: That it is possible, yea very likely that our hearts may be inordinately set upon wealth lawfully gotten;The mind may be enchanted with a secret delight and desire to retain and increase riches, lawfully gotten. A man may be a slave to his wealth, and loathe to part with it upon religious reasons: it is very likely it will be so when men have any thing in the world.

I do not know how it comes to pass, but so it is, there is more danger in possessing wealth than in getting it; this young man went away sad, for he had great riches: and it is one thing (saith he) to refuse that we have not, another thing to part with what we have;

Covetousness is not to be determined by a greedy thirst only, but also by complacency, delight, and acquiescence of soul in worldly enjoyments. Though we would not desire more, yet if our hearts be glued to that we have already, we are unapt for the kingdom of God,

In short, it is the corruption of our nature, that we are very prone to affect worldly goods too much, and so much the more by how much the more plenty and abundance of them is enjoyed.

They that have much flax and gunpowder in their houses, had need be careful to keep fire from it; so a Christian that enjoys a great store of wealth, had need look to his heart, that corruption do not meet with it; that aversion from God, and conversion to the creature is so natural to us, that when we have great store of the world’s goods, we are ready to set our hearts too much on them.

(2.) Proposition: That the gathering of a spiritual disease is very secret and insensible. Bad humours breed in the body, and are not discovered till a strain; much more distempers breed in the soul ere we are aware, and therefore the more caution is necessary:

Man is afraid of want [lack] and poverty, but who is afraid of riches?

Our greatest learning is to learn how to abound. The worldly-minded judge riches and abundance a happy condition, O blessed is the man, they will say, that is in such a case! It is the sum of every man’s wish; but to be shy of the world, to suspect danger in plenty, it can never enter into their hearts: but alas! as a rank soil is apt to breed weeds, so many snares are incident to this condition, and this sort of life. Alas, they that have great and plentiful estates, how apt are they to pamper the flesh, to grow forgetful of God, slight in holy things, to be wedded to worldly greatness!

As soon as men have any thing in the world, their heads are lifted up above their brethren, and they grow proud, scornful of God’s Word, slighting of holy things, and we are wholly enchanted with pleasures of such an estate, but consider not the snares that secretly are laid for their souls.

(3.) Proposition: There is no means to prevent the danger, but by the continual exercise of good works, and a prudent carefulness to improve our substance for God’s glory, and helpfulness to others…your business should be how you should honour God,

A man’s care should be for contracting and cutting short his desires, and how to make use of it in order to eternal life. Unless there be this constant solicitude upon the heart, it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

(1.) The love of the world diverts the heart from Christ, that there is no room for holy things.

Just so our souls hang like a pair of balances between God and the world; what you give to the world you take from God, and what you give to heavenly things you take from the world, Col. 3:2, ‘Set your affections on things above, not on things of the world’. Our desires cannot be carried out after heavenly things with any intention, unless they be remitted [set aside] to the world.

(2.) The love of the world sets the heart against Christ, and carries it to contrary things:

1. It disposes and inclines the soul to all evil. It makes a man break every command of the law of God: the love of money is the root of all evil, 1 Tim. 6.10. Let it once reign in the heart, and then a man sticks at no sin, and he becomes a ready prey for Satan; when his heart is intoxicated with the love of present things.

So that there is no sin so foul, but the love of the world will make it plausible, and reconcile it to the thoughts of men.

2. It incapacitates us, and makes us incapable of doing service to God in our general and particular calling.

3. It hinders the receiving of good, and those means of reformation that should make us better. A man that is under the power of worldly lusts [desires], is prejudiced against whatever shall be spoken for God, and for the concernments of another world:

If the word stir us a little, and men begin to have some anxious thoughts about eternal life, these thorns, which are the cares of this world, will choke the good seed, and stifle our convictions, so as they come to nothing;

If a man begins to do some outward thing, it will make us soon weary of religion, and attendance on holy duties, as if all time laid out upon God were lost; and they cry out, ‘When will the Sabbath be over, that we may set forth wheat’, Amos 8:5.

It interlines our prayers, and holy services with worldly projects and thoughts: nay it turns religion into a trade and market: men live by it, it makes religion to serve their worldly ends, they make a market of their devotion

If our children are loose, and drunkards, and riotous, we are offended, but if we see them worldly, we are not troubled. O it is a foul sin, but the men of the world will not believe it; surely we have too mild thoughts of it, and therefore we do not watch and strive against the love of the world:

Sins that are more gross and sensual [of the senses] are easier discovered, and such a sinner is sooner reclaimed, but this is a secret sin that turns away the heart from God: and to make you more careful to avoid it, in scripture a covetous man is called an idolater, Eph. 5:3, and covetousness is called idolatry, Col. 3:5, and is that a small crime? What, to set up another God? Who are you that dare to harbour such an evil in your bosoms, and make no great matter of it? Will you dethrone that God which made you, and set up the world in his stead? It is called adultery, James 4:4. It is a breach of your conjugal vow. You did promise in your baptism to renounce the world, and give up yourselves unto Christ’s service, and will you cherish such whorish and disloyal affections as will carry you to the creature instead of God? O we cannot think bad enough of such a sin.

1. How he was affected with Christ’s advice, he was sad at the saying, and went away grieved.

2. The reason of his sorrow, or why he was thus affected, for he had great possessions.

(1.) They take up religion upon foreign and extrinsic reasons, and when those reasons fail, their religion sails also: as puppets moved by the wires to which they are fastened; so they are moved by credit and esteem, and countenance in the world: they court religion while it hath a portion for them.

Therefore the difference between false and sincere professors is not altogether taken from their zeal and outward diligence; they may be exceeding zealous and forward upon the impulsion of false principles, who have a base heart lurking under it; because the motions of lusts disguised with religion are rapid and earnest, and by-ends have a powerful influence. Though lust be served, yet because it is in the way of religion, men’s affections are much aloft, and they may seem to have great fits and zealous pangs in the service of God, and yet all this comes to nothing.

(2.) Because they many times rest in externals without internal grace. This young man for outward conformity went very far: there is nothing for external duties that a child of God doth, but a hypocrite may do also; he may pray, preach, confer, hear the word, though not in a holy and gracious manner.

(3.) Because that internal affection which they seem to have to the ways of God, is not rooted and fixed, only a slight tincture, that may easily be worn off;

(4.) Their corrupt lusts were only restrained, not mollified and weakened, and so it is but like a sore that is skinned over, and festers inwardly, and will at length break out again.

Many an unsound professor seems to cast the world, and their old fashions behind their back, yet their hearts are not wholly weaned from them, nor are they wholly cast out; some prevalent lust remains that will make them turn back to their old vomit again:

(1.) To search for a true sound work.

Whilst any one sin remains unbroken, all that we do in conformity to God will be lost:

And what is prized besides Christ, will be soon prized above Christ; therefore unless the sweetness of his grace makes all the baits of the flesh unsavoury to us, we cannot be sound.

(2.) To watch against declinings; for we lose ground every day, as a thing running down the hill falls lower and lower, if we do not keep up a constant relish and savour of good things. When you lose your first love, you will leave your first works