He represents the world to them in its beauty and bravery [finery], which proves a bewitching sight to a world of men.

True happiness is too big and too glorious a thing to be found in anything below but God that is a Christian’s chiefest good.

(Footnote: True happiness lies only in our enjoyment of a suitable good, a pure good, a total good, and an eternal good ; and God is only such a good, and such a good can only satisfy the soul of man. Philosophers could say, that he was never a happy man that might afterwards become miserable.)

The blessed angels, those glistering courtiers, have all felicities and blessedness, and yet have they neither gold, nor silver, nor jewels, nor none of the beauty and bravery [livery] of this world. Certainly if happiness was to be found in these things, the Lord Jesus, who is the right and royal heir of all things, would have exchanged his cradle for a crown; his birth chamber, a stable, for a royal palace; his poverty for plenty; his despised followers for shining courtiers; and his mean [low] provisions for the choicest delicates, etc. Certainly happiness lies not in those things that a man may enjoy, and yet be miserable for ever.

Now a man may be great and graceless with Pharaoh, honourable and damnable with Saul, rich and miserable with Dives [the rich man in the rich man and Lazarus story], etc.: therefore happiness lies not in these things. Certainly happiness lies not in those things that cannot comfort a man upon a dying bed. Is it honours, riches, or friends, etc, that can comfort thee when you come to die?

Or is it not rather faith in the blood of Christ, the witness of the Spirit of Christ, the sense and feeling of the love and favour of Christ, and the hopes of eternally reigning with Christ? Can happiness lie in those things that cannot give us health, or strength, or ease, or a good night’s rest, or an hour’s sleep, or a good stomach? Why, all the honours, riches, and delights of this world cannot give these poor things to us, therefore certainly happiness lies not in the enjoyment of them, etc.

(Footnote: Gregory the Great used to say, He is poor whose soul is void of grace, not whose coffers are empty of money. The reasonable soul may be busied about other things, but it cannot be filled
with them.)

And surely happiness is not to be found in those things that cannot satisfy the souls of men. Now none of these things can satisfy the soul of man. ‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase; this is also vanity,’ said the wise man, Eccles. v. 10. The barren womb, the horse leech’s daughter, the grave and hell, will as soon be satisfied, as the soul of man will by the enjoyment of any worldly good. Some one thing or other will be for ever wanting [lacking] to that soul that hath none but outward good to live upon. You may as soon fill a bag with wisdom, a chest with virtue, or a circle with a triangle, as the heart of man with anything here below. A man may have enough of the world to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfy him, etc.

Oh, the soul of man is more worth than a thousand worlds! It is the greatest abasing of it that can be to let it dote upon a little shining earth, upon a little painted beauty and fading glory, when it is capable of union with Christ, of communion with God, and of enjoying the eternal vision of God.

Seneca could say, ‘I am too great, and born to greater things, than that I should be a slave to my body.’ Oh! do you say my soul is too great, and born to greater things, than that I should confine it to a heap of white and yellow earth.

(Footnote: Plutarch tells of Themistocles, that he accounted it not to stand with his state to stoop down to take up the spoils the enemies had scattered in flight; but said to one of his followers, You may, for you are not Themistocles. Oh what a sad thing it is that a heathen should set his feet upon those very things that most professors [of religion] set their hearts, and for the gain of which, with Balaam, many run the hazard of losing their immortal souls for ever.)

I have been the longer upon the remedies that may help us against this dangerous device of Satan, because he doth usually more hurt to the souls of men by this device than he doth by all other devices.

For a close, I wish, as once Chrysostom did, that that sentence, Eccles. ii. 11, ‘Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun,’ were engraven on the door-posts into which you enter, on the tables where you sit, on the dishes out of which you eat, on the cups out of which you drink, on the bed-steads where you lie, on the walls of the house where you dwell, on the garments which you wear, on the heads of the horses on which you ride, and on the foreheads of all them whom you meet, that your souls may not, by the beauty and bravery [livery] of the world, be kept off from those holy and heavenly services that may render you blessed while you live, and happy when you die; that you may breathe out your last into his bosom who lives for ever, and who will make them happy for ever that prefer Christ’s spirituals and eternals above all temporal transitory things.

He represents the world to them in its beauty and bravery [finery], which proves a bewitching sight to a world of men.

Our light is mixed with darkness, our joy with sorrow, our pleasures with pain, our honour with dishonour, our riches with wants [lacks]. If our lights be spiritual, clear, and quick, we may see in the felicity of this world our wine mixed with water, our honey with gall, our sugar with wormwood, and our roses with prickles.

(Footnote: Hark, scholar, said the harlot to Apuleius, it is but a bitter sweet you are so fond of. Surely all the things of this world are but bitter sweets.)

Sorrow attends worldly joy, danger attends worldly safety, loss attends worldly labours, tears attend worldly purposes. As to these things, men’s hopes are vain, their sorrow certain and joy feigned. The honours, profits, pleasures, and delights of the world are true gardens of Adonis, where we can gather nothing but trivial flowers, surrounded with many briers.

(Footnote: Let heaven be a man’s object, and earth will soon be his abject. Luther being at one time in some wants, it happened that a good sum of money was unexpectedly sent him by 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.)

That which raised up their spirits, Heb. x. and xi., to trample upon all the beauty, bravery [livery], 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 bad in heaven a better and a more durable substance.’ ‘They looked for a house that had foundations, whoso 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 [livery] of this world to be too poor and contemptible for them to set their hearts upon.

The main reason why men dote upon the world, and damn their souls to get the world, 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 means, what it is to have ‘a new name, and a new stone, that none knows but he that hath it,’ Rev. ii. 17; did they but taste more of heaven, and live more in heaven, and had more glorious hopes of going to heaven, ah, how easily would they have the moon under their feet.

It was an excellent saying of Lewis of Bavyer, emperor of Germany, Such goods are worth getting and owning, as will not sink or wash away if a shipwreck happen, but will wade and swim out with us.

(Footnote: There is, saith Augustine, goods of the throne; and there are goods of the footstool. 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 passes away, as the waters of a river that runs by a city.)

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 was on earth, and therefore he could not but slight temporal things, his heart being so bent and set upon eternals. There are goods for 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 footstool, as honours, riches, the favour of creatures, and other comforts and 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 footstool.

Ah that you would make it your business, your work, to mind more, and make sure more to your own souls, the great things of eternity, that will yield you joy in life and peace in death, and a crown of righteousness in the day of Christ’s appearing, and that will lift up your souls above all the beauty and bravery [livery] of this bewitching world, that will raise your feet above other men’s heads. When a man comes to be assured of a crown, a sceptre, the royal robes, etc., he then begins to have low, mean [low], and contemptible thoughts of those things that before he highly prized. So will assurance of more great and glorious things breed in the soul a holy scorn and contempt of all these poor, mean things, which the soul before did value above God, Christ, and heaven, etc.