of God and the continual exercise of devotion this indeed may be an act of heroical piety in him but yet those that love these things with that limitation which I have now laid down are not therefore to be condemned 2. Secondly in our love to the world and the things of it we must have a regard to the duration and continuance of them If they were of infinitely greater value than they are yet we know that it is but a very little while that we can enjoy them All things here below are perpetually in motion they are tossed to and fro like the waves of the Sea They are exposed to ten thousand casualties and disasters that are ready every moment to snatch them out of our hands Or if possibly we should be so fortunate as to escape all these yet we are sure that we our selves are hasting continually towards the Grave and that it cannot be long before we must go away hence and be seen no more There is nothing here to be depended upon However prosperous our condition may be for the present the whole scene of Affairs may be suddenly changed The clearest day may be presently overcast and the brightest Sun may set in a Cloud Our Estates may be lost our Friends may forsake us our Children may dye our Pleasures will decay our Credit and Esteem amongst men may be quickly blasted by a slanderous tongue and end in ignominy and disgrace However it cannot be avoided but that our Pomp and our Honour and all that we have must at last be laid down and covered in the dust And since then that the good things of this world are known to be so very transient and uncertain in their own nature we may love them provided our love be suited to the condition of the things themselves it must not be a settled fixed and unmoveable love We must consider that they are rather lent than given us and we should be as ready to restore as we were to receive them We must chearfully deliver up all our earthly Concerns to the wise and gracious disposal of Almighty God A Stoical Apathy is more indeed than is required of us The true Christian may be something delighted with temporal Blessings and not altogether insensible of worldly misfortunes but then the pleasure he takes in the enjoyment of them is sober and temperate and the grief he conceives at the parting with them is not excessive He is a little delighted with the Gourd while it flourishes but he does not fret and grow angry when it withers away He enjoys the world with moderation and lets it go without any anxious and desponding thoughts 3. Thirdly We must be careful that the love of any thing in the world be never more prevalent with us than the love of God The most incomprehensible Excellencies of his Divine Nature do command us to reverence and admire him and the unspeakable Benefits he has already bestowed and the many Blessings which he is continually heaping up on us and the glorious Promises which he has made us of Life and Salvation are the strongest obligations imaginable for us to return unto him the greatest vigour and intenseness of our Affections And when such a love of our Maker has gotten the supreme power and soveraignty in our Hearts so that our minds are effectually swayed and inclined as they are directed by that then some lower degree of complacency may be allow'd to these inferiour things without offence Our love of the world is not sinful when it is kept within the just boundaries that I have now prescribed when we love it but according to the nature and duration of it and always with submission to the love of God III. And from these things which I have now briefly discours'd it may plainly appear What kind of love of the world it is which is here forbidden which was the third general thing that I laid down 1. And First Therefore our love of the world is unlawful when we love it beyond the natural worth and value of it And this does manifestly discover it self when our desires after it are violent and impetuous when we are impatient in the pursuit and intemperate in the enjoyment when we are so passionately bent upon our pleasures as if these sordid and muddy delights were the only or the chiefest happiness we did expect when we are so extremely fond of being rich and great that we are restless and uneasie with a competent Estate and a moderate Fortune seems a burden unto us when we are so transported with any degree of Honour and Eminency we may chance to attain that we are presently fill'd with lofty and foolish imaginations when we envy our Superiors despise our Equals and look down with scorn and disdain upon our Inferiors When we find our selves to be thus disposed in any of these or the like instances it is a sign that our Affections for the world are irregular and extravagant a great deal bigger than the things deserve And when they are so they become the immediate and necessary causes of all the miseries and mischiefs that ever do or can befal us They are these that push Men forward to all the acts of wickedness and folly and hurry them on to their own destruction They are these that tempt the licentious Epicure to all his Debaucheries that make him run with greediness into all manner of excess that provoke him to break down the inclosures that God has made and lye in wait to defile his Neighbour's Bed They are these that besot the Covetous Wretch with a different sort of sensuality and make him drunk with the tears of Widows and Orphans that turn him into a kind of moral Cannibal that even tears and devours the flesh of the Poor They are these that are the real occasions of all the Murder and Rapine and Desolation that we daily see or hear of in the world the most furious and bloody Wars and military executions in which so many innocent Mens lives are thrown away and so many thousand Families most miserably ruined are frequently nothing else but the tragical effects of a mind swollen and distemper'd with Cruelty and Ambition Such are the lamentable consequences that do naturally follow the immoderate love of any worldly thing For our earthly Passions are like a River while they keep themselves within their proper Channel they slide along gently and observe a regular course and may make our lives both pleasant and fruitful but when they begin to swell and grow turbulent and overflow their Banks there is nothing then to be expected but a flood and inundation of all manner of sin 2. Secondly Our love of the world is faulty again when we do not consider the short continuance of it and how little a while it is that we can possibly enjoy it And in this the strange inadvertency of the generality of Men is much to be admited In their prosperity they are apt to think
our tender years and insinuates into us besore we arrive at any ripeness of Judgment It is always present with us and perpetually beating upon our senses making a noise in our ears and displaying all its gaudery before our eyes It possesses our minds in such a manner that it will not give us leisure to consider seriously of any thing else And no wonder then that they that know nothing of the substance should be mightily taken with such a shadow of happiness But we should be of another mind if we were truly sensible of the wonderful excellency of that blessed state which God has prepared for those that love him and how empty and insignificant all things are which we can ever hope to enjoy here For our love of any thing is always measured by the opinion we have of the goodness of it And we should never love the world much if we did but rightly understand what it were 2. Secondly When we have gotten right apprehensions of these things we should be often rowling them over in our thoughts and meditate upon them till our hearts be affected with a due sense of them and then compare them together and judge impartially what it is that does really deserve the greatest share of our love It is the want of this that causes so many to rush heedlesly into destruction For if the miserable Worldling did but sit down and compute how little he is like to gain at the last by the treasures of unrighteousness if the idle Sensualist did but think with himself how dearly he must pay for his stoln pleasures if the proud and ambitious man would be pleas'd to consider that he pawns his soul for a puff of air they might all possibly be inclin'd to more sober thoughts and moderate desires For 't is altogether incredible that any one that is not under the power of a perfect frenzie should deliberately make such a foolish exchange and cast away the hopes of a blessed Eternity for the unsatisfactory pursuit of some fading impertinencies which shall be certainly concluded with everlasting Miseries 3. Thirdly We should firmly resolve to act agreeably to the judgment we have made This is the greatest security we have without this it is not sufficient to have right apprehensions and some good inclinations We may know well enough that the world is nothing but a grand Impostor a great Magician that inchants our minds and deludes our senses with false appearances and we may have some faint wishes that we might be delivered from the power of these Charms but this notwithstanding we may be born down by the stream and hurried away by the violence of temptation or allured by the importunity of some pleasing passion To these dangers therefore we must oppose our greatest strength and arm our minds with a steddy resolution to act conformably to the determinations of our Conscience This may preserve us upright and intire in the midst of all assaults For when it is assisted by the grace of God there is nothing able to over-power the will of a man 4. Fourthly We should herein exercise a kind of self denial and abridge our selves sometimes of some delights we might have innocently taken We should not always go to the extreme point of our liberty nor use the utmost freedom that might be given us even in lawful things This will keep our Appetites within compass and bring them into better obedience For when they have been used to be constantly gratifi'd they grow the more craving they run after their several Objects with the greater impatience and will be very apt to transgress their bounds But when they are curb'd and restrain'd they become gentle and tractable and resign themselves quietly to the conduct of our Reason and they cannot be in such danger of being carried into any extravagance when they are not suffered to go to the extremity of what is lawful Some voluntary abstinencies are a good guard upon the Soul He that would love the world no more than he should must not always use it so much as he might V. Lastly We should address our selves frequently to Almighty God by Supplication and Prayer This is the only way to procure that Grace which is absolutely necessary to enable us to overcome the world and besides that it will likewise acquaint us with Heavenly things and make them more familiar and pleasant to our thoughts And when by this holy entercourse with our Maker we shall have attained any relish for Spiritual Joys we shall quickly despise all those fulsom and unmanly Pleasures we admired before We shall soon perceive that there is no comparison betwixt Earth and Heaven and that the Crowns of Glory which we expect do infinitely outshine all the glittering Vanities of the world And we shall love God above all and all things else for him or rather we shall love him in them by loving them only as the Effects and Emanations of his Goodness and Wisdom acknowledging his Bounty and praising his Name for whatever we enjoy And so shall the love of the world be lost and swallowed up in the love of God till at length it be compleat and consummated in his Heavenly Kingdom Of which God of his Infinite Mercy make us all partakers through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen FINIS
that they shall never be moved and live as if they were not Strangers and Pilgrims but that they had a sure and settled dwelling here upon Earth The experience of every day is enough to convince them how ridiculously they are mistaken they should therefore restrain their love to these fading Vanities and make it as temporary as the Objects of it are for it is absurd and unreasonable to have permanent and immortal affections for transient and perishable things The Branches should wither and die when the Root is decayed from whence they did spring It lays a certain foundation for perpetual disquietude and anguish of mind to have vigorous desires remaining in us when every thing that should give them any satisfaction is irreparably lost St. John tells us v. 17. that the world passeth away and therefore our love for it should pass away with it or else in stead of giving us any contentment and delight as we might vainly hope it will serve for nothing but to gall and torment us 3. Thirdly The love of the world is forbidden when it has a greater power upon us than the love of our Maker has And we may certainly judge that the case is thus when ever we are tempted and prevailed upon to sin against God by the proposal of any present Pleasure or Advantage As when we shall dare to be guilty of Injustice or Oppression to encrease our Fortunes and advance our selves to some farther degree of Wealth or Honour when we will venture to run into excess of Wine to gratifie a brutish appetite or please an unreasonable and senseless humour This is an infallible argument that the love of worldly things has got the dominion in our hearts when we do thus prefer them before our eternal Concerns and chuse rather to offend a gracious God than to disoblige an unruly Lust 'T is exceeding strange that the love of any thing else should have a more forceable influence upon our Affections and move us more powerfully than the love of infinite Goodness can But alas we find it very often too true The lesser Magnet draws the Iron from the embraces of the greater We forsake our God and stick close to our Vanities we let go the hope we might have in the Almighty and cling fast to every trifle Scarce an impotent Passion can start up in our hearts but it shall be more readily obey'd than the Great Majesty of Heaven and Earth And this must needs provoke him to the highest degree of displeasure not to see us take some delight in the good things of this life which he has given us for this we may lawfully do as has been said before but to observe that our minds are so engaged upon them that we neglect his Commandments for their sakes and pay that homage and obedience unto them that can be due only to Him And therefore those lewd persons that are describ'd by the holy Apostle Rom. 1. are said v. 25. to have served the creature more than the Creator And those upon whom that black Character is fix'd in the beginning of 2 Tim. 3. you shall find v. 4. that they were lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God And thus may you see what kind of love of the world it is which is here forbidden IV. I come Fourthly to shew but very briefly that such a love of it is inconsistent with the love of God This will stand in need of no further proof but only to consider that God and the world are in themselves of a very different Nature and do command us clean contrary things and we can no more love these two in the same eminent degree than we can bear allegiance to several Princes whose Interests are continually clashing and that are frequently in open hostility one with the other For God commands us to abstain from fleshly Lusts and to taste of worldly Delights with great caution and sobriety Sensuality perswades us to give the reins to our Appetites to take our fill and even cloy our selves with carnal Pleasures God commands us to be liberal and open-handed to those that are in want and especially to be sure that we do no wrong nor injustice to our Neighbour Covetousness advises us by any means to hold our own not to be moved with the cries and groans of the needy and if we can but increase our store never matter how we do it tho it should be with the utter ruine of many a poor distressed helpless Creature God commands us to submit our selves to be dispos'd of by him and to be contented with the Portion his Providence has allotted us Pride will be still aspiring and egging us on to seek after greater Honours it is querulous and impatient always dissatisfi'd with the state it is in These are a few short instances of some of those things which God and the world do severally require of us and which of these two we love the best his Commands we shall be sure the most readily to obey For both we cannot unless we had the art of reconciling Contradictions unless we could be sober and intemperate kind and hard-hearted upright and unjust humble and proud both at once Light and Darkness may sooner agree than such opposite dispositions can be entertain'd together in the same Breast at the same time This repugnancy is plainly declared Jam. 4. 4. know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God And of this too we are to understand those expressions of our blessed Saviour Mat. 6. 24. No Man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon It is impossible to hold the Scale so even and ballance our affections so very equally betwixt God and the world but that one side will always preponderate and how much weight soever we add unto that so much of necessity must be taken from the other The love of God will decay and grow less in the same proportion that the love of the world encreases in us And again as our minds are more strongly bent upon divine and heavenly Objects the less careful and solicitous shall we be about temporal things And thus have we seen what is meant by the world what love of it may be lawful and what is here forbidden and that this is inconsistent with the love of God V. I come now to the Fifth and last thing to lay down some Directions how to avoid this irregular and inordinate love of the world And to this end 1. First We should labour to get a true notion and estimate of things For we are commonly mistaken the world imposes upon our Imaginations it cheats us into an unreasonable fondness before we can tell what it is with which we are so strangely enamoured It makes early impressions upon