Vol 01 - Chapter 08 - A Christian's Inheritance Not Of This World

Chapter 08 - A Christian's Inheritance Not Of This World
1. SEEING GOD created temporal good things, and bestowed them on man in his pilgrimage, it is meet they should be taken from our most loving GOD with thanksgiving mingled with fear and trembling. And whatsoever things are more than necessary, these are all left to man as a trial by GOD to prove him; that it may be seen whether he adhere to GOD alone, and seek only after invisible goods; or whether he feed on the things of this" temporal lice, and prefer this earthly paradise before the heavenly. GOD, the most free of all beings, gave unto man, his. offspring and image, a free choice; that so, by riches, y honors, by the talents and graces of nature, and by other goodly gifts, it might be manifested whether he did truly cleave unto GOD, eye him, move in him, live in him: or whether, being seduced with false shows of the creature, he turned his mind from GOD, cleaved unto the creature, and respected GOD’s shadow in it more than GOD himself.
2. Every one who does this, is, by his own sentence, declared guilty; according to that of the law-giver, who, having delivered the law, made the people such an address as this, " Consider what I have propounded this day before thee; I have set before thee life and good, and death and evil; that you might choose life, arid might bless thyself by cleaving to the Lord thy GOD alone, and walking in his ways, because he is thy life, and the length of thy days; and to obey his voice is blessing for evermore. Wherefore let riot thine heart turn away from thy GOD, neither suffer thy will to be drawn away to the creature, to love and serve that; but adhere to him only; and let thy delight be to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and you may dwell and prosper in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give them." And for certain, nothing can be more solemn, or a more full and authentic declaration of this liberty, than what he had said in the presence of them all, 6:. " I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and thy seed may live," Deuteronomy 3:1-29; Deuteronomy 10:19. To love GOD is life; to love the creature is death. There is none good but GOD; and there is no evil but in a separation from the one only Good. All things therefore in this world are exposed to our senses; not to drag us down to them, but to lift us up to God; not for deliciousness and pleasure, but as proofs and trials of our fidelity.
3. For it is the part of all true Christians to think, that they are in this world strangers and pilgrims, whose wants these earthly things should serve, not for delicateness, but for necessity: they should riot, therefore, place their delight in the world, but ill GOD alone if they do otherwise, they do but entangle themselves in sin; and so, being seduced with wicked concupiscence, while they become womanly, wanton, and effeminate, they, with Eve, eat of the forbidden fruit. Hence they that are Christians indeed, do not desire deliciously to feast themselves, but hunger after the food which corrupts not: they follow not the pomp and finery of apparel, but aspire after the clothing of Divine light, and of glorified bodies. In a word, to a true Christian, the things of this world that please others, are nothing but a cross and temptation, but allurements of sin, and baits of death. A Christian, therefore, uses all things with the fear of God; and, as a stranger, watching himself with diligence, and having a great care that he offend not his heavenly Father either in meat or in drink, or in clothing, or in houses, or in any other good thing of this life, either by his own intemperate use, or by that of his. friends and companions. With the eyes of faith he beholds steadfastly the, future good things, and for the sake thereof regards not this mortal body. For what profits it the body, which by and by is to be eaten with worms, if in this world it swell in all kinds of pleasure " Naked (says holy Job,) came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return again." A naked, infirm, and frail body, we all bring with us into the world; yea, as an unprofitable burden we bring it with us, and carry it through the world; which, as the spoil of death, is taken from us again when we go out of the world; for we carry it not out again, but it is carried out by others, having been stripped first naked of all that is in the world.. And all know that the rich and poor here are one. As we brought nothing, so we carry away nothing with us: lo! all is gone as a shadow. We shall find nothing in our hands of all that we have grasped; we shall awake every man empty out of his' dream; the prince and the beggar go forth alike, when they have acted their parts here. Whatsoever we had even from our birth to the hour of death, and which was in this world the poor solace of a miserable necessity, is all taken from us in one moment: yea, even the bread of mercy and of grief too, is taken away. Nothing therefore is more wretched, and poor, and naked, than a dead person, if he be not clothed with CHRIST, and rich in God.
4. Go to then, because we are strangers and pilgrims in this world, and because we must leave all these things when we die, let us acknowledge it to be one kind of madness, (and not the least,) to gather wealth with great labor, for a frail body, which body we cannot carry out of the world, especially seeing there is another world, and another body, and another life. Call these things to mind: to you I speak, who in truth are strangers and pilgrims before the eyes of God. That we may not abide without understanding, and without honor, like to the beasts that perish, we must firmly imprint this in our minds, that we are strangers and pilgrims in this world, after the example of CHRIST. Though he was the most noble of all men, yet he chose voluntarily that life in which nothing noble might appear according to the world; nothing besides extreme poverty, and a contempt of honor, wealth, and pleasure A: which three are held by the world for three gods, and set up in the room of the true GOD, blessed for ever. These he contemned, to whom all the world did sacrifice; and therefore he confesses, " The Son of Man had not where to lay his head." Neither was blessed Job of another mind, when he rejoiced in his Redeemer; nor Peter nor Paul, nor any of the other apostles, who sought not the riches of this world, but the riches of another; and, therefore, took upon them the poor life of CHRIST, walking in his charity, lowliness, and patience, whereby they condemned this earth, and triumphed over the world. They prayed for them that cursed them; they thanked them that reproached them; they blessed them that reviled them; in persecutions they praised God; by many tribulations they professed that they were to enter into the kingdom of heaven; and when they were slain, they (with CHRIST their head,) prayed, "Father, forgive them, and lay not this sin to their charge." So dead were they to all wrath, revenge, bitterness, ambition, pride, and love of the world, and so did they live in CHRIST, and in his love, his meekness, his humility, and his patience. And thus were they perfectly made alive in CHRIST by faith; and by this faith they lived.
5. The true Christians delight to be always reading of CHRIST, meditating upon CHRIST, studying CHRIST, and to be continually busied in transcribing him; so they would gladly; if they could, never so much as look off upon any other book. These say, with the apostles, " We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are, not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal." And with all the holy ancients, " We have here no continuing. city, but we seek after one to, come." A true Christian rejoiceth in his spirit, that he was ordained to eternal life, and has a continuing city prepared for him in, the heavens, for which he was created after the heavenly image. And attending this one thing, how he may grow rich in GOD, and attain the blessed end of his creation, he sees the madness of those that being blind with the love of the world, fear not miserably to afflict their own souls, for the sake of things which can give them no real satisfaction, and for which they are so unhappy as to lose their souls. The character of a true Christian is to have more care of eternal than of temporal honor; to seek more the glory that endures, than this which is but momentary; to thirst after the heavenly,' and let for their - sake the earthly riches go; to neglect present things, in pursuing after those to come, though to us here. invisible; and, lastly, to crucify and mortify the flesh, that the spirit may live. This it is to be a true Christian.
6. It is the sumi of all Christianity to follow CHRIST our Lord. For the whole of religion consists in this, to imitate him whom you dost worship: or that you thyself be a follower and a copier of the GOD whom you honor and serve. This, out of the light of nature, was well understood by Plato, in whose school this was the maxim, The perfection of man consists in the imitation of God." Hence nothing else is left to us, but that CHRIST be the pattern of our life; and that all our counsels, studies, and purposes, only respect that one thing, how we should come to him, that so we may live with him eternally, expecting in the mean time with joy the dissolution of this our earthly prison. And to that blessed state for certain we shall attain, if we thither direct all our labors, actions, and endeavors; making this our business, and go earnestly on with a firm desire and hope of eternal life. We need never fear to attain it, if we never lay aside the memory of this eternal happiness in our actions, but look steadily to the end in them all; because thus habituating ourselves to the presence of GOD, there is begotten in us a holy desire of eternal things; and the desire of earthly things, which is insatiable in its own nature, is restrained. Wherefore, according to that saying of St. Paul, “ Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all things in the name of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, giving thanks to GOD the Father through him."
7. It is indeed extreme ingratitude and contempt of GOD to forget GOD, for whom we bear about us both body and soul, and from whom we received them both; and instead of him to worship the idols of the creatures, and to set our hearts upon them, which GOD alone challenges to himself. They are not given to us themselves, but that they might be unto us as print., footsteps, and testimonies of GOD, whereby we may come nearer to the knowledge and love of GOD, the author of them all. Which, when the world dares arrogate to itself, then are the slaves hereof, by the most just vengeance of GOD, together with other idolaters, turned into the fire of hell. I deny not that all creatures are of themselves good; but when men once set their hearts upon them, then they become an abomination before GOD, no otherwise than images of gold and silver, and so they become the fuel of eternal fire. For from the love of the world nothing else can follow but death and damnation; forasmuch as the world passes away, with all the pomp thereof; while he that does the will of GOD continues for ever.