ed about that interest of religion, and senseless of the calamities of God's people. Thus the prophet convinces the Jews of their hypo- crisy, Amos vi. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. " They were at ease in Zion, and " trusted in the mountain of Samaria :" And so, having a shadow of religion, and a fulness of all earthly things, they fell to feasting and sporting : " They drank wine in bowls, and anointed themselves " with the chief ointments, but were not grieved for the affliction *' of Joseph."" They condoled not, Gnal sheber, over the breakings or tearing to pieces of Joseph : If they were out of danger once, let the church shift for itself, they are secure in a warm nest : Let the birds of prey catch and devour that flock with which they sometimes associated, they are not touched with it. Moses could not do so, though in the greatest security and confluence of the honours and pleasures of Egypt, Acts vii. 23. Nehemiah could not do so, though the servant and favourite of a mighty monarch, and wanted nothing to make him outwardly happy ; yet the pleasures of a king's court could not cheer his heart, or scatter the clouds of sorrow from his countenance^ whilst his brethren were in affliction, and the city of his God lay waste, Nehemiah ii. 1, 2, 3. Nor indeed can any gracious lieart be unconcerned and senseless ; for that union that all the saints have with Christ their head, and with one another, as fellow-members in Christ, will beget sympathy among them in their gufferings, 1 Cor. xii. 26.
>UT as the fire of prosperity discovers this and much more dross in a graceless heaJrt, so it discovers the sincerity and grace of God's people : I say not that it discovers nothing but grace in them ; O that it did not ! alas ! many of them have had a great deal of dross and corruption discovered by it, as was noted before : But yet in this trial, the graciousness and uprightness of their hearts will appear in these, and such like workings of it.
1. Fi?'st, Under prosperity, success, and honour, the upright heart will labour to suppress pride, and keep itself lowly and humble ? and still the more grace there is, the more humility there will be. If God lift him up, he v/ill lay himself low, and exalt his God high. So did Jacob when God had raised and enlarged him ; Gen. xxxii. 10. " I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth " which thou hast shewed unto thy servant, for with ray staff" I pas- '* sed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands."
Great was the difference in Jacob's outward condition at his re- turn, from what it Avas at his first passage over Jordan ; then poor, now rich ; then single and comfortless, now the head of a great family : Yea, but though this outward estate was altered, the frame of his heart was not altered. Jacob was an holy and humble man when he went out, and so he was when he returned : He saw a multi-
512 PROSPERITY A CHEAT TRIAL.
tude of mercies about him, and among them all, not one but was- greater than himself.
I dare not say every Christian under prosperity cah at all times manifest like humility ; but I am sure what pride and vanity soever may rise in a gracious heart tried by prosperity, there is that within him which will give check to it: He dare not suffer such proud thoughts to lodge quietly in his heart : for, alas ! he sees that in himself, and that in his God, that will abase him : Grace will make him look back to his original condition, and say, with David, " What am I, *' O Lord God ? and what is my father's house, that thou hast " brought me hitherto?" 2 Sam. vii. 18.
It will make him look in, and see the baseness of his own heart, and the corruptions that are there, and admire at the dealings of God with so vile a creature. O, thinks he, if others did but know what I know of myself, they would abhor me more than now they esteem and value me.
2. Secondly, Prosperity usually draws forth tlie saints love to the God of their mercies : that which heats a wicked man's lusts, warms a gracious man's heart with love and delight in God.
These were the words of that lovely song which David sang in the day that the Lord delivered him out of the hands of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul ; and he said, " I will love thee, O Lord, *'my strength," Psal. xviii. title and ver. 1. compared. These out- ward things are not the mam grounds and motives of their love to God ; no ; they love him when he takes away, as well as when he gives: but they are sanctified instruments to inflame their love to God : they boil up a wicked man's lusts, but they melt a gracious man's soul. O in what a pang of love did David go into the pre- sence of God under the sense of his mercies ! his melting mercies ! when he thus poured out his whole soul in a stream of love to his God, 2 Sam. vii. 19, SO. " Is this the manner of men, O Lord " God ? And what can David say more unto thee .f*" An expression that turns up the very bottom of his heart.
3. Thirdly, Prosperity and comfortable Providences do usually be- come cautions against sin, when they meet with a sanctified soul. This is the natural inference of a gcracious soul from them : hath God pleased me, then hath he obliged me to take more care to please him ;
0 let me not grieve him, that hath comforted me ! So Ezra ix. 13. " After such a deliverance as this, should we again break thy com- " mandments ! What ! break hi^ commandments who hath broken our bonds ! God forbid !
It was an excellent resolution of a Christian once, who receiving an eminent mercy at the same time he felt himself under the power of a special corruption : " Well, (saith he) now will I go forth in the " strength of this mercy, to mortify and subdue that corruption."
1 will not measure every Christian by the eminent workings of grace in some one ; but surely so far I may safely go, that sincerity knows
ADVEltSITY A FURNACE TO TRY OUR GRACES. 54S
not bow to sin, because grace bath abounded, any more than it dare sin, that grace may abound.
4. Fourthly^ A truly gracious soul will not be- satisfied with all the prosperity and comforts in the world for his portion : Not thine, Lord but thee, is the voice of grace. When providence had been more than ordinarily bountiful in outward things to Luther, he began to be afraid of its meaning, and earnestly protested, God should not put him off so. " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul,"" Lam. iii. 24. and the soul can best tell what it hath made its choice, and whereon it hath bestowed its chief delights and expectations.
An unsound heart will accept these for its portion : if the world be sure to him, and his designs fail not there, he can be content to leave God, and soul, and heaven, and hell at hazard ; but so cannot the upright. These things in subordination ; but neither these, nor any thing under the sun, in comparison with, or opposition to God.
Shewing what pi'ohation adversity makes of the sincei^ity or wu soundness of our hearts.