Ah, Christians ! you are kings elected, you are heirs-apparent of a crown, of a glorious crown, of a weighty crown, of an incorrupt iUr crown, of an everlasting crown of glory ! ' Oh why then should you be crowning yourselves with rosebuds ? why then should you take up in the low enjoyments and poor contentments of this world ? ]
It was a generous speech of that heathen Themistocles, who, coming by a thing that seemed to be a pearl in the dark, scorned to stoop for it, but bade another stoop, saying, Stoop thou for this pearl, for thou art not Themistocles. Oh let the men of the world stoop and take up the world, oh let them whose practice speaks them out to be of the world, and to be worshippers of that golden calf, the world, let these dance about it, bow down to it, and take up in it ; but let the heirs of heaven divinely scorn to bow down to earth, or to take up in it, or to be much taken with it. It was a good saying of Seneca, Major sum et ad majora natus,quam ut mancipium sim corporis mei, I am too great, and born to greater things than that I should be as a slave to my body.2
Ah, Christians ! you are too great, and born to greater things, than that you should be slaves to your bodies, or slaves to your lusts, or slaves to the world ; can you seriously consider of the great things that are reserved in heaven for you, and not set your feet upon those things that the men of the world set their hearts upon ? Can you look up to your future glory, and not blush to be taken with the glory of this world %
"What Alexander the Great said to one of his captains that was called Alexander, Recordare nominis Alexandri, remember the name of Alexander, and see, said he, that you do nothing unworthy of the name of Alexander.3 So say I, Kemember, 0 Christian thy name ; remem- ber thy dignity and glory, and see that thou dost nothing unworthy of the one or the other. But,
(8.) Eighthly, If the best and greatest things are reserved for the saints till they come to heaven, then let them desire and long to be ■possessed of those blessed things that are reserved in heaven for them.* Oh, how do the heirs of this world long to have their estates in their own hands ! how do they long to have their inheritances settled upon them ! some of them wishing their relations dead that stand between them and their inheritances ; and others, of a little better nature, wish- ing them in the bosom of Abraham, that they might come to inherit, and that they might suck the sweet, and take up their rest, in their worldly inheritances. And shall not the saints desire and long to be in a full and happy possession of that crown, of that inheritance, of those jewels that are reserved in heaven for them ? O Christians ! how is it, why is it, that your heavenly Jerusalem, your mansions above, your glorious treasures, suffer not an holy violence, in respect of your earnest wishes and burning desires after them ?
1 Oh. say not of this world as Poter of his little heaven, Bonum est esse hie, it is good to he here. s Sen. Epist. lxvi. 3 Plutarch, Alexander. — G.
4 Tota vita boni Christiani, sanctum desiderivm est, the whole life of a good Christian is an holy wish, saith one. [Bernard Serin. Canticles. — G.]
1 Peter I. 4.] a string of pearls. 447
The primitive Christians did so hunger and thirst, look and long, wish and desire after this heavenly kingdom,1 this glorious inheritance, that the Roman State had a jealousy of them, as if they had affected their kingdom and their worldly glory. But where is that spirit now to be found ? Most men live now as if there were no heaven, or else as if heaven were not worth a seeking, worth a desiring ; as if heaven were a poor, low, contemptible thing.
Bat ah, Christians ! you have learned better; and therefore be you much in desiring and longing to get into that glorious city, where streets, walls, and gates are all gold, yea, where pearl is but as mire and dirt, and where are all pleasures, all treasures, all delights, all comforts, all contents ; and that for ever. This word ' for ever' is a bottomless depth, a conception without end ; it is a word that sweetens all the glory above, and that indeed makes heaven to be heaven. I can hardly call him a Christian that doth not long more after spirituals, and after the great things that are reserved in heaven for the saints, than Ulysses did for the smoke of his house after ten years' absence.2 But,
(9.) Ninthly, If the best and greatest things are reserved for the saints till they come to heaven, then, Oh let not the men of the world envy the saints, whilst they are here in this wilderness.
Ah ! sinners, sinners, the people of God have but little in hand ; though they have much in hope; they have but little in the bag what- ever they may have in the bank ; they have but little in the cistern whatever they may have in the fountain ; they have but little in posses- sion whatever they may have in reversion ; and therefore do not envy them, James ii. 5. Who but monsters will envy the child in his cradle, or in the arms, or in his non-age, though he be an heir to a great estate, inasmuch as it is out of his hand, and he is not in the possession of it ? and yet such monsters this world affords, who are filled with envy against Christ's precious ones, though their estates are out of their hands. Old Jacob speaking of his son Joseph, saith, that 'the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him,' Gen. xlix. 23 ; and Jerome, expounding the words, noteth, Hie invidiam cum arcu et sagittis introduci ad sagittandum quod immaculatum est, that here envy is brought in with bow and arrows shooting at that which is immaculate, and where there is no spot to be a mark for it ! or else, as an archer doth set up some white thing to be the mark at which he shoots, so it is the whiteness of some good thing or other, against which envy shoots.3 Such is the wrath, the rage, the hatred, the envy of wicked men against the saints, that they will still be envying of them upon one score or another. Such was Saul's envy to David, that David chooses rather to live under king Achish, an enemy, than to live under Saul's envy; nay, such was Saul's envy against David, that when David played on his harp, to cure him of the evil spirit that haunted him, that he threw his spear at him to destroy him, malens a malo spiritu torqueri, quam Davidem vivere, choosing rather to be tormented with an evil spirit, than that David should live.4 And such was Cain's envy to Abel, that though he had but one brother, nay, though there was but one
1 Justin Martyr, Apol. ii. * Jerome in qvcestionih. FTcbrce.
* Odyssey, i. 57. — G. * Bern de inter domo. c 2.
448 A STRING OF PEARLS. [1 PETER I. 4.
brother in all the world, yet enraged envy will wash her hands in that brothel's blood.