When Alexander the Great had overthrown Darius, king of Persia, he took among the spoils a most rich cabinet, full of the choicest jewels that were in all the world ; upon which there rose a dispute before him, to what use he should put the cabinet ; and every one having spent his
* Lord, saith Austin, the more I meditate on thee, the sweeter thou art unto me. Jerome calls meditation his paradise, and Theophylact calls it the very gate and portal by which we enter into glory. To think is to live, saith Cicero.
Lam. III. 24).] an akk for all god's noahs. 83
judgment according to his fancy, the king himself concluded, that he would keep that cabinet, to be a treasury to lay up the books of Homer in, which were his greatest joy and delight.' A sanctified memory is a rich cabinet full of the choicest thoughts of God \^ it is that rich treasury wherein a Christian is still a-laying up more and more precious thoughts of God, and more and more high and holy thoughts of God, and more and more honourable and noble thoughts of God, and more and more awful and reverent thoughts of God, and more and more sweet and comfortable thoughts of God, and more and more tender and compas- sionate thoughts of God, &c. Take a Christian in his ordinary course, and you shall find that wherever he is, his thoughts are running out after God ; and about whatever he is, his thoughts are still a-running out after God ; and into what company soever he is cast, whether they are good or bad, yet still his thoughts are running out after God, &c.
Look, as an earthly-minded man hath his thoughts and meditations still exercised ard taken up with the world, as you may see in Haman, whose neart and thoughts were taken up with his honours, perferments, riches, wife, children, and friends, &c.:^ Esther v. 10-12, 'Nevertheless Haman refrained himself, and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself ; and to-morrow am I invited unto her also with the king.' And the same spirit you may see working in those that had made gold their god, in that Ps. xlix. 10, 11, 'For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all genera- tions : they call their lands after their own names.' The Hebrew run- neth thus : ' Their inwards are their houses for ever,' as if their houses were got within them. Not only the thoughts, but the very inmost thoughts, the most retired thoughts and recesses of worldlings' souls, are taken up about earthly things ; and though they care not whether their names are written in heaven or no, yet they do all they can to propa- gate and immortalise their names on earth. And the rich fool was one in spirit with these the psalmist speaks of, as you may see in that Luke xii. 16, 22, ' And he spake a parable unto them, saying. The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself (the Greek word dnXoyl^iTo is a marvellous proper word for the purpose ; it signifies to talk with a man's self, or to reason with a man's self This foolish worldling was much in talking to himself, and in reasoning with himself about his goods and barns, &c., as the usual
• ^Plutarch: a commonplace of Alexander's ' Lives.' — G.
* Ps. XXV. 1 ; Ps. Ixxxvi. 4 : Ps. cxlii. 8 ; Basil calls meditation on [God] the treasury, where all graces are locked up.
* The thoughts and hearts of the people of Constantinople were so extremely set upon the world, and running out after the world, that they were huying and selling in their shops even three days after the Turks were within the walls of their city; and that was the rekson that the streets run down with their blood, and the blood of their wives and children. [Knolle's Turkish History, as before. — G.
84 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD's NOAHS. [LAM. III. 24.
manner of men is that are of a worldly spirit), saying. What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fniits ? And he said, This will I do : I will pull down my bams, and build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' Among all his worldly thoughts, there is not one thought of God, of Christ, of grace, of heaven, of holiness, of eternity, to be found. His thoughts were so taken up with his bags, and his bams, and his buildings, and his ease, and his belly, that he had no time to think of providing for another world ; and therefore God quickly despatches him out of this world, and throws him down from the highest pinnacle of prosperity and worldly glory into the greatest gulf of wrath and misery, ver. 20. And this foolish worldling puts me in miud of another, who, being offered an horse byhisfellow upon condition that he would but say the Lord's prayer, and think upon nothing but God, which proffer being accepted, he began : ' Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.' But I must have the bridle too, said he. No, nor the horse neither, said the other ; for thou hast lost both already.
When worldlings should most think of God, and be most struck with the dread and majesty of God, and be most afflicted and taken up with the glory of God, yet then their thoughts and hearts will be a-gadding and a-running after the world, as you may see in Ezekiel's hearers ; Ezek. xxxiii. 30-32, and in Paul's, Philip, iii. 18, 19. When queen Mary was dying, she said that if they did but open her when she was dead, they should find Calais lying at her heart. Ah ! how often doth stinking lusts and rotten towns, and moth-eaten bags, and other trifling vanities, lie near those hearts where God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and grace, and ordinances, and saints, and heaven should lie ! Look, as the thoughts of the men of the world do mainly run out after the world, after their earthly portions, so the thoughts of those that have God for their por- tion do mainly run out after God, and they are never so well as when they are most a-thinking and a-musing on God. But,