[7.] Seventhly, If God be thy portion, then thou wilt look upon all things below thy God as poor, low, mean, and contemptible things, Ps. Ixxiii. 24, 25. A worldly man looks upon all things below his earthly portion as contemptible ; and so doth a Christian look upon all things" below his God as contemptible : Philip, iii. 7, 8, 'But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and
> Clarke, as before. — G.
Lam. III. 24.] an ark for all god's noahs. 95
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung' (The Greek word (rxOSaXa properly signifies such sordid, coarse, and contemptible things, which are either cast forth by dogs, or cast before dogs),^ ' that I may win Christ.' And it is very obsei-vable, that after this great apostle had been in the third heaven, and had been blessed with a glorious sight of God, he looked upon the world as a poor, mean, low, contemptible thing, 2 Cor. xii. 1-3 : Gal. vi. 14, ' God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Paul scorned, despised, and rejected the world, and the world scorned, despised, and rejected him. Paul cast off the world, and the world cast off him ; he disregarded the world, and the world disregarded him ; he was dead to the world, and the world was dead to him. The world and Paul were well agreed ; the world cared not a pin for Paul, and Paul cared not a straw for the world. And so when Moses had seen him that was invisible, when he had taken a full prospect of that other world, and when he had beheld God as his portion, oh, how doth he slight, scorn, and trample upon all the honours, preferments; profits, pleasures, dehghts, and contentments of Egypt, as things below him, and as things that in no respects were worthy of him, Heb. xi. 24-27. It is a Eabbinical conceit,^ that Moses being a child had Pharaoh's crown given him to play withal, and he made no better than a foot-ball of it, and cast it down to the ground, and kicked it about, as if it were a sign of his future vilifying and contemning of temporal things. I shall not much trouble my head about what Moses did when he was a child ; but of this I am sure, having the word of God for it, ' That when he was come to years,' Heb. xi. 24, or as the Greek hath it, /isyag yivotJ^ivog, being grown big, or being grown a great one, and so sufiiciently understood himself, and knew very well what he did,' he did little less than make a foot-ball of Pharaoh's crown. Witness his refusing with an holy scorn and disdain to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and so to succeed Pharaoh in the throne. And so in that Rev. xii. 1, 2, ' And there appeared a great wonder in heaven ; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.' The church here is compared to a woman for her weak- ness, fruitfulness, and loveliness ; and it is observable, that she is clothed with the sun, that is, with Christ's own comeliness and righteous- ness, which resembles the sun in its several properties and effects, not now to be insisted on. Now this woman, the church, is said to have the moon under her feet. By the moon we are to understand all tem- porary and transitory things. Now the church treads upon all these things as trash and trumpery that were much below her, and despised by her. Look, as the great men of the world do commonly look upon all portions that are below their own with an eye of scorn, disdain, and contempt, as Haman did, Esther v. 9-14 ; and as those bold daring sinners did, Ps. Ixxiii. 4-14. So do those that have God for their portion look upon all things below their God with an eye of
• Dogs' dung, some interpret the word. < * Joh. Plantavit. Florileg. Rahbinicxim.
3 Some conclude he was forty years old now from that, Acts vii. 23.
96 AN ARK FOR ALL GOD'S NOAHS. [LAM. III. 24.
scorn and disdain. I have read of Lazarus, that after his resurrection from the dead he was never seen to laugh ; his thoughts, his heart, his affections were so fixed upon God, and so taken up with God, with his portion, that he was as a dead man to all the gay and gallant things of the world, he saw nothing in them worthy of a smile.
And so when once Galeacius, that famous Italian marquis, came to understand that God was his portion, in the face of the highest offers imaginable, of honour, favour, profit, and preferment, he cried out. Cursed be he that prefers all the glory of the world to one day's com- munion with God.
The old Grecians, who had altogether fed on acorns before, when bread came in among them, they made no reckoning of their mast, but reserved it only for their swine.^ And the Lacedaemonians despised their iron and leathern money, when gold and silver came in use among them.^ So when a man comes once to experience God to be his portion, ah, at what a low rate will he value the swelling honours, the deceitful riches, and the vanishing pleasures of this beggarly world, John iv. 14. Chris- tians are compared to eagles,^ Mat. xxiv. 28. Now the eagle is a kingly, a princely bird ; it is a bird of a sharp piercing sight, and of a swift and lofty flight ; it flies high and sets light by things below, except it be when necessity compels her: and so it is with those that have God for their portion ; they fly high and they live high, in God, and therefore they cannot but set light by the toys and trifles of the world. But,