In the Old Testament, the Jews, being babes and infants in grace and holiness, had a world of temporal promises, and very few spiritual promises. But now in the days of the gospel, the Lord is pleased to double aud treble his Spirit upon his people, and now you meet with very few temporal promises in the gospel, but the gospel is filled with spiritual promises. The gospel drops nothing but marrow and fatness, love and sweetness ; and therefore God looks in these days that men should grow up to a greater height of holiness, heavenliness, and spirit- ualness, than what they attained to in those dark days, wherein the sun shined but dimly. Men rich and strong in grace look upon the world with a holy scorn and disdain, as Themistocles, when he saw in the dark a thing like a pearl, he scorned to stoop for it hiniself, saying to another, ' Stoop thee, for thou art not Themistocjes.'^ Abraham, a man strong in grace, looked with a holy scorn and with an eye of dis- dain upon these poor things. When Melchisedec from God bad made him heir of all things, he refused the riches that the king of Sodom offered him, because God was his shield and his exceeding great reward. Gen. xiv. 21, xv. ], The greatest bargain that a soul rich in grace will make with God for himself is this, ' Give me but bread to eat and clothes to wear, and thou shalt be my God.' So it was with that brave soul, Gen.xxviii. 21, he desires but food and raiment. Mark, he asks food, not junkets;^ raiment, not ornaments. A little will serve a man that is strong in grace, much will not serve a man that is weak in grace, nothing will serve a man that is void of grace. Souls weak in grace, have their hearts much working after these poor low things ; as you may see. Mat. xviii. 1, 'Who shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven V The question is stated by the disciples, that one would have thought should have had their hearts and thoughts in heaven ; but they dreamed of an earthly kingdom, where honours and offices should be distributed, as in the days of David and Solomon. And it is observable in Mark ix. 33, 34, they are at it again : ' And he came to Capernaum ; and being in the house, he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way ? But they held their peace' (they were ashamed to tell him) ; ' for by the way they had disputed among them- selves who should be greatest.' Saith one, I'll have this, and saith an- other, I'll have that, &c. ; or as it is in the Greek, ' they disputed who was greatest ;' so in Luke ix. 46. Says one, I am greater than thou ; No, says another, I am greatest : rig fjusi^ov, who was greatest. It is an argument of a childish disposition to be taken more with rattles and baubles than with jewels and pearls. That Christian hath little of the power of grace within him, whose heart is so strongly carried out to these vanities below. Men that are grown up to years of understanding prefer one piece of gold above a thousand new counters. A soul that is strong in grace, tliat is high in its spiritual enjoyments, prefers one good word from God, one good look from Christ; above all the glory of this world. ' Lord,' saith he, ' lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me.' Warm my heart with the beams of thy love, and then a little of these things will suffice. You see Moses and all those worthies in the 11th of the Hebrews, who were men strong in grace, how bravely they trample upon all things below God. They left their families and their countries, ' Plutarch, a3 before. — G. * * Dainties.' — Q.
EpH. III. 8.] RICHES OF CHRIST. 5 J
where they lived like princes, to wander in a wilderness, upon the bare command of God.' So Luther, a man strong in grace, when he had a gown and money given him by the elector, he turned himself about, and said, * I protest God shall not put me off with these poor low things.' Souls that know by experience what the bosom of Christ is, what spiri- tual communion is, what the glory of heaven is, will not be put off by God nor man with things that are mixed, mutable, and momentary. And to shame many professors in these days, I might bring in a cloud of witnesses ; even from among the very heathen, who never heard of a crucified Christ, and yet were more crucified to things below Christ than many of them that pretend much to Christ. But I shall forbear, only desiring that those that think and speak so scornfully and contemp- tuously of heathens may not at last be found worse than heathens; yea, be judged and condemned by heathens in the great and terrible day of the Lord.
Secondly, In order to a further deciphering of weak Christians, I shall lay down this :
[2.] That lueak saints do usually over/ear troubles before they come; yea, those future evils that, forty to one, may never fall out.
The very empty thoughts and conceit of trouble is very terrible and perplexing to a weak saint. When it was told the house of David, say- ing, ' Syria is confederate with Ephraim,' his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind, Isa. vii. 2. Their heart quaked and quivered, as we say, like an aspen leaf. It is an elegant expression, shewing, in their extremity, the baseness of their fears, arguing no courage or spirit at all in them. The very news and conceit of trouble or calamities, oh how doth it perplex, and vex, and grieve, and overwhelm weak Christians !^ The very hearing of trouble at a distance makes them to stagger and reel, and ready to say, ' Will God now save ? Will he now deliver V It puts them into those shaking fits, that they know not what to do with themselves, nor how to perform the service they owe to God or man. Now tell me, can you call that a stout spirit, a strong spirit, that is daunted with the very report and thoughts of calamity ? Or that does torment men with im- moderate fear of a thousand things that happily shall never fall out; as fears of foreio^n invasions, or fears of home-bi"ed confusions, fears of change of religion, or being surprised with such or such diseases, or being ruined in their outward estate by such and such devices or disadvantages, or by falling under the frowns of such a great man, or under the anger and revenge of such and such a man, and a thousand such like things. Now, this speaks out much weakness in grace. Souls strong in grace are carried above these fears; yea, with the leviathan in Job, they can laugh at the shaking of a spear, chap. xli. 29. They can say with David,
' The philosopher preferred the king's countenance before his coin. [Said of Socrates in Plato, as before.— G.]
^ The chameleon, saith Pliny, is the most fearful of all creatures, and doth therefore
turn into all colours to save itself ; and so it is often with weak Christians Pray