Obs. 3. That the way to be humble is to count the world's advan- tages our abasement. The poor man must glory in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made low. Honours and riches do but set
^ ' Servatur pauper Lazarus, sed iu sinu Abrabauii rlivitis.' — August, in Ps. li. * 'Dantur bonia ne putentur mala, malia ne puteutur bona.' — Av^ust.
JaS. I. 10.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 69
US beneath other men, ratlier than above them, and do rather abate from you than add anything to you ; and it may be you have less of the Spirit because you have more of the world. God doth not use to flow in both ways. Well, then, get this mind in the midst of your abundance. It is nothing what you do at other times. Men dispraise that which they want, as the fox the grapes, and simple men learn- ing. But when you are rich, can you glory in that you are made low, and say. All this is but low in regard of the saints' privileges ? This would keep the heart in a right frame, so that you could lose wealth or keep it. If you lose it, you do but lose a part of your abasement ; if you keep it, you do not keep that which setteth you the higher or the nearer to God, This is to ' possess all things as if you possessed them not,' 1 Cor. vii. 30 — not to have them in your hearts when you have them in your houses. And the truth is, this is the way to keep them still, to be humble in the possession of them : Mat. xxiii. 12, ' Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.' Riches will be your abasement, if you do not think them so.
Ohs. 4. If we would be made low in the midst of worldly enjoy- ments, we should consider the uncertainty of them. This is the rea- son rendered by the apostle, ' Because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.' We are worldly, because we forget the world's vanity and our own transitoriness : Ps. xlix. 11, ' Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations ; they call their lands after their own names.' Either we think that we shall live for ever, or leave our riches to those that will continue our memory for ever ; that is, to our chil- dren, which are but the parent multiplied and continued ; which is, as one saith, nodosa ceternitas, a knotty eternity. When our thread is spun out and done, their thread is knit to it ; and so we dream of a continued succession in our name and family. But alas ! this inward thought is but a vain thought — a sorry refuge by which man would make amends for the loss of the true eternity. But in vain ; for we perish, and our estate too. Both your persons and your condition are transitory. The apostle saith, ' He shall pass away like the flower of the grass.' Man himself is like the grass, soon withered ; his condition is like the flower of the grass, gone with a puff of wind. So 1 Peter i. 24, ' All flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of the grass.' Many times the flower is gone when the stalk remaineth ; so man seeth all that he hath been gathering a long time soon dissipated by the breath of providence, and he, like a withered rotten stalk, liveth scorned and neglected. The scriptures make use of both these arguments — sometimes our own transitoriness, as Luke xii. 20, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.' Here men toil, and beat their brains, and tire their spirits, and rack their consciences ; and when they have done all, like silkworms, they die in their work, and God taketh them away ere they can roast what they get in hunting. Sometimes the transitoriness of these outward things ; if we do not leave them, they may leave us. As many a man hath survived his happiness, and lived so long as to see himself, when his flower is gone, to be cast out upon the dunghill of scorn and contempt.
70 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS, I. 10.
And, truly it is a madness to be proud of that which may perish before we perish, as it is the worst of miseries to outlive our own happiness. The apostle saith, 1 Tim. vi. 17, ' Charge rich men that they be not high-minded, and trust not in uncertain riches.' Trust should have a sure object, for it is the quiet repose of the soul in the bosom of an immutable good. Therefore that which is uncertain cannot yield a ground of trust. You may entertain it with jealousy, but not with trust ; so Prov. xxiii. 5, ' Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not ?' Outward riches are so far from being the best things, that they rather are not anything at all. Solomon calleth them ' that which is not ;' and who ever loved nothing, and would be proud of that which is not ? Obs. 5. The uncertainty of worldly enjoyments may be well resem- bled by a flower — beautiful, but fading. The similitude is elsewhere used : I gave you places in the exposition, let me add a few more : see Ps. ciii. 15, 16, 'As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth : for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.' When the flower is gone, the root, as afraid, shrinketh into the ground, and there remaineth neither remnant nor sign ; so many a man that keepeth a bustling, and ruffleth it in the world, is soon snapped off by providence, and there doth not remain the least sign and memorial of him. So 1 Peter i. 24, ' For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass ; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.' It is repeated and returned to our con- sideration— ' all flesh is grass,' and then. ' the grass withereth,' to show that we should often whet it and inculcate it upon our thoughts. In short, from this resemblance you may learn two things : —