[2.] When he loseth his comfort and confidence in God, for that is a sign we live upon the creature, and cannot trust God without the creature. Man knoweth how to put a cheat upon his own heart. When he hath all things at full, then he talketh of living by faith ; as those women who ' would eat their own bread, and wear their apparel, only call us by thy name,' Isa. iv. 1. So they, though all their happiness be bound up with the creatures, yet have the wit to give God the name. Now God will take away the creature to see how we can live upon himself alone : 1 Sam. xxx. 6, ' David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.' He still maintained his hope in the Lord when all was gone, when the emptiers had emptied him.
[3.] When we desert the truth, or go against conscience in any- thing. David telleth us here, when ' the bands of the wicked,' &c. ; that is, ' the congregations,' says the old translation, as decreeing an unjust sentence against him ; or ' bands,' says the new, as appointed to attack him ; or troops, when the wicked combined against him by troops. So the primitive Christians ' suffered the spoiling of their goods,' Heb, x. 34 ; the Jews endeavoured to make them poor and miserable, that they might forsake their Christianity. But we must, with Joseph, leave our coat to keep our conscience ; and these trials, in short, should be but the exercise of our patience and hope, and we should be provoked to do nothing but what best becometh God's servants.
3. That we should not forsake our duty to God for temporal losses.
[1.] We entered upon the profession of Christianity on these terms : Mat. xvi. 24, ' If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.' Life, wealth, and honours must be forsaken : Luke xiv. 26, ' If any man come to me, and hate not bis father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' Only relations and life are there mentioned, goods are not ; but afterwards, ver. 33, ' He that forsaketh not all he hath,' voto et prcpparatione animi. Yet Christ may permit some to break through at a cheaper rate, but all must resolve on it, prepare for such a temptation. God hath not ex- cepted it out of his covenant and dispensations ; he may when he pleases suffer a righteous man to be stripped to the skin, therefore we must not except it out of our resignation. The wise merchant ' sold all,' Mat. xiii. 45, 46. When a man cometh to accept of Christ, there is a competition. Without this —
(1.) No true faith. True faith includes in it an election and choice or esteem and valuation of Christ, not only as good, but as more excel- lent, more necessary for us, more beneficial to us than all other things. It is prcelatio unius rei prm altera, a preference of Christ above other
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things : Phil. iii. 7-9, ' I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,' &c. Christ is apprehended as more necessary for the soul ; it cometh to him under an apprehension of a deep want, and with a broken-hearted sense of misery ; we are undone without him. We are not so though we want or lose the world ; God can repair us here, w'ill at last save us without these things : Luke x. 42, * But one thing is needful.' Christ is esteemed more excellent ; the rarest comforts of the world are but base things to his grace, but dung and dross in comparison ; not only uncertain, but vain and empty as to any real good : Job xxvii. 8, ' For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he has gained, when God taketh away his soul ? ' Christ is more beneficial to a poor sinner ; in him alone true happiness is to be found ; therefore we must suffer anything rather than offend our Saviour : Kom. viii. 39, ' No creature is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'
(2.) No true love. Religion without self-denial in one kind or an- other is Christianity of our own making, not of Christ's. We cull out the easy safe part of religion, and then we call this love to God and love to Christ. No ; the true Christian love is to love God above all. Now, one branch of loving God above all is to part with things near and dear to us when God calleth us so to do. We must be con- tented to be crucified to the world with our Lord and Master : Mat. X. 37, ' He that loveth father, or mother, or son, or daughter, more that me, is not w^orthy of me.' An underling love Christ will not like or accept.
[2.] On this condition we possess and enjoy the good things of this world, namely, to part with them when God calleth us thereunto. We are not absolute owners, but tenants at will : Haggai ii. 8, ' The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.' The absolute disposal of the riches and wealth of the world belongeth unto God, who hath all these things, with the power to dispose of them as he pleaseth. Therefore he is to be eyed, acknowledged, and submitted unto in the ordering of our lot and portion : Hoseaii. 9, ' I will return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.' God still retaineth the dominion of the creatures in his own hand, and we have but the stewardship and dispensation of them : he will give and he will take away at his own pleasure. They are de- posited in our hands as a trust, for which we are accountable ; there- fore, if God demand, there should be an act of voluntary submission and subjection on our part. If we enjoy them as our own, by an original right exclusive of God, we are usurpers but not just possessors. We have indeed a subordinate right to prevent the encroachment of our fellow-creatures, but that is but such a right as a man hath in a trust, or a servant to his working tools. Surely God may dispose of his own as he will. If we give it for God's glory, or lay out our wealth in his service, God's right must be owned : 1 Chron. xxix. 14. ' For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given tliee.' If God take it away by immediate providence, it was his own : Job i. 21, ' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.' If by men, if we lose anything for God, it is his own that we lose.