3. What is your care? to be great or good ? Which way doth your ambition run ? To excel in grace, or to grow great in the world ? Wbat would you ask of God if you were put to Solomon's choice ? Wisdom or riches ? Or, in your daily prayers, what do you beg of God every day ? Lord, for outward things do with me what thou wilt, but keep me from sin, let me be anything rather than a sinful creature? As David, in Ps. cxli. 4, ' Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with them that work iniquity, and let me not eat of their dainties.' As if he should say, Ah, Lord ! for dainties I do not desire to taste of them at such a rate, but keep me from sin. Do you refer yourselves to God for other things, but are constant and earnest every morning to be kept from sin ? Good you would be, but you are content to be high or low, as God shall cast you. No matter how mean you be, so you may enjoy his favour, peace of conscience, and live under the guidance of his Spirit.
4. What do you most watch against, strive against, and pray against? Sin or trouble ? A man is not to bring trouble upon himself ; no, he
VeR. 26.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL 459
is to keep it off by lawful means. But what is your maia care ? that you may avoid trouble or sin ? Is this your business, that you may not dishonour God in any condition ? It is no matter what becomes of you else, so you may be obedient, you refer that to God.
5. How do you make use of Christ ? to save you from trouble, sorrow, sickness, or from sin ? The great thing Christ came to save us from was sin : Mat. i. 21, ' Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.' Now how would you make use of him ? to save you only from the evil after sin, or the evil of sin ? A true broken heart is not only troubled for the guilt of sin, but for the power of it. They would not only be saved from hell and the horrors of a wounded conscience, but would be freed from the tyranny of sin ; they would have sin subdued as well as pardoned, and not only be eased from the smart of it. Therefore the prophet admires God upon this account, both for the pardoning and suljduing of sin : Micah vii. 18, 19,' Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniq uity ? . . . He will subdue our iniquities, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea.' They w^ould fain be acquainted with mortification as well as pardon. A loose desire of happiness is but natural : John vi. 34, ' Lord, evermore give us this bread ! ' All would be happy.
6. What makes you most to desire heaven ? afflictions or sins ? A beast will forsake the place where it can find neither meat nor rest. And therefore to desire heaven only because it keeps off affliction and trouble, that may be but a natural act. Men usually make heaven a reserve and a retreat ; when they are beaten out of the world, they then fly to heaven. But now when we are troubled, we are here in this world conflicting with and complaining of sin, while others are glorifying God above, freed from all sin ; we groan for heaven not out of a burden of afflictions, but out of the longings of the new nature, we have had a taste of some beginnings of grace, and would fain have it perfected ; this discovers a right temper of spirit : Kom. vii. 23, ' We which have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption — to wit, the redemption of our bodies ;' when the corruptions we have here make us groan for heaven : Rom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ? '
SERMON LXI.
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. — Heb. xi.'26.
In the constellation of worthies represented in this chapter, Moses shineth forth as a star of the first magnitude, and his faith is commended to us for vanquishing all sorts of temptations. We are assaulted both on the right hand and on the left with the delights of sense and the terrors of sense : per hla.nda et aspera, by rough encounters, and by the softer
4.G0 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. LXI.
and more insinuating sort of temptations. But terrors could not break the constancy of bis resolution for God, nor delights pervert him, and detain him from God and his service. Not terrors. The account of his withstanding left-hand temptations you have, ver. 27, ' By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.' The wrath of Pharaoh could not affright him from his duty. Nor could delights pervert him. Now the rigbt-hand temptations, which are of the most pleasing sort, were not of one kind. Moses' trial was a compli- cated trial ; all things that might gain upon the heart of man were presented to him. That which is wont to entice men from God is either honours, pleasures, or riches. Any of these singly is enough to prevail with a heart disposed or biassed by a carnal inclination. But Closes was of another temper, he despised all these at once ; though Satan thought to detain and withhold bim from God by a threefold cord, yet it was too weak to hold him. Solomon tells us, Eccles. iv. 12, ' A threefold cord is not easily broken.' Yet still by faith he broke through ; this threefold cord was too weak to hold him from his duty. AVe are told, in 1 John ii. 16, 'All that is in the world is either the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, or the pride of life.' A world of temptation was let loose upon Moses at once. If honour would move liim, he was adopted and taken to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter; but he would not nibble at that bait, ver. 24. If pleasure would have moved him, he might have enjoyed the height and cream of it ia Pharaoh's court; whereas, in the course he took he could expect nothing but afflictions and tedious labours ; but yet this would not do either—' He chose rather to suffer affliction with the ])eople of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,' ver. 25. The third woildly interest was riches, and how he overcame this temptation is in this 26th ver. — ' Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.' In which words observe —