4. To stir up supplication for special and peculiar grace, that it may not be so with us, that the Lord would keep us from the snares of our condition ; for ' with God all things are possible ; ' that we may go to God, and say, Lord, let not my estate be my bane and poison. On the one side, it is a great judgment that God brings upon wicked men when ' their table becomes their snare,' Ps. Ixix. 22, when their comforts are cursed to them, and Avhen their hearts are drawn from God by their plentiful condition in the world. On the other side, it is a peculiar grace and favour from God when we be heavenly-minded in the midst of plenty, and keep up lively spiritual exercises of godliness notwith- standing our opulency and plentiful condition in the world. Jehoshaphat is an instance to encourage you to pray for this : 2 Chron. xvii. 5, 6, it is said of him, 'He had riches and honour in abundance, and his lieart was lift up in the ways of the Lord.' Christians, it is hard to carry a full cup without spilling, to have riches and honour, and all this with great abundance, and yet to have a lively zeal towards God and a great delight in his ways. Now this is possible with God, and this God hath bestowed, and therefore it should be asked. There is nothing that quickens to prayer so much as a constant sense and appre- hension of the danger and difficulty which attends such an estate ; therefore this must ever be laid before you, that your thoughts may be steeped in this consideration.
Use 1. It serveth to check the desire of greatness and increase of wealth. If you had more your duty would be more, and your account greater, and your snares and temptations and stumbling-blocks in the way to heaven would be much more multiplied ; and therefore you
68 SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. [SeR. XII.
should be contented with what j^ou have. If we cannot thrive in the valleys, and keep up a lively and warm respect to the world to come in a low condition, how should we expect to grow on the tops of the mountains, where we are more exposed to tempests, and the soil is more barren ? therefore you should strive rather to give a good account of a little than to make it more. The Lord knoweth that if you were a step higher, you would be apt to be proud, licentious, secure, mindless of eternal life, further off from God, and then better you had lived in beggary all your days. The time will soon come about when you will judge so, and therefore do not enlarge your desires, as if you could never have enough.
Use 2. It teacheth us patience, not only in the want, but in the loss of outward riches. It is more irksome to lose than to want, as it was an unnatural thing for the sun to go back ten degrees in Ahaz's dial. Yet this is to be borne, for when God taketh away your wealth from you, he maketh your way to heaven more easy ; if God taketh away riches, he doth but take a bush of thorns out of the way that would prick and gore your souls. The world is apt to turn away your heart from true happiness, and to hinder you in the way that leadeth to it. Now God's grace is seen not only in fortifying the heart, but in abat- ing the temptation ; he seeth you are apt to sleep upon a carnal pillow, and therefore taketh it from under your heads to awaken you. If you believe the word of God, tliat riches and honours do easily prove a snai-e, why should you be grieved when the snare is broken ? Do you love to have your salvation hindered or hazarded ? and therefore why are you so impatient when God cuts you short in these outward things ?
Use 3. Let rich men think of this, and make application of this sentence to their own hearts, that they may possess their estates with fear. To this end, consider —
1. The person speaking is Christ, who had so much wisdom and love to the comfort and happiness of men, that he would not fright them with a needless danger. (See before on ver. 23.)
2. Whom it is spoken of; rich men, those that can live of themselves in the world without the supply of others. The disciples, that had little, cried out, ' Who then can be saved ? ' We fancy it is spoken only to the overgrown rich ; but they that have but one talent must improve it, and it is hard to do so. We must give an account of one talent as well as ten. The sensualist will turn this upon the covetous, and the covetous u])on the sensualist, the voluptuous gallant upon the cor- morants of the city, and they upon the epicures ; but Christ saith in- definitely, ' the rich.'
3. What is spoken of, entering into the kingdom of God, It is salvation and eternal life ; not a trifle. Christ doth not say, He shall do no worthy exploits in the world, or arrive at no great degree of grace, but. He shall not enter into the kingdom of God.