CHAP, XI.] HOW THE AFFECTIONS ARE CALLED FROM THE WORLD. 401
ministry of the gospel from all secular dignities and revenues; yea, some maintained that they were to enjoy nothing of their own, but were to live on alms or the free contributions of the people. But this was quickly condemned as heresy in Wycliffe and others. Yet another sort set up that would pretend thereunto as unto themselves, though they would not oblige all others unto the same rule. This produced some swarms of begging friars, whom they of the church, who were in possession of wealth and power, thought meet to laugh at and let alone. Of late years this contest is at an end. The clergy have happily gotten the victory, and esteem all due unto them that they can by any ways obtain; nor is there any greater crime than for a man to be otherwise minded. But these things are not our present concernment. From the beginning it was not so; and it is well if, in such a way, men are able to maintain the frame of mind inquired after, which is life and peace.
3. God continues to cast contempt on these things, by giving al- ‘ways incomparably the greatest portion of them unto the vilest men and his own avowed enemies. This was a temptation under the old covenant, but is highly instructive under the new. None will judge those things to be of real value which a wise man casts out daily unto swine, making little or no use of them in his family. Those monsters of men, Nero and Heliogabalus, had more interest in, and more power over, the things of this world than ever had the best of men ;—such villains in nature, so pernicious unto human society, that their not-being was the interest of mankind; but yet more of the world poured on them than they knew either how to enjoy, pos- sess, wse, or abuse. Look on all the principal treasures and powers of this world as in the hand of one of these monsters, and there dis- posed of by divine providence, and you may see at what rate God values them.
At this day, the greatest, most noble, wealthy, and fruitful parts of the earth are given unto the great Turk, with some other eastern potentates, either Mohammedans or Pagans, who are prepared for eternal destruction. And if we look nearer home, we may see in whose hands is the power of the chiefest nations of Europe, and unto what end it is used. The utmost of what some Christian professors among ourselves are intent and designing upon, as that which would render them wondrous happy, in their own apprehensions, put hun- _dreds of them together, and it would not answer the waste made by the forementioned beasts every day.
Doth not God proclaim herein that the things of this world ar not to be valued or esteemed? If they were so, and had a real worth in themselves, would the holy and righteous God make such a distribution of them? The most of those whom he loves, who enjoy
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402 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART IL.
his favour, not only have comparatively the meanest share of them, but are exercised with all the evils that the destitution and want of them can be accompanied withal. His open and avowed enemies, in the meantime, have more than they know what to do withal. Who would set his heart and affections on those things which God poureth into the bosoms of the vilest men, to be a snare unto them here and an aggravation of their condemnation for ever? It seems you may go and take the world, and take the curse, death and hell, along with it, but “what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” What can any man do on the consideration hereof, who will not forego all his hopes and expectations from God, but retreat unto the faith of things spiritual and eternal, as containing an excellency in them incomparably above all that he enjoyed here below?
4, He doth continue to give perpetual instances of their uncer- tainty and unsatisfactoriness, in the utter disappointment of men that have had expectations from them. The ways hereof are so vari- ous, and the instances so multiplied, as that most men in the world,— unless they are like the fool in the Gospel, who bade his soul take its ease for many years, because his barns were full,—live in perpetual fears and apprehensions that they shall speedily lose whatever they enjoy, or are under the power of stupid security. But as unto this consideration of them, there is such an account given by the wise man as unto which nothing can be added, or which no reason or ex- perience is able to contradict, Eccles, ii, By these and the like ways doth God cast contempt on all things here below, discovering the folly and falseness of the promises which the world makes use of to allure our affections unto itself. This, therefore, is to be laid as the foundation in all our considerations unto what or whom we shall cleave by our affections, that God hath not only declared the insuf- ficiency of these things to give us that rest and happiness which we seek after, but also poured contempt upon them, in his holy, wise disposal of them in the world.