1. To terminate all the things of time and sense —
[Whatever we have here below, it is but of short duration : whether we are visited with comforts or afflictions, they are all both light and momentary, and therefore unworthy of any serious regard. Let any one look back upon his past life, and see how transient have been both his pleasures and his pains : they are all passed away like a dream ; and little remains of them but the bare remembrance that they once existed. Shall we then suffer our minds to be so affected with earthly vanities, as if they were to endure for ever? No ; we should sit loose to them, not elated by the enjoyment of them, nor depressed by their loss. This is what we are taught by infallible authority : " This I say, brethren," says the Apostle ; " the time is short : it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had none ; and they that weep, as though they wept not ; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy, as though they possessed not : and they that use this world, as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth aivaye."~\
2. To assign to each that portion which his pe- culiar case requires —
[The end for which God sends to us a diversity of dis- pensations is, that we may improve them all for the good of our souls. Our improvement of the various talents committed to us will be particularly inquired into, and form the ground of the sentence that shall be passed upon us. To pass that sentence, our Lord is just ready to come : and therefore the only thing which ought materially to affect us should be, not so much the quality of the dispensations, as the improvement that we make of them. Look, for instance, at the Rich Man and Lazarus : how little remains to them of the comforts or sorrows which they experienced on earth ! What is the rich man the better for all his sumptuous fare ; or the poor man the worse for all his penury and want? But the use which they made of their respective dispensations, that is now the only thing worth a thought. So it will soon be with us : the things which here appeared so important, will have altogether vanished away, and nothing will remain but responsibility for the improvement of them. I say then to all, " Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth :" and in the prospect of your Lord's second advent to judge the world, be moderate in relation to all present things, whether pleasing or afflictive f, and let it be your one concern to " be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless g." Let
• 1 Cor. vii. 29—31. f 1 Cor. iv. 3—5.
s 1 Pet. iv. 7. and 2 Pet. hi. 14.