without him efficiently considered; for so nothing can subsist without him, but without him objectively considered. "For God is not in all his thoughts;" (Psal. x. 4, 5.) and his judgments are far above, out of his sight. God looketh down upon the children of men, to see if there be any that will understand and seek after God; but they are gone aside, and are become filthy, and observe not him that observeth them;" Psal. xiv. 2,3. This is the case of poor worldlings, from the highest prince to the lowest beggar. A great deal of business they have in the world, some in seeking what they want, and others in holding and enjoying what they have; but they all live as without God in the world. “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you;" Psal. 1. 22. "For the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God;" ix. 17.

The other text that describeth the life of a mere natural man, is Psal. xxxix. 6. to which you may join Psal. Ixxiii. 20. The former saith, "Surely every man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted, or make a tumult and stir in vain." Though the brevity of life itself may be something here intended, yet that seemeth not to be all; but also the vanity of it, as it is a worldly life, and employed merely about transitory creatures. For even on earth our spiritual life of grace, and communion with God in Christ by the Spirit, is not vain. The word which we translate a 'vain show,' signifieth the image, or shadow, or appearance, or figure of a thing a thing that is nothing, or not the thing it seems to be, but the show of it; or as the prophet himself expoundeth it, a dream. Men do but seem to live, that live only on and to the creature; they do but seem to be rich, and have no other riches; and seem to have pleasure that have no higher pleasures; and seem to be honourable, that have but the honour that comes from man. A great stir they make in the world, to little purpose. They thrust themselves into tumults, and quarrel, and fight, and some are conquered, and others conquerors, and some lament, and others rejoice; some walk dejectedly, and others domineer; all is but a vain show, or thing of naught. It is but like children's games, where all is done in jest, and wise men account it not worthy their observance. It is but like the acting of a comedy, where great persons and actions are personated and

counterfeited; and a pompous stir there is for a while, to please the foolish spectators, that themselves may be pleased by their applause, and then they come down, and the sport is ended, and they are as they were. The life of a worldling is but like a puppet-play, where there is great doings to little purpose. Or like the busy gadding of the laborious ants, to gather together a little sticks and straw, which the spurn of a man's foot will soon disperse. Thus do all worldly, sensual men walk in a vain show. By separating the creature from God, they make it nothing; and then they study it, and dispute of it, and seek, and run, and labour for it, when they have in a sort annihilated it. I speak still of their objective separation in esse cognito-et volito:' for a real separation is impossible, but as a real annihilation may be so called. When they have separated the characters of the great book of nature from God, who is their sense, and made nothing of it, as to the form of a book, then do they fall a playing with it, who could not endure to learn on it. But when their Master comes to take an account of their learning, the play will be at an end, and the sorrow begins and then they must remember and feel that their book was given them to another use.

"As

And this seems to be the sense of that other text; a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, (or in awaking) thou shalt despise their image ;" Psal. lxxiii. 20. Though our translators apply it to God's awaking, that is, to judgment, yet many learned interpreters rather apply the word 'in awaking' to the sinner's awaking at judgment, out of the aforesaid dream of a sensual life. They do but labour, and care, and gather as in a dream; they fight, and conquer, and possess but as in a dream. They dream that they are rich, and honourable, and happy, and how proudly do they carry it out in this dream. One dreameth that he is a great man, and he is lifted up; another dreameth that he is poor and undone, and he is troubled; but when God awaketh the dreaming world, he will show them the vanity and despicableness of this image or shew that here they walked in. They shall see that, as in a game at chess, though one was imaginarily a king, and another a queen, yet it was but imaginary; and when the tedious game is ended, they have laboured hard to do nothing, and are all alike; so will it be with them. The meaning is not only that God himself

will despise this their show or imaginary employments and enjoyments; but that he will make them appear despicable to themselves and all the world.

Truly brethren, all that we have to do with the world in a separated sense, as without God, is such a game, a dream, a show. When scholars are thus studying their physics or metaphysics, or any thing of the creature, as separated from God, yea, or as not studying God in that creature, they are but playing the children and fools: they are like a printer that cannot read, (if there were such a man,) that studieth how to shape his letters, when he knoweth not what a letter meaneth. When they are disputing in the schools about God's works, in this separated sort, as without God, they are busily playing the idiots, and taking the name of God in vain, and making a learned stir about nothing.

And here, I pray you, mark the different successes of a sensual, and of a sanctified study and knowledge. The first sinner, by seeking to know and enjoy the creature in a separated sort, did lose God who was his all, and made the creature his all; and thereby, as to its signification and principal use, did to himself annihilate it. And in this path do all his posterity walk, till faith recover them; and this is their vain show, and their living without God in the world. But when faith hath opened a man's eyes, and shewed him God in every creature, who was hid from him before, then is the creature, who was before his all, annihilated to him in that separated sense, and God becomes his all again: and this annihilation of the creature, is indeed its restoration objectively to its primitive nature and use; and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now. So that sensual men, by making the creature an imaginary god, or chiefest good, or all, do make it indeed objectively become nothing; and so their all, their god, their felicity is nothing; and so all their life is a nothing. When as the faithful, by crucifying or annihilating the creature, as it would appear a felicity to us, or any good, as separated from God, do restore it to its true objective being and use, by returning to God, who is truly all, and in whom the creature is a derived imperfect something, and out of whom it is indeed a nothing.

I will further illustrate it by one other similitude. God gave the ceremonial law by Moses to the Israelites, to be an obscure Gospel, and to lead them unto Christ. The sacri

fices, and other typical ceremonies were the letters of the law, and Christ was the sense. The true believers thus understood and used them; but the carnal Jews looked only on the letter, and lost the sense: and thus separating the bare letter from the sense, that is, the legal works from Christ, they thought to be justified by those works, and by the law, in that separated sense. But the apostle Paul doth plead against this error, and tells them that Christ is the end of the law to all believers, and that he is the fulfilling of it; and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and that by the deeds of the law, in this separated sense, no flesh can be justified; and that the letter, separated from the sense of it, killeth; but Christ, by his Spirit, who is the sense of it, giveth life. If these Jews had taken and used the law as God intended it, and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter, and had understood that Christ was the very life, and end, and all of the law, Paul would never have cried down the law, nor justification by it, in this sense; that had been to cry down justification by Christ. But it was justification by the letter, or the law as separated from Christ, who was the meaning of it. So is it in our present case. The creature is the letter, and God the sense; and carnal men do understand only the letter of the creature, and fall in love with it: and thus God crieth down the world, and vilifieth, and speaketh contemptuously of the world: when as if it had not been for the separation, he would never have cried it down, nor spoken a hard word of it. As the law had never been so hardly spoken of, if the misunderstanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called vanity, and a lie, and nothing, and a dream, and that which is not bread, and that which profiteth not, a shadow, a deceiver, with abundance of the like contemptuous terms, if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God.

And thus I have shewed you in what respects the world must be crucified.

And let me add in the conclusion, as most necessary for your observation, that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the aforesaid abuse; and therefore when we have done all that we can in crucifying and sublimating it, we must never imagine that we can

make it so wholesome or harmless a thing, as that we may feed upon it without great caution and suspicion, or ever return to friendship with it again, till fire have refined it, and grace hath perfectly refined us. And yet this is not long of the creature without us, but of us and the tempter. The world is in itself good, as being the work of God; and it cannot be the proper, efficient, culpable cause of our sin: for it hath no sin in itself. (I mean the world, as distinct from the men of the world); and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin. But yet there is that in it, which is apt to be the matter of our temptation; and so apt, as that all that perish do perish by the world. As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity conjunct, who have each person his several office for our recovery; so there is no damnation but by the whole infernal trinity, the flesh, the world and the devil: even to innocent Adam the world must be the bait, and satan found somewhat in it, that made it apt for such an office, though nothing but what was very good. But now that the flesh is become the predominant part and power in us, as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it, the case is much worse, and the world is incomparably a more dangerous enemy than to Adam it could be. For though still the creature be good in itself, yet we are so bad, that the better the creature is, the worse it becomes to us: for we are naturally propense to it in its separated capacity, and all men till regeneration are fond of it as their felicity, and hug it as their dearest good, and sacrifice to it as their idol. So that an enemy it is, and an enemy it will be when we have done our best, as long as we are on earth. For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased by that which God forbiddeth, and there is a devil to offer us the bait, and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing, the world, which is the bait, will still be the matter and occasion of our danger. The consideration of this may cut the throat of licentious principles, and hence we may answer the most of their vain, pretended reasons, who, under the cloke of Christian liberty, would again indulge the flesh, and be reconciled to the world. But certainly it will never lay by its enmity till we lay by our flesh; and therefore there are no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more; but we must be killing it, and dying to it to the last.

Having thus shewed you in what respect the world must