as thorns it vexeth when it promiseth felicity, and as thorns it choketh that word of truth, and as a reed it is shaken with every wind.

No backwardness of the judge, and no intercession of his wife, could rescue Christ from the malice of the Jews; but the more is said for him, the more they cry, "Crucify him." And as resolvedly must we persecute the world. No intercession of our flesh, or backwardness of carnal reason, must take us off; but we must be content with nothing but its crucifying.

When Pilate drew back, they knocked all dead with this malicious voice, John xix. 12. "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar." So must we quicken and provoke our reason by arguments drawn from our fidelity to Christ, and say, 'If we favour this world, we are not the friends of Christ; for whatsoever would make itself our king, and our felicity, and would steal away our hearts, is not Christ's friend.'

When Pilate saith, "Shall I crucify your king?" they cry out, "we have no king but Cæsar." And when the flesh or carnal reason saith, "Will you cast away your comforts, your peace, your happiness, your lives?' we must say, 'We have no comfort but Christ, no peace but Christ, no happiness, no life but what is in Christ.'

The world crucified Christ between two thieves. And we must crucify the world between two thieves; viz. the flesh on the one hand, and the devil on the other, which would both have robbed God and us; though through the power of a crucified Christ, the one of these, even the flesh, may be so refined as to be admitted into paradise.

The world writ over the head of Christ as the cause of his death, "King of the Jews." And we must write this over the crucified world, This is it that would have been our king, and god, and happiness: so let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.' We must pierce the very sides of it, and let out its heart-blood. We must nail its hands and feet, the very instruments or means by which it executed its deceits. We must give it the gall and vinegar of penitent tears, and threatened judgments. The world thus "despised and rejected Christ, making him a man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs; they hid their faces and esteemed him not.

He had no form or comeliness in their eyes, and when they saw him, there was no beauty that they should desire him;" Isa. liii. 2,3. So must we despise and reject the world, and hide our faces from it, and not esteem it, disdaining even to look upon its pomp and vanity, and to observe its gaudy alluring dress, or once to regard its enticing charms. We must think it all into a loathsome vanity, till there appear to us no form or comeliness in it, nor any beauty that we should desire it, and wonder what they can see in it that so far dote upon it, as to part with Christ and salvation to enjoy it. The world did even triumph over a crucified Christ, and shake their heads at him, and say, "He saved others, but himself he cannot save.' And we must triumph through Christ over the crucified world, and say, This is it that promised such great matters to its deceived followers; that men esteemed before God and glory; and now, as it cannot save them from the dust, or the wrath of God, so neither can it save itself from this contempt that Christ doth cast upon it. Cast down this idol out of your hearts, and say, If he be a god let him help himself.

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Lastly, The world when they had crucified Christ did bury him, and roll a stone on his sepulchre, and seal it and watch it with soldiers to secure him from rising again, if they could. And we must even bury the crucified world, and be buried to the world, and lay upon it those weighty considerations and resolutions, and seal thereto with sacramental obligations, and follow all this with persevering watchfulness, that may never permit it to revive and rise again.

And thus must we learn from the cross of Christ, how the world is to be crucified; as it used Christ, we must use it. For it is the whole course of Christ's humiliation that is meant here by his cross, the rest being denominated from the most eminent part; and therefore from the whole must we fetch our pattern and instructions, by the direction of the allegory in my text.

But it will not be unprofitable if we more particularly and orderly acquaint you with those acts, which the crucifying of the world to ourselves doth comprehend; overpassing those by which Christ did it for us on the cross, till anon in the due place.

1. The first act is, To esteem the world as an enemy to God and us, and so as a malefactor that deserveth to be crucified. And this must not be only by a speculative conception, but by a true, confirmed, practical judgment, which will set all the powers of the soul on work. It is the want of this that makes the world to live and reign in the hearts of so many, yea, even of thousands that think they have mortified it. A speculative book-knowledge that will only make a man talk, is taken instead of a practical knowledge. Almost every man will say, the world is a great enemy to God and us; but did they soundly and heartily esteem it to be such, they would use it as such. Never tell me that that man takes the world for his deadly enemy, who useth it as his dearest friend; enmity, and deadly enmity, will be seen. Here is no room to plead the command of loving our enemies; at least, no man can think that he must love it with a love of friendship, and therefore with no love but what is consistent with the hatred of a deadly enemy. This serious, deep apprehension of enmity is the very spring and poise of all our opposition. We cannot heartily fight with our friend, or seek his death. There must be some anger and falling out before we will make the first assault: and a settled enmity before we will make a deadly war of it. This apprehension of enmity consisteth in an apprehension of the hurtfulness of the world to us, and of the opposition it maketh against God and our salvation, and of the danger that we are in continually by reason of this opposition. So far as men conceive of the world as good for them, so far they take it for their friend, and love it. For no man can choose but love that which he seriously conceiveth to be good for him. This complacency is clean contrary to the Christian hostility. But when we conceive of it as that which we stand in continual danger of being everlastingly undone by, this will turn our hearts against it. It undoes men that they have not these apprehensions of the world, and that deeply fixed and habituated in their minds. For it is the apprehension or judgment of things that carrieth about the whole man, and setteth awork all the other faculties.

Quest. But what should we do to be habitually apprehensive that the world is our enemy?'

Answ. 1. You must be sure that you lay up your treasure in heaven: that you are so convinced by faith of the

glory to come, and of the true felicity that consisteth in the fruition of God, as that you take it for your portion, and make it your very end. And when once you have laid up your hopes in heaven, and see that there or nowhere you must be happy, this will presently teach you to judge of all things else, as they either help or hinder the attainment of that end. For it is the nature of the end to put a due estimate upon all things else: and it is the property of the chief good, to denominate all other things either good or evil, and that in a greater or lesser measure, according as they respect that chiefest good. For there can be no goodness in any thing else, but the goodness of a means; and the means is so far good, as it is apt and useful for the attainment of the end. If once therefore you unfeignedly take God and glory for your end and felicity, you will presently fall upon inquiry and observation, what it is that the world will do to help or hinder that felicity.

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2. And then you need but one thing more to the discovery of the enmity; and that is, the constant experience of your souls. A real living Christian doth live for God, and is upon the motion to his eternal home; there is his heart, and that way his affections daily work: when he findeth his soul down, he windeth it up again, and straineth the spring of faith and love. And therefore his life and business being for heaven, he cannot but be sensible of the rubs that are in his way, and take notice of those things that would stop him in this course. Whereupon he must needs find by constant experience that the world is that great impediment, and so must be apprehensive of the enmity of the world. For as he that loveth God and waiteth for the sight of his glory, must needs take all that to be against him, and naught for him, that would keep him from God, and deprive him of that beatifical vision; so he that knoweth what it is to love God, must needs know by constant, sad experience, that the world is the great withdrawer or hinderer of that love. When he sets himself in any holy employment to mount his soul into a more heavenly frame, and to get a little nearer God, he feeleth himself too much entangled with inferior objects; these are the weight that presseth down, and the water that quencheth the sacred flames; and were it not for these, O how much higher might our souls attain, and how much freer might we be for God? For it is a thing most

certain by our constant experience, that the more of the world is upon our hearts, the less there is of God; and the more of God, the less of the world. So that these two means alone, the sincere intending of God and glory as our end, and daily observation of our own hearts, will easily convince us that the world is our great enemy. And when we thoroughly apprehend it to be our enemy, we have begun to crucify it.

3. The next act by which the world is crucified, is, a deep, habituated apprehension of its unworthiness and insufficiency. As the opposing world must be taken for an enemy, so the promising, alluring world must be taken, as it is, for an empty thing. The life and reign of the world in the unsanctified, lieth first in their too high estimation of it. They think of it as good, and good to them, and as a matter of some considerable worth; and though they will say with their tongues that heaven is better, yet all things considered, they take the world to be more suitable to them, and therefore they desire it more. For heaven is out of sight, and beyond their apprehension and affection, and as they imagine, it is not so certain as the things which they see, and feel, and possess. And therefore they resolve to grasp as much of the creature as they can, and take that which they can get in hand, and then if there be a heaven, they hope they may have their part in it, as well as others. But saving illumination doth put men into another mind. It makes them see, that the invisible things are of greater certainty than the visible, and that a promise without possession, is better security than possession without a promise; and that for the worth and goodness between eternal things and temporal, there can be no comparison. If the world would have been content to have kept its place, and to have borrowed all its honour and esteem from God and glory, as the end for which it must be used and regarded, it might then have had the honour of being serviceable to our salvation, and to our Master's work. But seeing it will needs be a competitor with heaven, it thereby disrobeth itself of its glory, and becometh a vile, contemptible thing : and so must it be esteemed by all the friends of God. A sound believer looks on the world, as the world looked on Christ when he hanged on the cross, not only as a malefactor but as a contemptible thing. And as the world esteemeth