and heaven. If you choose earth expect no more. hereafter remember that you had your choice.

And

10. To make short of the rest of the aggravation of your sin, and sum it up in a word: Your love of the world is the sum of all iniquity. It virtually or actually containeth in it the breach of every command in the decalogue. The first commandment, which is the foundation of the law, and espe cially of the first table, is broken by it, while you make it your idol, and give it the esteem, and love, and service that is due to God. The second, third, and fourth commandments it disposeth you to break. While your hearts and ends are carnal and worldly, the manner of your service will be so, and you will suit your religion to the will of men, and your carnal interest, and not to the will and word of God. The name and holy nature of God is habitually contemned by you, while you set more by your worldly matters than by him. His holy days you ordinarily violate, and his ordinances you do hypocritically abuse, while your hearts are upon your covetousness or sensual delights; and are far from him while you draw near him with your lips. Worldliness will make you even break the bonds of natural obligations, and be unthankful to your own parents, disobedient to your, superiors, unfaithful to your equals, and unmerciful to your inferiors. There is no trusting a worldling, he will sell his friend for money. He careth not to wrong your life, your chastity, estate, and name, for his lustful, ambitious, and covetous desires. For he directly breaketh the tenth commandment, which is the sum of the second table, requiring us to regard the welfare of our neighbour, and not to maintain a private, selfish interest against it. So true is that of Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 10., "The love of money is the root of all evil.” As adhering to God is the sum of all duty and spiritual goodness, so adhering to the creature instead of God, is the sum of all wickedness and disobedience.

And seeing all this is so, I require you here in the name of God, to cast out this wickedness, and cherish it no longer. Bring forth that traitor that hath dethroned God in your hearts, and exalted itself, and let it die the death. It subverteth commonwealths, and all societies; it causeth perjury, perfidiousness, and sedition; it raiseth wars, and sets the world together by the ears; it overturneth all right order, and strikes at the heart of morality itself, and would make

every man a wolf or tiger to his brother. It is a murderer of your own souls; and the cause of cruelty both to the souls and bodies of others. It is a liar that promiseth what it cannot perform. It is a cheater that would deceive you of your everlasting happiness; and entice you into hell, by pretences of furthering your profits and contents. It causeth parents to neglect the souls of their children, and children to wish the death of their parents, or be weary of them, or disregard them; and causeth lawsuits and contentions between brother and brother, and neighbour and neighbour; and fills the heart with rancour and malice; and turneth families and kingdoms into confusion. It maketh people hate their teachers, and too many ministers to neglect their flocks. It adulterously seeketh to vitiate the spouse of Christ, and take up the heart which was reserved for himself. It robbeth him of his honour, of our affections, and obedience; and sacrilegiously defaceth the temple of the Holy Ghost. It will not allow God one free thought, nor full affection of your heart, nor one hour entirely improved for his honour.

This is the world: and thus it is used by sensual men. Judge now whether it deserve not to die the death, and to be cast out of your souls; and whether we have not reason to say, "Crucify it, crucify it?" Ask me no more what evil it hath done! You see it is such an enemy to the God. of heaven, that if you cherish it, and let it live in your hearts, you are not friends to Christ or your salvation. Away with it then without any more ado; and use it as the world did use your Lord; and as it nailed him on the cross, so go to his cross for a nail to fasten it, and for strength to crucify it, that you may be victors and super-victors through him that loved you, and overcame the world for you. Choose not to be slaves, when you may be freemen and triumphers. Take warning by all that have gone before you. Serve not a master that casteth off all his servants in distress, and leaveth them all in fruitless complaints of its unprofitableness! Think not to speed well where never man sped well before you; nor to find content where none have found it. If all the world's followers complain of it at the parting, take warning by them, and foresee the end. Find out one man that ever was made happy by the world (in a true and durable happiness), before you venture your own hopes and hap

piness in such hands. Put not yourselves and all that you have in such a leaking vessel that never yet brought man safe to shore. Will neither the experience of your own lives, nor the experience of all the world before you, delivered in the history of so many thousand years, be a sufficient warning to you to avoid the snare? What will you take then for a sufficient warning? Were not reason captivated, one would think that a walk into a churchyard might satisfy you. The sight of a grave or a dead body should kill and disgrace the world in your eyes. Do you see where you must lie, and what that flesh which you so regard must be turned to, and what is the most that can be expected from the world, and in how poor and despicable a case it will then leave you? and yet will you dote upon it, and neglect and lose the life everlasting for it? Will you be wilfully seduced by the vain-glory and ostentation of blinded worldlings, when you are certain beforehand that they will not be long of the mind themselves, that now they are? Name me one man if you can, that rejoiceth in his worldly prosperity now, and speaketh well of it, who rejoiced in it, and spoke well of it two hundred years ago! It is a child indeed that would have a house builded by every fine flower that he seeth in his way, and forgetteth his home, his friends, and his inheritance! when it is two to one but the flower will be withered before his house be finished, and the pleasure will not answer the trouble and cost. Indeed, if the world were a better place, than that which we are going to, I could not then blame any to desire to keep it as long as they can. And yet if it were so, the certainty of our removal should make us less regard it, and look more to the place where we must evermore remain. Much more when our home doth exceed this world in worth, as much as in continuance. It is folly enough to set a man's heart upon the fairest inn that is in his way; but to prefer a swine-sty before a palace where his father dwells, and his inheritance doth lie, is somewhat worse than mere folly; and it is meet that such be used according to their choice. It is meet indeed that we be patient in our wilderness, and murmur not at God for the sufferings that it casteth us upon. But to love it better than the promised land, and to think or speak hardly of our happiness itself, and those that would lead us to it, this is unreasonable. The Israelites were never

so foolish as to build cities in the wilderness, as desiring to make them their fixed habitations; but contented themselves with moveable tents. What a curse were it if God should put you off with earth, and give you no other treasure and felicity, but what it can afford? You might well then look on your inheritance as Hiram did on his twenty cities in Galilee (1 Kings ix. 11, 12.), and disliking it, call it the Land of Cabul. It is the description of miserable wicked men to have their portion in this life; Psal. xvii. 14. Suppose you had the most that you can expect in the world; would you be contented with this as your portion? What is it that you would have, and which you make such a stir for? Would you have larger possessions, more delightful dwellings, repute with men, the satisfying of your lusts? &c. Dare you take all this for your portion, if you had it? had it? you quit your hopes of the life to come for such a portion? You dare not say so, nor do it expressly, though you do it impliedly and in effect. O do not that which is so horrid, that your own hearts dare not own without trembling and astonishment!

Dare

I pray you tell me; do you think that a sufficient portion which the devil himself would give you, if he could, or is willing you should have? He is content that you enjoy your lusts and pleasures; he is willing to let you have the honours and fulness of the world, while you are on earth. He knows that he can this way best deal with your consciences, and please you in his service, and quiet you awhile, till he hath you where he would have you. He that told Christ of all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, would doubtless have given him them, if it had been in his power, to have obtained his desire. Though you think it too dear to part with your wealth or pleasures for heaven, and to be at the labour of a holy life to obtain it; the devil would not think it too dear to give you all England, nor all the world, if it were in his power, that thereby he might keep you out of heaven; and he is willing night and day, to go about such kind of work, that may but attain his ends in devouring you. If he were able, he would make you all kings, so that he could but keep you thereby from the heavenly kingdom. Alas, he that tempteth you to set light by heaven, and prefer this world before it, doth better know himself to his sorrow, the worth of that everlasting

glory which he would deprive you of, and the vanity of that which he thrusteth into your hands. As our merchants that trade with the silly Indians, when they have persuaded them to take glass, and pieces of broken iron, and brass, and knives, for gold or merchandize of great value, they do but laugh at their folly when they have deceived them, and say, 'What silly fools be these to make such an exchange :' For the merchants know the worth of things, which the Indians do not. And so is it between the deceiver of souls, and the souls that he deceiveth. When he hath got you to exchange the love of God and the crown of glory, for a little earthly dung and lust; he knows that he hath made fools of you, and undone you by it for ever.

Do you not think yourselves, that it is abominable madness in those witches that make a covenant with the devil, and sell their souls to him for ever, on condition they may have their wills for a time? I know you will say it is abominable folly. And yet most in the world do in effect the very same. God hath assured them that they must forsake him or the world, and that they must not love the world if they would have his love; nor look for a portion in this life if they will have any part in the inheritance of the saints: he offers them their choice, to take the pleasures of earth or heaven; and satan prevaileth with them to make choice of earth, though they are told by God himself, that they lose their salvation by it.

And here you may see what advantage satan gets, by playing his game in the dark, and doing his work by other hands, and keeping out of sight himself, and deceiving men by plausible pretences. Should he but appear himself in his own likeness, and offer poor worldlings to make such a match with them, how much would the most of you tremble at it, and abhor it. And yet now he doth the same thing in the dark, you greedily embrace it. If you should but see or hear him, desiring you to put your hands to such a covenant as this is, I do consent to part with the love of God, and all my hopes of salvation, so I may have my pleasures, and wealth, and honour till I die." Sure if you be not besides yourselves, you would not, you durst not put your hands to it. Why then will you now put both hand and heart to it; when he plays his game underboard, and implicitly by his temptations doth draw you to the same consent? What do