seem so grievous to you, and cast you into such vexations and discontents. If it did as much to your flesh, it could not reach the heart; and if all be sound and well within, it is no great matter how it is without. The very same kind of afflictions, whether it be poverty, sickness, slanders, or other wrongs, are as nothing to a man that is dead to the world, which seem intolerable to unmortified men. For the heart and soul of the unmortified are the seat and subject of them; when the mortified Christian hath a garrison within, and bolts the door, and keeps them from his heart. What great trouble will it be to any man to part with that which he doth not care for? especially while he keepeth that which hath his heart. It is no great trouble to a worldling to want the love of God, or communion with him, nor to be without the life of grace, nor to lie under the burden of the greatest sins, and to be the slave of the devil; because he is dead in sin, and dead to God, and the things of the Spirit, and therefore he perceiveth not the excellency of them, but is well content to live without them. And if spiritual death can make men so contented, without the great invaluable treasure, and can make men set light by God and glory; what wonder if they that are dead to the world do set as light by such inconsiderable vanities? And if the dead in sin can bear so easily the greatest misery that man on earth is ordinarily capable of, as the slavery of the devil, the guilt of sin, the curse of the law, the danger of damnation, &c. what wonder then if they that are crucified to the world can bear a little poverty, or sickness, or reproach? which is to the other, but as the prick of a pin, or the scratch of a thorn, to a deadly poison, or a stab at the very heart.

3. But yet this is not all. Your inordinate love of any thing in the world, will not only embitter your lives, but it will be the horror of your souls at death and judgment. And therefore as ever you would leave the world in peace, and as ever you would appear before the Lord before the Lord your Judge with comfort, and as ever you desire that the creatures should not be your tormentors, take heed that you do not overlove them now, but see that they be crucified to you. You cannot possibly be sensible now, what a pang of horror it will cast you into at the last, when you shall see the world leaving you, and see what it was that you ventured

your souls and their everlasting welfare for. O with what grief and tearing of heart do earthlyminded persons part with the world! When you are dying, that one thing that had your heart, will more torment your hearts to remember it, than all things else will do. Nothing is such a terror to the thoughts of a dying, covetous man, as his money, and lands, and worldly wealth. Nothing so vexeth the ambitious, as to think on that shadow of honour which he did pursue. Nothing doth so torment the filthy fornicator, as the remembrance of that person with whom he committed the beastly sin. All other persons or things in the world will not then be so bitter to you, as those that stole your hearts from God. But at judgment and in hell, the remembrance of them will be a thousandfold more bitter. And who would now prepare such misery for themselves, and glut themselves with that which they can no better digest or bear? What wise man would not rather be without the drunkard's cups, than be fain to spew it up again, and part with it with so much sickness and disgrace? And why should you desire to be drunk with the profits or pleasures of the world, when you know beforehand, with how much shame and trouble of conscience you must cast it up again at last?

4. But yet this is not the worst; but if you will needs live to the world, you must take it for your portion, and look not for any more. And therefore as ever you would not be deprived of your hopes of eternal life, and be put off with the earthly portion of the wicked, see that the world be crucified to you, and you to the world. How poor a portion is it that worldlings do possess! Even like Nebuchadnezzar, that had his portion with the beasts; Dan. iv. 15. How soon will all their portion be spent! and then they will feed with swine, yea, and be denied these very husks. For "they are set in slippery places, and are brought to desolation in a moment;" Psal. lxxiii. 18-20. O how much better a portion might you have had, if you had not refused or neglected it when you had your choice! Methinks in your greatest pleasures and abundance, it should astonish your souls to think, 'This is my portion, I shall have no more.' When you are past this life, and entering into eternity, then where is your portion? Alas, saith conscience, I have had it already! I cannot spend it and have it too!

You know what you have now; but what shall you have hereafter to all eternity? Your portion is almost spent already, and what will you do then? O then, to think that the eternal glory of the saints might have been yours, it was offered as freely to you as them, but you have lost it by preferring the world before it, and that after a thousand convictions of your folly. O what a cutting thought will this be! Luke xvi. 25. To remember that you chose your "good things in this life," will be a sad remembrance when all is gone. "The Lord is the portion of his saints' inheritance" (Psal. xvi. 5.), "even their portion for ever" (Psal. lxxiii. 26.), "their portion in the land of the living," (Psal. cxlii. 5.); and this was it that encouraged them to labour, patience, and hope; Psal. cxix. 52. Lam. iii. 24-26. But for the worldling, "The heaven shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him, the increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of wrath. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed to him by God;" Job xx. 37-39.

If you can be content with such a portion, make much of the world, and take your fleshly pleasures while you may. But if you hope for the everlasting portion of believers, away with the world, and crucify it without any more ado, and set your hearts on the portion you hope for.

Having said as much as is suitable to the other parts of this discourse, to persuade you to be willing to crucify the world, I shall next give some directions to those that are persuaded, and tell you by what means the work may be done. And I beseech you mark them, and resolve to practise them.

Direct. 1. Observe and practise the direction intimated in the text. 'It is the cross of Christ that must crucify the world to you.' It is thither therefore that you must repair for help. An infidel may fetch such weapons from reason and experience as shall wound the world, and diminish his esteem of it, and make it less delightful to him; but it is only the cross of Christ that can furnish us with those weapons that must pierce it to the very heart. Or if the unbeliever were deprived of all earthly delight, and brought into despair of ever receiving more comfort from the world (as it

is with many of them in some extremity, and with all at death), yet he himself is not crucified to the world. Though his delight in it be gone, yet his love to it is not gone. Though he be out of hope of ever having content in it, yet his desires after it are the same. If he call it vanity and vexation, as the believer doth, it is because it denieth him his desires. Not because he takes it heartily for an enemy, but for an unkind lover, that dealeth hardly with him that hath given it his heart. If he look upon it as dead, and unable to help him, yet doth he behold it as the carcase of a friend, with grief and lamentation. It is his greatest trouble that the world cannot give that which he would have. And therefore he is trying what it will do for them as long as he hath any hope. As the poor infants in Ireland lay sucking at the breasts of the corpse of their mothers, when the Irish papists had slain them, so will these poor worldlings still hang upon the world, even when they find that it cannot help them; and when it will scarce afford them a miserable life; but with much labour and suffering they hardly get a little food and clothing. So that their affections are still alive to the world, even when to their sorrow they look on the world as dead or almost dead to them.

But the cross of Christ will teach you to crucify the world in another manner. As Christ did voluntarily contemn it, and shew that he set so little by it, that he could be content to be the most despicable object upon earth, in the eyes of men, so will he teach you also voluntarily to contemn it; and set up yourselves as the butt, which all the arrows of malice and despite shall be shot at. So that though you have naturally a desire of the preservation of your lives, and from that may say, "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me," yet shall you have a far greater desire of pleasing, enjoying, and glorifying God, which shall cause you from a comparative judgment to say, "Yet not as I will, but as thou wilt." Much more shall you be enabled to despise the unnecessary matters of the world, and to mortify your inordinate and distempered affections. The cross of Christ will shew you reason (though such as the worldly wise call foolishness), even such reason as none but a teacher come from God could have revealed, for the leading up your affections from the world; and it will point you to the higher things that do deserve them. This cross is the truest ladder

by which you may ascend from earth to heaven. When in this wilderness, and as without the gate, you are lifted up: with Christ on the cross of worldly desertion and reproach, you are then in the highest road to glory, and if you faint not, shall be lifted up with him into the throne. "For if you suffer with him, ye shall also reign with him;" Rom. viii. 17. "And to him that overcometh he will grant to sit with him in his throne, even as he also overcame, and is set down with his Father in his throne;" Rev. iii. 21.

And as the cross of Christ is teaching, so also is it strengthening. As the touch of his garment staid the poor woman's issue of blood, so will a touch of the cross by faith even dry up the stream of your inordinate affections, that have run out after the world so long. When a worldling mourneth over the dead world, as having lost his chiefest friend, the cross of Christ will cause you to rejoice over it as a conquered enemy, and to insult over the carcase of its vainglory and delights. For it is one thing to have an angry God by providence to kill the world to us, and another thing to have a gracious Father by his Spirit to crucify us to the world, and the world to us, by the changing of our estimation and affections.

Set therefore a crucified Christ continually before the eye of your souls. See what he suffered for your adhering to the creature; and what it cost you to loose you from it, and bring up your souls again to God. Can you still wait upon the world, and entangle your affections in its painted allurements, when you consider that this is the very sin that killed your Saviour, and which the blood of his heart was shed to cure? Look up to that cross, and see the fruits of worldly love. If you see a man that hath surfeited on unwholesome fruits, lie groaning, and gasping, and trembling in pain, and at last must die for it, you will take heed of such a surfeit yourselves. It was we that took a surfeit of the creature, and the Lord that saw there was no other remedy to save our lives, did by a miracle of mercy and wisdom derive upon himself the pain and trouble, and groaned, and sweat, and bled, and died for our recovery. And will you feed and surfeit again upon the creature?

Look up to that cross of Christ, and see the enmity of the world unto your Head. And will you take it for your friend? See how it used him: and will you expect that