not in them as any of your felicity. They are baits to entice your hearts from God. But rather rejoice that you have a building not made with hands eternal in the heavens, and that you can be contented till you come thither with any thing in the way, and make shift with inconveniencies for a little while. Heaven wants no furniture, nor hath any incumbrances nor inconveniencies. If a winding sheet and coffin be room enough when we are dead, we can endure sure to be somewhat straitened while we are alive, seeing we are dead to the world while we live in it. O what is the most sumptuous palace to the meanest room in our Father's house? The green and flourishing earth in summer, covered with the more glorious spangled firmament, is a goodly structure; but far short of that which the poorest saint shall have with God.

4. Have you comeliness of body? Have you beauty or strength? Glory not in it. It is but warm, well-coloured earth. The smallpox or other sickness can quickly turn your beauty to deformity. If age do not wrinkle it, death will dissolve it. The comeliest and strongest body will shortly be as homely and loathsome a thing as the dirt in the streets, and as the carrion in a ditch. The stoutest youth and the neatest dame must come to this; there is no remedy. And is such a body a thing to be gloried in? No: but glory rather in your assurance of a resurrection; when your mortal bodies shall put on immortality, and your corruptible incorruption, and death shall be swallowed up in victory; and when you shall shine as stars in the firmament of your Father, and be subject to heat and cold, hunger, thirst, and weariness no more: and that in the mean time you can tame this flesh, and use it as a servant, and instead of caring for its inordinate provision, can lay out your care for a more during substance.

5. Have you comely apparel for the adorning of your bodies? Glory not in it. This is so childish that it is below a man, and therefore so sinful as to be unbeseeming a Christian. The emptiest person may have the best attire. It is not the outside that shews your worth. The philosopher asks the question, Why women are more addicted to look after neat attire? and he answereth, Because nature is conscious of their want of inward worth, it seeks to make up with somewhat that is borrowed. It may make a man

it

suspect that somewhat is amiss within, when there needs all this ado without. They are not always the best horses that have the neatest trappings. A fool may be as bravely drest as a wise man: and few but fools and children do admire you, or think you ever the better; but many a one will envy you, and many take you to be the worse. A graceless soul will be but sorrily covered with neat attire. And whatever you hang without, we all know that there is dung and filth within. Paul's shop hath comelier ornaments than these. "Let women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but, which becometh women professing godliness, with good works; learning in silence with all subjection;" 1 Tim. ii. 9. Glory in the whole raiment of the saints, even the righteousness of Christ, lest when you go naked out of the world as you came naked in, your souls should be found naked before a holy, jealous God.

6. Have you health of body, and feel no sickness? Glory not in it. It will last you but a while. Your oil will be spent ere long, and your candle will go out: you must know what pains and death are as well as others. A little cold, or heat, or a thousand accidents may quickly change the case with you. Many that were young and lusty go to their graves, when some that were more likely to have gone before them are left behind: but first or last we must all away. Rather glory in a healthful frame of soul, that Christ hath cured you of your worldliness and pride, of your selfseeking, and passion, and fleshly lusts: for this will be a more durable health than the other.

Are you descended of

Glory not in it. We There is as good blood This is but a remnant

7. Have you nobility of birth? worshipful or honourable ancestors? are all made of one common earth. in the veins of a beggar as of a lord. of your ancestor's honour. Perhaps the favour of some great men might bestow it on them at first without desert; or it might be the consequent of a little riches, though ill got. However the merit descendeth not to you; and therefore it is little honour that comes that way. That is your chief honour which is most your own, and least borrowed from others. The deserving son of a beggar is more truly honourable than the undeserving son of a lord. Glory rather that you are born again, not of the flesh, but of the Spirit;

not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; the word of God that endureth for ever. Your first birth, how noble soever, makes you but children of wrath, and slaves of satan. But your new birth is the truly honourable birth, which makes you partakers of the Divine nature, the sons of God, the heirs of heaven, and co-heirs with the Lord Jesus. 1 Pet. i. 23. John iii. 6. i. 12. Rom. viii. 17.

8. Have you friends that love you, and are able to countenance you, and are daily tender of you, and helpful to you? Bless God for them; but glory not in man: for "Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and withdraweth his heart from the Lord;" Jer. xvii. 5. "Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Isa. ii. 22. Your best friends are uncertain, and quickly lost, and may turn so unkind as to break your hearts. Or if their minds prove constant, their lives are uncertain; and the dearer they were to you, with the greater grief will you lay them in the grave. Or if you fall yourselves into sickness, they will prove but silly comforts to you: they can but look on you, and be sorry for you; but that will not ease your pain, nor succour you. O how much more cause have you to glory in such a friend as Christ, that will save you from sin, and wrath, and hell! In such a friend as God Almighty, that can rebuke your diseases by a word, or make them tend to the cure of your souls; and that will stick to you when others leave you; with whom you must dwell in heaven for ever!

9. Have you the pleasantest meats or drinks that your appetite desires? the easiest lodgings? the easiest lives? the pleasantest recreations or companions? Glory not in thein. These are the most desperate bait of the devil, and the common ruin of the world. To take your fill, and please your flesh, and fit your lives to its desires, is the very way to hell, and the property of the slaves of satan. Your sweetmeat will have sour sauce. "If you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live;" Rom. viii. 13. You know what became of him, Luke xvi. that " was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared deliciously every day." It is a heavy case to have your portion and all your good things in this life. Rejoice rather that you have conquered the desires of your flesh, and have brought it into subjection; that you are masters of your appetites, and can eat and drink to the

glory of God, and that you can deny your ease, and endure hardness as a soldier of Christ; that you have more pleasant recreations in the ways of life, and sweeter comforts than the flesh can have any: and that you have delights that are more durable, and meat to eat that others know not of. Rejoice that you have conquered the flesh your greatest enemy, and so have escaped the greatest danger. For there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Rom. viii. 1.

10. Have you the love of your neighbours, and do all men speak well of you? Glory not in it as any of your felicity; for it will be woe to many that are as well spoken of as you. The world is not so wise nor so good, that a man should much rejoice in its good word.

Are they learned men that extol you? Yet do not glory in it. They may boast you into pride and hell, but they cannot add one cubit to the stature of your worth. They see not the state of your soul; and therefore you may be miserable when they have said their best.

Are they godly men that admire you and speak well of you? Yet glory not in it as any certain evidence of your felicity. They speak as they think, and may easily be deceived. They are not your judges. As their hard thoughts cannot condemn you, so their good thoughts or words cannot justify you with God. O glory rather in God's approbation, who knows the heart; to whose judgment it is that you stand or fall, who judgeth not by outward appearance, but in righteousness. If he say, "Well done good and faithful servant," his words will be life to you; but a thousand others may say so, and do you no good at all, but hurt. 11. Are you famous for learning? and have you great parts in knowledge and utterance? Glory not in it as any of your felicity, or evidence thereof. There are more learned men than you in hell. The greatest knowledge of common things hath much sorrow, and sheweth you so much of your ignorance, and what is yet beyond your reach, that it disquiets you the more. Much more may you glory that you know Christ crucified, and that you know your interest in the love of God, and can love him whom you know, without which all your knowledge would make you as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Of all these together, I may say, "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Let not the wise man

glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exerciseth loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness;" Jer. ix. 23, 24.

12. Have you spiritual mercies as well as corporal? Take heed in what respect you glory in them. For example, (1.) Have you abundant and excellent means of grace? Have you ministers, and holy ordinances, and Christian communion in the purest order? Glory in them as God's mercies and helps to higher things: but not as your felicity, or a certain evidence of it. For many are first in these respects, that will be last in respect of life eternal. The greatest fall is from the highest mercies and many that had the chiefest place in the church, will have the sorest place in hell.

(2.) Have you much understanding in the doctrine of the Gospel? and are you eminent teachers of it to others? Glory in it as an opportunity of serving the Lord, and doing and getting good; but not as a certain evidence of a good estate. For many shall say, "Lord, have we not preached in thy name?" whom Christ will not own, because they were "workers of iniquity;" Matt. vii. 22. And " he that knoweth his Master's will, and doth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes;" Luke xii. 47. But if your love and obedience be answerable to your knowledge, glory rather in that.

(3.) Have you done many works of mercy to others? Have you given all you have to the poor? Have you converted many souls? Are you public mercies to the place where you live? Give God the glory of so great a mercy. But take heed of giving the glory to yourselves. And take not the outward works alone, so much as for certain evidences of your happiness.

(4.) Have you extraordinary experiences of mercy, and extraordinary feelings of comfort in yourselves? Rejoice in them as God's mercy; and give him the glory. But remember that these are no certain evidences of your safe condition. Many have been wonderfully saved from death, that will not be saved from hell. And many large comforts have ended in eternal sorrows.

(5.) Have you a living faith, and a soul abounding in the love of God, and emptied of self in Christian humility, and exercised in holy walkings, and conflicts for Christ, and Jooking with hope to the joy that is set before you? What