Imatges de pàgina
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Shall thy foul be required of thee: then whose fhall those things be which thon haft provided?] Luke 12.20. [So is he that layeth up riches for himself, and is not rich towards God,] ver. 21.

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Should next fhew you how it is that profperity thus defroyeth fools. Briefly, 1. By the pleafing of their fenfitive appetite and fancy, and fo overcoming the -power of reason. Perit omne jadicium cum res tranfit in affectum. Violent affections hearken not to reafon. The beaft is made too headftrong for the rider. Dent.32. 15. [Jefurun waxed fat and kicked then be for fook God that he made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his falvation.] 2. The friendship of the world is enmity to God and if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,

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Jam. 4. 4. 1 Joh. 2. 15. And undoubtedly the more amiable the world appears, the more rongly it doth allure the foul to love it. And to the profperous it appeareth in the most entifing drefs.

3. And hereby it taketh off the foul from God. We cannot love and ferve God and Mammon. The heart is gone another way when God fhould have it. It is fo full of love, and defire, and care, and pleasure about the creatures, that there is no room for God. How can they love him with all their hearts, that have let out thofe hearts to vanity before?

4. And the very noise and buffe of thefe worldly things, diverts their minds, and hindereth them from being ferious, and from that fober confideration that requireth fome retirement and vacancy from distracting objects.

5. And the fenfe of present eale

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and fweetness, doth make them forget the change that's near. Little do they think whats neceffary to comfort a departing foul, when they are in the heat of pride or luft, or taken up with their bufinefs and delights. In the midft of bravery and plenty, feafting and fporting, and fuch other entertainments of the fenfes, its hard to hold communion with God, and to ftudy the life to come in fuch a Colledge or Library as this. Profperity and pleasure make men drunk and the tickled fancy fports it felf in abufing the captivated mind. And these frisking Lambs, and fattened beafts, forget the flaughter: they think in Summer there will be no Winter; and their May will continue all the year. Little do they feel the piercing, griping,tearing thoughts, that at death or judgement must fucceed their fecurity and mirth

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O how hard do the beft men find it, in the midft of health and all profperity, to have fuch ferious lively thoughts of heaven, and of the change that death will shortly make, as they have in fickness and adverfity, when death feems near, and deluding things are vanished and gone! The words of God have not that force on a fleepy foul in the hour of profperity, as they have when diftrefs hath opened their cares. truths that now feem common, lifeless inconfiderable things, will then pierce deep, and divide between the joynts and marrow,and work as if they were not the fame that once were laughed at or dif regarded. Ecclef. 7. 2,3,4. It is better to go to the houfe of mourning, then to the house of feafting; (do you believe this?) for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is bet.

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ter then langhter: for by the fadnefs of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wife is in the bouse of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the honfe of mirth.] I befeech you take patiently your character and name here from the Word of God.

6. Moreover these fools are by profperity fo lifted up with pride, that God abhors them, and is as it were engaged to abafe them. For [The Lord will destroy the house of the proud,] Prov. 15.25. [Every one that is proud in beart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand joyn in hand, he sball not be unpunished, Prov. 16.5. [He fcattereth the proud in the imagination of their hearts: He hath put down the mighty from their feats, and exalted them of low degree: He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away,] Luk. 1. 51, 52, 53. [Îm

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