April 13

Will thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; and fly away as an eagle toward heaven.—Proverbs 23:5.

MAN is by nature a provident creature, apt to lay up for the time to come. And that disposition should reach beyond the forecast of the fool in the Gospel, "for many years," even for immortality itself. For certainly there is no man who hath but the general notions of corrupted reason alive within him; who hath not his conscience quite vitiated, and his mind putrefied with noisome lusts; who is not wrapped up in the mud of thick ignorance, and palpable stupidity; but must of necessity have oftentimes the immediate representation of immortality before his eyes. Let.

him never so much smother and suppress the truth; let him with all the art he can, divert his conceits, and entangle his thoughts in secular cares; let him shut his eyelids as close as his nail is to his flesh; yet the flashes of immortality are of so penetrative and searching a nature, that they will undoubtedly get through all the obstacles which a mind, not wholly overdaubed with worldliness and ignorance, can put between. Therefore the apostle useth that for a strong argument, why rich men should not trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, and should be rich in good works; "That so," saith he, "they may lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." Wicked men indeed lay up in store: but it is not riches, but wrath, even violence and oppression against the last day. But by trusting God, and doing good, a man lays up "durable riches," as the wise man speaks; in which respect he presently adds, that "The fruit of wisdom is better than gold." For though gold be of all metals the most solid, and therefore least subject to decay, yet it is not immortal and durable riches; for the apostle tells us, that silver and gold are "corruptible things," and that there is a "rust and canker" which eateth up the gold and silver of wicked men. I confess, the hearts of many men are so glued unto the world, especially when they find all things succeed prosperously with them, that they are apt enough to set up their rest, and to conceit a kind of steadfastness in the things they possess. "Because they have no changes," saith the prophet David, "therefore they fear not God." But yet I say, where the Lord doth not wholly give a man over to heap up treasures unto the last day, to be eaten up with the canker of his own wealth,—the soul must of necessity some time or other, happen upon such sad thoughts as these: "What ails my foolish heart thus to eat up itself with care, and to rob mine eyes of their beloved sleep for such things, as to the which, the time will come, when I must bid an everlasting farewell? Am I not a poor mortal creature, brother to the worms, sister to the dust? Do I not carry about me a soul full of corruptions, a skin full of diseases? Is not my breath in my nostrils, where there is room enough for it to go out, and possibly never to come in again? Is my flesh of brass, or my bones of iron, that I should think to hold out, and without interruption to enjoy these earthly things? Or if they were, yet are not the creatures themselves subject to period and mortality? Is there not a moth in my richest garments, a worm in my tallest cedars, a canker and rust in my firmest gold, to corrupt and eat it out? Or if not, will there not come a day, when the whole frame of nature shall be set on fire, and the elements themselves shall melt with heat? when that universal flame shall devour all the bags, and lands, and offices, and honors, and treasures, and storehouses of worldly men? when Heaven and Hell shall divide the world: Heaven, into which nothing can be admitted which is capable of moth or rust to corrupt it; and Hell, into which, if any such things should come, they would undoubtedly in one instant be swallowed up in those violent and unextinguishable flames? And shall I be so foolish as to put my felicity in that which will fail me, when I shall stand in greatest need; to heap up treasures in a broken bag; to work in the fire where all must perish?" Certainly the soul of a mere worldly man, who can not find God or Christ in the things he enjoys, must of necessity be so far from reaping solid or constant comfort from any of these perishable creatures, that it cannot but ache and tremble, but be wholly surprised with dismal passions, with horrid pre-apprehensions of its own woful state, upon the evidence of the creature's mortality, and the unavoidable flashes and conviction of its own everlastingness.

"Vain are all terrestrial pleasures; Mix'd with dross the purest gold, Seek we then for heavenly treasures,— Treasures never waxing old. Let our best affections centre On the things around the throne: There no thief can ever enter; Moth and rust are there unknown."