A25241:67
Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…
Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of Jesus as carrying on the great work of mans salvation from first to last / by Isaac Ambrose ...
London: printed for Richard Chiswel, 1680
Book 1 › Chapter 2 › Section 2: An Exhortation to look off all other things.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Consider that all such things (if they are any thing) they are but trifles, deceits, thorns, miseries, uncertain things: this is an ordinary theme; it is every mans object, & every mans subject, & a very easy thing it is, to declaim up the vanity, misery, uncertainty of the creatures; Ay but do you make it the matter of your meditation, & be you serious in it, think of it deeply, and desire God to be in your thoughts! Oh what work will it then make in your breasts? O how would it wean your loves and desires off all these things! Christians! consider all these adjuncts of all sublunary things; when the creatures tempt you, be not enticed by the beauty of them, so as to forget their vanity; say, Here is a flower, fair, but fading; here is a glass that's bright, but very brittle.
2. Consider that all such things (if they are any thing) they are but trifles, deceits, thornes, miseries, uncertain things: this is an ordinary theme; it is every mans object, & every mans subject, & a very easie thing it is, to declaim up the vanity, misery, uncertainty of the creatures; Ay but do you make it the matter of your meditation, & be you serious in it, think of it deeply, and desire God to be in your thoughts! Oh what work will it then make in your breasts? O how would it wean your loves and desires off all these things! Christians! consider all these adjuncts of all sublunary things; when the creatures tempt you, be not inticed by the beauty of them, so as to forget their vanity; say, Here is a flower, faire, but fading; here is a glass that's bright, but very brittle.
3. Consider the difference of these objects, Christ, and all other things; as thus, all other things are vanities, but Christ is a real, solid substantial, excellent, glorious thing; all other things are temporary, fading things, but Christ is an enduring substance, the same yesterday, 1and to day, and for ever, which is, and which was, and which is to come: all other things are thorns, vexation of spirit, but Christ is full of joy and comfort, a most ravishing object,