The Godly Man's Picture

1. God himself sounds a retreat to us, to call us off the world, 1 John 2. 15. Love not the world: We may use it as a posy of flowers to smell to, but it must not lie as a bundle of myrrh betwixt our breasts, Rom. 12. 2. Be ye not conformed to this world; do not hunt after the honours and profits of it, and as ⟨p. 148⟩Gods Precepts, so his Providences, are to beat us off the world: Why doth he send War and Pestilence? What means the heat of this great anger? Surely dying times are to make men die to the world.

1. God himself sounds a retreat to us, to call us off the world, 1 Iohn 2. 15. Love not the world: We may use it as a posie of flowers to smell to, but it must not lie as a bundle of myrrhe betwixt our breasts, Rom. 12. 2. Be ye not conformed to this world; do not hunt after the honors and profits of it, and as ⟨p. 148⟩Gods Precepts, so his Providences, are to beat us off the world: Why doth he send War and Pestilence? What means the heat of this great anger? Surely dying times are to make men die to the world.

2. Consider how much below a Christian it is to be earthly-minded: We laugh sometimes at Children when we see them busying themselves about toys, blowing bubbles in the air out of a shell, kissing their Babies, &c. when in the mean time we do the same; at death what will all the world be which we so hug and kiss, but as a Baby of Clouts, it will yield us no more comfort then; and to be taken up with these things, how far is it below an heaven-born soul! nay, for such as profess to be ennobled with a principle of Piety, and to have their hopes above, for them to have their hearts below, how do they [Greek or Hebrew] disparage their Heavenly Calling, and spot their silver wings of Grace, by beliming them with earth?