Heaven upon earth, or, The best friend in the worst of times. Delivered in…

he can now call this world a shadow, and the glory of it grass, and write Vanity, Emptiness, and Vexation upon its beautiful Face, and contemn all its smiles and frowns, and look upon its greatest Lovers, as persons that deserve to be pitied rather than envied, whose portion is so small, whose happiness so short, and whose misery and mistake is so great and dismal. It is a common thing for men to declaim against the world, and to say, it is but a little muck; it's no unusual thing for its greatest Lovers to speak against it, and say, that it is that which passeth away; but yet for all that they pursue it more than Heaven, and are more earnest for it, than the Salvation of their Souls, and more troubled at the thought of parting with it, than at the thought of their parting with God; and the loss of it troubles them more than if we tell them of the loss of their souls: Such as these will not say, but that God is infinitely more to be loved than the whole world; but yet if the World and God stand in competition, they stand not long disputing which must give place, the World hath the uppermost room in the heart. But whence is this mistake? How comes the Servant to Ride, and the Master to go on foot? Why is the world preferred before God? Why hence it is, men know not God, they are not acquainted with his excellency; the World is sensible, he sees it, he feels it, he tastes it, and so he doth not the things that are invisible: And no wonder then, that sense bares the sway; the man wants Faith to realize invisibles, he wants senses spiritually ⟨p. 200⟩exercised. But now he that knows God, and is acquainted with spiritual things, he hath quite another apprehension of the World, and that not only from Faith, but sometimes from a spiritual sense, and he can say that Divine Pleasures, Riches, and Enjoyments do as sensibly refresh him, yea, abundantly more then ever the world did. And when he hath been newly taking a walk in that heavenly Paradise, he looks back upon this World with grief and indignation, that he should ever love the world with his heart, when there was one that did infinitely more deserve his love, when there was a God, Christ, and Holiness to be loved; that he should be such a child, such a fool as to run after Butterflies, quarrel for a feather, hunt for a shadow, while God, Christ, and Glory, those great Substances lay by unregarded.

he can now call this world a shadow, and the glory of it grass, and write Vanity, Emptiness, and Vexation upon its beautiful Face, and contemn all its smiles and frowns, and look upon its greatest Lovers, as persons that deserve to be pittied rather than envied, whose portion is so small, whose happiness so short, and whose misery and mistake is so great and dismal. It is a common thing for men to declaim against the world, and to say, it is but a little muck; it's no unusual thing for its greatest Lovers to speak against it, and say, that it is that which passeth away; but yet for all that they pursue it more than Heaven, and are more earnest for it, than the Salvation of their Souls, and more troubled at the thought of parting with it, than at the thought of their parting with God; and the loss of it troubles them more than if we tell them of the loss of their souls: Such as these will not say, but that God is infinitely more to be loved than the whole world; but yet if the World and God stand in competition, they stand not long disputing which must give place, the World hath the uppermost room in the heart. But whence is this mistake? How comes the Servant to Ride, and the Master to go on foot? Why is the world preferred before God? Why hence it is, men know not God, they are not acquainted with his excellency; the World is sensible, he sees it, he feels it, he tastes it, and so he doth not the things that are invisible: And no wonder then, that sense bares the sway; the man wants Faith to realize invisibles, he wants senses spiritually