DISCOURSE VIII. 161 training his people up for this purpose, all the days of their travels through this desert would. Happy souls, who feel them- selves more and more released from the bonds of these iniquities, day by day, and thereby feel within themselves the growing evi- dences of a joyful hope ! 3. God does not only purify us from every sin, in order to prepare us for heaven, but " he is ever loosening and weaning our hearts from all those lawful things in this life, which are not to be enjoyed in heaven." Our sensual appetites and our carnal desires, to far as they are natural, though not sinful, must die before we can enter into eternal life. Flesh and blood cannot inherit that divine, incorruptible, and refined happiness ; 1 Cor. xv. 50. Riches and treasures of gold and silver which the rust can corrupt, and which thieves can break through and steal,, are not provided for the heavenly state; Mat. vi. 19. They are all of the earthly kind, and too mean for the relish of a heavenly spirit. Although a christian may possess many of these things in the present life, yet his affections must be divested of them, and his soul divided from them, if he would be a saint indeed, and ever ready for the purer blessings of paradise. The businesses, the cares and the concerns of this secular life, are ready to drink up our spirits too much while we are here; we are too prone to mingle our very souls with them, and thereby grow unfit for heavenly felicities : And therefore it is that our Saviour has warn- ed us ; Luke xxi. 3i. Let not your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this world any more than with surfeiting and drunk enness, if you would be always ready for your flight to a better state and meet the summons of your Lord to paradise. There are also many curious speculations and delightful amusements, which may lawfully entertain us while we are here ; there are sports and recreations which may divert the flesh or the mind in a lawful manner, whilst we dwell in tabernacles of flesh and blood, and are encompassed with mortal things : But the soul that is wrought for heaven must arise to a holy indifference to all the entertainments of flesh and sense and time, if it would put oa the appearance of an heavenly inhabitant. Christians that would beever ready for the glories of a better world-must he such in some measure, as the apostle describes ; 1 Cor. vii. 29 31. They must rejoice with such moderation in their dearest comforts of life, as though they rejoiced not ; they must weep and mourn for the loss of them, with such a divine self-government, us though they wept not ; they must buy as though they possess- ed not ; they must use this world as not abusing it in any instance ; but must look upon the fashions and the scenes of it as vanishing things, and have their hearts set on the things that are above, where Christ Jesus is at the Father's right -hand ; Col. iii. 1, 2. If you ask me, what methods the blessed God uses in order VOL. VII. L
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