SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMFORT. 363 And bath he deserved no better at four hands ? Again,therefore, do I beseech you to be afraid, lest you should be guiltyof this sin. Examine 'whether the thoughts of the world grow not sweeter to you, and the thoughts of God and glory more unwelcome and un- pleasing ; whether you havenot an eagerness after a fuller estate, and too keen an edge upon your desires after riches, or at least after a fuller portion and provision for your children ; or after bet- ter accommodations and contentments in house, goods, or other worldly things. Do not worldly hopes delight you too much ? And much more your worldly possessions ? Are you not too busi- ly contriving how to be richer, forgetting.God's words, 1 Tim. vi. 8, 9. 17 ? Doth' not the world eat out the life of your duties, that when you should be serious with God, you have left your heart be- hind you, and drowned your affections in things below? Doth not your soul stick so fast in this mud and clay, that you can scarce stir it God-ward in prayer or heavenly meditation ? Do not you cut short duties in your family and in secret, if not frequently omit them, that so you may be again at your worldly business? Or do you not customarily hurry them over, because the world will not allow you leisure to be serious, and so you have no time ,to deal in good earnestwith Christ or your soul ? Do not your very speech- es of Christ and heaven grow few and strange, because the world must first be served? When you see your brother have need, do you not shut up the bowelsofyour compassions from him ? Doth not the love of the world make you hard to your servants, hard to those you buy and sell with? And doth it not encroach much on the Lord's own day ? Look after this earthly vice in all these dis- coveries, search for your enemy in each of these corners. And if you find that this is indeed your case, you need not much wonder if Christ and you be stranger than heretófore. If this earth get between your heart and the sun of life, no wonder if all your com- forts are in an eclipse, seeing your light is but as the moon's, a borrowed light. And you must be the more careful in searching after this sin, both because it is certain that all men have too much of it, and because it is of so dangerous a nature, that should it pre- vail itwould destroy ; forcovetousness is idolatry, and amongall the heinous sins that the godly have fallen into, look into the Scripture, and tell me how many ofthem you find charged with covetousness. And also, because it isa blinding, befooling sin, not only drawingold men;and thosethat have no children, and rich men that have no need to pursue these things, asmadly asothers, but also hiding itselffrom their eyes, that most that are guilty of it will not know it ; though, alas ! if they were but willing, it were .very easy to know it. But the power of the sin doth so set to work their wits to find ex- cuses and fair names and titles for to cloak it, that many delude
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