LIFE OF FAITH. 419 be conscience, when the dust is blown out of men's eyes, and sight and feeling have awakened, and so recovered their under- standings, or faith more seasonably and happily awakened them. AndO, that now we might all consent to addict ourselves to the life of faith ; and, d. That we live not too much on visibles. 2. That we live on things invisible. (1.) One would think that worldliness is a disease that carrieth with it a cure for itself ; and that the rational nature shouldbe loath to love at so dear a rate, and to labor for so poor a recompense. It is pity that Gehazi's leprosy and Judah's death should no more prevent a succession of Gehazis and Judahs in all generations. Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth : "his kingdom was not of this .world." No men are more un- like him than the worldlings. I know necessity is the pretense ; but it is the dropsy of covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call necessity; and, therefore, the cure is ' non addere opibus, sed imminuere cupiditatem.' The disease must not be fed, but healed. ' Satis est divitiarum non amplius velle.' It bath lately been a controversy whether this be not the golden age. That it is ' retas ferrea,' we have felt ; our demonstrations are undeniable: that it is ' retas aurata,' we have sufficient proof; and while gold is the god that rules the most, we will notdeny it to be ' mtas aurea,' in the poet's sense, "Aurea nunc vere sont secula : plurimus auro Venit honos : auro conciliatur amor." This prevalency of things seen, against things unseen, is the idolatry of the world ; the subversion of nature ; the perversionof our faculties and actions.; making the soul a drudge to flesh, and God to be used as a servant to the world, it destroyeth piety, justice and charity. It turneth ' jus' by perversion into ' vis ;' or by reversion into 'sui.' Nowonder, then, if it be the ruin of societies, when " Gens sine justiti , sine .remigs navis in unda." It can possess even Demosthenes with a squinancy, if there be but art Harpalus to bring him the ,infection. It can make a judicature to be as Plutarch called that of Rome, ' &as8 w % aav,' ' impiorum regionem ;' contrary to Cicero's description, of Sulpitius, who was, ', magis justitim quam juris consultus, et ad facflitatem requitatemque omnia contulit; nec maluit litium actiones constituere, quam con- troversias tollere.' , In a word, if you live by sense, and not by faith, on things present, and not on things unseen, you go back- ward ; you stand on your heads, and turn your heels against heav-
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