on the Excellency of the Sod. 363 hee: were to preach to all the world, hee Would' chufe that Text asfoon as any; 't 'Oh yee children of men , why do yee love vanity, and follow after leafing t And it were happy, if it were aiwaies founding in the ears of every one, whole hearts are after prefent things, fo that fuch a one may hear a voice behinde him, laying, This is not the way, but this is the way , walk,in it : Thou haft deceived thy foul all this while, and wearied thy feif, and that through the curfe of God upon rh y heart; as flab. z. 13. Beheld, is it not of the Lord of Hofts, that the people 'hall labour in the very fire, and the people 'hall weary themfelves for very vanity ? Is not this of me Lord of Hofls ? So when wee fee men and wo- men, why they have underflanding in the things of the world,yet for the matter of God, they have none at all; They are very induflrious and laborious to get outward things, and outward comforts of this world, and tire themfelves; can fit up late, and rife early; Oh is it not of the Lord of Hofls that people fhould thus weary. and tire themfelves ? by wayof fimilitude wee may apply it to the fpirits ofmen , that are wearying and tyring of themfelves after vanity; it is the Lords curfe that is upon their hearts. It is faid, I re -. member, of Dionyfou, that when hee was upon his fick -bed', hee hears Thales the Philofopher difcourfing excellently a- bout divers excellent moralities, and hee curfes thofe plea- Lures and delights that had taken off his heart from attend - ingto fuch things : When thou cornea upon thy fickk -bed , what will comfort thee then? it cannot bee thy filver nor gold; therefore oh that the Lord would make thee now for the prefent to fee thy vanity and folly before it be too late, and thou curfe thy felf, and there bee no hopes for thee ! But it is this point thews the folly and madnefs of thofe that feek after never fuch great things in the world with the hazard oftheir fouls, but then, what (hall wee fay to thole that will hazard their fouls for every trifle ? Wee fpoke of that in the aggravation of the dreadfulnefs of the lofs of the foul, only a word or two more of it here. In -Amos 2.6. God complains there, that the righteewe were fold for flyer Zz z and
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