The Tryall of yet if) in your eyes and opinions they feeme glorious andgoodly things, and oh we fecretly think the enjoying fuch a pleafure, the obtaining fuch an excellencie, or fuch or fuch a condition of life, accommodated with fuch and fuch conveniences and circum. fiances, would be fo great an addition of happineffe to us ; this argues a green heart, muchwant of mortification, though truth ofgrace be,there. Thefe Apoflles, to whom Chrifl fpake this Parable of the Vine, (and unto them efpecially) how were they affeeted, and tranfported with a trifle ? Even that very night that Cbrifl was to be attached, they ífrive for precedencie, and who fhouldbe thegreatefl amongsi them, Lu%, az. who fhould be chiefe of that noble >rder : And it was fuch a precedencie which they affe ted, as Noblemen h e in Kingdomes, as appears by the following words : they (hewed themfelves but Gentiles in it, (as ver. 25. Chrift infinuates) who Hand upon their blood and their outward priviledges : It was not for nothing Chrift tels them in this Parable, they needed purging ; but the reafófi was, they werebut children yet, and babes in Chrifi, now in their mi.. nority, and were not weaned from rattles and trifles, Chrift was not yet crucified, nor they fo throughly crucified with him, as they were afterwards : The holy Ghof had not yet come upon them, as fire to burne up their tufts, and to confume this their droflè. That other Apoflle, Paul, (who fayes of himfelfe, that he was borne out of time, in comparifon to them) had attained to a greater meafure, he glorying in this as his highell title, that he was the leaf! ofthe Apoflles. This magnifying ofoutward things in our conceits and opinions, is indeed but k owing things after the flefh, as the Apo(lle fpeaks, 2 Cor.5.i 6. becaufe the flefh doth fafcinate and corrupt the judgment, in judging our felves by fuch ,things. And this argues exceeding much want of mortification, for it is lull that puts that lullre, and gloffe, and varnifh upon the things of the world ; for the things in themfelves arevaine, and we have had experience that they are fuch ; How comes it then we fhould efteeme them,and be taken with them, that we fhould have fuch high conceits ofthem ? It is by reafonof our lulls un. purged out, which reprefent them falfely : and therefore it is obfervable, that yohn, i Epifl. 2..16. fpeaking of the things of the,,world, he puts the tuft which is in us to exprefe the things themfelves
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=