104 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS, their ship steady against its violence. So when a storm of persecution and trouble begins to arise, men have various ways and considerations for their relief. But if it once comes to extremity, if sword, naked- ness, famine, and death, are inevitably coming upon them, they have nothing to betake themselves to, that will yield them solid relief, but the consideration and faith of things invisible and eternal. So the apostle- declares this state of things 2 Cor. iv. 16 -18, the words before insisted on. ' For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man per- ish, yet the inward is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things whichare not seen are eternal." He -lays nll sorts of afflictions in one scale, and on the consideration of them, declares them to be light, and but for a moment. Then he lays glory in the other scale, and finds it to be ponderous, weighty, and eternal; an exceeding weight of glory. In the one, is sorrow for a little while, in=the other, eternal joy. In the one, pain for a few moments, in the other, everlasting rest ; in the one, is the loss of some few temporary things; in the other, the full fruition of God in Christ, who is all in all. Hence the same apostle casts up the account of these things, and gives us his judgment , concerning them. Rom. viii. 18. For I reckon that the suffer- ings of this present time are not worthy to be com- pared to the glory that shall be revealed in us ; there is no comparison between them, as if onehad as much
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