1ERM. V31.1 FALLING SHORT OF HEAVEN. 127' disappointment, he shall be applauded, in the face of angels, as the only wise man, and shall find himself for ever happy. The 5th, and last remark; is this; how dangerous a snare is great riches ! They become a sore temptation (even to persons well -inclined) to tie their souls fast to this world, and persuade them to neglect God, and Christ, and heaven. This was the case of the young man in my text ; he went away from our Lord melan- choly and grieved, that he could not join Christ and the world together : he had great possessions, and therefore he refused to be a follower of Christ, under the poor and mean circumstances of his appearance among men; see verses 22, 23. And our Lordhimself makes this same remark, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom ót. God? that is as he explains it in the following verse, because it is so hard, for those who possess great riches, not to love them too well, and to trust in them as their chief good. How many lovely qualities are here spoiled at once, by the love of this world ! and a man that was not far from the kingdom of God, divided from Christ, and driven to a fatal distance from heaven, by this danger- ous interposing snare ! . A wretched chain, though it was a golden one, that withheld his soul from the embraces of his Saviour. He was young, he was modest and humble, he had a desire to be saved, and he went far in the outward forms of godliness ; all these commands, said he, have I kept from youth, or childhood; and he had a mind to follow Christ too But Jesus was poor, and his followers must take up their cross, and share in his poverty. This was the parting point; this was the bar to his salvation; he was almost a christian, but his riches prevented him from being altogether so. O fatal wealth, and foolish possessor. It became our blessed Lord, the heir of all things, to divest himself of wealth and grandeur, and to renounce all the pomp and glittering equipage of this world, when he came to introducea religion so spiritual arid so refined as the gospel was : and it became him to put such a test as this to such as pretended to be his disciples ; whether they durst venture to exchange the present world, and the visible enjoyments of it, for glories future and invi-
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