42 INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY. [SEAM. 7r: evils ; and upon this account they taught their disciples to be unsolicitous about the one or the other, because they were neither good nor evil._ Thus, while they change the use of words, they would make stocks and stones of us, rather than intelligent and holy despisers of sensible things but the christian doctrine teaches us to contemn both the good and evil things of sense and time, by the expectation and prospect of the invisible and eternal world, where both the good and evil things are of infinitely greater importance : So our Saviour preaches, Mat. vi. 19, 20. Lay not up for yourselves treasures uponearth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, andwhere thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. Pluck out a right eye, cut off a right hand, on earth, lest, sparing these,' thy wholebody be cast into hell, where the gnawing worm dies not, and the fire is pot quenched; Mat. v. 29; 30, Mark ix. 43, &c. And the afflictions, as well as the comforts of life, are contemned and surmounted by the spirit of a christian, upon the same noble principles, Rom. viii. 18. He reckons that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the. glory which shall be revealed in us ; and therefore he endures the cross, and despises the shame, following the divine example of Christ. Other doctrines have endeavoured to raise the minds ofmen above the solicitudes or cares of this life upon meanand base principles, unworthy of human, nature, denying the immortality of the soul, and the life to come. Thus the Epicureans would raise the professors' of their religion above the fears of death, by assuring them, that' after death there was nothing ; that the soul and body died together, were blended in the dust, and were for ever lost in one grave : but, on the other hand,' the religion of Christ gives us a view of things beyond the grave, insures a resurrection to us, brings life and immortality to light by the gospel, by Christ Jesus, who together with the Father, is originally possessedof eter- nal life, and thus leads us on to a glorious contempt of' this present world of vanity :.For our light- giiction,.
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