470 A SOUL PREPARED FOR HEAVEN. LDISC. VIII. many of these iniquities in their hearts, and they have made a painful complaint of these rising corruptions of nature upon many occasions, these iniquities must be mortified and slain by the work of the Spirit of God within us, ifever we ourselves would live the divine life of heaven ; Rom. viii. 13. There is a great deal of this purifying work to be done in the souls of all of us, before we can be prepared for the heavenly world, and though we cannot arrive at perfection here, yet we must be wrought up to a temper in some measure fit to enter into that blessedness : And God is training his people up for this purpose, all the days of their travels through this desert world. Happy souls, who feel themselves more and more released from the bonds of these iniquities, day by day, and thereby feel within themselves the growing evidences of a joyful hope ! 3. God does not only purify us from every sin, in or- der to prepare us for heaven, but " he is ever loosening and weaning our hearts from all those lawful things in this life, which are not to be enjoyed in heaven." Our sensual appetites, and our carnal desires, so far as they are natural, though not sinful, must die before we can enter into eternal life. " Flesh and blood cannot inhe- rit that divine, incorruptible, and refined happiness ;" 1 Cor. xv. 50. " Riches and treasures of gold and sil- ver which the rust can corrupt, and which thieves can break through and steal, are not provided for the hea- venly state;" Mat. vi. 19. They are all of the earthly kind, and too mean for the relish of a heavenly spirit. Although a christian may possess many of these things in the present life, yet his affections must be divested of them, and his soul divided from them, ifhe would be a saint indeed, and ever ready for the purer blessings of paradise. The businesses, the cares and the concerns of this secular life, are ready to drink up our spirits too much while we are here ; we are too prone to mingle our very souls with them, and thereby grow unfit for hea- venly felicities : And therefore it is that our Saviour has warned us ; Luke xxi. 34. " Let not your hearts be overcharged with the cares of this world any more than with surfeiting and drunkenness," ifyou would be always ready for your flight to a better state, and meet the sum- mons of your Lord to paradise.
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