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THE
CHRISTIAÑ'S TEEASURÈ.
(SEEM. XXXVIII.
claim
a
good
share in this
world, and the blessings
of
it:
You
feed deliciously, you
are
dressed
in
gay
colours
and
gold,
and
you have wealth laid up in store for
many
years
to come.
Poor
vain creatures
!
What
is all
your
treasure
?
What
is
your property
in
it
?
A
sorry property
in lands,
and a
large estate,
when
not a
clod
of
the
earth, nor
a
penny
of
the money shall
turn
to
your
real
and
lasting benefit
!
I
grant that
you possess
some
of
the
good things
of
this world indeed.
But
your
riches
and plenty
are
not
real and proper
blessings, while
you
are afar
from Christ,
and strangers
to
him
:
Your
own
unbelief and impenitence, and rebellion against
God,
turn
all
the comforts
of
the world into curses
:
It
is
only
the
grace
of Christ
can
take
off
the.curse, and
sanctify
this
world into
a
blessing.
Life
is
not
yours
;
it
is
not
for
your
final advantage,
while
you
waste
it
in vanity and sinful amusements:
A
long
life
spent
in this
manner, shall
but
add to your
guilt, and
aggravate your condemnation.
Death
is
not a
benefit,
but
a
dreadful hour
to you, for
it
delivers you over to
the
full power
of
Satan,
that
cruel
tormenter,
and
opens the scene
of
your
everlasting
sor-
rows.
Things present are
not
blessings to you, while you re-
solve to
continue
in this sinful
state.
You
abuse
the
day-
light, and
waste
it
in trifles
or
in crimes
:
or
at
best
you
spend
it
in
an eager
pursuit of
the
things
of
the
world,
with the
neglect
of
God.
The
night
is
given to
recruit
nature
for
new services,
but
you
seize
the shadows
of
the
evening to make a screen for
your secret iniquities,
and
hide
your
sins
behind the curtains
of
midnight.
You
feed on
the fruits
of
the earth, and
other
rich
pro-
visions
of
divine
bounty
;
but
perhaps
you make
them
instruments
of
shameful
intemperance
:
Or at
best
you
lay
out
the strength
of
them
in
empty
follies,
or
in
low
earthly
designs,
without a thought
of
God
or
heaven.
The
morning and the evening
wait
upon
you in
long
successions,
but
you
are heaping up iniquities
from
morning to
evening.
You
walk daily
in
the
paths of
death,
and
the
sun-beams
do
but light you onward
to
everlasting darkness. You are nourished
by
your
food
for
the
day
of
slaughter. Daily and hourly
you
abuso
the goodness
of God, and
even
these abused
blessings