VIII. But in the next place, such attire and pastimes do not only show the exceeding worldliness of people's inclinations, and their very great ignorance of the divine joys; but by imitating these fashions, and frequenting these places and diversions, not only much good is omitted, but a certain door is open to much evil to be committed: as first, precious time, that were worth a world on a dying bed, is lost: money that might be employed for the general good, vainly expended, pleasure is taken in mere shame; lusts are gratified, the minds of the people alienated from heavenly things, and exercised about mere folly; and men become acceptable by their trims and the à-la-modeness of their dress and apparel; from whence respect to persons doth so naturally arise, that to deny it is to affirm the sun shines not at noon-day; (James, ii. 1-9;) nothing being more notorious than the cringing, scraping, sirring, and madaming of persons, according to the gaudiness of their attire: which is detestable to God, and so absolutely forbidden in the Scriptures, that to do it is to break the whole law, and consequently to incur the punishment thereof. Next, what great holes do the like practices make in men's estates! How are their vocations neglected, young women deluded, the marriage-bed invaded, contentions and family animosities begotten, partings of man and wife, disinheriting of children, dismissing of servants! On the other hand, servants made slaves, children disregarded, wives despised and shamefully abused, through the intemperance of their husbands; which either puts them upon the same extravagance, or laying such cruel injustice to heart, they pine away their days in grief and misery. But of all these wretched inventions, the playhouses, like so many hellish seminaries, do most perniciously conduce to these sad and miserable ends; where little besides frothy, wanton, if not directly obscene and profane humours are represented, which are of notoriously ill consequence upon the minds of most; especially the youth that frequent them. And thus it is that idle and debauched stages are encouraged and maintained; than which scarcely a greater abomination can be thought on of that rank of impieties, as will anon particularly be shown; and truly nothing but the excessive pleasure people take therein could blind their eyes from seeing it.
IX. But lastly, the grand indisposition of mind in people to solid, serious, and heavenly meditations, by the almost continual, as well as pleasant rumination in their minds, of those various adventures they have been entertained with, which in the more youthful can never miss to inflame and animate their boiling and airy constitutions. (Job, xxxv. 13.) And in the rest of the common recreations of balls, masques, treats, cards, dice, &c. there are the like opportunities to promote the like evils. And yet further; how many quarrels, animosities, nay, murders too, as well as expense of estate and precious time, have been the immediate consequences of the like practices! In short, these were the ways of the Gentiles that knew not God, but never the practice of them that feared Him: (Eph. iv. 17-25:) nay, the more noble among the heathens themselves, namely, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Antisthenes, Heraclitus, Zeno, Aristides, Cato, Tully, Epictetus, Seneca, &c. have left their disgust to these things upon record, as odious and destructive, not only of the honour of the immortal God, but of all good order and government; as leading into looseness, idleness, ignorance, and effeminacy, the great cankers and bane of all states and empires. And the pretended innocency of these things steals away their minds from that which is better, into the love of them; nay, it gives them confidence to plead for them, and by no means will they think the contrary. But why? because it is a liberty that feeds the flesh and gratifies the lustful eye and palate of poor mortality: wherefore they think it a laudable condition to be no better than the beast, that eats and drinks but what his nature doth require; although the number is very small of such, so very exorbitant are men and women grown in this present age: for either they do believe their actions are to be ruled by their own will; or else at best, that not to be stained with the vilest wickedness is matter of great boasting: and indeed it is so in a time when nothing is too wicked to be done. But certainly, it is a sign of universal impiety in a land, when not to be guilty of the sins the very heathens loathe, is to be virtuous, yes, and Christian too, and that to no small degree of reputation: a dismal symptom to a country! But is it not to be greatly blinded, that those we call infidels should detest those practices as infamous which people that call themselves Christians, cannot or will not see to be such, but gild them over with the fair titles of ornaments, decency, recreation, and the like? Well, my friends, if there were no God, no heaven, no hell, no holy examples, no Jesus Christ, in cross, doctrine, and life, to be conformed unto; yet would charity to the poor, help to the needy, peace amongst neighbours, visits to the sick, care of the widow and fatherless, with the rest of those temporal good offices already repeated, be a nobler employment, and much more worthy of your expense and pains. Nor indeed is it to be conceived, that the way to glory is smoothed with such a variety of carnal pleasures; for then conviction, a wounded spirit, a broken heart, a regenerate mind; (Prov. xviii. 14; Psalm li. 17; Matt. v. 4; Luke, vi. 25; Rom. ii. 7; Psalm xl. 8; Rom. vii. 22; Heb. xi. 13-16; Rom. i. 25-30;) in a word, immortality, would prove as mere fictions as some make them, and others therefore think them: no, these practices are for ever to be extinguished and expelled all Christian society. For I affirm, that to one who internally knows God, and hath a sense of his blessed presence, all such recreations are death; yea, more dangerously evil, and more apt to steal away the mind from the heavenly exercise, than grosser impieties. For they are so big they are plainly seen; so dirty, they are easily detected: which education and common temperance, as well as constitution in many, teach them to abhor: and if they should be committed, they carry with them a proportionable conviction. But these pretended innocents, these supposed harmless satisfactions, (Job, i. 4,) are more surprising, more destructive: for as they easily gain an admission by the senses, so the more they pretend to innocency the more they secure the minds of people in the common use of their evil consequences, that with a mighty confidence they can plead for them.
X. But as this is plainly not to deny themselves, (1 John, ii. 15-17,) but on the contrary, to employ the vain inventions of carnal men and women, to gratify the desire of the eye, the desire of the flesh, and the pride of life, (all which exercise the mind below the divine and only true pleasure, or else, tell me what does,) so be it known to be such, that the heavenly life and Christian joys are of another kind, as hath already been expressed: yea, that the true disciples of the Lord Christ must be hereunto crucified, as to objects and employments that attract downwards, and that their affections should be raised to a more sublime and spiritual conversation, as to use this world, even in its most innocent enjoyments, as if they used it not. But if they take pleasure in anything below, it should be in such good offices as before mentioned, whereby a benefit may redound in some respect to others: in which God is honoured over all visible things, the nation relieved, the government bettered, themselves rendered exemplary of good, and thereby justly entitled to present happiness, a sweet memorial with posterity, as well as to a seat at his right hand, where there are joys and pleasures for ever: (Job, xxxvi. 7; Psalm v. 12; Prov. x. 7, 11:) than which there can be nothing more honourable, nothing more certain, world without end.
CHAPTER XVI.
1. Luxury should not be used by Christians, because of its inconsistency with the spirit of Christianity.—2. The cup of which Christ's true disciples drank.—3. O! who will drink of this cup!—4. An objection answered of the nature of God's kingdom, and what it stands in.—5. Of the frame of the spirit of Christ's followers.
I. But the luxury opposed in this discourse should not be allowed among Christians, because both that which invents it, delights in it, and pleads so strongly for it, is inconsistent with the true spirit of Christianity; nor doth the very nature of the Christian religion admit thereof. For therefore was it, that immortality and eternal life were brought to light, that all the invented pleasures of mortal life, in which the world lives, might be denied and relinquished: and for this reason it is, that nothing less than immense rewards and eternal mansions are promised, that men and women might therefore be encouraged willingly to forsake the vanity and fleshly satisfactions of the world, and encounter with boldness the shame and sufferings they must expect to receive at the hand of, it may be, their nearest intimates and relations.
For if the Christian religion had admitted the possession of this world in any other sense than the simple and naked use of those creatures, really given of God for the necessity and convenience of the whole creation; for instance, did it allow all that pride, vanity, curiosity, pomp, exchange of apparel, honours, preferments, fashions, and the customary recreations of the world, with whatever may delight and gratify their senses; then what need of a daily cross; a self-denying life; working out salvation with fear and trembling; seeking the things that are above; having the treasure and heart in heaven; no idle talking, no vain jesting, but fearing and meditating all the day long; undergoing all reproach, scorn, hard usage, bitter mockings, and cruel deaths? What need these things? And why should they be expected in order to that glorious immortality and eternal crown, if the vanity, pride, expense, idleness, concupiscence, envy, malice, and whole manner of living among the called Christians, were allowed by the Christian religion? No certainly; but as the Lord Jesus Christ well knew in what foolish trifles and vain pleasures, as well as grosser impieties, the minds of men and women were fixed, and how much they were degenerated from the heavenly principle of life, into a lustful or unlawful seeking after the enjoyments of this perishing world, nay, inventing daily new satisfactions to gratify the carnal appetites, so did He not less foresee the difficulty that all would have to relinquish and forsake them at his call, and with what great unwillingness they would take their leave of them, and be weaned from them. Wherefore to induce them to it, He did not speak unto them in the language of the law, that they should have an earthly Canaan, great dignities, a numerous issue, a long life, and the like: no, rather the contrary, at least to take these things in their course; but He speaks to them in a higher strain; namely, He assures them of a kingdom and a crown that are immortal, that neither time, cruelty, death, grave, or hell, with all its instruments, shall ever be able to disappoint or take away from those who should believe and obey Him. Further, that they should be taken into that near alliance of loving friends, yea, the intimate divine relation of dear brethren, and co-heirs with Him of all celestial happiness, and a glorious immortality. Wherefore, if it be recorded that those who heard not Moses were to die, much more they who refuse to hear and obey the precepts of this great and eternal Rewarder of all that diligently seek and follow Him.
II. And therefore it was that He was pleased to give us, in his own example, a taste of what his disciples must expect to drink deeply of, namely, the cup of self-denial, cruel trials, and most bitter afflictions: He came not to consecrate a way to the eternal rest, through gold, and silver, ribbons, laces, prints, perfumes, costly clothes, curious trims, exact dresses, rich jewels, pleasant recreations, plays, treats, balls, masques, revels, romances, love-songs, and the like pastimes of the world: no, no, alas! but by forsaking all such kind of entertainments, yea, and sometimes more lawful enjoyments too; and cheerfully undergoing the loss of all on the one hand, and the reproach, ignominy, and the most cruel persecution from ungodly men on the other. He needed never to have wanted such variety of worldly pleasures, had they been suitable to the nature of his kingdom: for He was tempted, as are his followers, with no less bait than all the glories of the world: but He commanded to seek another country, and to lay up treasures in the heavens that fade not away; and therefore charged them never to be much inquisitive about what they should eat, drink, or put on, "because," saith He, "after these things the Gentiles," that know not God, "do seek;" (Matt. vi. 29-33;) (and Christians that pretend to know Him too,) but "having food and raiment, therewith to be content:" (1 Tim. vi. 11:) He, I say, that enjoined this doctrine, and led that holy and heavenly example, even the Lord Jesus Christ, bade them that would be his disciples take up the same cross, and follow Him (Luke, xiv. 26, 27, 33.)