om
the body, though never so loathsome or deformed, the vilest body cannot
mar the soul's beauty. But then, on the other hand, the most beautiful
body is defiled and deformed by the filthiness of sin in the soul, and O
how many deformed and ugly souls dwell in beautiful and comely bodies,
which truly is no other thing than a devil in an image well carved and
painted. Christians, you had need to correct this within you, even a self
complacency, joined with despising of others in the consideration of those
external gifts God hath given you. What an abominable thing is it to cast
up in reproach, or in your hearts to despise any other for natural
imperfections, such as blindness, lameness, deformity or such like? Let
that word sound always in your ears, Who made thee to differ from another?
"Boast not thyself, &c." But there is as strong a stream runs in the third
channel as in any, gloriation arising from those outward and extrinsic
differences that the providence of God makes among men, such as riches,
honour, gain, &c. You find such men, Psalm xlix. 6, Prov. xviii. 11, and
x. 15. That which a godly man makes the name of the Lord,--that is, the
ground and foundation of his confidence for present and future times,--that
the most part of men make their riches, that is, their strong city, and
their high wall, their hope and expectation is reposed within it. This is
the tower or wall of defence against the injuries and calamities of the
times, which most part of men are building, and if it go up quickly, if
they can get these several stones or pieces of gain scraped together into
a heap they straightway imagine themselves safe, as under a high wall. But
there is no truth in it, it is all but in their imagination, and therefore
it comes often down about their ears, and offends them, instead of being a
defence. Let a man creep, as it were, from off the ground where the poor
lie, and get some advantage of ground above them, or be exalted to some
dignity or office, and so set by the shoulders higher than the rest of the
people, or yet grow in some more abundance of the things at this life, and
strange it is, what a vanity or tumour of mind instantly follows! He
presently thinks himself somebody, and forgetting either who is above him,
to whom all are worms creeping and crawling on the footstool, or what a
sandy foundation he stands upon himself, he begins to take some secret
complacency in himself, and to look down upon others below