but rationally examine this business, they
would be forced to cry out against the folly and madness of too many men,
who have their portion only in this life, Psal. xvii. 14. What is it ye
seek? Ye flee from godliness as your great enemy. Ye think religion an
adversary to this life, and the pleasures of it. Nay, but it is a huge
mistake, for it hath the promise of this life, and that which is to come.
Ye cannot abide to have Christ's kingdom within you. Ye will not have him
to rule over you. Ye will not renounce self, and your own righteousness.
But consider, O men, that here is that which ye should seek after. Here is
wealth, and honour, and long life, and pleasures at God's right hand for
evermore. Ye seek many things first, and ye will not seek this one thing
needful, Luke x. 41, 42. But here is the way to get what ye seek more
certainly and solidly, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness," and all these other things will come of will. Ye need not
seek them, for your heavenly Father knows best what ye need. Behold what a
satisfying portion this kingdom is. When the pitch and height of men's
attainments in this world is but a consectary, an appendicle of it, what
must this kingdom be in itself, when all these things follow as
attendants? Here then is one thing, worth all, and more than all, even
Jesus Christ, who is all in all, Col. iii. 10, 11. Ye speak of many
kingdoms, nay, but here is one kingdom, the kingdom of grace and glory,
that hath in it eminently all that is scattered among all things. It
unites us to Jesus Christ, "in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells,
and ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and
power," Col. ii. 9, 10. In his house is fatness, and ye shall be satisfied
with this, and drink of these rivers of everlasting pleasures that are at
his right hand, Psal. xxxvi. 8, 9, xvi. 11. When the pious Psalmist was
over-charged with the very forethought and apprehension of this, he says,
"How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of
men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings," Psal. xxxvi. 7. "O how
great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,
which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee," Psal. xxxi. 19, 20.
When the sight of it afar off, and the taste of it in this wilderness, is
of so much virtue, what shall the drinking of that wellhead be, when the
soul shall be drowned in it?

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