n his name, who is truth itself, that if ye will be persuaded to be
Christians indeed, ye shall have these outward things ye have need of,
without care and anxiety, which now ye are tormented for. And for
superfluities, what need ye care for them? A reasonable man should despise
them, and much more a Christian. If ye would not be as pagans without the
church, ye must be sober in these things, mortified and dead unto them.
There shall be no real difference between thee and a heathen, in the day
of appearing before Christ's tribunal, O Christian, except thou hast
denied and despised this world, and sought principally the things that are
above. Is Christianity no more, I pray you, but a name? Ye would all be
called Christians. Why will ye not be so indeed? For the name will never
advantage you, but in the day of judgment it shall be the greatest
accession and weight unto your guiltiness, and also to your judgment. Ye
would all now be accounted Christians, but if ye be not so in truth, and
in deed, the day will come that ye shall wish from your soul ye had wanted
the name also, and had lived among these Gentiles and pagans whose
conversation ye did follow. For it shall be more tolerable for the
covetous worldly pagan in that day, than the covetous Christian.

Oh that ye were once persuaded that there is an inconsistency in them, who
seek these many things, and this one kingdom. "But seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness," in opposition to the Gentiles
seeking of many things. Ye may seek the world, but if ye seek it, seek it
as if ye sought it not, if ye use it use it as if ye used it not, or use
the world as those who do not abuse it, knowing that the fashion thereof
passes away. Certainly ye cannot with all seek grace and glory, 1 Cor. ii.
29, 32. Therefore Christ says to enforce his exhortation, (Matth. vi. 24)
"No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love
the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other; ye
cannot serve God and mammon." I fear many of you conceive that this
belongs not to you. Those who are not naturally covetous and greedy, who
are not still in anxiety and perplexity about the things of the world,
will possibly conceive themselves free. Nay, but look upon the division
that Christ makes. Was there not many a heathen man among the nations, as
free of that covetousness noted among men? Were there not as gallant
spirits among them, that cared as li