concerning this part of the divine testimony: 1, It is the
Lord Jesus, our Lord and Master, who speaks this as the lawgiver of
His people. He who has infinite wisdom and unfathomable love to us,
who therefore both knows what is for our real welfare and happiness,
and who cannot exact from us any requirement inconsistent with that
love which led Him to lay down His life for us. Remembering, then,
who it is who speaks to us in these verses, let us consider them. 2,
His counsel, His affectionate entreaty, and His commandment to us His
disciples is: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." The
meaning obviously is, that the disciples of the Lord Jesus, being
strangers and pilgrims on earth, i.e. neither belonging to the earth
nor expecting to remain in it, should not seek to increase their
earthly possessions, in whatever these possessions may consist. This
is a word for poor believers as well as for rich believers; it has as
much a reference to putting shillings into the savings' banks as to
putting thousands of pounds into the funds, or purchasing one house,
or one farm after another.--It may be said, but does not every prudent
and provident person seek to increase his means, that he may have a
goodly portion to leave to his children, or to have something for old
age, or for the time of sickness, etc.? My reply is, it is quite true
that this is the custom of the world. It was thus in the days of our
Lord, and Paul refers to this custom of the world when he says, "The
children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the
children." 2 Cor. xii. 14. But whilst thus it is in the world, and we
have every reason to believe ever will be so among those that are of
the world, and who therefore have their portion on earth, we
disciples of the Lord Jesus, being born again, being the children of
God not nominally, but really, being truly partakers of the divine
nature, being in fellowship with the Father and the Son, and having
in prospect "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that
fadeth not away" (1 Peter i. 4.), ought in every respect to act
differently from the world, and so in this particular also. If we
disciples of the Lord Jesus seek, like the people of the world, after
an increase of our possessions, may not those who are of the world
justly question whether we believe what we say, when we speak about
our inheritance, our heavenly calling, our being the children of God,
etc.? Often it must