"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."
Oh, thrice blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and fondness of the loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes!
May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage supper! Half a swallow, even a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life.
Oh, how witless we are, to grow restless, and chase, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not think far too much of ourselves when we make it a matter of child's play, and drink a toast over paradise? We trifle with the heaven that Christ did sweat for, in return for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast. O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us!
If we would fall out of love with all of our masked and painted lovers, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost chamber of our heart. Then Christ would be our night-song and morning-song; then the very whisper of our Well-beloved's feet, when He comes, and His first knock or rap at the door, would be as news of two heavens to us.
O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sunburnt flower, even this plastered, seemingly fair (on the outside) world: and as a result we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for ever, provided I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ!
Oh, thrice blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and fondness of the loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes!
May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage supper! Half a swallow, even a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loathe the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life.
Oh, how witless we are, to grow restless, and chase, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not think far too much of ourselves when we make it a matter of child's play, and drink a toast over paradise? We trifle with the heaven that Christ did sweat for, in return for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast. O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us!
If we would fall out of love with all of our masked and painted lovers, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost chamber of our heart. Then Christ would be our night-song and morning-song; then the very whisper of our Well-beloved's feet, when He comes, and His first knock or rap at the door, would be as news of two heavens to us.
O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sunburnt flower, even this plastered, seemingly fair (on the outside) world: and as a result we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for ever, provided I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ!
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