The crucifying of the world by the cross of Christ with a preface to the nobles, gentlemen, and all the rich, directing them how they may be richer / by Richard Baxter.

SECT. III.

I Am next Affirmatively to shew what this Crucifixion is. And first of the former branch: What it is to have the world to be Crucified to us. Where we shall speak of the object, and then of the acts.

Qu. 1. In what respects is it that the world must be Crucified to us?

Answ. In general. 1. In those respects in which men fell to the world from God. The state of mans Apostacy is an adhesion to the creature, and a departure from God; and the state of his recovery must be a departing from the creature, and an adhering unto God. 2. In those respects in which Christ himself hath op∣posed and overcome the world, in those must his people oppose and overcome it.

More particularly; though it be but one and the same thing which they all import, yet I think it may the better insinuate in∣to your understandings, if I present it to you in these various notions.

1. As the creature would be mans felicity, or any part of his true felicity, so is it to be hated, resisted and crucified. If the world would know its own place, it might be esteemed and used

in its place; but if it will needs pretend to be what it is not, and will promise to do what it cannot, and so would not only be used but enjoyed, we must take it for a deceiver, and rise up against it with the greatest detestation. For else it will be the certain damnation of our souls. For he that hath a wrong End, is wrong in all the means; and doth much worse then lose his labour in every step of his way. It is the greatest and most pernicious er∣rour in the world, to mistake in our very end, and about our chiefest good. When once the world would seem to be your home, and promiseth you content and satisfaction, and is indeed the condition that you would have; so that you do not heartily and desirously look any further, but would with all your heart take this for your portion, if you knew but how to keep it when you have it, and begin to say, It is good to be here; and with that stigmatized fool [soul take thy rest] then hath the world perniciously deceived you, and if you be not effectually recover∣ed, will be your everlasting ruine. Whatever it be that present∣eth it self to you (of this world) as your felicity, is to be hated, opposed and crucified.

Yea if it would but share in this office and honour, and would seem to be some part of your happiness, thus also must it die to you, or your souls must die: You can have but one ultimate principall end and happiness. If you take the world for it, you can expect no more. The Covetousness of such is said to be Ido∣latry, Col. 3. 5. and their bellies to be their God, Phil. 3. 18, 19. and their gain to be their Godliness, 1 Tim. 6. 5. and their portion is in this life, Psal. 17. 14. and so they are called, Men of the world; Here they lay up a treasure to themselves, and therefore here is their hearts, Mat. 6. 19, 20, 21. and verily they have their reward, Mat. 6. 5.

2. As the creature is set in competition with God, or in the least degree of Co-ordination with God, so is it to be hated, rejected and crucified. It is Gods prerogative to have Soveraign Interest in the soul: To be esteemed and loved as our chiefest good, and to be depended on as the principal cause of our well-being. The heart he made for himself, and the heart he will have; or else whoever hath it shall have it to its woe. He will be its Rest, or it shall never have Rest: and he will be its Happines••, or it shall be miserable everlastingly. If now the presumptuous world will

play the Traytor, and seek to dispossess the Soveraign of your souls, its time to use it as a Traytor should be used. If it will needs usurp the place of God, down with that Idol, and deal with it as it deserves. O with what indignation and scorn may the Lord of glory look down upon the dirty worth-less creature, when he seeth it in his throne! What! an earthen God! an aery God! Is gold, and honour, and fleshly pleasures, fit mat∣ter to become your God! And with what indignation and scorn should a gracious soul once hear the motion of entertaining such a God! It should be odious to us once to hear a comparison between the living God and the world! as if it would be to us, what he would be or could procure our safety and felicity in his stead. As the Jews would not endure to hear of Christ being their King, but cryed out, Away with him, Crucifie him, we have no King but Caesar. So must we think and speak of the world when it would be our King; Away with it, crucifie it, we have no King but God in Christ. And as the rebellious world saith of Christ, Luke 19. 27. We will not have this man to rule over us; so must we say of the flesh and the world, we will not have them to rule over us. As the churlish Israelite asked Moses (the Prophet like Christ) so must we do the flesh and world; Who made thee a Ruler over us? We may value a very dunghill for the manuring of our Land: but if any man will say, This dunghill is the Sun, which giveth light to the world; the assertion would rather cause derision then belief: Or if you would perswade a man to put it in his bosom or his bed, he would cast it away with abhorrence and disdain, who would not have refused it if you had laid it in his field. The poorest beggar may be regarded in his place; but if he will proclaim himself King, you will either laugh at him as a fool, or abhor him as a Traytor; subjects do owe much ho∣nour and obedience to their Princes; but if Caligula will needs be Iupiter, or if they must hear as the Pope, Dominus Deus noster Papa, or if they will usurp Gods prerogatives, and undertake his proper work, or will set themselves against his truth and interest, and grow jealous of his power on which they must depend, and of his Gospel and spiritual Administrations and Discipline, lest it should ecclipse their glory or cross their wills, this is the ready way to make them become base, and lay both them and their glo∣ry in the dust. The Jews ought to reverence Herod their King,

but if once they begin to say, [It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.] No wonder if he be smitten by the hand of Divine vengeance, and he that would be a God, become the food of worms; and God shew them what a God they had magnified, that cannot keep the lice or worms from eating him alive. God useth to pour contempt upon Princes, when they will not know and submit to the everlasting King. He taketh himself as en∣gaged to break down all that would usurp his honour, and tumble down the Idols of the world; therefore hath he alway so ab∣horred the two grand abominations, Pride and Idolatry, above other sins: For he will not give his glory to another: He will not with patience hear it spoken of an Idol, [These are thy Gods O Israel, that brought thee out of Egypt:] The first Command∣ment is not meerly a precept for some particular act of obedi∣ence, as are the rest: but it is the fundamentall Law of God, establishing the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject: And as this is the first and great command, and that which virtually containeth all, [Thou shalt have no other Gods before me] or, [Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.] So he that breaketh this is guilty of all. When the Parent of the world would needs become as God, he made himself the slave of the Devil.

You see then I hope sufficient reason why the world must be abhorred and crucified, when it is made an Idol, and would be∣come our God; and why this Crucifixion of it is of absolute in∣dispensable necessity to salvation. If it had kept its place and di∣stance, and would have been only a stream from the infinite pow∣er, and wisdom, and goodness, and a Messenger to bring us the report of his excellencies, and a book in which we might read his name, and a glass in which we might see his face, then might we have esteemed and magnified it: But when the Devil and the flesh will make it their bait to draw away our hearts from God, and to steal that love, desire, and care, which is due to him, and begin to tell us of Rest, or Satisfaction, or Felicity here, its time to cry out, Crucifie it, crucifie it. When it would insinuate it self into our bosom, and get next our hearts, and have our most delightfull and frequent thoughts, and become so dear to us, that we cannot be without it; when it is the very thing that our minds are bent upon, and that lifts us up when we have it, and

casts us down when we want it; and thus disposeth of our affe∣ctions and endeavours, its time to lay such an Idol in the dust, and to cast out such a Traytor with the greatest detestation. As we our selves shall be exalted if we humble our selves, and brought low if we exalt our selves; so must we cast down the world when it would exalt it self in our esteem, and the right ex∣altation of it is by the lowest subjecting of it unto God. For whoever hath to deal with Infinite Power, must think of no other way of exaltation.

3. The world must be abhorred, and crucified by us, as it standeth at enmity to God and his holy waies. It is become, through mans corruption, the great seducer, and an impediment to our entertainment of heavenly Doctrine, and a means of keeping the soul from God. Yea it is become the Interest of the flesh, and is set in fullest opposition to our spiritual Interest. In what degree soever the world would turn your hearts from God, or stop your ears against his word, or take you off from the duty which he prescribeth you, in that measure must you seek to cruci∣fie it to your selves. If Father or Mother would draw us away from Christ, though as parents they must be honoured still, yet as enemies to Christ they must be contemned. When your ho∣nours would hinder you from honouring God, and your credit doth contend against your conscience, and your worldly business contradicteth your heavenly business, and your gain is pleaded against your obedience; it is time then to use the world as an enemy, and to vilifie those honours, and businesses, and commo∣dities. A tender conscience that is acquainted with a course of universall obedience, will take notice when these worldly inter∣positions and a vocations would interrupt his course; and a soul acquainted with an holy dependance upon God and Communi∣on, can feel when these enticing and deluding things would in∣terrupt his Communion, and turn his eye from the face of God: and therefore he can feel by the advantage of his holy experi∣ence, when the world becomes his enemy, and calleth him to the conflict.

4. The world is to be crucified, as it is the matter of our flesh∣pleasing, or the food of our carnal affections, and the fuel of our concupiscence. The grand Idol that is exalted against the Lord, is Carnal Self: This is the God of all the unregenerate:

This hath their hearts, their care, their labours. The pleasing of this flesh is the end of the unsanctified, and therefore the sum∣mary capital sin, which virtually containeth all the rest; Even as the Pleasing of God is the End of every Saint, and therefore the summary capital duty which virtually containeth all other duties: The world is an Idol subservient to the flesh, as being the matter of its delight, and the means by which its End is at∣tained; as in the contrary state, the Mediator is subservient to the Father, as being the matter of his delight, in whom he is well-pleased, and the means by whom he obtaineth his Ends, in making his people also well-pleasing in his eyes. The Devil also is an Idol of the ungodly; but that is in a suberviency to the world and to the flesh, as by the bait of worldly things he pleas∣eth the flesh: as in the contrary state the Holy Ghost is in office subordinate to the Son and to the Father, in that he bringeth us to Christ, by whom we must have access to the Father. In the Carnal Trinity then you may see, that as the flesh is the Principall and Ultimate End, and hath the first place, so the world is the nearest means to that End, and hath the second place: and as there is no coming to the Father or Pleasing him but by the Son, so is there no way of Pleasing the flesh but by the world. So that by this you may perceive in what relation we stand to the sensual seducing world, and on what grounds, and how far it is necessary that we crucifie it: The fixed determination of our Soveraign is, that if we live after the flesh we shall die, but if by the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body, we shall live, Rom. 8. 13. To live after the flesh, is by loving the world, and en∣joying it as our felicity; and to mortifie the deeds of it by the Spirit, is by withdrawing this fuel and food that doth maintain them, and by crucifying and killing the world as to such ends. Our work is to put on the Lord Iesus Christ, and make no provisi∣on for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof, Rom. 13. 14. It is the world that is this provision for the fulfilling of our fleshly lusts. So far therefore as the flesh must be mortified, the world also must be mortified.

5. Moreover the world must be Crucified to us, as far as it is presented to us as an independant or separated Good, without its due relations unto God. It is God only who is the Absolute, Necessary▪ Independant Being; and all creatures are but secon∣dary,

contingent, dependant Beings, (whether Univocally or Equivocally, or Analogically so called, with God, let the Schools debate.) To look on the creature as a separated or simple Being or Good, is to look upon it as God. And here came in the first Idolatry of the world. When Adam had all his felicity in God, and had the creature only as a stream and means, and when all his affections should have been centred in God, and he should not have viewed one line in the volume of nature, without the joint observance of the Center where it was terminated; Con∣trarily he withdraws his eye from God, and fixeth it on the crea∣ture as a separated Good; and desiring to know Good in this se∣parated sense, he made it an Evil to him, and knew it to his sor∣row: And so forsaking the true and Al-sufficient Good, he turned to a Good which indeed as conceived of by him was no Good, and knew it by a knowledge, which as to the Truth of it was not Knowing, but Erring. And in this course which our first progenitors have led us into, the carnall world proceedeth to this day. The creature is near them, but God is far off: A little they know of the creature, but they are utter strangers to God: And therefore think on the creature as an independant separated Good. And you must carefully note, that the dependance of the creature on God, is not to be fully manifest by the dependance of any creature upon another. The line is locally distant from the Center; and the streams are locally distant from the spring, though they are contiguous, and have the dependancy of an effect: But God is not locall, and so not locally distant from us. The nearest similitude is that of the bodies dependance up∣on the soul (which yet doth fall exceeding short.) In God both we and every creature do live, and move, and have our being. As no man of reason will talk to a corpse, nor dwell and converse with any man meerly as corporeall, without respect to the soul that doth animate him, nor will he fall in love with a corpse; so no man that is spiritually wise (so far as he is so) will once look upon any creature, much less converse with it, or fall in love with it, barely as a creature, conceiving of it as a thing that is separated from God, or not positively conceiving of God as animating it, and as being its Alpha and Omega, its Beginning and End, its principall efficient, and ultimate Finall cause, at least: For this were to imagine the carkaise of a creature, and to conceive of it

as such a thing as is not in being. For out of the God of Nature the creature is Nothing, nor can do an•• thing▪ for there is no such thing; even as out of Christ the Lord of spiritual Life and Grace, the new creature is nothing, and we can do nothing; for there is no such new creature.

You have here the very difference between a Carnal and a Spiritual life. The Carnal man doth see only the carkaise of the world, and is blind to God, and seeth not him, when he seeth that which is animated by him. But the Spiritual man seeth God in and by the creature, and the creature is nothing to him but in God. As an illiterate man doth look upon a Book, and seeth on∣ly the le••ters, and taketh pleasure in their shape and order, and falls a playing with it as children do; but he seeth not, nor under∣stands the sense; and therefore if it contained the noblest my∣steries or the greatest promises, even such as his life did depend upon, he loveth it not in any such respect, nor doth he for that delight in it: but let a learned man have the perusing of the same Book, and though he may commend the clearness of the cha∣racter, yet it is the sense that he principally observeth, and the sense that he loveth, and the sense that he delighteth in: and therefore as the sense is incomparably more excellent then the character simply considered, so is it an higher and more excel∣lent kind of knowledge and delight which he hath in the Book, then that which the illiterate hath▪ And indeed it is an imaginary annihilation of the Book, and of every character of it formally considered, to conceive of it as separated from the sense: for the very essence of it, is to be a sign of that sense: and therefore as the illiterate cannot see the sense for words and letters, the wood for trees, so the literate can see no such thing as words without sense, nor would regard the materials but for this signifying use.

I have expressed the similitude in more words then I use in such cases, because it much illustrateth our present matter. It was never the mind of God to make the great body of this world to stand as a separated thing, or to be an Idol. He made all this for himself: The whole Creation is one entire volume, and the sense of every line is God. His name is legible on every creature; and he that seeth not God in all, understandeth not the sense of the Creation. As it is Eternal Life to know God, so this God is

the Life of the creature which we know, and the knowing of him in it is the Life of all our knowledge. The illiterate world doth gaze upon the creatures, and fall in love with the out-side and materials, and play with it, but understandeth not a creature. By separating it in their apprehensions from God, the sense, they do annihilate the world to themselves, as to its principall use and signification.

There are two Texts of Scripture among many others, of which I have often thought as notable descriptions of a carnal mans life: the one as to the privative part, and the other as to the positive. One is, Ephes. 2. 12. which calleth them [Athe∣ists, or without God in the world.] They see and know somewhat of the world, but God they neither see not know: They con∣verse with the world, but not with God: All their affections are let out upon the world, but God hath none of them: All their business is about the world, but they live as if they had no∣thing to do with God. As a Schollar, if his Master should stand in a corner of the School to watch what he will do, will behave himself while he seeth him not, as if he were not there; he will play with his fellows and talk to them, as if there were no Master in the School; So do the ungodly live in the world, as if there were no God in the world; they think, and speak, and deal with the world, as if there were nothing but the world for them to converse with. As for God they know him not, but carry themselves as if they had nothing to do with him; and ask in their hearts as Pharaoh once did, Who is the Lord that I should serve him? And perhaps this made David say, Psal. 14. 1. [The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.] Though he speak it not positively, yet there is a privative Atheism, which is interpre∣tatively to say, [There is no God.] For he seeth him not, nor taketh any great notice of him; but liveth as without him in the world: Not without him efficiently considered; for so no∣thing can subsist without him, but without him objectively con∣sidered: For God is not in all his thoughts, Psal. 10. 4, 5. and his judgements are far above, out of his sight. God looketh down upon the children of men, to see if there be any that will understand and seek after God: but they are gone aside, and are become filthy, and observe not him that observeth them, Psal. 14. 2, 3. This is the case of poor worldlings from the highest Prince to the lowest

beggar: A great deal of business they have in the world, some in seeking what they want, and others in holding and enjoying what they have; but they all live as without God in the world. [Now consider this ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you, Psal. 50. 22. For the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the Nations that forget God, Psal 9. 17.]

The other Text that describeth the life of a meer naturall man, is, Psalm 39. 6. to which you may joyn, Psalm 73. 20. The former saith, [Surely every man walketh in a vain shew; surely they are disquieted, or make a tumult and stir in vain.] Though the brevity of life it self may be something here intend∣ed, yet that seemeth not to be all: but also the vanity of it as it is a worldly life, and imployed meerly about transitory crea∣tures: For even on earth our Spiritual life of Grace, and Com∣munion with God in Christ by the Spirit, is not vain. The word which we translate a vain shew, signifieth the image, or shadow, or appearance, or figure of a thing: a thing that is nothing, or not the thing it seems to be, but the shew of it; or as the Pro∣phet himself expoundeth it, a dream: Men do but seem to live, that live only on and to the creature; they do but seem to be Rich, that have no other Riches; and seem to have Pleasure, that have no higher Pleasures; and seem to be Honourable, that have but the Honour that comes from man. A great stir they make in the world, to little purpose. They thrust themselves into tumults, and quarrel, and fight, and some are conquered, and others conquerors, and some lament, and others rejoyce, some walk dejectedly, and others domineer; and all is but a vain shew or thing of nought. Its but like childrens games, where all is done in jest, and wise men account it not worthy their observance. Its but like the acting of a Comedy, where∣great persons and actions are personated and counterfeited; and a pompous stir there is for a while, to please the foolish spectators, that themselves may be pleased by their applause; and then they come down and the sport is ended, and they are as they were. The life of a worldling is but like a Poppet-play, where there is great doings to little purpose: Or like the busie gadding of the laborious Ants, to gather together a little sticks and straw, which the spurn of a mans foot will soon disperse. Thus do all worldly

sensual men, walk in a vain shew. By separating the creature from God, they make it nothing: and then they study it, and dispute of it, and seek, and run, and labour for it, when they have in a sort annihilated it. I speak still of their Objective se∣paration in esse cognito & volito: for a real separation is impos∣sible, but as a real annihilation may be so called. When they have separated the characters of the great Book of Nature from God who is their sense, and made nothing of it, as to the form of a Book, then do they fall a playing with it, who could not endure to learn on it. But when their Master comes to take an account of their Learning the play will be at an end▪ and the sorrow begins: and then they must remember and feel that their Book was given them to another use.

And this seems to be the sense of that other Text, Psal. 73. 20. [As a dream when one awaketh, so O Lord when thou awakest, (or in awaking) thou shalt despise their image.] Though our Translators apply it to Gods awaking, that is, to Judgement, yet many learned interpreters rather apply the word [in awaking] to the sinners awaking at Judgement, out of the foresaid dream of a sensual life. They do but labour, and care, and ga∣ther as in a dream: They fight, and conquer, and possess, but as in a dream. They dream that they are rich, and honourable, and happy, and how proudly do they carry it out in this dream? One dreameth that he is a great man, and he is lifted up: another dreameth that he is poor and undone, and he is troubled: But when God awaketh the dreaming world, he will shew them the vanity and despicableness of this image or shew that here they walked in: They shall see that as in a game at Chess, though one was imaginarily a King, and another a Queen; yet it was but imaginary: and when the tedious game is ended, they have laboured hard to do nothing, and are all alike; so will it be with them. The meaning is not only that God himself will despise this their shew or imaginary employments and enjoyments: but that he will make them appear despicable to themselves and all the world.

Truly Brethren, all that we have to do with the world in a separated sense, as without God, is such a game, a dream, a shew. When Schollars are thus studying their Physicks or Ma∣thematicks, or any thing of the creature, as separated from God,

yea, or as not studying God in that creature, they are but playing the children and fools: they are like a Printer that cannot read, (if there were such a man) that studyeth how to shape his letters, when he knoweth not what a letter meaneth. When they are disputing in the Schools about Gods works, in this separated sort, as without God, they are busily playing the ideots, and taking the name of God in vain, and making a learned stir about no∣thing.

And here I pray you mark the different successes of a sensual, and of a sanctified study and knowledge. The first sinner by seeking to know and enjoy the creature in a separated sort, did lose God who was his All, and made the creature his All, and thereby as to its signification and principal use, did to himself annihilate it. And in this path do all his posterity walk, till faith recover them; and this is their vain shew, and their living with∣out God in the world. But when faith hath opened a mans eyes, and shewed him God in every creature, who was hid from him before, then is the creature who was before his All, annihilated to him in that separated sense, and God becomes his All again: and this annihilation of the creature, is indeed its restauration, ob∣jectively to its primitive nature and use; and it was not indeed known or respected as a creature till now. So that sensual men, by making the creature an imaginary God, or chiefest Good, or All, do make it indeed objectively to become Nothing: and so their All, their God, their felicity is Nothing; and so all their life is a Nothing. When as the faithfull by Crucifying or Annihi∣lating the creature, as it would appear a felicity to us, or any Good, as separated from God, do restore it to its true objective being and use, by returning to God who is truly All; and in whom the creature is a Derived Imperfect something, and out of whom it is indeed a Nothing.

I will further illustrate it by one other similitude. God gave the Ceremonial Law by Moses to the Israelites, to be an obscure Gospell, and to lead them unto Christ. The sacrifices, and other typicall Ceremonies were the Letters of the Law, and Christ was the sense. The true Believers thus understood and used them; but the Carnal Jews lookt only on the letter and lost the sense: and thus separating the bare Letter from the sense, that is, the Legall works from Christ, they thought to be justified by those

works, and by the Law, in that separated sense. But the Apostle Paul doth plead against thi•• errour, and tells them that Christ is the end of the Law to all Believers, and that he is the fulfilling of it, and that through him it is fulfilled in those that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and that by the dee••s of the Law, in this separated sense, no flesh can be justified; and that the Letter separated from the sense of it killeth: but Christ by his Spirit, who is the sense of it, giveth life. If these Jews had taken and used the Law as God intended it, and had taken the sense and spirit with the letter, and had understood that Christ was the very life, and end, and all of the Law. Paul would never have cryed down the Law, nor Justification by it, in this sense: for that had been to cry down Justification by Christ. But it was Ju∣stification by the Letter, or the Law as separated from Christ who was the meaning of it. So is it in our present case. The crea∣ture is the letter, and God the sense; and Carnal men do under∣stand only the Letter of the creature, and fall in love with it: and thus God cryeth down the world, and vilifieth, and speaketh contemptuously of the world; When as if it had not been for the separation, he would never have cryed it down, nor spoken an hard word of it. As the Law had never been so hardly spo∣ken of, if the mis-understanding Jew had not separated it from Christ. So the world had never been so often called, Vanity, and a Lie, and Nothing, and a Dream, and that which is not bread, and that which profiteth not, a Shadow, a Deceiver, with abun∣dance of the like contemptuous terms, if carnal sinners had not in their minds and affections separated it from God.

And thus I have shewed you in what Respects the World must be Crucified.

AND let me add in the Conclusion, as most necessary for your observation, that there is in the world an inseparable aptitude to tempt us dangerously to the foresaid abuse: and therefore when we have done all that we can in Crucifying and sublimating it, we must never imagine that we can make it so wholsom or harmless a thing, as that we may feed upon it with∣out great caution and suspition, or ever return to friendship with it again, till fire have refined it, and grace hath perfectly refined

us. And yet this is not long of the creature without us, but of us, and the tempter. The world is in it self Good, as being the work of God; and it cannot be the proper efficient culpable cause of our sin: For it hath no sin in it self. (I mean the world as distinct from the men of the world;) and therefore cannot be the direct cause of sin. But yet there is that in it, which is apt to be the Matter of our temptation; and so apt, as that all that perish do perish by the world. As there is no salvation but by the whole Trinity Conjunct, who have each person his several office for our recovery; so there is no damnation but by the whole Infernal Trinity, the flesh, the world and the Devil: Even to Innocent Adam the world must be the bait, and Satan found somewhat in it, that made it apt for such an office, though no∣thing but what was very good. But now that the flesh is be∣come the Predominant part and power in us, as it is in all till the Spirit overcome it, the case is much worse, and the world is in∣comparably a more dangerous enemy then to Adam it could be. For though still the creature is good in it self, yet we are so bad, that the better the creature is, the worse it becomes to us: For we are naturally propense to it, in its separated capacity, and all men till regeneration, are fond of it as their felicity, and hug it as their dearest good, and Sacrifice to it as their Idol. So that an enemy it is, and an enemy it will be, when we have done our best, as long as we are on earth. For while we have a flesh that would fain be pleased, by that which God forbiddeth, and there is a Devil to offer us the bait, and tempt us to this flesh-pleasing, the world which is the bait will still be the matter and occasion of our danger. The consideration of this may cut the throat of li∣centious principles, and hence we may answer the most of their vain pretended reasons, who under the Cloak of Christian liber∣ty, would again indulge the flesh, and be reconciled to the world. But certainly it will never lay by its enmity, till we lay by our flesh: and therefore there is no thoughts to be entertained of closing with it any more: but we must be killing it, and dying to it, to the last.