1. Luxury should not be used by Christians, because of its inconsistency with the spirit of Christianity.--2. The cup of which Christ's true disciples drank.--3. O! who will drink of this cup!--4. An objection answered of the nature of God's kingdom, and what it stands in.--5. Of the frame of the spirit of Christ's followers. I. But the luxury opposed in this discourse should not be allowed among Christians, because both that which invents it, delights in it, and pleads so strongly for it, is inconsistent with the true spirit of Christianity; nor doth the very nature of the Christian religion admit thereof. For therefore was it, that immortality and eternal life were brought to light, that all the invented pleasures of mortal life, in which the world lives, might be denied and relinquished: and for this reason it is, that nothing less than immense rewards and eternal mansions are promised, that men and women might therefore be encouraged willingly to forsake the vanity and fleshly satisfactions of the world, and encounter with boldness the shame and sufferings they must expect to receive at the hand of, it may be, their nearest intimates and relations. For if the Christian religion had admitted the possession of this world in any other sense than the simple and naked use of those creatures, really given of God for the necessity and convenience of the whole creation; for instance, did it allow all that pride, vanity, curiosity, pomp, exchange of apparel, honours, preferments, fashions, and the customary recreations of the world, with whatever may delight and gratify their senses; then what need of a daily cross; a self-denying life; working out salvation with fear and trembling; seeking the things that are above; having the treasure and heart in heaven; no idle talking, no vain jesting, but fearing and meditating all the day long; undergoing all reproach, scorn, hard usage, bitter mockings, and cruel deaths? What need these things? And why should they be expected in order to that glorious immortality and eternal crown, if the vanity, pride, expense, idleness, concupiscence, envy, malice, and whole manner of living among the called Christians, were allowed by the Christian religion? No certainly; but as the Lord Jesus Christ well knew in what foolish trifles and vain pleasures, as well as grosser impieties, the minds of men and women were fixed, and how much they were degenerated from the heavenly principle of life, into a lustful or unlawful seeking after the enjoyments of this perishing world, nay, inventing daily new satisfactions to gratify the carnal appetites, so did He not less foresee the difficulty that all would have to relinquish and forsake them at his call, and with what great unwillingness they would take their leave of them, and be weaned from them. Wherefore to induce them to it, He did not speak unto them in the language of the law, that they should have an earthly Canaan, great dignities, a