Other religions have in some degree, promised a contempt of the world, a contempt of sickness, and pain, and death; but then it hath been only here and there a person of a hardier mould of body; here and there one in an age, or one in a nation, who by a firmness of natural spirits, an obstinate resolution, attained by much labour of meditation, and toil of thought, hath got above the world, and above death. But our religion boasts of its hundreds and thousands, and that not only those who had firmer natural spirits, or have been skilled in thought and meditation, and absent from sensual things by philosophy, and intellectual exercises; but the feeblest of mankind, the weak things of this world, the foolish and the young, the infant (as it were) in years, and the feeble sex, have been made to contemn this world, and the pleasures of it, the hopes, and the sorrows, pain and death. They have learnt to live above all the enticing joys and affrighting terrors of this present state, that is, to live near to heaven: So that whatsoever religion pretends to a competition with ours, it falls vastly short in this respect, in raising the affections above the world, above the joys and fears of the present life. Again if we consider what motives have argued the minds of men to the contempt of the world, we shall find the religion of Christ Jesus is far superior to all in this respect. Other religions have taught men to despise the good things of this world and to be unconcerned about the evils of it, in a mere romantic way: Such was the Stoical doctrine, denying health and wealth, sleep and safety, to have any goodness in them; and professing that pain, poverty, sickness, want, hunger, and shame, were no evils; and upon this account they taught their disciples to be unsolicitous about the one or the other, because they were neither good nor evil. Thus, while they change the use of words they would make stocks and stones of us, rather than intelligent and holy despisers of sensible things; but the christian doctrine teaches us to contemn both the good and evil things of sense and time, by the expectation and prospect of the invisible and eternal world, where both the good and evil things are of infinitely greater importance: So our Saviour preaches, Mat. vi. 19, 20. _Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal._ Pluck out a right eye, cut off a right hand on earth, lest sparing these thy whole body be cast into hell, where the gnawing worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched: Mat. v. 29, 30. Mark ix. 43, &c. And the afflictions, as well as the comforts of life, are contemned and surmounted by the spirit of a christian, upon the same noble principles; Rom. viii. 18. He reckons