West Port Experiment

Now, O men, if ye will not be allured with the beauty and excellency of the princess, wisdom herself [Prov. 3:13-19], then, I pray you, look what follows her. That which now ye are pursuing after with much labour and pains, and all in vain too, is here in her train. Look how the comparison is stated. Christ Jesus would catch us with a holy guile, and, if it had success, O! it would be a blessed guile to us. Ye have large and airy apprehensions of temporal things, which ye call needful, and ye cannot behold eternal things. Ye know not the worth of this kingdom. Ye conceive that godliness is prejudicial unto you in this life, that the kingdom of grace will make you miserable here; and that ye cannot endure. Ah, be not mistaken, come and look again. If godliness itself will not allure you, if the kingdom itself will not weigh with you, then, I pray you, consider what an appendix, what a consectary these have. Consider that the sum is added to the principal, which ye so much seek after. But ye refuse the principal, the kingdom. Ye have not right thoughts of godliness, “for godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come,” 1 Tim. iv. 8. Now, is not this “a faithful saying?” If ye believe it so to be, is it not “worthy of all acceptation?”

Hugh Binning