Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 6 · Verse 21
v. 21.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This verse containes a reason of the former commandements, cōmon to them both; tending to perswade vsus to the obedience of them both. The reason standeth thus: Where your treasure is, there will your hearts be also: But your hearts should not be on earth, but in heauen: Therefore lay not vp treasures vponupon earth, but in heauen.
The exposition. By treasure (as we saide before) must be vnderstood things pretious & excellent in our estimation laid vp for time to come, wherein we repose our trust, and take a speciall ioy and delight. By heart we must conceiue, not onelyonly the affections which are seated in the heart, as louelove, ioy, care, desire, and delight; but the more inward powers of the soule in thought and imagination; yea and the effects hereof in action, as labour, studie, and endeauour: As if he should say; your treasure and your heart are ioyned together, looke where that thing is wherein you trust and take chiefe delight, & theron will your thoughts runne; your louelove, feare, desire, and care will draw vntounto it; and your chiefest paines, studie, and endeauour will be after it.
The vse. Doe heart and treasure goe together? Then here first we learne to search out and trie the state of our owne hearts: for though it be a bottomlesse gulfe, hIer. 17. 9. How to trie the state of our owne: heart.and deceitfull aboue all things, so as none can thoroughly know it, yet if we applie this sentence aright vntounto our selues, we shall be able to giuegive true iudgement of the state of our owne heart. An earthly treasure, and an earthly heart; but heauenly treasure, and an heauenly heart; these cannot be seuered: therefore looke whereon thou spendest thy thoughts, & settest thy louelove, thy care & delight, and bestowest thy wit, industrie, and labour, and thereby iudge of the disposition of thy heart. If the thing be earthly and worldly, then thy heart is earthly and carnal: thou maist plead that thou hearest the word, receiuest the Sacraments, and praiest often; yet all this will not prooue thee to hauehave Christ Iesus for thy treasure: for thine heart beeing set vponupon the world, there vndoubtedly thy treasure is, and that prooues thy heart to be earthly and carnall. And on the contrarie, if thy principall thoughts, thy chiefe louelove, ioy, and delight be on Christ crucified, and thy speciall care and industrie be after his merits and righteousnes, then is Christ thy treasure, and thine heart is heauenly.
Secondly, hereby we may know whether we hauehave any portion in heauen:The knowledge of our title to heauen. for looke where our heart is, there our portion is: if our heart in thoughts, desire, and industrie, be set on earthly things, then is our portion vponupon earth: But if we mind heauenly things, if we delight in them, and labour after them, then is our portion in heauen. It is not the exercise of religious actions now & then, but the setling of the heart either on earth or heauen, that shewes where our portion is.
Thirdly, this coupling of the heart and treasure together, teachethHow to esteeme of the world in regard of heauen. vsus, not to regard this world nor temporall life, in respect of heauen and life eternall; nay, in this regard we must despise the world and temporall life, so farre forth as it may be done without ingratitude to God, and without hatred of the worke of his hands, and of his temporall blessings: for as earthly creatures are the workemanship of God, so temporall life is his good blessing, giuen vsus as a time wherein we are to prepare our selues for life eternall; and therefore simply we may not despise it, but onelyonly in respect of life eternall. Now we must shew this high respect to heauen and to life eternall, aboue that we hauehave to this world and temporall life, by heauenly meditations, and by spirituall desires, ioy, and delight: for if heauen be our treasure, then must our delights be drawne from worldly things, and set on heauen.