1.  In view of this subject, as thus discussed, we remark in the first place, that no man can have his “good things,” in other words, his chief pleasure, in both worlds.  God and this world are in antagonism.  “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John i. 15, 16).  It is the height of folly, therefore, to suppose that a man can make earthly enjoyment his chief end while he is upon earth, and then pass to heaven when he dies.  Just so far as he holds on upon the “good things” of this life, he relaxes his grasp upon the “good things” of the next.  No man is capacious enough to hold both worlds in his embrace.  He cannot serve God and Mammon.  Look at this as a matter of fact.  Do not take it as a theory of the preacher.  It is as plain and certain that you cannot lay up your treasure in heaven while you are laying it up upon earth, as it is that your material bodies cannot occupy two portions of space at one and the same time.  Dismiss, therefore, all expectations of being able to accomplish an impossibility.  Put not your mind to sleep with the opiate, that in some inexplicable manner you will be able to live the life of a worldly man upon earth, and then the life of a spiritual man in heaven.  There is no alchemy that can amalgamate substances that refuse to mix.  No man has ever yet succeeded, no man ever will succeed, in securing both the pleasures of sin and the pleasures of holiness,—­in living the life of Dives, and then going to the bosom of Abraham.

2.  And this leads to the second remark, that every man must make his choice whether he will have his “good things” now, or hereafter.  Every man is making his choice.  Every man has already made it.  The heart is now set either upon God, or upon the world.  Search through the globe, and you cannot find a creature with double affections; a creature with two chief ends of living; a creature whose treasure is both upon earth and in heaven.  All mankind are single-minded.  They either mind earthly things, or heavenly things.  They are inspired with one predominant purpose, which rules them, determines their character, and decides their destiny.  And in all who have not been renewed by Divine grace, the purpose is a wrong one, a false and fatal one.  It is the choice and the purpose of Dives, and not the choice and purpose of Lazarus.

3.  Hence, we remark in the third place, that it is the duty and the wisdom of every man to let this world go, and seek his “good things” hereafter.  Our Lord commands every man to sit down, like the steward in the parable, and make an estimate.  He enjoins it upon every man to reckon up the advantages upon each side, and see for himself which is superior.  He asks every man what it will profit him, “if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or, what he