[5.] THIS seeking must be our ergon, our business, as well as our scope; a thing that we would not mind by the by, but as the great work we are to do in our lives here in the world: Deut. iv. 29, 'Thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul;' and Jer. xxix. 13, 'Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart;' and 2 Chron. xv. 15, 'They sought him with all their hearts, and their whole desire, and he was found of them.' Many are convinced that they cannot be happy without the favour of God; their consciences tell them they must seek after God, but their affections carry them to the world. Oh, but when your whole hearts are in this, when you make it your great business, then shall you find him. If you content yourselves to look after God by the by only, and as a recreation, and with a few slight endeavours, and do not make this the great employment of your lives, you will never find him. Certainly we were made for God, it was the end of our creation; therefore this must be the business of your lives. God made us for himself, and we can never be happy without himself. And as it was the end of our creation, so it is the end of his gracious forbearance and indulgence in the course of his providence. Wherefore doth God forbear with sinning man, when he punished the apostate angels presently? - 'That they might seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him,' Acts xvii. 27. We do not live to live, but we live to seek God. When we had lost God by Adam's apostasy, God might have cut off all hope that ever we should find him again; as time angels, when they lost their chiefest good, could never recover their first estate. But it is God's indulgence to deal with us upon more gracious terms, that we might seek after him. God needed not seek the creatures, he had happiness enough in himself; but we needed such a creator. He that hides himself from the sun impairs not the light thereof. We derogate nothing from God, but it is a loss of benefit to us that we seek him not, for the present and for the future. If you seek him, you shall be happy for the present; for the God of Jacob hath pawned his word to you that none shall seek him in vain:' Isa. xlv. 19, 'I said not to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain; and Ps. xxii. 26, 'They shall praise the Lord that seek him.' You will have cause to bless God ere the search be over. And for the future: Amos v. 6, 'Seek the Lord, and ye shall live well then.' Here is the great work and business of your lives, diligently to seek after God. Though it may be at first you do not find him, yet comfort thyself that thou art in the seeking way, still in pursuit of him. Better be a seeker than a wanderer: Ps. xxiv. 6, 'This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob.' Though thou dost not presently feel the love of God, and hast no assurance of thy pardon, nor sensible comfort from his Spirit, yet continue seeking; here is your business, here is your work.
2. Why is this put here, 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him'? (1.) It is put exclusively. Privileges in scripture are propounded with their necessary limitation; we disjoint the frame of religion, if we would sever the reward from the duty. God is a rewarder, but to whom? To the careless, to the negligent? Oh, no! he will be an avenger to them Ps. ix. 17, 'The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God;' not only they that deny God, but they that forget God, that do not seek after him. As they cast God out of their mind and affections, so God will cast them out of his presence. (2.) It is put inclusively: God will impartially reward every one that seeks him, without any distinction. The door of grace stands open for all comers. Every one that seeketh God finds entertainment, not only in regard of the answers of grace for the present, but as to eternal recompenses hereafter.
[1.] For the present. Oh, do not conceive of God after a carnal manner! It was the corrupt theology of the gentiles, Dii magna curant, parva negligunt, that the gods did look after great things, but small and petty things they left to others, as if the great God did act according to the advice of Jethro to Moses: Exod. xviii. 21, 22, 'Thou shalt appoint rulers of thousands, hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge.' But the Lord's providence here in the world extends to every one that seeketh him, and he hearkens to the prayers of the poorest beggar as well as the greatest monarch; persons despicable in the world may find audience and acceptance with God: Ps. xxxiv. 6, 'This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him;' David speaks it of himself, when he was a ruddy youth following the ewes great with young. There is none among the sons of men that hath cause to say as Isa. xl. 27, 'My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God;' that is, God hath so much to do in the world that he forgets me, he doth not mind my case; for the Lord hath a providence.
[2.] Hereafter they will find in him a rewarder. There is none so poor but he will find God makes good his promise. There is a notable expression, Eph. vi. 8, 'Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.' He speaks to encourage servants (who at that time were slaves) in singleness of heart to go about their duty. Even the basest drudgery of servants is a doing good, and comes within the compass of those good works which God will take notice of. God does not look to the external splendour of the work but to the honesty and sincerity of it, though it be of a poor drudge and slave that is faithful in his calling. Nay, God will rather forget princes, lords, and mighty men of the earth, vain and sinful potentates, than pass by a poor servant that fears him. You find that God gave the angels charge over Lazarus' soul, Luke xvi. 22, 'The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.' The beggar's soul is thus conducted in state to heaven. Whoever seeks him will be sure to find him a rewarder.
Secondly, I come to the nature of this faith. You have seen the thing that is to be believed; but how is it to be believed?
1. It must be a firm and certain persuasion. The reward is sure on God's part. Men may be ignorant, forgetful, unthankful, as Pharaoh's butler forgat Joseph, Gen. xl. 23; but the Lord is righteous, and will not forget your labour of love: Prov. xi. 18, 'To him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.' It may be the work you do for God is like ploughing or sowing, difficult and hard work, but we are sure of an excellent crop. When we feel nothing but trouble and inconvenience, sense will make lies of God, and we are apt to say, 'I have cleansed my heart in vain,' Ps. lxxiii. 13. But the Lord will not forget this service you do for him. Under the law God would not have the hireling defrauded of his wages because he hath lifted up his soul to it. The man comforted himself with this thought: he should have his recompense at night. So when thou hast lifted up thy soul to look for those great things promised, God looks upon himself as bound; therefore this must be entertained with a strong faith, and without doubting. We read in scripture of a threefold assurance; an 'assurance of understanding,' Col. ii. 2; an 'assurance of faith,' Heb. x. 22; and an 'assurance of hope,' Heb. vi. 11. All this represents the firmness of that assent by which we should receive the promises.
2. It must not be a naked assent, but a lively and operative faith, urging and encouraging us to seek after God upon those hopes. There are many that are able to dispute for the truth of the rewards of religion, but yet do not feel the virtue of them. This is not enough, to have notions and opinions that God is a rewarder, but we must have a lively operative faith: Phil. iii. 14, 'I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ.' That is a due apprehension of the reward, when we are engaged thereby to the duties which the reward calls for: Heb. xi. 13, 'They were persuaded of them, and embraced them;' when it ravishes the affections and engageth the heart; when it keeps us from fainting under the cross, 2 Cor. iv. 16 ; when it abates the eagerness of our pursuit after worldly things; when we are more contented with a little here, because we ale persuaded we shall have enough with God. A rich man that hath a vast inheritance of his own, to see him among the poor that glean up the ears of corn that were scattered, this were an uncomely thing. Oh! do we look for so great blessedness, and are we scraping so much in the world, - 'We that are begotten to a lively hope'? I. Peter i. 3. Such a faith produceth sobriety and moderation to worldly things; 1 Peter i. 13, 'Be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.' In short, we that look for such things should give diligence to be found of him; and what manner of persons ought we to be?' 2 Peter iii. 11. If it be not a dead and a naked opinion only, to dispute about the rewards of religion, but a well-grounded confidence, it will quicken our endeavours, moderate our desires, allay the bitterness of the cross,. and help us on in the way to heaven.
3. It is an applicative faith. We must believe God is not only a rewarder, but say with Paul, This he will be to me; for so we have the expression, 2 Tim. iv. 8, 'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,' &c.; this is proposed and made over to me for my comfort and my quickening. Salvation in general hath no such an efficacy: 1 Cor. ix. 26, ' I run, not as uncertain.' In the Isthmic games, to which the apostle alludes, held near Corinth, a man might run, but he was not certain whether he should have the goal or no; but I run not as uncertain, as one that hath the prize in view, and am comfortably assured I shall obtain it. This quickeneth us to a comfortable, willing industry.
Thirdly, The influence that it hath upon our obedience and service to God.
1. To keep the heart free and ingenuous. We are apt to look upon God as a Pharaoh, harsh and austere, as if he had required work where he will not give wages. But think of his mercy and kindness, and readiness to reward the services of his people, that you may come to him with an ingenuous confidence. Our obligations to God are absolute; we are bound to serve him, though nothing should come of it. Ay, but he is pleased to move us by rewards, 'to draw us with the cords of a man, and with the bands of love,' Hos. xi. 4. When he might rule us with a rod of iron, and require duty out of mere power and sovereignty, he will govern us rationally, by precepts and rewards. Men do not use to enter into covenant with a slave, yet God is pleased to indent with us; he would have us to look upon him as a rewarder. In all our services we are to remember that God is, that we may be aweful; and 'he is a rewarder,' that we may be ingenuous.
2. To keep the heart sincere and upright. Oh, there is nothing makes the heart so sincere as to make God our paymaster, and to look for our reward from him only. Carnal affections will draw us to seek praise and honour of men, some present profit, some reward here: Mat. vi. 2, 'They have their reward,' and give God a discharge; but a man's sincerity is to look for all his reward from God: Col. iii. 23, 'Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance.' You have a master good enough, and need not look for your pay elsewhere.
3. To quicken us in our duty, and make us vigorous and cheerful and diligent in our service: 1 Cor xv. 58, 'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord.' Idols can do nothing for their worshippers; these will deceive you, but God will not be served for nought; your duty that you do to him will return into your bosoms, and will bring a blessing; not like a ball struck into the air, that returns not again to you, but like a ball struck against a wall, that returns to your hand again. Let us who are bred up in the belief of this principle, bless God -
[1.] That there is a reward. He might have cut off all hopes and left us under the despair of the first covenant, and then our guilty fears would represent God under no other notion but that of an avenger; and our punishment might have begun with our sin, as the fallen angels were held in chains of darkness, under an everlasting horrible despair of mending their condition. When once we had lost God, we might never have found him more; his language to the fallen creature might have been only thunder and wrath. Or if he would quit us from what is past, and release our punishment for the future, he might only have ruled us with a rod of iron, and imposed laws upon us out of mere sovereignity, and say, Thus and thus shall ye do, 'I am the Lord;' or, at least, have held us in bondage, and suspended the publication of a new and better covenant, and kept it in his own breast, that we might wholly stand to his arbitrary will, whether he would reward - yea, or no. Thus the Lord might have done with us; but he will rather draw us by the cords of a man, hold us to our duty by the sense of our own interest, and give us leave to encourage ourselves with the thoughts of his bounty. There are many in the world that think it unsafe to use God's motives, and destroy his grace, for which we have cause to bless God. They say, God is to be worshipped, though we had no benefit by him, merely for the excellency of his being; but this is but a fancy and an airy religion; to abstract religion from rewards is to frame a religion in conceit. The two first notions of God are his being and his bounty, and we must reflect upon both. It is a description of the people of God, Rom. ii. 7, 'That by patient continuance in well doing, they seek for honour, and glory, and immortality.' We may seek honour from God; and a great part of our sincerity lies in this, to make God our paymaster; and therefore let us bless God that there is a reward.
[2.] That there is so great a reward: Mat. v. 12, 'Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven ' - such as we may admire rather than conceive; and 2 Cor. iv. 17, 'Our light affliction, that is but for a moment, worketh for us - kath' huperbolèn eis huperbolèn, - a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Heaven will not admit of a hyperbole. In other things, fancy may easily overreach, the garment may be too big for the body; hut all our thoughts come short of heaven. God himself will be our reward: Gen. xv. 1, 'Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield, and thy 'exceeding great reward.' When he would encourage us to well-doing, he goes to the utmost; he hath no greater encouragement to propound to us. As the apostle said, Heb. vi. 13, 'When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.' God hath no greater thing to give us, and therefore saith, 'I will be your reward;' though he does not for the present make out himself in that latitude to us, that he will hereafter when God is all in all. There is enough to counterbalance all the inconveniences of religion; when you sit down and count the charges, you will be no losers. The difficulties of obedience, the sorrows of the cross, shall all be made up to you in this reward; and therefore let not your hearts be faint, nor your hands shake, but 'Press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,' Phil. iii. 14. If it be a painful race, remember what is the crown; we run for the everlasting enjoyment of the blessed God. As we christians have the noblest work, so we have the highest motives ; there is a reward, and a great reward.
[3.] That this reward is so freely dispensed, and upon terms of grace - charisma - 'The grace of God is eternal life,' Rom. vi. 23. Such are the riches of his grace to lost sinners, that we can hardly believe, especially with application, what is told us of this readiness of God to do good to the creature, and to reward our slender services. But then how should this encourage us to draw nigh to the fountain of rich grace, for pardon, life, and glory, when so much is so freely prepared for such unworthy ones: Ps. xxxvi. 7, 'How excellent is thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.'
[4.] That all this is made known to us, and that we are not left to uncertain guesses and conjectures. The heathens were sensible of the recompenses of another world; they had some dreams of elysian fields, and fancies about noisome rivers, and obscure grottoes, and dismal caverns in the earth, as places of punishment; but they knew not whether this were a fable or a certain truth. As men that see a spire at a distance in travelling; sometimes they have a sight of it, and sometimes they have lost it, and cannot tell whether they saw it or no. Thus it was with the heathens: saith Lactantius - Virtutis vim non sentiunt, cujus praemium ignorant - they were ignorant of the power of godliness, because they knew not the rewards of godliness. But all is clear and open to us, and established upon certain terms: 2 Tim. i. 10, 'Jesus Christ hath brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.' Well then, if these be the thoughts that enliven all our duties, how clearly may we take God under these notions - 'That God is, and that he is a rewarder.'
[5.] That it is so surely made known unto us. God foresaw that in this lower world, where God is unseen, where our trials are so great, where our hopes are to come, where the flesh is so importunate to be pleased and gratified with present satisfactions, God foresaw, I say, that we would be liable to much doubting and unbelief; and therefore he hath not only passed his word that there shall be a reward, but hath given us a pawn and earnest of it in our heart, to assure us of it: 2 Cor. i. 22, 'Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.' The comforts that we have in well-doing in this world are not only dona, gifts of God, but arrha, an assurance that God will give us more; they are a taste how good, and a pledge how sure our reward shall be.
[6.] That we have hopes and encouragements to put in for a share, and come and take hold of eternal life upon these terms; that we cannot only say in general, 'God is a rewarder,' but he will be so 'to me,' 2 Tim. iv. 8, 'Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of glory.' This was not peculiar to Paul only, for he saith - 'And not only for me, but for all that love his appearing.' All those that do believe the rewards of the christian religion, and act upon this encouragement, and serve God faithfully, all that prepare for it, may say, 'For me,' there is a crown of life; this I expect from God's hand. Oh, then blessed he his name that hath given us 'so good hope through grace,' 2 Thes. ii. 16. That is cause of rejoicing and thanksgiving indeed: Luke x. 20, 'Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.' When we can see our names in Christ's testament, look upon ourselves as concerned in this reward, that we have a title to it; or if we have not a title, the door is open, the promise is sure, the way is plain, the helps are many, and we may have a title if we will. And therefore let us bless God that there is a reward, a great reward, a reward so freely dispensed, and this made known and assured to us by the joys of the Spirit, and that we have hopes and encouragement to go on in well-doing upon this ground.
Use 2. If God be a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, then here is a reproof, because so few seek after God. Paul charges it upon all natural men: Rom. iii. 11, 'There is none that seeketh after the Lord;' we all at first go wandering after our own fancies, and never think of returning to God, as our chief good, till we have tried ourselves with a thousand disappointments, and are scourged home to him; yea, it were well if we would seek him at the last or were brought to God upon any terms. But, alas! some seek him not at all; others do not seek him diligently, but in a slight and overly fashion.
1. Some do not seek him at all. Alas! there are many that run away from God, and are never better than when they can get out of his eye and presence - 'God is not in all their thoughts,' Ps. x. 4. As the prodigal went from his father into a far country, so a carnal man is ever running from God. He runs from his own conscience, and cannot endure to commune and hold a little parley with his own heart, because he finds God there. He shuns the presence of holy men, because they have God's image - they put him in mind of God; slights the ordinances of worship, lest they revive a sense of God in his heart, and he meet with God in them. The word brings God too near him, and awakens his fears. Prayer he slights, because it engageth him to speak to God. He shuns the thoughts of death, because then the spirit must return to God that gave it. If the Holy Ghost stirs up any thoughts of God in his heart, he will not cherish them; he abhors his own thoughts of God, and is ready to say as Satan, Mat. viii. 29, 'What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?' Thoughts of God and Christ and heavenly things are a torment to him.
2. There are others that do not seek him diligently, and with their whole hearts. Oh, to what a sorry use do the most of us put our lives! We are hunting after the profits of the world and the pleasures of our senses, but we do not inquire after God. Most of us have cause to blush and to be ashamed, - How little is our delight in God? how seldom do we think or speak of him? how cold is our affections to him? how dead and careless are our prayers that we make? - our thoughts are taken up with trifles, and God finds no room there. If any speak of God in our company, or mention his great love to sinners, we frown upon the motion, and think it unseasonable for those meetings and hours that we have consecrated to mirth and carnal sports, as if our thoughts of God were like gall and wormwood to embitter the pleasure we affect. We had rather have anything than God, his gifts than himself, yea, the worser sort of them, than his favour and grace; and then we offend him, we do not take such care to please him, and reconcile ourselves to him by the means he hath appointed. They that do indeed love God, and seek after God, they are with him morning, noon, and night; nay, they do carry God along with them in all their businesses and occasions: Ps. xvi. 8, 'I have set the Lord always before me;' and Ps. cxxxix. 18, 'When I awake, I am still with thee.' We that seldom think or speak of God, do we seek after God? surely no.
Use 3. To exhort us to seek God, and to seek him out till we find him.
1. To seek God. Motives -
[1.] To enjoy God, who is the centre of our rest, and the fountain of our blessedness, is the chief end for which we were made. Man was made to use the creatures, and to enjoy God. All things were made to glorify God, but some creatures to enjoy him, as men and angels. We sin against the law of our creation, and swerve from the great end of our lives and actions, if this be not all our hope and all our desire: Ps. lxxiii. 25, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee.' Nothing but God can make us happy.
[2.] It is our business to seek him, as well as our happiness to enjoy him. Since the fall, God is lost, and out of the indulgence of his grace offereth himself to be found again, and inviteth us to communion with himself, that we may have everlasting blessedness: Amos v. 5, 'Seek ye the Lord, and ye shall live:' Now, for us to despise this grace and turn out backs upon this offer, not to regard it in our thoughts, not to pursue it with earnest endeavours, it is a slighting of God's mercy: Ps. lxxxi, 11, 'But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.' He offereth himself, and we make little reckoning of it.
[3.] Because we are sluggish and backward, all external providences tend to quicken us to this duty. Mercies: Acts xvii. 27, 'That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.' God refresheth our sense and taste with his goodness - with new experiences every day, that set us a-work anew in seeking after him. Afflictions: Hos. v. 15, 'I will go, and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.' This is the right use of all our troubles to drive us home to God, to quicken us to look after communion with him, and to make up our former negligence with double diligence herein, to set an edge upon our affections. God knows want is a spur to a lazy soul.
[4.] All ordinances are appointed for this end and purpose, that we might seek after God and find him: Exod. xx. 24, 'In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and. I will bless thee;' Mat. xviii. 20, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them;' there he cometh most sensibly to manifest himself to us; Rev. ii. 1, 'These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, that walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.' His special presence is in his church. If we find him not in the time we seek him, we shall soon after: 2 Sam. vii. 4, 'And it came to pass that night, that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan;' Cant, v. 5, 'I rose up to open to my beloved, and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock;' some impression was left that worketh afterward.
[5.] It is the end of the Spirit's motion: Ps. xxvii. 8, 'When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.' God speaks to us by the injection of holy thoughts and the inspiration of his grace, and we should, like a quick echo, take hold of this.
[6.] Let me press you, because all the pretences that keep you from seeking God are in vain; as (1.) That there is no need of seeking God ; or (2.) That it is in vain to seek God.
(1.) That there is no need of seeking God. We should always be seeking of God, till our loss by the fall be fully made up in heaven; we should still seek God, till we enjoy him among his holy ones. We seek God on earth, but we find him in heaven: Ps. cv. 4, 'Seek the Lord, and his strength, seek his face evermore.' We need him every hour for direction, protection, strength, and comfort; we are in danger to lose him, if we do not continue the search: all the while we are in the world this work must be plied close.
(2.) As the devil saith to the secure, There is no need; so to the fearful and troubled sinner, that it is in vain to seek God, especially when former endeavours succeed not - there is no hope for him. Oh, but seek him! the God of Jacob hath not said, 'Seek ye me in vain,' Isa. xlv. 19. He hath engaged himself plainly, openly, and perspicuously, not in obscure and ambiguous terms, such as may bear contrary senses, that their fraud and ignorance may not be discerned; and he performeth what he promised: Ps. xxii. 26, 'They shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.' Neminem tristem dimisit, He never sent any away sad, but will comfort them. Wisdom is light and knowledge to the soul: Prov. xxviii. 5, 'They that seek the Lord understand all things' - the meaning of all his providences. And it is comfort to the soul; Ps. lxix. 32, 'Your heart shall live that seek God;' and protection, Ezra viii. 22, 'The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.' So that we shall have cause to praise God before the search be over: Mat. vi. 33, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added to you.' But besides this, if there were nothing in hand, there is much in hope; it bringeth an everlasting reward: Amos v. 6, 'Seek ye the Lord and ye shall live;' and in the text, 'He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' They that do not seek his face shall never see his face; however, if we do not sensibly find him, yet we may comfort ourselves, that we are in a seeking way, and still in the pursuit: Ps. xxiv. 6, This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.' This is the mark of God's chosen people, and we should be still wrestling through disappointments. Better be a seeker than a wanderer. But the wicked are described by this - that 'They are all gone out of the way,' Ps. xiv. 3.
2. For the manner - seek him out.
[1.] Seek him early, whilst you have strength to serve him, and whilst you have means to find him. This is a work that must not be put off: Isa. lv. 6, 'Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.' God will not always put up with your frequent denials. There is a time when God will be gone, and seeking will be to no purpose: compare Prov. i. 28, 'Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me;' with chap. viii. 17, 'I love them that love me; and they that seek me early shall find me.' There is a seeking out of self-love, and a seeking out of love to God. When death cometh and their day is past, many at last may seek God; and their straits may drive them to him, who were never put to it by any sense of sin. While hot and eager in sinning, they are not sensible of it: as Samson knew not that God was withdrawn while he slept in Delilah's bosom, till he knew the Philistines were upon him; and then it was too late. The greatest contemners and despisers of God do at last see that there is no happiness but in God; but then miss the blessing, as Esau did, though he sought it with tears. Therefore will you despise grace to the uttermost, and weary it out to the last gasp? It may be by thy lamentations on thy death-bed, God will learn others to take heed of trifling with him. Oh then, if they could but call time back again! What, Lord! not give me one hour, or one day more? There is no place without examples of this kind, of those that lament their time is out and opportunities lost, when God hath offered grace to them. Some instances there are, whom God sets forth to be terrors to the secure world, who are as good as men risen from the dead, to tell others of the vanity of their sinful courses; who, looking upon time past, see it is irrecoverably lost, and gone away as a dream and a shadow. Upon time present they feel their souls naked, their accounts not made up, an end come to all their hopes and comforts here; body sick, conscience trembling, heart hard, God departed, and the grave opened for their filthy carcases, and devils waiting for their secure souls, and for time to come think of nothing but hell and horror and judgment to come; and so they lie complaining, that they had not improved their time. But much time is lost, wishing others to take warning by them, and saying to them, Oh, do not cast away mercy, nor let the precious blood of Christ, which is worthy to be gathered up by angels, run a wasting; now I see the end of my joys, and the beginning of my torments! Oh, then, seek God out of love to God: 1 Peter iv. 3, 'For the time past of our lives may suffice us, to have wrought the will of the gentiles;' Hos. x. 12, 'For it is time to seek the Lord.' Misspent time in neglecting or refusing to seek the Lord ought to be redeemed, and will be so in all that are sensible of their own case. When God maketh an offer, we should be so far from delaying or putting off our seeking after him, that we should look back upon the time already spent out of communion with God as very long, too long for the good of our souls. It should be a grief of heart to us to think of pleasing the flesh, or living in a state of estrangement any longer. Otherwise, we do in effect say, We have not taken time enough to dishonour God and destroy our own souls: Luke xiii. 25, 'When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us; he shall answer and say unto you, I know ye not, whence ye are;' John vii. 34, 'Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me.' Most men think Christ a thorn in their side, and that it will never be well till he be gone; but then they shall seek him, and shall not find him, though they would have him. Though they put away Christ and his truth, yet in ensuing calamities they as earnestly beg for their Messias. So Hos. v. 6, 'They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them.' Men contemn the offered grace. The foolish virgins sought when it was too late: Mat. xxv. 11, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' Therefore early, while God stretcheth out his arms, let us not receive his grace in vain.
[2.] Seek him with all the heart, not with a double heart, or a divided heart: James i. 8, 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways;' their hearts hang between two objects - God and the world; the conscience is for God, and the heart for the world: Ps. cxix 10, 'With my whole heart have I sought thee:' when the prevalency of our affections carrieth us to God, and we seek him for himself.
[3.] Seek him earnestly. Carnal men will now and then throw away a prayer. Our affections are strong for earthly things, why not for God? Ps. xxvii. 4, 'One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple:' this is our great business.
[4.] Seek him constantly and unweariedly; do not give over till you enjoy God. You must not be discouraged with every disappointment. When God seemeth to put us off: Luke xi. 'Because of his importunity, 8, dia tèn anaideian, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.' God hideth himself many times, that we may the more earnestly seek after him; as Cant. iii. 1, 3, 'By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broadways, I will seek him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not,' &c. The woman of Canaan that came to Christ would not be put off; the lord may be hidden to influence our desires; the children of God are never satisfied while they are in the world: 2 Cor. v. 6, 'Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:' we cannot have complete fruition till we be where God is.
Hebrews
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