There are two things in this scripture -
1. The righteousness of God in his work about men, 'God made man upright.'
2. Man's perverse subtlety in inventing ways of backsliding and apostasy from
God, 'But they sought out many inventions.'
From this latter part observe -
Doct. That man fell from the integrity of his first estate, and is ever
since full of evil and fruitless inventions.
I. I shall speak to this point as it is represented in the text.
II. Give some considerations as to the general case.
1. The persons, 'they.' The expression was singular before. 'God made Adam
upright;' but now plural, not only to include both our first parents, but all
their posterity. Adam had his invention, and all his posterity theirs. The
devil inspired Adam with a sad and doleful invention, to go about to find out
another happiness than God had appointed. Adam could not content himself with
this kind of happiness, but fancied to himself an higher perfection, and
yielded to follow these new devised ways of blessedness which Satan and his own
deceived heart did suggest to him; and this invention hath invented and found
out all the sin and misery under which the world groaneth. As Adam had his
invention, so all his posterity theirs; we are inventing still to make
ourselves more miserable. The least ebullitions of sin are expressed in the old
testament by 'imaginations;' in the new by 'lusts.' In the old testament by
'imaginations;' Jer. xviii. 12, 'And they said, There is no hope; but we will
walk after our own devices, and we wilt every one do the imagination of his
evil heart;' Gen. vi. 5, 'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually.' In the new by 'lusts;' James i. 14, 'But every man is
tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed;' Titus iii. 3, 'For
we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers
lusts.' Not only the desiring, but the understanding faculty is corrupt;
therefore it is said, Prov. i. 31, 'They shall eat the fruit of their own way,
and be filled with their own devices;' Jer. vi. 19, 'Behold, I will bring upon
this people even the fruit of their thoughts;' meaning the evil which their own
devices and practices had Procured to themselves. Every one of us has our
devices, ways, and haunts of sin, whereby we make ourselves more wretched and
sinful.
2. Their act, 'They sought out;' that showeth the voluntariness and
studiousness of man's defection; it is their own act and deed, and their hearts
are set upon it. It is said, Jonah ii. 8, 'They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercies.' They set their minds a-work, prostitute their
reason to their senses. All men's projects, what do they tend to but the
satisfaction of their own lusts, to cater for the body, and gratify the animal
life? 'Making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof,' Rom. xiii.
14; 'Taking thought what they shall eat or what they shall drink,' Mat. vi.
2,5. Their care is about the base and brutish part more than about the soul,
how to adorn the body and gratify the body; and for this the soul must be made
a slave. There is a perverse diligence in men to corrupt themselves.
3. The object, with its number, 'Many inventions.' There is some difference in
the translations. Ludovicus de Dieu, because the word for 'many' signifieth
also 'great' and 'mighty,' rendereth it, Ipsi autem quaesiverunt
cogitationes magnatum; meaning by the 'mighty' the angels who were not
contented with their own station, but forsook it, Jude 6. Certain it is that
the devil's first temptation was, Gen. iii. 5, 'Ye shall be as gods;' that is,
advance into a more honourable and noble condition than now you are in. These
thoughts being suggested by Satan, they ambitiously entertained them. The
Vulgate readeth it, Se infinitis miscuit quoestionibus. Adam at first
out of curiosity would know good and evil, and ever since we have been sick of
questions, questioning this and questioning that, and have no clear light to
guide us. The Septuagint render it, exeteisan logismous pollois, they
sought out many ratiocinations. We grope in a maze of uncertainties, and so
entangle ourselves the more. Our heavenly wisdom is lost by our sin and
rebellion, and instead thereof we have gotten a false carnal wisdom, which is
'enmity to God,' Rom. viii. 7, and only inclineth us to a false happiness,
James iii. 15, to the pleasures, honours, and profits of the present world; and
so are given up to an injudicious mind, and are left in the hands of our own
counsel, which is the heaviest plague that can light upon a reasonable
creature: Ps. lxxxi.11,12, 'But my people would not hearken to my voice, and
Israel would none of me; so I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, and
they walked in their own counsels.' For our own wisdom is an ill guide and
counsellor, and will never guide us aright in the way to true happiness, but
lead us into bogs and pits, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts.
But keeping more closely to our own translation, let me a little open this
expression, 'They sought out many inventions.'
First, Observe that man is left to invent, and (since he left the
straight line of God's directions) to shift for an happiness for himself.
Surely it was better for us when we needed only to accept or submit; we never
sped well since we would be our own carvers, and would follow those new ways to
blessedness which Satan and our own hearts suggest to us; as a runagate child
or servant, that is not content with the father's or master's finding, is
driven to a thousand shifts. All our inventions may be disproved by a double
reason -
1. They are insufficient to make us happy. We were made for God,and cannot be
happy again till we return to God. Being fallen from God, in whose favour alone
true happiness is to be found, we invent false ways wherein we seek to attain
happiness; but after all our vain pursuits, we can nowhere find rest for our
souls. We have but a little vainglory for that eternal glory which we have
lost, a little brutish pleasure for that fulness of joy which we might have in
God's presence, perishing vanities for the true riches; so that we do but go
about: Jer. xxxi. 22, 'How long wilt thou go about, O backsliding daughter?' We
do but weary ourselves as long as we keep off from God; you meet with a broken
cistern instead of the fountain: Jer. ii. 13, 'My people have committed two
evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of hiving waters, and hewed them out
cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water;' You may drink many a puddle
dry, and yet never quench your thirst; labour your hearts out, and yet not meet
with that which satisfieth: Isa. lv. 2, 'Wherefore do ye spend your money for
that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken
diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness.' True rest and peace will only be found in God reconciled to
us in Christ.
2. They plunge us in farther misery. It is true both as to opinions in religion
and as to practice.
[1.] As to opinions in religion. If men apprehend some misery, how vain are
their inventions about the remedy ! All their devices show how desperate the
disease is. The philosophers, when they had found out a god, yet were 'vain in
their imaginations,' Rom. i. 21; when they sat abrood on a religion, they
hatched nothing but what was ridiculous: 'And professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools.' The Egyptians, who vaunted themselves to be the fathers of
all sciences, worshipped onions and leeks, and their gods grew in their
gardens; they were planted and cultivated by their labourers before they were
worshipped by their princes. The Romans, who excelled all nations for their
morality and civility, made gods of all things, for war and peace, fears and
passions, agues and fevers. And still the religion of heathens, Turks, and
pagans are so far from being the remedy, that they are a part of the disease,
and remove man further off from God. All men's inventions to pacify God's wrath
do further provoke him: Micah vi. 6, 7, 'Wherewith shall I come before the
Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-
offerings, with calves of a year old?. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands
of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' Go to, false
christians ! it was never well with the world since men were guided by
inventions rather than institutions; while they hope by their own penances and
exterior mortifications to appease God, he is the more alienated from them.
[2.] So as to practice. Whilst instead of dependence and downright simplicity
they fly to their own shifts, and will help themselves rather than trust God,
they involve themselves the more. There is one principle of sincerity, to
depend upon God's all-sufficiency: Gen. xvii. 1, 'I am the Almighty God; walk
before me, and be thou perfect.' But they that do not trust God cannot be true
to him. When men will be inventing, and shift for their own happiness, they
never carve to themselves a good portion, but have enough of their devices at
last. Besides, our false happiness which we pursue after, and our inventions
about it, are not only vain, but pernicious and destructive: John iii. 19, 'And
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.' If we love our own
dark counsels rather than God's provision for us and the remedy offered to us,
our case is the more doleful.
Secondly, Observe, these inventions are many. Here I shall inquire -
(1.) What are these inventions? (2.) Why many?
First, What are these inventions? We must distinguish -
1. There are profitable inventions for the good of society and benefit of
mankind, such as are civil arts and disciplines, manufacture and occupations,
which conduce much to the good of the present world, and do repair those
natural defects which were introduced by the fall. Now, though these are not
intended in this place, yet two things I shall say upon this occasion -
[1.] The one is, that if man would have been contented to be at God's finding,
many of these would not have been needed; such a deal of do would not have been
needful to man in innocency. It is sin hath made so many necessities, and lust
still multiplieth them.
[2.] The other is, that though since the fall we can find some remedy for our
natural defects, yet for the spiritual distempers of the heart we can find no
cure. By art man can melt the hardest metals, and make them capable of any
form, but to soften the heart, and make it capable of God's image, that is past
the skill of men or angels. There is no creature so fierce but 'it is tamed and
hath been tamed of mankind,' James iii. 7; but yet man cannot tame his own
heart; it is God must turn us, or we are never turned. How many inventions hath
man found out to repair the ruins of the fall ! Grammar and rhetoric to polish
our speech, logic to refine our reason, ethics to reform our manners in civil
converse, economics to govern families, politics to model kingdoms and
commonwealths; but nothing to tame and subdue the heart to God? It is God that
'createth in us a clean heart, and reneweth a right spirit,' Ps. li. 10; even
he that made it at first.
2. There are sinful inventions, taken in a more limited sense, for those
exquisite studied ways of sin wherewith many please themselves; as we read of
some that were 'inventors of evil things,' Rom. i. 30, who find out such
wickedness as the world was never acquainted with before; as new-fashioned
oaths, lusts, torments. This argueth the height of wickedness; and such are the
more corrupt of the corrupt sort of men. These are not principally intended in
this place, yet may be comprised here.
3. The inventions here intended are such as by which we start away from God and
corrupt ourselves. This more general sense of the words compriseth two sorts of
inventions -
[1.] Those many crooked counsels and devices whereunto men are carried by their
own corrupt hearts, when once they had forsaken God and the straight rule of
his law. We read, Jer. xvii. 9, 'That the heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked; who can know it?' There is a bottomless, unsearchable
depth of wickednessin the heart of man, which none can discover but God; it is
wily, fraudulent, prone to deceive, full of windings and turnings, wiles and
sleights; no creature in wicked subtlety and dissembling can go beyond him. The
scripture delighteth in this term, 'inventions' and 'imaginations;' Gen, vi. 5,
'All the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually;'
and Jer. xviii. 12, 'We will walk after our own devices, and we will every one
do the imaginations of his evil heart.' The heart of man is in continual
action, framing and moulding things within itself; and because there are many
cunning fetches and secret devices within the heart, by which they seek to put
out their own eyes, that they may not apprehend themselves to be so vile and
filthy as indeed they are, and a deceitful heart smooths evil, and presents it
under another notion, therefore they may be called, and are in scripture
called, 'devices' and 'inventions.' There is so much remainder of light and
conscience since the fall, that there needeth a great deal of craft to varnish
sin, to insinuate it with any satisfaction to the conscience; a great deal of
diligence to compass it, and a great deal of art to hide it from the world,
that it may not make us hateful or obnoxious to disgrace and disrespect; and to
hide it from ourselves, that we may live in it with greater leave and allowance
from those remainders of reason which are yet left within us. True wisdom is
plain and simple; it needeth no disguises to palliate it from the judgment of
conscience or the notice of the world: 'Wisdom is justified of her children;'
Mat. xi. 19, 'This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in
simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of
God, we have had our conversation in the world,' 2 Cor. i. 12. But with sin it
is not so; there are many inventions for the hiding, palliating, excusing, and
defending of sin; it is the great power of the word to discover them: Heb. iv.
12, 'For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart.' These are the most secret acts of the soul. Intentions respect the end,
thoughts respect consultations about the means. There is an artificial
dexterous managery of sin: Eph. ii. 3, 'Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind,' theleimata teis sarkos kai ton dianoion, that is,
imaginations and lusts. Now of these inventions I shall say two things -
(1.) The more studiously and dexterously any sin is carried on, it argueth the
worse temper of spirit, and the sin is the more aggravated: To be wise to do
evil,' Jer. iv. 22; 'To devise iniquity, and work evil upon our beds,' Micah
ii. 1; 'The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his
teeth,' Ps. xxxvii. 12. The subtle designer of sin is worse than he that
occasionally lapseth into it. The good may be overtaken or overborne, but to
dig deep to hide our wickedness, and sit abroad upon it, is the greatest evil.
(2.) That sinful inventions for the hiding and palliating of sin never succeed
well, but involve us the more. I shall not instance in the worst of men, how
they are forced to add sin to sin, and help out one wickedness with another,
which at last bringeth upon them the feared evil with the greater violence; but
even in the best of men, that you may the more loath these sinful inventions.
David had many inventions to cloak his sin with Bathshieba, but how ill did
they succeed at last ! When sin hath got a tie upon a man, and a man hath done
some evil from which he cannot well acquit himself but with some loss and shame
or other inconvenience, then it is a mighty snare, unless he cover it or
maintain it, or some other way help himself by adding some other sin to it.
Thus usually in this case men have their inventions, shift off a fault with a
lie, and imagine it in a sort necessary for their safety to be evil; and out of
this seeming necessity heap and pile up sin upon sin, and transgression upon
transgression. This, I say, was David's case in the matter of Bathsheba and
Uriah. Surely he had never proceeded to such black thoughts, to plot the murder
of a person so worthy and innocent, but to salve his credit and cover his
dishonest act, when other arts and shifts failed and took no effect. Admit one
sin, and the devil taketh this advantage, that he will force us for the defence
of that to yield to more. Thus Sarah's unbelieving laughter brought forth a
lie: Gen. xviii. 12 - 15, 'Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she
was afraid.' Peter, when he had denied his master with a plain single denial,
'I know not the man,' Mat. xxvi. 70, he proceedeth after to a denial with oaths
and execrations: 'Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, 'I know not the
man.' ver. 74. if he had prevented the first sin with ordinary courage and
boldness, he had not thus entangled himself; but one sin must help out another,
though still to our loss and trouble. Eudoxia, wife to Theodosius junior,
having received of the emperor her husband an apple of incredible beauty and
bigness, gave it to one Paulinus, a learned man, whom she prized; he, not
knowing whence the empress had received it, presents it as a rare gift to the
emperor, who thereupon sending for his wife, asked her for the apple ; she,
fearing her husband's displeasure if she should say she had given it away,
answered she had eaten it; upon this afterwards the emperor produceth it, and
in his jealousy killeth innocent Paulinus, and hateth his wife. If she had not
told an untruth at first, she had not fallen into the sin of lying; but giving
way a little, she is drawn into a greater sin, her innocent friend lost his
life, and she her husband's favour ever afterwards. All this is spoken that we
may beware of evil inventions, which never succeed well, nor to the content of
the party that useth them.
[2.] These inventions are put for our pursuits after a false happiness. True
happiness is only to be found in the favour of God, and in the way appointed by
God; but man would be at his own dispose, and would invent and find out an
happiness for himself, and be sufficient to himself for his own blessedness,
without any dependence upon God. Now, when man was thus fallen off from God,
God was disobliged front providing for him, and so man is left to his own
shifts. But alas! how ill doth he provide for himself ! This being the very
thing intended in the text, I shall a little more amply dilate upon it in
several propositions.
(1.) When man fell from God, he fell from him tanquam aprincipio et
fine, from dependence upon him as the first cause, and respect to him as
his chief good and last end. His dependence was loosened, because he distrusted
God's provision for him, and would be a god to himself, his own principle,
rule, and end; live from himself to himself, according to his own will. So that
self-love came in the place of love to God; he that before sought nothing but
God, began now to seek himself, and thought he should find in himself what he
lost in God.
(2.) Man being once off from God, never of himself cometh on again, but rangeth
infinitely, being guided by his own will and wit: Jonah ii. 8, 'They that
observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies.' Man being fastened to such
objects as he liketh, keepeth aloof from God, whom he liketh not, and will not
come at him as long as he can make a shift without him: Jer. ii. 31, 'We are
lords; we will come no more unto thee.' And though he wandereth hither and
thither, he finds no rest for his soul, for he seeketh happiness where it is
not to be found, in the riches, honours, and pleasures of the present life.
(3.) Though he meet with often disappointments, yet he is unwilling to return
even after God hath showed a remedy, and brought life an immortality to light
in the gospel, in which way he may have peace and happiness, and so rest for
his soul. God hath showed us the way to rest: Jer. vi. 16, 'Ask for the old
paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your
souls;' Mat. xi. 28, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest.' But yet man is for his shifts still, till God changeth
his heart and giveth him counsel in his reins, and disappoints him in his
worldly inventions and pursuits, by blasting the creature, or occasioning some
wound in his conscience. God speaketh often in his word, but it is disregarded
till he speak by real arguments, and speak to the quick, so as to force an
hearing; till he take away their comforts, or take away their use of them, by
some languishing sickness or anguish in their own conscience, or both; by
smiting them with a rod dipped in guilt: 'When thou with rebukes dost correct
man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth,' Ps.
xxxix. 11; so that then they see the fruitlessness of all their inventions,
their vain pleasures, costly buildings, great honour and riches, how little
these can stead them against the wrath of an angry God. So loath is man to
submit to God's remedy; he laboureth all that he can to patch up his sorry
happiness, and is very unwilling to confess his misery; he turneth and windeth
every way, and seeketh help from the creature before he will be brought to
implore aid from grace; he will use all means within his grasp and reach, till
his despair teach him to return from whence he fell, and that it is better to
seek God's favour than continue his vain pursuits: Hosea ii. 7, 'I will return
to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.'
Secondly, Why many inventions ?
1. In opposition to that one straight line which leadeth to true happiness.
Christ telleth us, 'One thing is necessary,' Luke x. 42, namely, to serve and
please God, and enjoy him for ever. To enjoy God and please him is that one
thing which is enough. But error is manifold; though there be but one path to
heaven, yet there are many ways of sinning and going to hell. Every man hath
his several course and way of sinning: Isa. liii. 6, 'All we like sheep have
gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;' according to the several
constitutions and business and affairs of men. Velle suum cuique est, nec
voto vivitur uno. As the channel is cut, so corrupt nature in every man
findeth an issue and passage. No sin cometh amiss to a carnal heart, yet some
are more kindly and suitable; one is worldly, another sensual, another proud
and ambitious. It is our wisdom to observe our own haunt, and the tender parts
of our souls: Ps. xviii. 23, 'I was upright before him, and I kept myself from
mine iniquity.' All sin is but carnal self-love disguised; or many, with
respect to the successive entertainment of divers sins: Titus iii. 3, 'Serving
divers lusts and pleasures.' Sins take the throne by turns. By age and
experience men grow weary of former vanities, but others are adopted into their
room, and so their lusts are but exchanged, not abrogated. Now we are fallen
from our primitive happiness, we multiply means and cares; yea, at the same
time the pleasures of the flesh draw the sinner several ways: James iv. 1,
'Whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they not hence, even of your
lusts, which war in your members ?' Desire of riches contradicts idleness, and
the toilsome cares and labours of this world that ease which the flesh
affecteth; disgraceful lusts are contradicted by ambition and pride.
2. Many inventions, in opposition to that simplicity and singleness of heart
which original rectitude did include. The heart of man was originally of one
constant, uniform frame; but now, instead of simplicity, there is a
multiplicity. The heart now is never right till it be one with God. Therefore
David prays, Pa. lxxxvi. 11, 'Unite my heart to fear thy name.' He begs a heart
entirely fixed upon God, who, as our great end, uniteth all our affections in
this one scope, that we might please him, and enjoy him as our chief good and
last end; that fixeth man's mind; which otherwise will be tossed up and down in
perpetual uncertainties, and distracted by a multiplicity of ends and objects,
that it cannot continue in any composed and settled frame. No one part of our
lives will agree with another. A divided heart breedeth an uncertain life:
James i. 8, 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways;' the whole not
firmly knit together by the power of the last end running through all; so that
our lives are a mere lottery, the fancies and appetites we are governed by
being jumbled together by chance. The heart by natural corruption is loosed
from God, and distracted with variety of vain objects, which offer themselves
to our senses. The interest of the world and flesh is taken into competition
with God; and whilst the heart rangeth abroad, it is such a variable and double
heart as will never be true to God; and while men are tossed from one
dependence to another, and do not firmly adhere to God, being weaned front the
vanities of the world, they are carried hither and thither by their perverse
affections, sometimes to one thing, sometimes to another.
3. With respect to that one object who alone was sufficient for us. They that
have left God, and would find happiness in the creatures, need many creatures
before they can patch up any sorry tolerable happiness to themselves. One
broken cistern can yield but little refreshing, Jer. ii. 13; so many
disappointments make them look more about. God made man for himself, capable to
enjoy him; now he is an infinite eternal good. We desire an infinite eternal
good, still such as may quiet and satisfy us; therefore man being made capable
of enjoying God, who is infinite, and finding himself not satisfied with a few
or many things, always seeketh after new things. Here is his error, that he
seeketh after that which is infinite, among those things which are finite, and
so wandereth up and down groping for an eternal good: Acts xvii. 26, 27, 'And
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the
earth; and determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitations; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after
him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.' As we depart
from God, we are gone from unity, and are left distracted and confounded in the
mnltitude of the creatures. Quoerunt in varietate creaturarum, quod
amiserunt in unitate creatoris - They seek in the variety of the creatures
what they have lost in the one God.
Use 1. Is to represent the misery of fallen man, that we may take up
a lamentation for him, and bewail our departure from life and blessedness, and
forsaking it for sin and misery. They have cast off God, and set at nought his
counsel, and given themselves over to many fruitless and hurtful inventions.
For alas ! man being left to the counsel of his own desperately wicked and
deceitful heart, what doth he look after? What may be expected from him but
that all his thoughts and projects should be for the satisfaction of his lusts,
to serve his pride, avarice, revenge, pomp, pleasure, and vanity ? God is not
in all his thoughts; he cares not whether he be pleased or displeased, honoured
or dishonoured. Here consider the disorder and danger of this state.
1. The disorder introduced hereby.
[1.] The creature is preferred before God ; for all their projects are how to
live at ease in the world, not how to please and enjoy God ; and so they
'forsake their own mercies for observing lying vanities,' Jonah ii.8. They seek
an happiness apart from God, who is 'their own mercy;' that is, they might have
had from him all that which the mercy of an all-sufficient God can afford. And
for what do they forsake him? For 'lying vanities.' In regard of their
emptiness they are vanities; and in regard of their disappointing our
expectations, 'lying vanities;' They do deceive us with a vain show, and in the
issue miserable disappointments. And mark, these must be observed, followed
after with a great solicitude and care, whereas the other is freely offered to
us; it is our own in the offer, and it is our own fault if it be not our own in
the choice. So Jer. ii. 13, 'My people have committed two evils; they have
forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns, that will hold no water.' God is the wellspring of all manner
of good, a fountain that runneth constantly, and never faileth; and such would
he have been to us if we had continued loyal and dutiful to him. Besides the
leaving of the ever-living, all-sufficient, and ever-flowing fountain of all
good, they have betaken themselves to poor paltry vanities, that will yield
them no real and solid refreshment.
[2.] The body is preferred before the soul; for all our inventions run upon the
body and the pleasing the flesh: Rom. xiii. 14, 'And make not provision for the
flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.' But the precious and immortal soul is
little thought of and cared for. They sit down well appaid with carnal
contentments: Luke xii. 19, 'Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;
thou hast much goods laid up for many years.' They do not rise to any thoughts
of an higher life, never think of that immortal soul they carry about with
them, but only use it to cater for the body, that the body may be well fed, and
clothed, and adorned. Our business is to seek rest for our souls; if we would
invent and consider, we should look after that: Jer. vi. 16, 'Ask for the old
paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your
souls.' We are never in our wits again till this be the project and design we
travel with. But alas ! this is not thought of. The neglected soul may easily
complain of hard usage. What are our thoughts but what shall we eat, and what
shall we drink, and how shall we make a fair show in the flesh? If we look
after the soul, it is to adorn it with secular learning and wisdom, which is
but to serve the flesh in a more cleanly manner, and to gratify our worldly
ends, our pride, or our interests. We look after flowers rather than fruit;
those adornments of the soul which are for pomp rather than life, and for
present use rather than eternal benefit.
[3.] They prefer earth before heaven and time before eternity. All their
business is rather to make sure of the prosperity of the body than the
salvation of the soul. And though it is plain, and they do or may know and see
that this will not cure their diseases, nor ease their pain, nor save them from
the grave nor hell, yet because riches will help them to live in pleasure and
reputation with the world, and in plenty of all things, and to have their will
as long as they live, that is enough for them, for they care not for the
pleasures and happiness which are to be enjoyed in the other world. Though
death and the grave may put an end to all they have here much sooner than they
imagined, yet their minds and hearts are set upon these things as their
happiness, and will not be diverted from them ; they have their portion in this
world: Ps. xvii. 14, 'From men which are thy hand, 0 Lord ; from men of the
world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with
thy hid treasure : they are full of children, and leave the rest of their
substance to their babes.'
2. The danger. As it is a base thing to act so disproportionably to the light
of reason, so within a little while it will be a bitter thing: Jer. ii. 19,
'Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslldings shall reprove
thee; know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou
hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee.' Sure it will
be bitterness in the end to forsake the Lord, and walk in the inventions and
imaginations of thine own heart You are posting to your eternal misery, where a
reflection upon your evil choice will be the greatest part of your misery: Isa.
1. 11, 'Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with
sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and the sparks which ye have kindled:
this shall ye have of my hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.' The allusion is
not to such a fire as burneth and consumeth, but such as doth warm and cherish.
Those stakes which wicked worldlings rely upon for succour will in time prove
their greatest calamities, and those tufts and fuzes which they promised the
greatest comfort to themselves from will occasion the greatest sorrow; the
brands which they heaped together will afford them little heat and light, but
smoke to vex and choke them. He that will warm himself by his own sparks can
expect no other issue from his own rash folly and God's righteous vengeance.
Use 2. To exhort us not only to lament it, but to come out of this
condition. And here to this end -
1. Renounce that crooked carnal wisdom which is man's undoing. Man at first
seeking to be wise, became a fool, Now 'he must be a fool, that he may be
wise,' 1 Cor. iii. 18; a fool to the flesh and the world, that he may be wise
to God.
2. Give up yourselves to God in covenant, as your Lord and felicity. A man is
never in his wits till he cometh to this : Ps. xxii. 27, 'All the ends of the
earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.' Our misery is in departing from
him, so our happiness is in putting ourselves into his hands again. Now you
must give up yourselves to him as your supreme Lord and chief felicity or
happiness, depending upon him as your happiness, obeying him as your Lord; obey
his counsel though against your own reason, and stick to his ways though they
seem to be against your present happiness. Remember that duty is safety, that
cleaving to God with loss is better than departing from him with seeming gain;
and God, that outwits the subtle designer, doth take care of and preserve the
plain and simple person, that avowedly adhereth to him, when all the
contrivances of foolish and worldly-minded men prove vain and unprosperous.
Your obedience will be your safety.
Dependence and obedience do mutually cherish one another; the more we depend,
the more we obey; and the more we obey, the more we depend; and so they
discover one another. Let us show our dependence on God, that in all the
changes of this life, by a firm, fast adherence and resolution, we stick fast
to God, whatever comes of it, using no means but what he allows, and counting
his favour our happiness. They that depend not on him are left to their own
inventions.
3. Your great design must be to approve yourselves to God: 2 Cor. v. 9,
'Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of
the Lord.'
Use 3. It showeth what need we have to give up ourselves to the
conduct of God's word and Spirit. Man is so full of his own inventions that
none can be safe but they that depend upon God for direction: James i. 5, 'If
any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God.' Such a fallible creature as man is
in point of truth, such an impotent creature is he in point of power, such an
indigent creature in point of happiness and self-sufficiencies, such a sinful
corrupt creature, so full of inuaginations and lusts, so many crooked
dispositions in his heart, so many wiles to justify his irregular choice, so
many temptations, and they represented with such sophistry, that he should be
wilting to accept of direction. Yea, the people of God themselves have need of
the direction of the word, in regard of the weakness of their understandings
and the perverseness of their affections.
1. Our understandings are so weak, that we are ignorant of many things
necessary to be known; for we know but in part. If we know something in
general, we fail in particular application; both in general and in particular.
If we know things habitually, we do not actually consider them, being hindered
by multitude of business, or the violence of temptations, or lulled asleep by
the pleasures of the flesh: Eecles. v. 1, 'They consider not that they do
evil.'
2. Our affections are perverse, and so addicted rather to be led by sense than
right reason, that there is great danger lest, seeing and approving that which
is better, we follow what is worse, contrary to our knowledge and conscience:
Rom. ii. 18, 'And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more
excellent, being instructed out of the law.' And therefore the best had need to
pray with David: Ps. cxliii. 10, 'Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God:
thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.'
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