VOL. II. X
322 THE FOURTEENTH SERMON. [EcCLES. IX. 11.
1. By way of comparison with God.
2. By way of exclusion of God.
3. By way of opposition to God.
1. By way of comparison with God. So God's name only is I am, and then there is none besides him. If the creatures be compared amon.i; themselves, some are good, strong, wise, others not ; but they are all nothing in comparison of God. Though there be a difference between the stars in the night, some are brighter and some are darker, some of the first magnitude, second, third, &c., yet in the daytime they are all alike inconspicuous, all are darkened by the sun's glory. When we compare the creatures one with another, we shall find dif- ferent degrees of perfection and excellency ; but by the glorious brightness of the Father of lights all these inferior lights are obscured and their dillerences unobserved. God saith somewhere, ' I am, and there is none else ; I am alone. I lift my hand to heaven, and swear, 1 live for ever.' It is counted an usurpation of divine honour for the creature to say I am: Isa. xlvii. 8, ' Babylon said in her heart, I am.' tSo Kineveh: Ze])h. ii. 15, ' This is the rejoicing city, that dwelt care- lessly, that said in her heart, / am, and there is none besides me ;' Isa. xlvii. 10, ' Thy wisdom and understanding hath perverted thee, and thou hast said in thy heart / am, and there is none besides me.' For us to reckon upon our wisdom, strength, or goodness, is a dero- gation from God. God in scripture is represented as only wise, only strong, and only good. Job ix. 19, 1 Tim. i. 17, Mat. xix. 17. The creature hath but the shadow of these things. As it is but a bor- rowed kind of speech to call a picture or a statue a man — this is Caisar, this is Alexander — becau.se of the likeness and representation, so the creatures are but a resemblance when we call them wise, strong, good. To this head may be referred tho.se expressions, ' the true light,' John i. 9, ' the true vine,' John xv. 1. These terms originally agree to God, and but in a borrowed sense to the creature.
2. By way of exclusion of God. As the sunbeam is nothing when the sun wilhdraweth, or the sound is nothing when the musician taketh away his mouth and breath from the i)ipe and instrument: Ps. civ. 29, 30, ' Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, and they are created ; thou take.st away thy breath, and they die.' The creature in com- parison with God is in reckoning nothing; but in exclusion of God it is in reality nothing; because all their life, wisdom, strength, and the acting of it is but borrowed and derived from God, and held only at God's pleasure. Naturally and spiritually it is true. If any of us say, / am, we nuist add with Paul, ' By the grace of God I am that I am,' 1 Cor, XV. 10. And again, ' I live, yet not I, but Christ,' Gal. ii. 20, If God withdraw his providential influence and supportation, we vanish into nothing: Job vii. 8, ' Thine eyes are ui)on me, and I am not;' meaning that God, fastening his eye upon him in anger, would look him into nothing.
3. In way of opposition to God, either to his cause and interest in the world: Isa. xli. 11, ' Behold, all that are incensed against thee shall be as nothing.' The creature beareth a big bulk in the eye of sense, seemeth not only as something, but as all things ; and as long as a man looketh to what is visible, we have no hope and comfort to
ECCLES. IX. 11.] THE FOURTEENTH SERMON. 323
fasten upon. But what are the swift, the wise, the strong to God, or against his providence, when God is angry for sin, and we use ordinary means to avoid the danger, and do not reconcile ourselves to him, and take up the controversy between him and us ? Alas ! human endeav- ours can avail nothing against his wrath. Those probable mean.s-, which have prevailed at other times, will prove a mere nothing ; be we never so strong and wise, and use never so many j)olitic means to avert the judgment: Amos vi. 13, 'Ye rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to ourselves horns by our own strength ?' They gloried in this, that their strength was renewed and increased, and so hoped to elude the threatened judgment, and to drive away any enemy that might invade them. ' They glory in a thing of nought,' salth the prophet. Alas ! what are armies, troops, confederacies, councils ? Things of nought, when God will blow upon them ; all things on this side of God are of nought, and vain to be gloried in, when our sins are come to a height, and judgments are threatened and near.
Secondly, I will prove to you, that the true apprehension of this is mightily useful to us throughout the whole spiritual life ; for no one thing keepeth the creature upright so much as to see all in God, and nothing in the creature. This establisheth our dependence on God's promises in the most difficult cases; as Eom. iv. 17, 18, What made Abraham to ' believe in hope against hope,' and give God so much credit and glory as he did ? By his faith ' he believed in him that quickeneth the dead, and calletli those things that are not as though they were.' Again, there is nothing that doth so encourage us in the difficult services which God calleth us unto, as to remember God is all, and the creature is nothing. As- when the apostles went to preach the gospel first at Jerusalem, in the very face of opposition, whose interest led them to oppose it. When among the Gentiles, possessed of a re- ligion entailed upon them by the tradition of many ages, and for which they were zealous, the devil stirring up the hatred of many furious spirits against them. The doctrine was novel, and did not court the senses, but persuaded men to row against the stream of flesh and bloody slighted by the people, disputed against by their wise men, persecuted by the powers that then were, had no temporal interest to back it ; and this to be promoted in the face of the learned world, by a few poor fisher- men, when all civil disciplines were then in their ukixi-j and height. What encouraged them, to this ? The apostle telleth you, 1 Cor. i. 26-28. That thougli they had ' not many mighty, not many noble,' to own tliem ; yet ' God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and the things that are not to bring to nought the things that are.' In short, that though magistracy and populacy were against them, the creature is as nothing, God all in all. Again, to depend on God's providence in the midst of losses,wants, straits: 2 Cor. vl 10, ' As having nothing, yet possessing all things.' Again, if we have a due sense of God's being, the tempting baits of the world would scarce be seen ; the riches, honours, and pleasures of the world would be forgotten, as if they were not : Prov. xxiii. 5, ' Wilt thou set thine heart upon that which is not?' It is as if it were not, if God will blast them^ if God will not work by them. Again, to look for a