Secondly, All that come to the use of reason have actually sinned against God. The bad : 1 Kings viii. 46, ' For there is no man that sinneth not.' The good : Eccles. vii. 20, ' For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not.' Our nature, being un- subdued, discovereth itself in acts suitable: Gen. viii. 21, 'For the imagination of man's l>eart is evil from his youth, and that continually.' Though there be mixtures and intermissions, and though this corrup- tion be in part broken, yet it is not wholly vanquished ; as cloth dyed in the wool doth not easily leave its first mixture. Principles in tho
300 A TRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [ISA. LIII. G.
best are mixed, so are their operations, like fair water passing through a dirty sink. Bonum non est nisi ex integro — not so purely good, as merely evil before. The best are either overtaken, Gal. vi. 1, or over- borne, Rom. vii. The saints in heaven are called ' spirits made j)erfect,' Heb. xii. 23. They sin no more ; but here we come very short of that exact obedience which the law requireth: Prov. xx. i), ' Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin ?' Tiiey have entered upon the work of cleatisiug tiieir hearts, but cannot get tliem quite clean, but still go on with the work, and make use of the blood of Christ. Though none accuse them, yet God and their own hearts may justly condemn them tor many sinful swervings from their duty.
Thirdly, This departing from Gt)d and his ways is fitly represented by the straying of sheep: ' All we like sheep have gone astray.'
In the general it implieth: —
1. That we are brutish in our sin and defection from God : it could not be expie.ssed but by a comparison fetchetl from the beasts; we were like sheej) led aside in a sensual way. Man aimed at being equal with God, and he was made beneath himself : Ps. xlix. 12, 'Never- theless, man being in honour, abideth not ; he is like the beasts that perish.' He continued not in the honour of his creation, and in that excellency and dignity wherein God had set him ; but became like a beast, governed by his senses and lower aj)petite. It is true of all men, they do not continue in the excellency of their being, they have lost much of the dignity of their I'eason, and are more led by sense, as the brute creatures are. And therefore you have the saints often comi)laining : Ps. Ixxiii. 22^ ' ISo foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee.' I was as behemoth, a great beast. Sometimes they have no command of their alfections, but are merely led by the unruliness of appetite or ])assions : so Prov. xxx. 2, ' I was more brutish than any man ;' that is, he was no more able to gain heavenly knowledge, whereby to be wise for heaven and salvation, than brute creatures are able to wield man's reason, whereby to apply themselves to the affairs of this life. Therefore man is often compared to beasts for fierceness and cruelty, as the jjrophet calleth the proud oppressors cows : Amos iv. 3, ' And ye shall go out of the breaches, every cow at that which is before her.' So for their rude wanton simplicity, they are compared to ' a wild ass's colt,' Job xi. 12. And here to a sheep in decay of knowledge and government. In the general, then, it implieth something brutish in us, and that through the fall we have fclij)ped beneath the excellency of our raidc and being.
2. Proneuess to err. No creature is more prone to wander and lose liis way than a sheep without a shei)herd, which is easily seduced. So are we apt to transgress the ])Oun(ls whereby God hath hedged up our way: Jer. xiv. 10, ' Thus saith the Lord unto this people, thus have they loved to wander.' They loved to try experiments in a way of sin. Man indeed would fain transmit the fault from himself, as Adam doth obliquely ufjon God : ' The woman which thou gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and 1 did eat,' Gen. iii. 12. It may not be the shepherd's fault if the sheep wander, but their own nature, their aptness to wander. When we bring ourselves into inconveniences, we are apt to murmur, and secretly to accuse God in
ISA. LIII. 6.] THE FIFTY-THIRD CHArTER OF ISAIAH. 301
our thoughts, as if ho did not sufficiently provide for us. Solomon saith, Prov. xix. 3, ' Tho foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord.' It is our own folly, and we blame our own fate, our evil destiny, and those unlucky stars tJiat shone at our birth; and in these things we blame (^lod himself. The saints themselves have been guilty of this evil, fretting at God for what inconvenience comes to pass through their own sin and folly. 2 Sam. vi. 8, it is said, ' David was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah.' He should have been displeased with himself and his own ignorance, to order the ark to be carried upon a cart, when it should have been carried upon the ])riests' shoulders. Thus, as sheep, it noteth to us self-abasement, because of our own proneness : we did it as sheep, and they are apt to wander.