128 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. LXVI.
1. An examination of our past course, or a looking into our own estate.
2. A careful watch over future actions.
3. A consideration of the issue and event of things. I have viewed my life past. I have been wrong, and I see it will be bitterness in the issue ; therefore I purpose to give up myself to a course of obedience, and therefore to consider well of my actions for the future. Now this is a work that is not once to be done, but always. As often as we look to ourselves, we shall find something that needeth amendment ; and therefore we need to press the heart with new and pregnant thoughts to mind our duty, and to use constant caution, and taking heed to our ways that we may not go wrong. Ps. xxxix. 1, thus did David, to keep his heart right, ' I thought on my ways.'
Secondly, The objects of this consideration, or the things that must be considered; that may be gathered out of the former discourse. But—
1. Who made thee? Eccles. xii. 1, ' Eemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' It is a great advantage to call to mind whose creatures we are ; for this will shame us, that we have done no more than we have done for him, from whom we have all that we have ; and this in youth, when the effects of this creating bounty are most fresh upon our senses. In good earnest consider, who was it that made thee a reasonable creature ; not a stone, and without life ; nor a plant, and without sense ; nor a beast, and without reason ; but a man, with reason, and understanding, and will, and affections ; that thou mayest know him, and love him, and enjoy him. And hast thou never thought of the God that made thee ? Art thou of those hare-brained fools that go on rashly in a course of sin, and ' God h not in all their thoughts ' ? Ps. X. 4. How canst thou look upon the body without thoughts of him whose workmanship it is? or think of thy soul without thinking of God whose image and superscription it bears, and without whom thou canst not so much as think ? Shall it be troublesome to thee to have frecpient thoughts of God, when thou canst go musing of vanity all the day long ? Shall eveiy trifle find a room in thy heart, when God findeth no room, there ? ' He is not far from every one of us,' Acts xvii, 27, but we are far from him. He is before thee, behind thee, round about thee, yea, within thee, or else thou couldst not keep thy breath in thy body for a moment, and wilt thou not then take some time to season thy heart with thoughts of God ? The first mis- carriage of men came from this : Eom. i. 28, ' They liked not to re- tain God in their knowledge.' Thoughts of God and right opinions of •God were a burden to them, and therefore they gave up themselves to an ungodly course and evil state of mind. And wilt thou jjut such a scorn and contempt upon thy Creator as never seriously to think of him ? yea, when thoughts of God rush in upon thy mind, to turn them out as imwelcome guests ? This is to degenerate into the state of devils, a part of whose torment it is to think of God : they ' believe and tremble;' the more explicit thoughts they have of the name of God, the more is their horror increased. Oh ! then let thy meditations of God be sweet fmd serious, Ps. civ. 34. Everything thatpasseth before thine eyes pro- chiims an invisible God, an infiuite and eternal power, that made thee
VeR. 59.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 129
and all things else. Shall the heavens above, the earth beneath thee say, Kemember God ; and every creature, every pile of grass thou treadest upon, call to thee, Kemember God ; and wilt thou be so stupid and scornful as not to cast a look upon him ? Then we begin to be t^erious when thoughts of God are more fastened upon our hearts.
2. Why did he make thee ? Not in vain ; for no wise agent will make a thing to no purpose, especially with such advice, ' Let us make man,' Certainly not for a life of sin, to break his laws, and follow your lusts, and satisfy your fleshly desires. Was this God's end, that the creature might rebel against himself? This is not consistent with his goodness, to make us for such an end ; or if so, why did he make the rules of justice and equity natural to us, so tliat man is a law to himself? Kom. ii. 14. Nor for sport and recreation, to eat, drink, and be merry, or to melt away your days in ease and idleness. He spake rather like a beast than a man, ' Soul, take thine ease, eat, <lrink, and be merry ; thou hast goods laid up for many years,' Luke xii. 19. If merely for pleasures, why did he give us a conscience ? The brute beasts are fitter for such a use, who have no conscience, and therefore no remorse to embitter their pleasures. What was the end for which God made us ? Was it to gather wealth, and that the soul might cater for the body, and that we might live well here in the world ? No ; for then God s work would terminate in itself. And why were such noble faculties given us, such a high-flying reason, that hath a sense of another world, if this were all God's end, that we might grovel here upon earth, and scrape and heap up this world's riches ? We see they are the basest of men who are given to this kind of pursuits. Surely this was not God's end. But why was it ? Prov. xvi. 4, ' God hath made all things for himself,' for his glory ; and so man to glorify Idm and enjoy him. The beasts were made to glorify him in their kind, but man to enjoy him. This is my end, to seek after God, to please him, to serve him : Ps. xiv. 2, ' The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.' God, that hath fixed his end, observeth what man doth in compliance with it, what aflection and care they have to find him, please him, glorify him. Reason will tell us as well as scripture that the first cause must be the last end, and we must end there where we began at first: 1 Cor. x. 31, ' Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Well, then, I was not made for nothing, not to sin away my life, nor to sport it away, nor to talk it away, nor to drudge it away in the servile and basest offices of this life ; my end is to enjoy God, and my work and business is to serve and glorify him.