1. The necessity of it. It must needs be so that God's ways must be taken up upon choice, because there are several competitors that bid for the heart of man : where there is but one thing, there is no choice.
268 sermons upon psalm cxix. [Ser. CLXXXVI.
There is the devil, by the world, through the flesh, seeks to get in, and. reign in your hearts ; and there is God, Christ, and the Spirit. Now there must be a casting out of one, and putting in the other. Look, as in Prov. ix., the whole chapter; there wisdom and the foolish woman are brought in pleading to draw in the heart of unwary man to themselves. Wisdom is pleading, and the foolish woman is pleading. In the beginning of the chapter, wisdom tells what comfort, what peace they shall have, if they will take her institutions ; wisdom offers solid benefits, but folly offers stolen waters and bread eaten in secret, some carnal mirth when conscience is asleep. Ay ! and the dead are there too. The intoxicating pleasures of this world bring death along with them, when they can choke the sentiments of God that are in his heart. ' Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither,' saith wisdom ; and ' who is simple, let him turn in hither,' saith folly. As the poets feign of their Hercules, that virtue and vice appeared to him, and the one showed him a rough, the other a pleasant way. Certainly as soon as we come to years of discretion, we come to make our choice, either to go on in the ways of death, or to choose the ways of God ; either to give up ourselves to the pleasures of sin, or else to seek after the comforts of the Spirit. Now, since there are two competitors for the heart of man, and his love cannot lie idle, it must be given to one or another ; love and oblectation cannot remain idle in the soul, either it must leak out to the world, or run out to God. There is a neces- sity of a choice, of renouncing the bewitching vanities of the world, that we may seriously betake ourselves to the service of God.
2. Consider the congruity and conveniency of it, both to the honour of God and nature of man, that no man should ever be happy or miserable but by his own choice.
[1.] It is not for the honour of God that a man should be happy or have such great privileges settled upon him without his own choice ; such great benefits as justification, sanctification, and eternal glory. On the other side, that a man should be miserable without his know- ledge, or against his will, or besides his purpose and consent, that God should give eternal life whether men will or no. It is not agreeable to the honour of God to inflict eternal death upon them without their consent, unless they choose the ways of death ; man's heart else would have a plea against God. Certainly the wise God will never make any happy without their own consent, and never make any miserable but their destruction is of themselves, Hosea xiii. 9.
[2.] Neither will it agree with the nature of man, who is a reason- able rational creature, or any agent capable of election or choice. The brutes are ruled with a rod of iron. God guides all things by his providence; inanimate creatures by mere providence, brutes by their own instinct, and man as a free agent, capable of knowing and prose- cuting his chief end. Now every creature of God is governed accord- ing to the nature which is put into it ; and therefore, since man is a free agent, God expects, in submitting to his service, the creature's consent and choice; and before we can submit to his service, before he will admit us to the benefits, there must be a choice, and an actual will on our parts : Rev. xxii. 17, ' Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.' The business is brought home to us, and left with our
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will. If we miss of happiness, it is because we would not choose it, and the way that leads to it. The Lord chargeth it still upon man's will, John v. 40 ; Luke xix. 14 ; Mat. xxiii. 37 ; Ps. lxxxi. 11. Our misery is from our own wilfulness ; but in all that are brought into grace, there is a will it is true, but God prevents them and inclines their will : Ps. ex. 3, ' Thy people shall be willing in the day of grace and power.' You have a grant, and an offer of mercy from God, and then he inclines and moves you to make a right choice. So that of the good and bad it may be said they have their choice. If you neglect and refuse holiness, you choose your own destruction, and neglect life. Your hearts must tell you this : Thou wast the fault of it ; as Plutarch brings in one Apollodorus, that dreamed one night that he was boiling in a kettle of scalding lead, and that his heart cried out to him, I have been the cause of all this. This heathen improves it to show there is a vengeance that attends sinners. I mention it only allusively. Now it was your own perverse choice and will that made your hell ; thou hast but the fruit of thine own choice. Indeed, as to what is good, if you have chosen the precepts of God, there God must have the glory. You must say, Not I, but- Christ ; as the apostle. Ay ! but there you come in ; there is an act of your will, but as disposed and rightly inclined by God. You come both to the duties and privileges of religion by a choice also, though not of yourselves, but of God.