(6.) In boasting of their folly and madness. Nature is much dis- torted ; man fallen is but the anagram of man in innocency ; shame is translated ; we are confident where we should be ashamed, and are ashamed where we should be confident. We should own God and religion with an holy boldness, but we conceal it, and sneak pitifully ; but glory in our shame, Phil. iii. 19, as if a man besmeared with dung should cry it up for an ornament. We are conceited of our carnal practices. ' The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,' saith Solomon, Prov. xii. 15 ; and so we glory in that which should be matter of
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mourning and confusion of face to us : Eccles. x. 3, ' When he also that is a i&o\, walketli in the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.' If it be meant of the wicked fool, it is meant of his glorying in his shame, and his boasting of his sins as ornaments.
[2.] Now for the other property, fury. It is also the madness that is in carnal and worldly men : Eccles. ix. 3, ' The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart.' There is a violent, heady, pertinacious pressing to evil and sin. How fierce and furious are men in a way of sin, under the passionateness of any lust ! The slaves of sin are as a man possessed with a legion of devils in the Gospel, who rent and tore his clothes, and all the cords wherewith they bound him ; nay, they are worse than he, for in his fury he broke his bonds, but they double and strengthen theirs. When a man is given over to the rage and madness of his own nature, how is the soul over- borne by boisterous and filthy lusts ! They go on furiously and fro- wardly, nothing can put a stop to their raging lusts, but they cast off all restraints of reason, and conscience and grace. The prophet said, Jer. 1. 38, ' They are mad upon their idols,' blind with fury against the ways of God, and the church : Ps. cii, 9, ' Mine enemies reproach me all the day, they are ma^d against me.' Now this madness of nature is seen in that all respects of danger and loss, fear of death, judgment, and hell, will not contain them within their duty; they run upon God himself, and the thick bosses of his buckler, Job. xvi. 21. Every sin is a contest with God, an holding war with the almighty, 1 Cor. x. 22 ; and wilful sin an open and a plain contest, as if we could make our party good against him ; and when we remain under the power of a carnal mind, we are in a state of enmity against God, Eom. viii. 7. And this is such a piece of madness as if a private man could by the help of his family, his private house, prevail against all the forces of the kingdom. This madness showeth itself too by raging at reproofs ; the mad world cannot endure those that would stop them in the way to hell. Therefore the seriously godly, whose lives are a standing re- proof, are most hated by them : Prov. xxix. 27 ; and Isa. lix. 15, 'He that departeth from evil, maketh himself a prey.' Now you see where madness is to be charged ; either upon the servants of God, who make it their business to please him, or upon the worldly and the carnal. Let them wash themselves from this imputation as well as they can, it will stick to them ; and the only sober people in the world are the strict and religious.
Use 1. Let us bear it with patience, if we be esteemed madmen for God's service, and our strictness and fidelity to him. Think it not strange, nor be offended at the matter, though ye be thus censured of the carnal men of the world ; they can no more judge of these things than blind men of colours, and their dislike is many times a token of God's approbation. No wise man going into bedlam will be offended to be railed at and spit upon ; he looketh for no other, and so will not be moved at their madness. If we be not thus minded, the least offences will draw us from our duty. Let us not then forbear these practices, which are thought vanity and folly by carnal men, if they be for God's glory, and the good of our own and other souls ; nor be
118 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. [SeR. XX.
disheartened with them ; we must be contented to be accounted mad for God, in that which the world judgeth madness or discretion.
2. Let us vindicate rehgion from this imputation. ' Wisdom is justified of her children,' Mat. xi. 19. Those who have received wisdom, true wisdom from God, and are obedient disciples of it, they ■will defend true wisdom as often as it is condemned by the world.
But how shall wisdom be justified by us?