[3.] There must be a sense of our inability to return and come to
VeB. 5.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL 61
him. Man is a proud creature, and loth to be beholden ; he would be happy and sufficient to himself ; we would eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel ; and if we could heal our own wounds we would never return to God. Conviction usually endeth in hypocrisy, when the soul is not wrought off from its own strength. If men can heal conscience, and dress up a form of religion, there they rest : men stay in themselves till this be done. We are all by nature absent from God, and the scripture showeth us our inability to return. The state of fallen man is resembled by the wandering of sheep : Isa. liii. 6, ' All we like sheep have gone astray.' Of all creatures, sheep are most apt to stray, and most unable to return. Swine and dogs know the way home again, but sheep do not : so it is with the soul. Saith Austin, Domine, errareper me potui, redirenon potui ; Lord, I could go astray, and wander by myself, but I knew not how to return. It is Christ's office to bring us to God ; God hath set up a mediator to make up our distance from God. It is Jesus Christ alone that must caiTV the strayed lamb home upon his own shoulder, as the Holy Ghost alludes to that similitude, Luke xv. 5. We can never go to God upon our own feet, but we must be carried home upon the shoulders of Christ ; therefore conviction will never be successful till it brings the creature to come and lie down at God's feet as utterly undone, and to say, Jer. xxxL 18, ' Turn us, Lord, and then we shall be turned.'
2. The next bound and stage in this motion is, to whom we do return, and that is to God ; to God, through Jesus Christ, for other- w^ise he can never be well pleased with us. He hath proclaimed from lieaven he will never be pleased with his creatures till they become one with Christ : Mat. iii. 17, * This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And Christ himself, when he professeth the quality of his offices, saith, John xiv. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life.' Now the several tendencies of the soul towards God are a serious purpose to come to God, an earnest desire, and a constant waiting.
[1.] A serious purpose and practical decree issued forth in the soul. As the prodigal, when he was humbled with want, resolves, Luke xv. 18, ' I will arise, and go to my father ; ' so there is a resolution, I will arise, and go to God. All grace is founded in this practical decree.^ So David professeth his own shyness, that for a long time he kept off from God, and there was a distance between him and God ; but at length he took up a serious purpose and determination that he would go and humble himself to God : Ps. xxxii. 5, 'I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,' &c. The soul, being inclined by grace, resolves to come to God through Christ. The scripture ascribeth much to this irpodeat.';, and settled resolution, that ' with full purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord,' Acts xi. 23. Our own wants and needs will make us full of anxious traverses, but the resolution and decree of the soul comes from grace ; for herein lies the formal essence of faith, a resolved casting of the soul upon Christ, which is the issue and result of all those anxious and serious debates that were wont to be in the soul, by which, in the prophet's language, Jer. XXX. 21, ' The heart is engaged to approach to God ; ' when there is a charge laid upon the soul, by which the soul is engaged to come into his presence.
52 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL [SeR. XXII.
[2.] There is an earnest desire of enjoying communion with Grod in Christ: Ps. Ixiii. 8, 'My soul followeth hard' — or raaketh hard pm'suit — 'after Grod;' and tlie pm'suance of the soul is by desires; they are evidenced to be gracious, because they are not only after ease and comfort. Such desires may arise from self-love, but after a constant communion with God : Ps. xlii. 1, 'As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God ; ' not only after the sweetness and refreshment of grace, but after intimate converse ■with God : Ps. xxvii. 4, ' One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord,' &c. And they are after grace as well as after comfort : Ps. cxix. 5, ' Oh that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes ! ' All the endeavours of a natural man are to go away from God ; but when a soul is touched with grace, it can never have enough holiness, and enough grace, and enough communion with God.
[3.] Constant and industrious waiting. Many times God makes the soul wait long ; he hath waited long upon us, and therefore he makes us to wait long ere we receive the sensible effects of grace. Therefore this coming to God is described by an industrious and constant waiting ; as Benhadad's servants watched the king of Israel for the word ' brother, 1 Kings XX. 33, so the soul waits upon God for one glimpse of his love.' David expresseth this earnest waiting by the waiting of a sentinel or watchman for the dawning of the day ; Ps. cxxx. 6, ' My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning ; I say, more than they that watch for the morning.' Look, as the weary sentinel that is stiff and wet with the dews of the night waits for the dawning of the morning, when he may be taken off from his charge and duty ; so doth the poor soul wait for the first dawning and breaking out of the rays of grace upon the soul. Now this is not only done by a chris- tian at his first conversion, but after coming and renewing his accesses to God by Christ.