[3.] It implies a seeking of him in Christ. For without a mediator guilty creatures cannot enjoy God. We cannot immediately converse with God, there must be a mediator between God and us : John xiv. 6, ' I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh to the Father but by me.' There is no getting to God but by Clirist. God in our nature is more familiar with us, and more especially found of us : Hos. iii. 5, ' They shall seek the Lord their God and David their king,' that is, Christ. There is no seeking or finding of God but in and by Christ. Saith Luther, Horrihile est de Deo extra Christum cogitare — It is a terrible thing to think of God out of Christ. As Themistocles, when he sought the favour of Admetus, which had been formerly his enemy, the historian tells us he snatched up his child, and so begged entertainment of him. We are enemies to God ; if we go to him we must carry Christ with us. It is Christ's great work to bring us to God. He died for ' that end, that he might bring us to God,' 1 Peter iii. 18 ; audit is the great duty of a christian ; he ought to come to God by him — ' He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.' Heb. vii. 25. And therefore since we have lost the favour of God, we shall never find him but in Christ.
[4.] This seeking is stirred up in us by the secret impressions of God's grace, and the help of his Spirit. All the persons are concerned in it, ' For through him we have an access to the Father by one Spirit,' Eph. ii. 18. Natural men are well enough pleased without God or they have but faint desires after him. Take men as they are in them- selves, and the psalmist tells us, Ps. xiv. 2, 'No man understandeth and seeketh after God ; ' they have no affection, no desire of communion with him. So Ps. x. 4, ' The wicked, through the pride of his counte-
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162 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XXXI V.
nance, will not seek after God ; God is not in all their thou<2;hts.' Wicked men cast God out of their minds, never care whether he be pleased or displeased, whether he be enjoyed or hide himself from us. Ay, but the Spirit of God works this work in us. How so ? The spirit of bondage brings us to God as a judge; God as a judge sends us to Christ as mediator ; and Christ as mediator, by the spirit of adoption, biings us back to God again as a father ; and so Ave come to enjoy God. The divine persons make way for the operations of one an- other. Saith Bernard, Nemo te queer ere potest, nisi qui prms invenerit; tu igitur invenire ut quceraris, qucei^e tit inveniaris, potest quidem in- veniri, non tamen prcBveniri — None can be beforehand with God ; we cannot seek him till we find him ; he will be found that he may be sought, and he will be sought that he may be found ; his preventing grace makes us restless in the means, and puts us upon those first motions and earnest addresses towards God.
SEEMON XXXIV.
And that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. —
Heb. xi. 6.
[5.] This seeking must be our epya-v, our business, as well as our scope ; a thing that we would not mind by the by, but as the great work we are to do in our lives here in the world : Dent. iv. '29, ' Thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul ; ' and Jer. xxix. 13, 'Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart ; ' and 2 Chrou. xv. 15, ' They sought him with all their hearts, and their whole desire, and he was found of them. Many are convinced that they cannot be happy without the favour of God ; their consciences tell them they must seek after God, but their affections carry them to the world. Oh, but when your whole hearts are in this, when you make it your great business, then shall you find him. If you content yourselves to look after God by the by only, and as a recreation, and with a few slight endeavours, and do not make this the great employment of your lives, you will never find him. Certainly we were made for God, it was the end of our creation ; there- fore this must be the business of your lives. God made us for himself, and we can never be happy without liimself. And as it was the end of our creation, so it is the end of his gracious forbearance and indul- gence in the course of his providence. Wherefore doth God forbear with sinning man, when he punished the apostate angels presently ? — ' That they might seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him,' Acts xvii. 27. We do not live to live, but we live to seek God. When we had lost God by Adam's apostasy, God might have cut off all hope that ever we should find him again ; as the angels, when tiiey lost their chief est good, could never recover their first estate. But it is God's indulgence to deal with us upon more gracious terms,