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2. By his Spirit. When David speaketh of choosing God for his portion, he presently addeth, Ps. xvi. 7, * I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel ; ' we had else been as witless fools as others, rejoicing in the creature apart from God in the midst of soul-dangers. Without this nothing will reclaim us from our wanderings, neither reason, nor experience, nor common grace. Now reason : it is easy to ])rove the vanity of the creature, that it is not man's happiness to enjoy the pleasures of the world, or to seek to be well here. We may argue against their carnal practices, but what will our arguings avail ? Still they are as worldly as ever, and seek satisfaction in their own ways : ' This their way is their folly, yet their posterity approve of their sayings,* Ps. xlix. 13. Men may stand over the graves of their ancestors, ;ind say, Where is now their worldly honour, esteem, and favqjir, for which they neglected God, slighted Christ, and sold their salvation ? yet those that succeed them neglect true happiness as much as they that went before, and are as careless of heavenly things. We see great ones die as well as others, but who is bettered by it ? The survivors are as greedy of gain, as sensual, as vain, and doting upon worldly greatness as their fore runners were. So for experience, compare Deufc. xxix. 2-4, ' Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and all his servants, and to all his land, yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day,' with Ps. xc. 12, ' So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.' God must teach us the plainest lessons. So for common faith, though we have been trained up in the scriptures, though we know that we must enjoy God, or we can never be happy, yet still we are wedded to carnal vanities. Our respects to God are but notions and compliments. The fervency and reality of our affections is intercepted by the world, or else there could not be so many covetous christians, voluptuous christians, ambitious christians. Heart-idolatry is the most dangerous. Men are sooner convinced than converted : ' Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,' 2 Tim. iii. 5. Nay, though there be some common work of the Spirit, and they do not only talk by rote, but have some sense of the vanity of the world, and of the necessity and excel- lency of Gt)d's favour, ' some taste of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,' Heb. vi. 45. Yet though they would have Christ for their consciences, the world hath their affections. We desire happiness, as children would fain have something, but are pleased with rattles or any toy. We would be happy, but take up with any- thing that Cometh next to hand. Thus we do till God cureth us by enlightening our minds, or giving us counsel in our reins, and inclining our hearts : Ps. cxix. 36, ' Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not unto covetousness.' The good man liveth in obedience to these sanctifying motions of the Spirit.
IV. That as to the event, they are both filled, but in a different sense.
First, I shall show how the wicked are filled with their own ways. A wicked man he hath enough of sin in the punishment ; therefore it is said, ' They shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices,' Prov. i. 31 ; as a man that hath surfeited of pleasant
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meat hath enough of it when he feeleth the torments and gripes of his surfeit. Now (1.) When is this ; and (2.) Why ?
1. When? It may be in this life, but surely in the next.
[1.] It may be here, partly by disappointment when those honours and pleasures and riches which they sought after prove an occasion of much misery to them, and they see they had been safer if they had stood longer. This often falleth out in the world. Many desire great- ness to their hurt. Solomon compareth them to ' Fishes taken in an evil net, or birds caught in the snare,' Eccles. ix. 12. They play about the bait so long, till they meet with the hook, or their height ruin them : Job. V. 12, 13, * He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the fro ward is carried headlong.' Partly by death, which blowetli away all vain conceits : Jer. xvii. 11, ' As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not ; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool ; ' and Job xxvii. 8, ' What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul ? ' and 1 John ii. 17, ' The world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.' Oh, that men were so careful to seek and serve God and save their souls as they are to provide for their bodies and satisfy their lusts ! Usually when men are going out of the world, they complain how the world hath deceived them. It had been better if they had lived in a strict obedience.