SERMON UPON PROVERBS XIV. 14. 475
15, * As for me, I will behold tliy face in righteousness ; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.' Therefore, when God will graciously recompense our goodness, it is enough ; we shall have a full sufficiency in the reward.
V. That, rightly understood, every one is filled from himself. The backslider is filled with his own ways, and the godly person hath his own choice, therefore he is satisfied from himself. Not that his choice or course merited it, but God accepteth it. Certainly the wicked hath none to blame but himself, and therefore he is said ' to reward evil to himself,' Isa. iii. 9 ; that is, by their sins they hurt not God, but wrong themselves, or bring evil unto themselves. As to the godly, he must look to his qualifications. God, that made him without himself, will not save him without himself ; therefore he must look to his choice and course. You have your choice, whether you will take your own ways or God's counsel You do not purchase or merit your reward, but you must qualify yourselves to receive it. It is left upon your choice. It is not always true in carnals, choose and have, but sometimes it is. You may have the trifles of the world in your own ways, but you can- not have God and heaven without accepting God's counsel, without a resolved choice and serious prosecution ; there it is choose and have. You must part with your sin and fleshly pleasure, and resolve upon an holy and godly course of life. The world flattereth you to your de- struction, but God calleth you to salvation ; as you choose, so shall you have. If you refuse Christ, and follow your own ways, you will have enough of it in time ; if you obey God, and resolve to seek after him, you shall be satisfied. Therefore your eternal woe or weal lieth much in your own hands. If you forsake your own mercies for lying vanities, whom have you to blame but yourselves ? Jonah ii. 8, ' They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.' But though God incline you to choose, and that work must be ascribed to him, yet it is you must choose, and pursue after the true happiness, and God will graciously accept you. God gives you the wit and the will to make a riglit choice, but you must choose. Something you must do if you would be happy. There is no condition of merit, but order. It is God that reclaimeth you from your sensual inclinations, yet God will not have you without your consent, or against your wQl, nor give you heaven without a diligent pursuit after it.
Use 1. Consider who is the backslider ; one involved in the apostasy of Adam, one that seeketh to be filled with his own ways. The beginning and progress and end of his course is from liimself, and in himself, and to himself again ; that is, carnal self. He acteth only as his fleshly inclination moveth him. Carnal self is the principle, rule, and end, and God is wholly neglected, neither sought after nor pleased, nor his counsel regarded, nor his grace valued, though he sent Christ to recover us from the world and the flesh to himself. Neither is God minded as the chiefest good or last end ; nor regarded as our director and counsellor ; nor chosen as our portion, that we may come to him by Christ; nor his grace sought after, that we may be quickened and inclined to seek after him.
2. Consider what a blessed thing it is to be filled with our ways in gracious sense, while we are capable to mend our errors: 1 Peter
474 SERMON UPON PROVERBS XIV. 14.
iv. 3, ' The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the gentiles.' You have already long, very long, too long, been dishonouring God and destroying your own souls. Oh, it is time we should set about the mortifying of sin, and serious conversion to God.
3. Consider how pleasing to the Lord it is that we, passing by all other things, do choose him for our portion, Christ for our redeemer, his word for our rule, and his Spirit for our guide. When God gave Solomon liberty to ask what he would, and he asked not riches and honour, but wisdom, it is said, ' The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing,' 1 Kings iii. 10. While we are in the world, let us choose something better than the world, something that hath been before it, and will remain when it is gone. Satan casteth worldly things in the way, but let us look higher.
SERMONS UPON JOHN I. 29.
SERMON I.
Behold {he Lamb of God, which taketh aivay the sin of the world.
John i. 29.
The words are spoken upon occasion of John's meeting with Christ. Before his temptations in the desert Christ had honoured John's baptism ; after his return from the desert he oometh to honour his ministry. Christ himself was one of John's auditors. It fell out happily by the divine providence, that so John might give him a solemn testimony before the people, ' Behold the Lamb of Grod,' &c. In the words we have —