Use 2. This affords much comfort to humbled sinners. Take Christ as freely as he freely offereth himself for you. He resigned up himself to death, and will not you resign up yourselves by flxith ? He poured out his soul to death, and will not you pour out your souls into his bosom ? Consider, all the persons of the Trinity are willing, and will not you? The Father gave him: John iii. 16, 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son,' Christ gave himself : Gal. ii, 20, ' Who loved me, and gave himself for me,' The Spirit is willing ;
48 SERMON UPON JOHN XIX. 30.
he is grieved with your neglect and refusal : Mat. xxiii. 37, ' How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, hut ye would not ! ' Oh, pour out your souls in foith and prayer, as Christ did his upon the cross.
Use 3. Let us learn to imitate Christ. At the close of his life he said, ' It is finished,' and so ' bowed the head, and gave up the ghost.' Believers have a joy set before them as well as Christ. It is not so with wicked men ; they cannot say that with them it is begun ; their heaven endeth wlien they come to die ; but God's people should take death cheerfully, if they can say, as Christ, John xvii. 4, ' Father, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do.' Let the death be violent or natural, it is all one whether we are a peace-offering or a burnt-offering ; there is more of man's malice in a violent death, but it cannot hurt us. But alas ! men generally do not live as if they did look to die, and therefore they do not die as if they did look to live ; and so here they would not die. and there they would not live.
SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES VII. 29.
But they sought out many inventions. — Eccles. vii. 29.
There are two things in this scripture —
1. The righteousness of God in his work about men, ' God made man upright.'
2. Man's perverse subtlety in inventing ways of backsliding and apostasy from God, ' But they sought out many inventions.'
From this latter part observe —
Doct. That man fell from the integrity of his first estate, and is ever since full of evil and fruitless inventions.
I. I shall speak to this point as it is represented in the text.
II. Give some considerations as to the general case.
1. The persons, ' they.' The expression was singular before, ' God made Adam upright ; ' but now plural, not only to include both our first parents, but all their posterity. Adam had his invention, and all his posterity theirs. The devil inspired Adam with a sad and doleful invention, to go about to find out another happiness than God had appointed. Adam could not content himself with this kind of happi- ness, but fancied to himself an higher perfection, and yielded to follow these new devised ways of blessedness which Satan and his own deceived heart did suggest to him ; and this invention hath invented and found out all the sin and misery under which the world groaneth. As Adam had his invention, so all his posterity theirs ; we are inventing still to make ourselves more miserable. The least ebullitions of sin are expressed in the old testament by ' imaginations ; ' in the new by 'lusts.' In the old testament by 'imaginations;' Jer. xviii. 12, 'And they said. There is no hope ; but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his pvil heart ; ' Gen. vi. 5, 'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con- tinually.' In the new by 'lusts;' James i. 14, 'But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed ; ' Titus iii. 3, 'For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts.' Not only the desiring, but the under- standing faculty is corrupt ; therefore it is said, Prov. i. 31, ' They shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices ; ' Jer. vi. 19, ' Behold, I will bring upon this people even the fruit of their thoughts ; ' meaning the evil which their own devices and practices had procured to themselves. Every one of us has our devices, ways,
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50 SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES VII. 29.
and haunts of sin, ^Yllereby we make ourselves more wretched and sinful.
2. Their act, ' They sought out ; ' that showeth the voluntariness and studiousness of man's defection ; it is their own act and deed, and their hearts are set upon it. It is said, Jonah ii. 8, ' They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies.' They set their minds a-work, prostitute their reason to their senses. All men's projects, what do they tend to but the satisfaction of their own lusts, to cater for the body, and gratify the animal life ? ' Making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof,' Rom. xiii. 14 ; ' Taking thought what they shall eat or what they shall drink,' Mat. vi. 25. Their care is about the base and brutish part more than about the soul, how to adorn the body and gratify the body ; and for this the soul must be made a slave. There is a perverse diligence in men to corrupt themselves.