[2.] So as to practice. Whilst instead of dependence and downright simplicity they fly to their own shifts, and will help themselves rather than trust God, they involve themselves the more. There is one prin- ciple of sincerity, to depend upon God's all-sufficiency : Gen. xvii. 1, * I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou perfect.' But they that do not trust God cannot be true to him. When men will be in-
52 SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES VII. 29.
venting, and shift for their own happiness, they never carve to them- selves a good portion, but have enough of their devices at last. Besides, our false happiness which we pursue after, and our inventions about it, are not only vain, but pernicious and destructive : John iii. 19, ' And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.' If we love our own dark counsels rather than God's provision for us and the remedy offered to us, our case is the more doleful.
Secondly, Observe, these inventions are many. Here I shall inquire — (1.) What are these inventions ? (2.) Why many ?
First, What are these inventions ? We must distinguish —
1. There are profitable inventions for the good of society and benefit of mankind, such as are civil arts and disciplines, manufacture and occupations, which conduce much to the good of the present world, and do repair those natural defects which were introduced by the fall. Now, though these are not intended in this place, yet two things I shall say upon this occasion —
[1.] The one is, that if man would have been contented to be at God's finding, many of these would not have been needed ; such a deal of do would not have been needful to man in innocency. It is sin hath made so many necessities, and lust still multiplieth them.
[2.] The other is, that though since the fall we can find some remedy for our natural defects, yet for the spiritual distempers of the heart we can find no cure. By art man can melt the hardest metals, and make them capable of any form, but to soften the heart, and make it capable of God's image, that is past the skill of men or angels. There is no creature so fierce but ' it is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind,' James iii. 7 ; but yet man cannot tame his own heart ; it is God must turn us, or we are never turned. How many inventions hath man found out to repair the ruins of the fall ! Grammar and rhetoric to polish our speech, logic to refine our reason, ethics to reform our manners in civil converse, economics to govern families, politics to model kingdoms and commonwealths ; but nothing to tame and subdue the heart to God ? It is God that ' createth in us a clean heart, and reneweth a right spirit,' Ps. li. 10 ; even he that made it at first.
2. There are sinful inventions, taken in a more limited sense, for those exquisite studied ways of sin wherewith many please themselves ; as we read of some that were ' inventors of evil things,' Kom. i. 30, who find out such wickedness as the world was never acquainted with before ; as new-fashioned oaths, lusts, torments. This argueth the height of wickedness ; and such are the more corrupt of the corrupt sort of men. These are not principally intended in this place, yet may be comprised here.
3. The inventions here intended are such as by which we start away from God and corrupt ourselves. This more general sense of the words compriseth two sorts of inventions —
[1.] Those many crooked counsels and devices whereunto men are carried by their own corrupt hearts, when once they had forsaken God and the straight rule of his law. We read, Jer. xvii. 9, * That the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ; who can know it ? ' There is a bottomless, unsearchable depth of wickedness
SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES VII. 29. 53
in the heart of man, which none can discover but God ; it is wily, fraudu- lent, prone to deceive, full of windings and turnings, wiles and sleights ; no creature in wicked subtlety and dissembling can go beyond him. The scripture delighteth in this term, ' inventions ' and * imaginations ; ' Gen. vi. 5, ' All the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually;' and Jer. xviii. 12, *We will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imaginations of his evil heart.' The heart of man is in continual action, framing and moulding things within it'self ; and because there are many cunning fetches and secret devices within the heart, by which they seek to put out their own eyes, that they may not apprehend themselves to be so vile and filthy as indeed they are, and a deceitful heart smooths evil, and presents it under another notion, therefore they may be called, and are in scripture called, ' devices ' and ' inventions.' There is so much remainder of light and conscience since the fall, that there needeth a great deal of craft to varnish sin, to insinuate it with any satisfaction to the conscience ; a great deal of diligence to compass it, and a great deal of art to hide it from the world, that it may not make us hateful or obnoxious to dis- grace and disrespect ; and to hide it from ourselves, that we may live ill it with greater leave and allowance from those remainders of reason which are yet left within us. True wisdom is plain and simple 5 it needeth no disguises to palliate it from the judgment of conscience or the notice of the world : ' Wisdom is justified of her children ; ' Mat. xi. 19, ' This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world,' 2 Cor. i. 12. But with sin it is not so ; there are many inventions for the hiding, palliat- ing, excusing, and defending of sin ; it is the great power of the word to discover them : Heb. iv. 12, ' For the word of God is quick and ]wwerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' These are the most secret acts of the soul. Intentions respect the end, thoughts respect consultations about the means. There is an artificial dexterous managery of sin : Eph. ii. 3, ' Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,' 6e\7]fiaTa tt}? aapKO'? koI tmv StavoLwv, that is, imaginations and lusts. Now of these inventions I shall say two things —