3. With respect to that one object who alone was sufficient for us. They that have left God, and would find happiness in the creatures, need many creatures before they can patch up any sorry tolerable happiness to themselves. One broken cistern can yield but little refreshing, Jer. ii. 13 ; so many disappointments make them look more about. God made man for himself, capable to enjoy him ; now he is an infinite eternal good. We desire an infinite eternal good, still such as may quiet and satisfy us ; therefore man being made capable of enjoying God, who is infinite, and finding himself not satisfied with a few or many things, always seeketh after new things. Here is his
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error, that he seeketh after that which is infinite, among those things which are finite, and so wandereth up and down groping for an eternal good : Acts xvii. 26, 27, ' And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth ; and determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations ; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.' As we depart from God, we are gone from unity, and are left distracted and confounded in the multi- tude of the creatures. • Quaerunt in varietate creaturarum, quod amiserunt in unitaie creatoris — They seek in the variety of the creatures what they have lost in the one God.
Use 1. Is to represent the misery of fallen man, that we may take up a lamentation for him, and bewail our departure from life and blessedness, and forsaking it for sin and misery. They have cast off God, and set at nought his counsel, and given themselves over to many fruitless and hurtful inventions. For alas ! man being left to the counsel of his own desperately wicked and deceitful heart, what doth he look after ? What may be expected from him but that all his thoughts and projects should be for the satisfaction of his lusts, to serve his pride, avarice, revenge, pomp, pleasure, and vanity ? God is not in all his thoughts ; he cares not whether he be pleased or displeased, honoured or dishonoured.
Here consider the disorder and danger of this state.
1. The disorder introduced hereby.
[1.] The creature is preferred before God ; for all their projects are how to live at ease in the world, not how to please and enjoy God ; and so they ' forsake their own mercies for observing lying vanities,' Jonah ii. 8. They seek an happiness apart from God, who is 'their own mercy ; * that is, they might have had from him all that which the mercy of an all-sufficient God can afford. And for what do they forsake him ? For ' lying vanities.' In regard of their emptiness they are vanities ; and in regard of their disappointing our expectations, ' lying vanities.' They do deceive us with a vain show, and in the issue miserable disappoint- ments. And mark, these must be observed, followed after with a great solicitude and care, whereas the other is freely offered to us ; it is our own in the offer, and it is our own fault if it be not our own in the choice. So Jer. ii. 13, ' My people have committed two evils ; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that will hold no water.' God is the well- spring of all manner of good, a fountain that runneth constantly, and never faileth ; and such would he have been to us if we had continued loyal and dutiful to him. Besides the leaving of the ever-living, all- sufficient, and ever-flowing fountain of all good, they have betaken themselves to poor paltry vanities, that will yield them no real and solid refreshment.
[2.] The body is preferred before the soul ; for all our inventions run upon the body and the pleasing the flesh ; Eom. xiii. 14, ' And make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof But the precious and immortal soul is little thought of and cared for. They sit down well appaid'with carnal contentments : Luke xii. 19, ' Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry ; thou hast much goods laid up for many years.' They do not rise to any thoughts of an higher life, never think
68 SERMON UPON ECCLESIASTES VII. 29.
of tlicat iminortal soul tliey carry about with them, but only use it to cater for the body, that the body may be well fed, and clothed, and adorned. Our business is to seek rest lor our souls ; if we would invent and consider, we should look after that: Jer. vi. 16, 'Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls,' We are never in our wits again till this be the project and design we travel with. But alas ! this is not thought of. The neglected soul may easily complain of hard usage. What are our thoughts but what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and how shall we make a fair show in the flesh ? If we look after the soul, it is to adorn it with secular learning and wisdom, which is but to serve the flesh in a more cleanly manner, and to gratify oiu- worldly ends, our pride, or our interests. We look after flowers rather than fruit ; those adornments of the soul which are for pomp rather than life, and for present use rather than eternal benefit.