3. It is a notable emblem to represent the condition of the wisest and highest of mortal men. The wisest, such as were Christ's disciples, trained up in his own company ; yet an infant is produced to shame
440 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXXXI. [SeR. IV.
them, and show them their weakness, whose minds were busied about sharing the honours of the mediatorial kingdom. Christ tells them he that was most like a child was greatest in the kingdom of God ; he that was most humble in his own eyes had most of the gospel privileges. So the highest of mortal men are but as a feeble infant before God, that wholly hangeth on the mother. It is no dis- grace to the greatest potentate to carry it humbly to God. David here saith his soul was as a weaned child. When he was to fight with his and God's enemies, who more like a lion than David ? But when his business lieth with God, he was as a weaned child. All are beggars before God, king and peasant, base and noble. We have nothing but what he is pleased to give us and continue to us ; and we need daily pardon and daily supplies, the meanest as well as the greatest.
4. To obviate our usual replies, when we are reproved for pride or passion : I am not such a child, to put up with this injury; and they shall know they have not to do with a child. But yet we are put our- selves into the posture of a weaned child if obedient to God.
Now let us open the similitude, and show wherein it holdeth good. David behaved himself, and quieted himself — (1.) As a child ; (2.) As a weaned child.
1. As a child. A child is not troubled with ambitious thoughts : Mat. xviii. 3, ' Except ye be converted, and become as little children,' &c. A little child knoweth not what striving for state meaneth. The inclinations and desires of carnal ambition are very contrary to the christian temper, namely, seeking after dominions, dignities, and honours. So Christ would confute his disciples' pride ; as if he had said, You strive for worldly greatness and pre-eminence in my kingdom ; but my kingdom is a kingdom of babes, and containeth none but the humble, and such as are little in their own eyes, and are contented to be small and despised in the eyes of others, and to look not after great matters in the world. Thus would Christ take them off from the vain ambition and pursuit of esteem and worldly honour, and the expectations of a carnal kingdom. And is it not necessary still that we should become as little children ? A great part of the work of grace is to take down our pride, and make us little in our own eyes. We should all prove ourselves to be children of God by the lowliness of our hearts and sobriety of our carriage, and submission to all God's dispensations, and desire no higher condition than God would bring us into by the fair invitation of his providence. We must put ourselves into the posture of a feeble impotent child, without ambition, without covetousness, looking wholly to be directed, supported, and enabled by God.
2. Why as a weaned child.
[1.] A weaned child is taken off from the breast and its natural food ; so when the Lord is pleased to withhold from us what we expected, and to keep us in a low and afflicted condition, we must patiently submit to God's will and pleasure, and be contented to be what God will have us to be. Oh, how well were it for us if we were weaned from the world's breasts ! Certainly then temptations would be plucked up by the roots. How easily should we please God, and press on to everlasting glory, worldly and fleshly lusts mortified ! By some bitterness or other the weaned child is driven from the breast, and it useth it no more.
VeR. 2.] SERMONS UPON PSALM OXXXI. 441
Ob, that a christian were as soon weaned from the world, and might grow dead to the honours, riches, and pleasures of it ! and could say with the apostle, ' I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me,' Gal. vi. 14. Few are taken off from the dug by the bitterest wormwood that can be laid upon it ; they are still sucking here, though they suck but wind ; and, after many disappointments, still return to the love of the world, as their natural milk. It is a prodigy for a child to keep sucking till thirteen or fourteen years ; we are as greedy at fifty or sixty years as we were before. The world by nature is sweet to us ; the bitterness of affliction doth not wean us from it ; and after all the warnings that we cannot love the Father if we love the world, 1 John ii. 15, yet we love the world still. In death it is made bitter to us, for then the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof ; then we cry out on the world, how it hath deceived us, and tempted this rebelling flesh to neglect God and higher duties. But then it is ques- tionable whether we are weaned or driven from the dug. Surely it become th us to be weaned sooner.