(2.) From self to Christ. When we think of turning to God, we cannotaccomplishour purpose without Christ. There is alegal exclusion against us. We come to God by Christ : Heb. vii. 25, ' Wherefore lie is able also to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him.' To God as our chief good, by him as mediator : 1 Peter iii. 18, ' For Chri.st also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God ; ' in a joyful and delightful communion with him. Before that could be done, we were to bo ransomed from tl'.e curse of God, and rescued from the power of the devil, which none but Christ could do for us. Well, then, till we give up ourselves to
478 SERMONS UPON EZEKIEL XVIH. 23. [SeR. II.
him to be saved ia his own way, we can never be happy. A man that findeth himself hable to the wrath of God must have a mediator, and he that would love and serve God must have a powerful helper. This is conversion, thankfully to entertain an offered saviour. Every con- verted man doth so that feeleth himself undone by sin, and liable to the wrath of God : he f rameth himself to believe in Christ with all his heart, that he may become to him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. In his whole converse with God he maketh use of Christ, seeing his own lost and undone condition : not for a fit or pang, but Christ livetli in him and dwelleth in him.
(3.) From sin to holiness. We must turn from his ways and live ; otherwise what communion between light and darkness, Christ and sinners ? all that would make God their portion, and Christ their saviour, must be changed in the tenor of their lives. You can have no part in Christ, nor be saved, unless the current be turned, and the course of your endeavours run in another channel, 1 Peter i. 14, 15. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he that hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. He is a man of another strain, and maketh it his business to become holy, and to please God in all things. He hath no sin but what he hateth, and striveth against.
2. Have you ever turned ? It must be so, or you will never live ; all by nature need a turning : John iii. 6, ' That which is born of flesh is flesh.' Since the corruption of nature in Adam, men have an inclination and poise of heart that inclineth them to fleshly and sensible things. Man lost that original righteousness that should dispose him and incline him to God as his chiefest good and last end ; so that the bent of his heart in his degenerate estate is wholly set by natural inclination, much more by inveterate custom, to temporal and sensible things, to please the flesh, not to please the Lord. The soul being destitute of grace, or the image of God, or original righteousness, it can only close with things present and known, as the pleasures of the body, which being wholly minded divert us from the love of God, and the study of heavenly things. You were born after the flesh, and do only mind lower and earthly things ; and if your hearts be not turned, and the bent of it altered, you are undone for ever. Though the soul still cometh down from the superior world, yet it soon forgets its divine original, and being put into the body conformeth itself to the body, and accom- modateth all its faculties and operations to the interests thereof, and hath an inclination to please itself in earthly things ; as water put into a square vessel or a round vessel receiveth a square or round form from the vessel : Eom. viii. 5, ' They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;' are strange to God and strange to heavenly things.
3. Do we yet need turning ? Two sorts of persons do yet need turning — (1.) The wicked, that wholly need a turning to God; (2.) The regenerate, that in this world are but turning in part.
[1.] The wicked. Certainly they have need to look to themselves. Now all the question is, who are wicked ? The world hath a gross notion of this term, and apply it only to the drunkard, or swearer, or fornicator, or murderer. These indeed need to be turned and converted ;
VeR. 23.] SERMONS UPON EZEKIEL XVIII. 23. 479
but tlie scripture giveth us another notion of wickedness ; whosoever liveth after the flesh : Rom. viii. 13, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.' Though he be not such an open sinner as others are. Whoso- ever hath placed his contentment in earthly things, and seeketh them more than heavenly felicity, that savoureth not the things of the Spirit, as heaven and glory, or the saving graces of God's Spirit, that cometh down from above, and tend thither : Heb. xii. 16, ' Not a profane person, as was Esau, who sold his birthright for a morsel of meat.' Such as count more of their sensual lusts than of their spiritual pre- rogatives, they are profane persons, they are ^ej3rfkoL. It is not a glutton or drunkard only that is a wicked man, or an whoremonger, but any that loveth earthly things rather than heavenly ; that doth not set himself to come to God as his chiefest good, and make that the business of his life. Profaneness is a light esteem of things of the greatest price.