308 THE saint's safety in evil times.
of this life, flieth in our faces. Pleasure and profit, for whicli wicked men project and contrive so much, comes all to nothing ; but sin itself, and the punishment of it, abides for ever. Men, like popes, will dispense with themselves, and conceit a latitude and breadth in their courses, that they may do so and so, and yet do well at last, but who tells them this ? Is it not a spirit of illusion ? Indeed, punishment is often deferred ; it comes not like thunder and lightning all at once, yet as sure as God is true, sin will be bitterness in the end. When the honey is gone, the sting will remain.
To conclude this point ; when we are tempted to any hurtful design, let us look upon Christ, and that great project for our redemption undertaken by him, and reason thus with ourselves : hath he plotted and wrought my salvation, and shall I plot against him in his members ?
I beseech you, stir up your hearts to conceive and bring forth good pur- poses. Satan is an enemy to all strong resolutions and masculine concep- tions, endeavouring to kill them in the very birth. Alas, how many good thoughts are conceived whilst the word is hearing, which yet prove abortive and stick in the birth ! How few actions come to their due ripeness and perfection ! I am sure our encouragements to good are far more than our encouragements to evil. We serve a better master, and for better wages. They may prosper for a time, but nothing is more wretched than the hap- piness of wicked men ; it fii'st hardens them, and then destroys them, Prov. i. 32.
Our only way is, 1, to get into Christ ' the true vine,' John xv. 1, then we shall take and bear fruit presently, and draw and suck out of him the same disposition.
2. And then lay up good principles, and look with a single eye to the main end of om- life, and see that all the particular passages of our life tend to that. It is an argument of a narrow heart to be wise in some particular business, for some particular end, and yet to be careless in the main. Other creatures are carried by a particular instinct to some particular thing. A spider is witty to catch flies, a bird to build nests, &c. As man hath larger parts, so he should have larger aims.
That which we should especially labour for is, 1, to be good in ourselves ; and 2, to do all the good we can to others, even as God our Father is good, and doth good ; and the further our good extends, the more we resemble our Father. Such as we are, such are our thoughts, such are om- devices. A good man will devise of liberal things, &c. Every vermin can do mis- chief. We see some are never in their element but when they are plotting or working mischief, as if they were born for no other end but to exercise the gi'aces of men better than themselves. It is a poor commendation to be counted a cunning person for self ends. Alas ! the heart of man, which is ' deceitful above measure,' Jer. xvii. 9, hath abundance of turnings and windings in it, and can suggest tricks enough to circumvent the best of us.
I come, in the third place, to our duty, which is to * behold,' — the ordi- nary beacon kindled to discover some extraordinary thing. Quest. But what is here to be beheld ?
Ans. Behold the subtlety, malice, and restless endeavour of the ene- mies of goodness. Is it not a matter with grief to be beheld, that one mem- ber should tear another? that one, professing the same religion, should study to supplant and devour another ? Behold, likewise, their bootless enter- prise, they bring forth a lie.
But especially behold the mercy of God to his children ; his wisdom in
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discoveiTug, his Justice in confounding?, the mischievous practices of their enemies, making them the workers of their own ruin.
The things which especially deserve our beholding are either, 1, things excellent, and so are all God's works in their season, yea, justice itself; or, 2, things rare, as comets and eclipses ; or else, 3, gi'eat things, as stars of the first magnitude, &c.
Even such, and much more, is God's mercy to his children, and justice against his enemies. Behold what great things he hath done for them, Ps. cxxvi. 2. Shall the heathen say so, and shall not Israel much more ? Be- loved, we ought to seek out God's works, and shall we not take notice of them when they are offered to our view ? This is especially the duty of the saints of God. * All thy works praise thee, and thy saints bless thee,' eaith David, Ps. cslv. 10. The works of God praise him by our mouths and by our tongues. Were it not for some few that by a more divine light and spiritual eye see more of God than others do, what glory should God have in the world ? God hath not brought us on the stage of this world to be mere gazers, but to extract something out for our ov/n use, and to give him the glory of his excellencies. But we are too wise to admire anj'thing. It is a matter too mean for our parts to take notice of God and his works. You have some that can see nothing in the works of God worth the admir- ing ; and yet they will have men's persons in admiration, in hope of some advantage by them. We are apt to admire any outward excellency, like the disciples, before the Holy Ghost came upon them, who stood admiring of the goodly stones of the temple. When our minds are thus taken up, it were good if we heard Christ speaking to us as he did to them, ' Are these the things you wonder at ?' Mark xiii. 1.