Part 53

§ 7. They are also convinced of the creature's vanity and insufficiency. Every man is naturally an idolater. Our hearts turned from God in our first fall, and ever since the creature hath been our god. This is the grand sin of nature. Every unregenerate man ascribes to the creature Divine prerogatives, and allows it the highest room in his soul; or if he is convinced of misery, he flies to it as his savior. Indeed, God and his Christ shall be called Lord and Savior; but the real expectation is from the creature, and the work of God is laid upon it. Pleasure, profit, and honor, are the natural man's trinity, and his carnal self is these in unity. It was our first sin, to aspire to be as gods; and it is the greatest sin that is propagated in our nature from generation to generation. When God should guide us, we guide ourselves; when he should be our sovereign, we rule ourselves; the laws which he gives us we find fault with, and would correct; and if we had the making of them, we would have made them otherwise; when he should take care of us, (and must, or we perish) we will care for ourselves; when we should depend on him in daily receivings, we had rather have our portion in our own hands; when we should submit to his providence, we usually quarrel at it, and think we could make a better disposal than God hath made. When we should study and love, trust and honor God, we study and love, trust and honor, our carnal selves. Instead of God, we would have all men's eyes and dependence on us, and all men's thanks returned to us, and would gladly be the only men on earth extolled and admired by all. Thus we are naturally our own idols. But down falls this Dagon, when God does once renew the soul. It is the chief design of that great work, to bring the heart back to God himself. He convinceth the sinner, that the creature can neither be his God, to make him happy, nor his Christ, to recover him from his misery, and restore him to God, who is his happiness. God does this, not only by his word but by his providence also. This is the reason, why affliction so frequently concurs in the work of conversion. Arguments which speak to the quick, will force a hearing when the most powerful words are slighted. If a sinner made his credit his god, and God shall cast him into the lowest disgrace, or bring him, who idolized his riches, into a condition wherein they cannot help him: or cause them to take wing and fly away; what a help is here to this work of conviction? If a man made pleasure his god, whatsoever a roving eye, a curious ear, a greedy appetite, or a lustful heart could desire, and God should take these from him, or turn them into gall and wormwood; what a help is here to conviction? When God shall cast a man into languishing sickness, and inflict wounds on his heart, and stir up against him his own conscience, and then, as it were, say to him, "Try if your credit, riches, or pleasures, can help you. Can they heal your wounded conscience? Can they now support your tottering tabernacle? Can they keep your departing soul in your body? or save you from mine everlasting wrath? or redeem your soul from eternal flames? Cry aloud to them, and see now whether these will be to you instead of God and his Christ." O how this works now with the sinner! Sense acknowledges the truth, and even the flesh is convinced of the creature's vanity, and our very deceiver is undeceived.