Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

confounded in the multitude of the creatures; and will never have unity till they return to God.

III. In the next place let us consider, What is the necessity that is here spoken of, and how far this one thing is necessary to us.

And 1. One thing is necessary morally, for itself, which is our ultimate end. When other things are necessary but for that.

2. Comprehensively of the means we may say, that one thing, that is, sanctification, is necessary to the pleasing of God; which is to be regarded, 1. As the end of obedience, and 2. As the end of love; by the obedient soul in way of duty; and by the loving soul devoted to God, as its delight.

The world hath many contrary masters, and therefore hath many things to do to please them; and when they have done their best, they cannot please them all, but may leave more displeased than they please. For those that they must please, expect impossibilities; and many a single person perhaps may look for as much as you can give to all. And they have such contrary interests, which you must humour, that the same things that one expects to please him, will vehemently displease another; and perhaps the more displease the other, because it is pleasing to that one.

And ourselves have our contrarieties in ourselves, and are as hard to be pleased by others or ourselves. We have our sensual desires which are unreasonable and inordinate, unseasonable and importunate, and will take no nay. A sensual, covetous, ambitious fancy, is a bottomless vessel : your pouring in doth no whit fill it. It is a devouring gulf; a consuming (that I say not an unquenchable) fire. Like the horseleech it crieth, Give, give, and the more you give, the more it craveth, and is never less satisfied than when it hath glutted itself with that from which it seeketh satisfaction..

But God is one, and with this one thing is he pleased; even with a holy heart and life. He hath no contradictory interests or assertions; and therefore hath no contradictory commands; that which must please him, must be suitable to his blessed nature. He is infinite in wisdom, and therefore hath no pleasure in fools, that bring him sacrifice, and refuse obedience, and "know not that they do evil;" Eccles. v. 1. And have not the wit to know what they do, and

whom they speak to; and to know that which only is worth the knowing. How often do we read him rejecting the sacrifice of the wicked, and casting their most costly offerings in their faces, as things that he abhorreth, when they come to him without that humble, loving, and obedient heart, which he requireth!" Their oblations are vain, the multitude of their sacrifice is to no purpose, and incense is an abomination to him; their feasts and sabbaths his soul hateth, they are a trouble to him, he cannot bear them" (Psal. 1. 8. &c. Isa. i. 11, 12-20.), if they come without the "one thing necessary." Without this he careth not for their fastings, or formalities; Isa. lviii. 5. It is not " thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil, nor the fruit of their body, if they would give it for the sin of their soul," that he will accept. "But he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?" Mich. vi. 7, 8. The conclusion of the whole matter is this: "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man ;" Eccles. xii. 13.

You are never the better beloved of God for being rich, or honourable in the world, nor yet because you are poor, or in a mean condition, nor because you are sick or well, weak or strong, comely or uncomely; but because you love him through his Son, and "believe in him whom the Father hath sent ;" John xvi. 27. "Without faith it is impossible to please God;" Heb. xi. 6. The" new man must be put on, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek, nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all;" Col. iii. 10, 11. "For in Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, and faith that works by love, and the keeping of the commands of God;" Gal. v. 6. vi. 15. 1 Cor. vii. 19.

This one thing (" even Godliness which is profitable to all things) is necessary in us, (supposing the necessaries in Christ) to render us acceptable to the holy God. And without this all the accomplishments imaginable will make us but as "sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal;" 1 Cor. xiii. 1.

3. One thing is needful to the saving of our souls; without which all things else are vain. There are many ways to

hell; but to heaven there is but one. There are a thousand ways to delude and blind a soul, but only one for its true and saving illumination. Erroneous sectaries are blinded in some particular points, by the seducing words of men. And ungodly sensualists are blinded in the main, and damnably err from the necessary, practical doctrines of salvation, being deceived by the inclination of their own concupiscence. Errors are multifarious, and abound even in many that inveigh most fiercely against the erroneous. But truth is simple. We have one Teacher to instruct us, one Spirit to enlighten us, one word of God to be our rule, one light to guide us through all the darkness and mazes of the world, and recover our deluded, darkened minds. Thousands are ready to draw us away from God. Temptations lie thick on every hand. Within us, and without us; before us, and on each side. Which way can you look or go, but you will meet with baits and snares. And if Eve be once deceived, Adam is the more easily overcome. When the appetite and senses are ensnared by their objects, and imagination corrupted, the understanding is in danger of deceit. You may go into a hospital, and see a variety of diseases; but health is one and the same. One hath the pestilence, and another hath the leprosy, and another a palsy, and another is distracted; but among a thousand people in health, you see no such difference. Health only is formally the cure of all.

What abundance of miserable sinners be in the world, that are almost at hell already? But only one sort of men, even the regenerate, are rescued by grace, and shall be saved from it. Many inventions have men found out for their destruction; but there is no way but by Christ, through faith and holiness, to their salvation. Set as light by Christ and holiness as you will, and deride it as foolishly and perversely as you please, you will find at last, that this way or none must bring you to heaven. Either ignorance, or pride, or covetousness, or malice, or gluttony, or voluptuousness, or lust, or any one sin of a hundred may be your ruin. But there is only one salve to heal these sores; and only one cordial or antidote that can expel these several sorts of poison from your hearts. "Godliness is profitable to all things ;" 1 Tim. iv. 8.

Drudge for the world as long as you will, and gape after honour, and applause from men, and try a thousand ways for

your content; but when you have all done, you must return by sound repentance into the way of holiness, or you are lost for ever. When you have slighted grace, you must give up yourselves to the power of that grace. When you have set light by a life of holy love to God, and the fruition of him in glory, you must make it your treasure and delight, and your hearts must be upon it, or you are undone; Matt. vi. 21. When you have made a jest of a holy life, you must come about, and take yourselves that course that you jested at, though you be as much jested at by others; yea, and make it the principal business of your lives, or perish in hell under the vengeance of the Almighty, whose justice you provoked, and whose mercy you neglected. Choose you whether, but one of them will be your part. Even as Saul, that was "exceeding mad against believers, and persecuted them even to strange cities" (Acts xxv. 10, 11,), was glad to become one of them himself, though he suffered as much as he had caused them to suffer; and accounted it the greatest mercy of his life, that God vouchsafed him such a change, whatever it cost him.

IV. Quest. But is nothing necessary but this one? Are not other things also needful in their places?'

Answ. I told you that other things are not other; so far as they stand in due subordination to this one, or are the parts of it. He that saith to a sick man, 'You would do well if you had such a skilful man for your physician,' doth not by these words intend to exclude his apothecary, or his medicines, or the taking of them, or the instruments and means by which they are applied; but rather includeth and implieth all these in the one thing mentioned to which they do subserve. So all God's graces, and all the means of grace, and Christian duties, are contained or implied in the one thing necessary, or supposed to it. Because it is one thing that is necessary as the end, therefore many means are necessary to the obtaining of it. Though there be also a kind of unity (as hath been shewed) among those means.

Quest. But are not outward things also necessary? Must we not have food and raiment? and must we not labour and provide it, and take care for our families, and follow our callings? Must we not by lawful means avoid reproach and poverty in the world?'

Answ. In the way of duty it is as necessary that we labour in our callings, and provide things honest, and subserve God's providence for the maintenance of ourselves and others; and the things of this life are needful so far as life is needful, that we may have time and strength to do our works, and be supported while we seek the one thing needful. But that which is not necessary for itself, but for another thing, is not simply or principally necessary. So far as heaven may be obtained, and the work of Christianity done without the accommodations of the flesh, so far these worldly things are needless. There is no necessity that you be rich or honourable; or that you live in health or wealth; or that you escape the hatred, and reproach, and trouble of a malicious world! There is no necessity that you should save your lives when Christ requireth them. For he that so saveth his life shall lose it; Matt. xvi. 25. And that usefulness (which you may in a lower sense call necessity) that any of these things are of, is but in their respect to the one thing necessary, as they are sanctified means to the service of God and our salvation. If your daily bread be to be called necessary, it is not for itself, or for fleshly pleasure, nor ultimately for your life itself; but to sustain your life while you are seeking after life eternal, and serving him that is the Lord of life. Your credit, or honour, or pleasure in the world, are no further necessary or useful to you, than they promote this great end for yourselves or others. Nothing but God is simply necessary for himself, and nothing else is any way truly necessary but for him.

in

And therefore as by necessity of precept you must labour your callings, and seek provision for yourselves and families, you must most carefully watch your hearts that your desires and labours be not carnal, as tending only to carnal ends; but that you sincerely subject the things desired, to the one thing necessary, for which you must desire them; and therefore that you desire but such measures and proportions, as are most suitable to that end which is only for itself desirable: even life itself must not be desired simply and ultimately for itself.

As you must pray but for your daily bread, and be content with food and raiment, so you must see, that these be but for better things; even in order to the doing of the will

« ForrigeFortsæt »