call our present glimpse and taste of God, a very nothing, when we compare our knowledge of him with our ignorance, and our enjoyments with our wants; yet when we compare these small things with all the pleasures or profits of this world, we see that we have chosen the better part. Alas, the poor converted soul hath quickly a taste of the vanity of this world in the very first heart-breaking and humbling that he was brought into; when his sin is set in order before him, and the voice of the law doth make his heart to tremble, and an angry God doth look him into terrors, what then can all the world do for his relief? How sensibly then doth he say, Oh, silly comforters! what should I do if I had no better hopes! Oh, what contemptuous thoughts and speeches then hath he of all these things that he once so much valued! He thinketh he can scarce find words that are base enough for them. If he could find worse than Paul's losses, and dross, and dung, and dogs-meat, he would do it. O that men would now in the day of their prosperity bethink themselves of this, which all shall know at last. It is a most doleful sight to any man of wisdom and compassion to see men that have wounded and loaden consciences, to run up and down, after pleasure and profit, as if these would heal them, which have made their wounds; men that are even undone for want of healing, and are within a step of hell, and will certainly and very speedily be there, if Christ, by saving, renewing grace, do not recover them, do quite forget the nature of their distress, and the thing they want, and mind the toys of worldly things, as if they would save them. What, still is sin sweet to you, when it hath made such work against your souls? Still is this world so lovely in your eyes, when it hath enticed you already to the very brink of hell? Oh poor bewitched souls, that will dote upon that which you confess deceiveth you! That will dig your own graves with such excessive pains, and purchase a room in everlasting torments at so dear a rate? Well, if ever God will have mercy on your souls, he will show you another kind of pleasure and felicity; he will acquaint you with that which shall be worth your labour; he will bring those sick distempered souls to another relish than now they have. He will make you spit out this dirt and dung, and thirst for the living water that shall spring up in you to everlasting life". And instead of your over-eager seeking the food that perisheth, he will make you hunger after the bread of life. What the unsanctified man doth most love, we may see by experience; we see what he seeks after partly by his life; and will you see out of Scripture yet more fully which way the heart of the sanctified is inclined? "The love of God is shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost P." They "are confident that nothing can separate them from this love, neither height nor breadth, &c." They can some, times appeal to Christ himself with Peter, "Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." "Oh how I love thy Law!" said David, "it is my meditation day and night, yea, I love them exceedingly," saith he; "above gold," above their appointed or necessary food "," saith Job. "Thy word was the joy and rejoicing of my heart," saith Jeremiah. So vehement was Paul against those men that could not love the Lord of love, that he pronounceth them accursed with the greatest curse. "Thy law," saith David, "is within my heart. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose hearts are the ways of them. My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy judgments at all times. Thou art my God, early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee; to see thy power and thy glory as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live, I will lift up my heart in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night season." 2. The second part of the change of the heart is in its intents. Conversion setteth a man upon right ends. All the work of a man's life lieth in intending certain ends, and using certain means to obtain them. And all the work of Christianity lieth in intending right ends, and in using right means to obtain them. The chief part of man's corruption in his depraved natural state, doth consist in this, that he intendeth wrong ends: that is a man's end, which he accounteth his felicity, his treasure, his chiefest good, and which he useth all things else to obtain. Whatsoever you think the best thing in the world for you, and had rather have it than any thing else; and whatsoever you principally seek after in your life, and think yourself most happy if you could obtain it, and think yourself most miserable if you miss of it, and therefore had rather lose all than that, and make it your main business to be sure that you may enjoy it, that, and nothing else but that, is your end. In general, every man's happiness is his end, and this nature itself, as nature, doth so far adhere to, and intend, that no man can do otherwise, and there is no note of man's not intending this. But generals are nothing, but as they are found in particular things: when it comes to the particular object of fruition, and what it is wherein men's happiness doth consist, there it is that the depraved nature doth most damnably err. For every carnal man doth apprehend it the best condition for him to enjoy his carnal pleasure, and profit, and vain-glory in this world; or if he look for a life to come, he would have it consist of such kind of pleasures as he here enjoyed in this life; and, therefore, his very heart is most set upon these sensual worldly things he hath a nature so suitable to them, that he savoureth these as the sweetest delights, and things fittest for him; and, therefore, his very business, and daily care and work in the world, is to get, or increase, or keep, or enjoy and draw out the sweetness of these sensual things. So that an earthly man hath an earthly mind, and earthly ends, as Christ said to Nicodemus". That which is born of the earth is earthly; and a fleshly man hath a fleshly mind, and fleshly ends, as I before shewed, from Rom. viii. 7. they cannot see in the love of God, or the enjoyment of him, so certain, so suitable a good for them, as may be their felicity, and better to them than these earthly things. Either they doubt whether the happiness which they see not be : z John iii. 6. a " true, or a mere delusion; or else they think that it is too far off, and a place too strange to them to be their felicity. They think that God and man are at too great a distance to be so mutually loved, and that he is so strange to us, as to be an unsuitable object for our highest love. Nay, because of his holiness, justice, and the other blessed perfections of his nature, and because he will judge the ungodly world unto perdition; therefore their hearts are even against him, and they that call him their God, have a secret enmity to him. So that, before conversion, it is the sinful miserable state of all men, that God is not their end; he hath not their hearts. It is not he that they most seek after in their lives, nor in whom their souls apprehend the chiefest delight and felicity to consist. But it is in the fleshly pleasures, or profits, or honour of this world. It is some creature, and not God, that hath men's hearts, their care, and earnest diligence. Hence it is, that they are said to "have their portion in this life," Psa. xviii. 14. and are there called "the men of the world." They are such as " lay up a treasure on earth They think none can shew them any greater good, and apprehend not the joy of the light of God's countenance". They seek only" what they shall eat or drink, or wherewith they shall be clothed," for this is the custom of the “nations of the world." They make light of Christ," and the kingdom that he promiseth, in comparison of their farms, their oxen, their worldly wealth and pleasured. "They lay up treasures for themselves here, but are not rich towards God." If they have abundance, they cheer their souls, as having "enough for many years," and so resolve to "eat, drink, and be merry." If they are called by a trial to part with all for Christ, and the hope of everlasting glory," they go away sorrowful because of their riches," or the dearness of that which they are called to forsake. In a word, they are such as a compassionate man should mention with tears, "they are enemies to the cross of Christ," though not always to his name. "Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, their glory is in their shame, they mind earthly things ." They "make provision for the flesh a Matt. vi. 18, 19. 66 d Luke xii. 21. Matt. xxii. 5. e Luke xii. 21. g Phil. iii. 19. to fulfil the lusts thereof." They have their "good things in this life," when the godly have their "evil things," and therefore when others" are comforted, they shall be tormentedi." All these Scriptures declare to you what are the ends of unconverted men, and where are their hearts. "For where their treasure is, there will their hearts bek. But when the Spirit comes with converting grace, the very ends and intents of a man are changed: as he findeth the greatest excellency in God, and the things of the life to come; so hath he there laid up his treasure, and fixed his hopes he hath reckoned what the world is worth, and how much it can afford him, and how long it will last him, and what it will do for him in the greatest need; and upon certain knowledge of its vanity and insufficiency he hath resolved that this cannot make him happy. If ever you be converted, you will know all this to be true by experience that I say that it is the work of converting grace to make a man consider whether all that he can hope for in this world will make him indeed a happy man, and upon consideration he findeth it will not serve his turn. God bringeth it now close to his thoughts and affections, so that the mere splendour, and sugared taste, and glozing appearances of worldly things cannot deceive him as formerly they did; but he understandeth now the utmost they can do for him; he considereth how that they do but flatter him into the grave and hell, and leave him when he is in the depth of his distress before he was as the prodigal, that thought it hard keeping to live in his father's house, but abroad and among his companions and pleasures he would go; but when he comes to himself, he finds that he must home again, or perish with hunger: the poor soul then layeth all these things to heart; alas, thinks he, I may be merry a few days more if I hold on in this company and course, but will this life last for ever? I may be somebody in the world for a while, if I can be rich or honourable; but how long can I keep it when I have got it? I may please my mind among my friends and worldly businesses, my corn and cattle, my pleasures and prosperity; but what shall I do shortly when these things are gone? I may think now that I can live h Rom. xiii. 12, 14. i Luke xvi. 25. k Matt. vi. 21. |