fountain of life:"-and so saith the apostle too, "Let your conversation be without covetousness;" that is, Do not make an idol of the creature; do not heap vessels full of money together, and then think that you are all sure; the creature hath no life in it, nay, it hath no truth in it neither; there is deceit and cozenage in riches; but, saith he, Let your conversation be with contentment; consider that what you have, is the 'dimensum,' the portion which God hath allotted you, that food which he findeth most convenient for you: he knows that more would but cloy you with a surfeit of pride or worldliness, that you have not wisdom, humility, faith, heavenly-mindedness enough to concoct a more plentiful estate; and therefore receive your portion from him; trust his wisdom and care over you, "For he hath said, I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. "h Well then, saith the Lord, so long as they rested on me, they rested upon a sure supply (all his mercies are sure mercies,'') upon a fountain which would never fail them: but when once they forsake me, and will not trust their lives in my keeping, but, with the prodigal, will have their portion in their own hands; their water in their own cisterns, their pits prove but to them like Job's torrent'; deep and plentiful though they seem for a time, yet at length they make those ashamed that relied upon them. And so I find the prophets assuring us, that Israel, which put so much confidence in the carnal policies of Jeroboam, for preserving the kingdom of the ten tribes from any re-union with the house of David, was at last constrained to blush at their own wisdom, and to be ashamed at Bethel their confidence. Briefly then for that place, there are two excellent things intimated in those two words of cisterns, and broken cisterns: first, the wealth and honour which men get not from the Lord, but by carnal dependencies, are but cisterns at the best, and in that respect they have an evil quality in them; they are like dead water, apt to putrefy and corrupt; being cut off from the influence of God, the foundation of life, they have no savour nor sweetness in them. Besides, they are broken cisterns too; as they have much mud and rottenness in them, so they are full of chinks, at which whatever is clear and sweet runs away, f Matt. xiii. 22. g Prov. xxx. 8. h Heb. xiii. 5. i Acts xiii. 34. j Job. vi. 15. k1 Kings xii. 26. 1 Jer. xlviii, 13. Isai. xxx. 3. xx. 5. and nothing but dregs remains behind. The worldly pleasure which men enjoy, their youthful vigours that carried them with delight and fury to the pursuit of fleshly lusts, the content which they were wont to take in the formalities and compliments of courtship and good-fellowship, with a storm of sickness, or at farthest a winter of age, blows all away; and then when the fruit is gone, there remains nothing but the diseases of it behind, which their surfeit had begotten, a conscience-worm to torment the soul. Sect. 11. Thus the life which we fetch from the cistern, is a vanishing life; there is still, after the use of it, less left behind than there was before: but the life which we fetch from the fountain, is a fixed, an 'abiding life,' as St. John m speaks; or, as our Saviour" calls it, "a life that abounds;" like the pumping of water out of a fountain,—the more it is drawn, the faster it comes. We grant indeed, that the Lord, being the fountain of life, doth allow the creature, in regard of life temporal, some ordinate operation and concurrency in the work of preserving life in us. But we must also remember, that the creatures are but God's instruments in that respect; and that, not as servants are to their masters, living instruments, able to work without concurrence of the superior cause; but dead instruments, and therefore must never be separated from the principal. Let God subduct from them that concourse of his own, which actuates and applies them to their several services, and all the creatures in the world are no more able to preserve the body, or to comfort the mind, than an axe and a hammer, and those other dead instruments, are able by themselves alone to erect some stately edifice. It is not the corn or the flour, but the staff of bread which supports the life; and that is not any thing that comes out of the earth, but something which comes down from Heaven, even the blessing which sanctifies the creature: "For man liveth not by bread alone, but by the word which proceedeth out of God's mouth." The creature cannot hold up itself, much less contribute to the subsistence of other things, unless God continue the influence of his blessing upon it. As soon as Christ had cursed the fig-tree, it presently withered and dried up, ex pilav, from the roots; to shew that it was not the m 1 John iii. 15. n John x. 10. • Mark xi. 20. root alone, but the blessing of Christ which did support the fig-tree. The creatures, of themselves, are indifferent to contrary operations, according as they have been by God severally applied. Fire preserved the three children in the furnace, and the same fire licked up the instruments of the persecution. Fire came down from Heaven to destroy Sodom, and fire came down from Heaven to advance Elias: the same sea a sanctuary unto Israel, and a grave unto Egypt: Jonah had been drowned, if he had not been devoured; the latter destruction was a deliverance from the former, and the ravin of the fish a refuge from the rage of the sea: pulse kept Daniel in good liking, which the meat of the king's table could not do in the other children; for indeed life is not a thing merely natural, but of promise,' as the apostle P speaks. Let the promise be removed, and however a wicked man lives as well as a righteous man, yet his life is indeed but a breathing death, only the cramming of him to a day of slaughter. When the blessing of God is once subducted, "though men labour in the very fire," turn their vital heat with extremity of pains into a very flame, yet the close of all their labour will prove nothing but vanity, as the prophet speaks. We should therefore pray unto God, that we may live, not only by the creature, but by the word which sanctifieth the creature; that we may not lean upon our substance, but upon God's promises; that we may not live by that which we have only, but by that which we hope for, and may still find God accompanying his own blessing unto our soul. q г Sect. 12.-But here the vanity and wickedness of many worldly men is justly to be reproved, who rest on the creature as on the only staff and comfort of their life; who count it their principal joy, when their corn, and wine, and oil increaseth; who magnify their own arts, sacrifice to their own net and drag:—which is the 'idolatry of covetousness,' so often spoken of by the apostle', when all the trust, and hope, and glory, and rejoicing which men have, is in the creature, and not in God. "They boast," saith the Psalmist, "in the multitude of their riches." Nay, so much sottishness there is in the nature of man, and so P 1 Tim. iv. 8. 2 Tim. i. 1. q Hab. ii. 13. r Hab. i. 15, 16. much sophistry in the creature, that the proud fool in the Gospel", from greatness of his wealth concludes the length of his life: "Thou hast much laid up for many years;" and the certainty of his mirth and pleasure, “Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."—" Their inward thought is, that their houses shall endure for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations *". And David himself was overtaken with this folly, "I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved." Yea, so much is there of pride in the heart of man, and so much heat (as I may so speak,) and vigour in the creature to quicken it, as that men are apt to deify themselves in the reflection of their own greatness, and to deify any thing else which contributes to the enlargement of their ambitious purposes. The greatness of the Persian emperors made them all usurp religious worship from their subjects. The like insolence we find in the Babylonish monarchs; they exalted themselves above the height of the clouds, and made themselves equal to the Most High; yea, their pride made them forget any god, save themselves,-"I am, and there is none besides me"." It was the blasphemous arrogance of Tyrus the rich city, "I am a God; I sit in the seat of God; I have a heart like the heart of God." Neither are these the sins of these times alone; the fountain of them is in the nature, and the fruits of them in the lives, of those who dare not venture upon the words: for albeit men with their mouths d profess God, there is yet a bitter root of atheism and of polytheism in the minds of men by nature, which is mightily actuated by the abundance of earthly things. Where the treasure is, there is the heart; where the heart, there the happiness; and where the happiness, there the God. Sect. 13.-Now worldly men put their trust in their riches, "set their heart & upon them, make them their strong city," and therefore no marvel if they be their idol too. What is the reason why oftentimes we may observe rich and mighty men in the world, to be more impatient of the word of God, more bitter scorners of the power of religion, u Luke xii. 19. * Psal. xlix. 11. y Psal. x. vi. Regno Pers. /. 11. p. 14. [§ 14-18. ed. Trekell, pag. 436.] b Isai. xlvii 7. 8. c Ezek. xxviii. 26. g Psal. Ixii. 10. e Mat. vi. 21. Zeph. ii. 15. i Jer. xliii. 2. Obad. ver. 3. z Vid. Brisson. de a Isai. xiv. 14. d Psal. ix. 20. h Prov. x. 15. more fearfully given over to the pursuit of fleshly lusts, and secular purposes, to vanity, vain glory, ambition, revenge, fierce, implacable, bloody passions, brazen and boasting abominations, than other men; but because they have some secret opinion that there is not so great a distance between God and them, as between God and other men; but because the abundance of worldly things hath brawned their heart, and fatted their conscience, and thickened their eyes against any fear, or faith, or notice at all, of that supreme dominion, or impartial revenge, which the most powerful and just God doth bear over all sinners, and against all sin? What is the reason why many ordinary men drudge and moil all the year long, think every hour in the church so much time lost from their life, are not able to forbear their covetous practices on God's own day, count any time of their life, any work of their hand, any sheaf of their corn, any penny of their purse thrown quite away, even as so much blood poured out of their veins, which is bestowed on the worship of God, and on the service of the altar; but because men think that there is indeed more life in their money and the fruits of their ground, than in their God, or the promises of his Gospel? Else how could it possibly be, if men did not in their hearts "make God a liar," as the apostle' speaks, that the Lord should profess so plainly, "From this day upward, since a stone hath been laid of my house," since you have put yourselves to any charges for my worship, "I will surely bless you" and again", "Bring all my tithes into my house, and prove me if I will not open the windows of Heaven, and pour a blessing upon you, that there shall not be room enough to hold it:" and again", "He that hath pity on the poor, lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given, will he pay him again:" and again P; "If thou wilt hearken unto me, and observe to do all these things, then all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, blessings in the city and in the field," &c. If men did, in good earnest, personally and hypothetically believe and embrace these divine truths; how could it be, that men should grudge Almighty God and his worship every farthing m k Psal. xvii. 10. Ib. x. 4. 5. Job. xx. 7. 15. 15. 19. n Mal. iii. 10. o Prov. xix. 17. m Hag. ii. 11 John v. 10. P Deut. xxviii. 2. 14. |