Faith to Be Prized, and Other Things Undervalued
That faith may take the better place in the soul and the soul in God, the heart must continually be taught of what little worth all things else are, as reputation, riches, and pleasures, &c.; and to see their nothingness in the word of God, and inexperience of ourselves and others, that so our heart being weaned from these things, may open itself to God, and embrace things of a higher nature; otherwise baser things will be nearer thy soul than faith, and keep possession against it, so that faith will not be suffered to set up a throne in the heart; there must be an unloosing of the heart, as well as a fastening of it, and God helps us in both: for, besides the word discovering the vanity of all things else out of God, the main scope of God’s dealing with his children in any danger or affliction whatsoever, is to imbitter all other things but himself unto them: indeed it is the power of God properly which makes the heart to trust, but yet the Spirit of God useth this way to bring all things else out of request with us in comparison of those inestimable good things, which the soul is created, redeemed, and sanctified for; God is very jealous of our trust, and can endure no idol of jealousy to be set up in our hearts. Therefore it behoves us to take notice, not only of the deceitfulness of things, but of the deceitfulness of our hearts in the use of them; our hearts naturally hang loose from God, and are soon ready to join with the creature; now the more we observe our hearts in this, the more we take them off, and labour to set them where they should be placed; for the more we know these things, the less we shall trust them.
But may we not trust in riches, and friends, and other outward helps at all?
Yes, so far as they are subordinate to God, our chief stay, with reservation and submission to the Lord; only so far, and so long as it shall please him to use them for our good. Because God ordinarily conveys his help and goodness to us by some creature; we must trust in God to bless every mercy we enjoy, and to make all helps serviceable to his love towards us. In a word, we must trust and use them in and under God, and so as if all were taken away, yet to think God (being all-sufficient) can do without them, whatsoever he doth by them for our good. Faith preserves the chastity of the soul, and cleaving to God is a spiritual debt which it oweth to him, whereas cleaving to the creature is spiritual adultery.
It is an error in the foundation to substitute false objects either in religion, or in Christian conversation; for 1. in religion trusting in false objects, as saints, and works, &c. breeds false worship, and false worship breeds idolatry, and so God’s jealousy and hatred. 2. In Christian conversation false objects of trust breed false comforts, and true fears; for in what measure we trust in any thing that is uncertain, in the same measure will our grief be when it fails us; the more men rely upon deceitful crutches, the greater is their fall; God can neither endure false objects, nor a doable object, as hath been showed, for a man to rely upon any thing equally in the same rank with himself; for the propounding of a double object, argues a double heart, and a double heart is always unsettled, James i. 8, for it will regard God no longer than it can enjoy that which it joins together with him; therefore it is said, you cannot serve two masters Luke xvi. 13, not subordinate one to another; whence it was that our Saviour told those worldly men which followed him: that they could not believe in him, because they sought honour one of another, Jolm V. 44; and in case of competition, if their honour and reputation should come into question, they would be sure to be false to Christ, and rather part with him than their own credit and esteem in the world.
David here, by charging his soul to trust in God, saw there was nothing else that could bring true rest and quiet unto him; for whatsoever is besides God, is but a creature; and whatever is in the creature is but borrowed, and at God’s disposing; and changable, or else it were not a creature; David saw his error soon, for the ground of his disquiet was trusting something else besides God, therefore when he began to say. My hill is strong I shall not be moved, Sec, Psalm XXX. 6; then presently his soul was troubled. Out of God there is nothing fit for the soul to stay itself upon; for
1. Outward things are not fitted to the spiritual nature of the soul; they are dead things and cannot touch it being a lively spirit, unless by way of taint.
2. They are beneath the worth of the soul, and therefore debase the soul, and draw it lower than itself. As a noble woman, by matching with a mean person, much injures herself, especially when higher matches are offered. Earthly things are not given for stays wholly to rest on, but for comforts in our way to Heaven; they are no more fit for the soul, than that which hath many angles is fit to fill up that which is round, which it cannot do, because of the unevenness and void places that will remain; outward things are never so well fitted for the soul, but that the soul will presently see some voidness and emptiness in them, and in itself in cleaving to them; for that which shall be a fit object for the soul, must be
1. for the nature of it spiritual, as the soul itself is;
2. constant; 3. full and satisfying; 4. of equal continuance with it; and 5. always yielding fresh contents: we cast away flowers, after once we have had the sweetness of them, because there is not still a fresh supply of sweetness. Whatever comfort is in the creature, the soul will spend quickly, and look still for more; whereas the comfort we have in God is undefiled andfadeth not away; how can we trust to that for comfort, which by very trusting proves uncomfortable to us? outward things are only so far forth good, as we do not trust in them; thorns may be touched, but not rested on, for then they will pierce; we must not set our hearts upon things which are never evil to us, but when we set our hearts upon them, Psalm lxii. 10.
By trusting anything but God, we make it 1. an idol; 2. a curse, and not a blessing; 3. it will prove a lying vanity, not yielding that good which we look for; and 4. a vexation, bringing that evil upon us we look not for.
Of all men Solomon was the fittest to judge of this, because 1. he had a large heart able to comprehend the variety of things; and 2. being a mighty king, had advantages of procuring all outward things that might give him satisfaction; and 3. he had a desire answerable, to search out and extract whatever good the creature could yield; and yet upon the trial of
?ill, he passeth this verdict upon all, that they are but vanity, Eccles. i. 2; whilst he laboured to find that which he sought for in them, he had like to have lost himself; and seeking too much to strengthen himself by foreign combination, he weakened himself the more thereby, until he came to know where the whole of man consists, Eccles. xii. 13. So that now we need not try further conclusions after the peremptory sentence of so wise a man.
But our nature is still apt to think there is some secret good in the forbidden fruit, and to buy wisdom dearly when we might have it at a cheaper rate, even from former universal experience.
It is a matter both to be wondered at and pitied, that the soul having God in Christ set before it, alluring it unto him, that he might raise it, enlarge it, and till it, and so make it above all other things, should yet debase and make itself narrower and weaker, by leaning to things meaner than itself.
The kingdom, sovereignty, and large command of man, continueth while he rests upon God, in whom he reigns, in some sort, over all things under him; but so soon as he removes from God to anything else, he becomes weak and narrow and slavish presently; for,
The soul is as that which it relies upon; if on vanity, itself becomes vain; for that which contents the soul must satisfy all the wants and desires of it, which no particular thing can do, and the soul is more sensible of a little thing that it wants, than of all other things which it enjoys.
But see the insufficiency of all other things (out of God) to support the soul, in their several degrees. First, all outward things can make a man no happier than outward things can do, they cannot reach beyond their proper sphere: but our greatest grievances are spiritual. And as for inward things, whether gifts or graces, they cannot be a sufficient stay for the mind; for 1. gifts as poUcy and wisdom, &c. they are at the best very defective, especially when we trust in them; for wisdom makes men often to rebel, and thereupon God delighteth to blast their projects: none miscarry oftener than men of the greatest parts; as none are oftener drowned than those that are most skilful in swimming, because it makes them confident.
And for grace, though it be the beginning of a new creature in us, yet it is but a creature, and therefore not to be trusted in, nay, by trusting in it we imbase it, and make it more imperfect; so far as there is truth of grace, it breeds distrust of ourselves, and carries the soul out of itself to the fountain of strength.
And for any works that proceed from grace, by trusting thereunto they prove like the reed of Egypt, which not only deceives us, but hurts us with the splinters: good works are good, but confidence in them is hurtful; and there is more of our own in them (for the most part) to humble us, than of God’s Spirit to embolden us so far as to trust in them. Alas, they have nothing from us but weakness and defilement, and therefore since the fall, God would have the object of our trust to be (out of ourselves) in him; and to that purpose he useth all means to take us out of ourselves, and from the creature, that he only might be our trust.
Yea, we must not trust itself, but God whom it relies on, who is therefore called our trust. All the glorious things that are spoken of trust are only made ^ood by God in Christ, who, as trusted, doth all for us.
God hath prescribed trust as the way to carry our souls to himself, in whom we should only rely, and not in our imperfect trust, which hath its ebbing and flowing; neither will trust in God himself for the present suffice us for future strength and grace, as if trusting in God to-day would suffice to strengthen us for to-morrow; but we must renew our trust for fresh supply, upon every fresh occasion. So that we see God alone must be the object of our trust.
There is still left in man’s nature a desire of pleasure, profit, and of whatever the creature presents as good, but the desire of gracious good is altogether lost, the soul being wholly infected with a contrary taste. Man hath a nature capable of excellency, and desirous of it, and the Spirit of God in and by the word reveals where true excellency is to be had; but corrupt nature leaving God, seeketh it elsewhere, and so crosseth its own desires, till the Spirit of God discovers where these things are to be had, and so nature is brought to its right frame again, by turning the stream into the right current; grace and sinful nature have the same general object of comfort; only sinful nature seeks it in broken cisterns, and grace in the fountain; the beginning of our true happiness is from the discovery of true and false objects, so as the soul may clearly see what is best and safest, and then steadfastly rely upon it.
It were a happy way to make the soul better ac- - quainted with trusting in God, to labour to subdue at the first all unruly inclinations of the soul to earthly things, and to take advantage of the first tenderness of the soul, to weed out that which is iil, and to plant knowledge and love of the best things in it; otherwise where affections to anything below get much strength in the soul, it will by little and little be so overgrown, that there will be no place left in it, either for (object or act) God or trust; God cannot come to take his place in the heart by trust, but where the powers of the soul are brought under to regard him and those great things he brings with him, above all things else in the world besides.
In these glorious times wherein so great a light shineth, whereby so great things are discovered, what a shame is it to be so narrow hearted as to fix upon present things; our aims and affections should be suitable to the things themselves set before us; our hearts should be more and more enlarged, as things are more and more revealed to us; we see in the things of this life, as wisdom and experience increaseth, so our aims and desires increase likewise; a young beginner thinks it a great matter if he have a little to begin withal, but as he grows in trading, and seeth further ways of getting, his thoughts and desires are raised higher: children think as children, but riper age puts away childishness, when their understandings are enlarged to see what they did not see lpefore; we should never rest till our hearts, according to the measure of revelation of those excellent things which God hath for us, have answerable apprehension of the same. Oh, if we had but faith to answer those glorious truths which God hath revealed, what manner of lives should we lead!