The Sin of People's Forsaking God and Betaking Themselves to the Creature in His Stead

Thomas Boston, 1676–1732

Jeremiah 2:13, "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

THIS text is ushered in with a strange preface, wherein the heavens are called to stand amazed, to be filled with horror, and to dry up. Why, what is the matter? the sin and folly of Israel. "My people have committed two evils," etc. In which words there is,

First, A general charge against them: they have done "two evils," two ill things. Why, two is not many; yes, but they are two leading ill things, two mother evils. They are two fountain-sins, each of them casting out their thousands, as a fountain does her waters. They are enough to overwhelm them with sins and sorrows. And the evils are the greater, that they are "my people," in covenant with me, that have done them. It is not the isles of Chittim, nor Kedar; but Israel.

Secondly, A particular condescension on these evils, these fountain-evils.

1st, Deserting of God: "They have forsaken me," left me, and gone away from me. I am their King and Lord, and they have shaken off their subjection to me; their Head and Husband, and they have run away from me. I am their confederate, who took them into covenant with me; and they have broken the bands, and burst the yoke. I am their God in covenant, whom they have forsaken.

2dly, Taking up with the creature. They have betaken themselves to the creature in my room and stead. They have "hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Hebrews for to cut out, etc.) Thus they have made an exchange. They have left me, to go to them; like traitorous subject, casting off their rightful lord, for an usurper; an unfaithful wife, deserting her husband, for her adulterer; a wretched creature, deserting his God, for an idol. So here,

1. There is something supposed. It is supposed,

(1.) That Israel was no more self-sufficient than any other people under Heaven. They were not able to satisfy themselves from themselves; they were as much in need of supply for the satisfaction and rest of their hearts, as ever a thirsty man was of drink to refresh him. And as proud as they were, they behooved to hang on about some door or other for their supply; either God's or the creature's.

(2.) That, in this their necessitous case, God took them home to his house, as one would take in a beggar in rags, and set him down with the children: and told them, they should not want, if they would stay with him, Deuteronomy 32:10, "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness: he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." He called them his people, took them into the covenant, and set them down at the fountain-head, the well-spring of mercy and goodness.

2. There is something expressly declared. It is so declared,

(1.) That Israel had made a willful exchange of his condition, cast himself out of God's house, into the devil's common again; "changed his glory, for that which will not profit;" forsaken the God that took him in, and gone back to the empty creature, where he was before.

(2.) That Israel had sinned and played the fool egregiously in making this exchange. And accordingly his sin and folly is here proclaimed. And,

1. Israel was a holy people; but the text proclaims them a sinful people with a witness. Their forsaking him "the fountain of living waters," and betaking themselves to "broken cisterns," are signal evils. There is a heap of evil in each of them. They could not have made a worse choice, to the dishonor of God, and to make his name to be blasphemed among the heathen. So they affronted their God.

2. Israel was a wise people; but the text proclaims them fools with a witness; that were as blind to their own interest, as they were unfaithful to God's honor. Men's wisdom or folly appears in their bargains: let us see what a blind exchange they had made. They had exchanged,

1st, A spring-well, for cisterns. A cistern is a hollow place out in the earth, in wood, or stone, for receiving and keeping rain water, or water otherwise put into it; whereas the fountain or spring has the water from itself. God in Christ is the fountain, all-sufficient in himself. All the creatures are but cisterns; if there is no water brought into them from Heaven, or from the spring, they are dry. Who then would exchange a fountain living and springing, for a cistern?

2dly, A fountain made ready to their hand, for cisterns that were to be hewed out. Happiness is ready in God for us, and we need only to draw out by faith the waters of consolation. But O what hard work is it to hew out the cisterns of created enjoyment! It is desirable to have comfort ready. Who then will be so foolish, as to exchange a fountain made ready to their hand, for cisterns that require much labor to hew them out?

3dly, One spring-well, sufficient for all their needs, for many cisterns. There is no one cistern that will do one's business; when the man has hewed out one cistern, the water is lacking and unpleasant there, and he must hew out another, and so on. And thus the soul once forsaking God, becomes restless; there is no end of cisterns. It is a great convenience, to have what we need in one place, and not to be obliged to go here and there for it. Who then would forsake God, the fountain of all blessings, and betake themselves to the creatures, which though tried one after another, cannot supply their wants?

4thly, Fresh and sweet waters of the spring, for the dead unsavory waters of the cistern, that is, springing waters, bubbling up through the earth, cool, and fresh, for the standing, stinking waters of the cisterns. Who then will be so foolish, as to forsake the living waters, and betake themselves to the stinking waters of the cisterns?

Lastly, A spring-well, for broken and cracked cisterns, that let the water through them, and cannot hold it in. So that when the man comes to drink at his cistern, for his thirst; behold there was a crack in the cistern, and the water is all gone; and there is nothing left but sediment, mud, and mire.

The scope and substance of these words may be taken up in these two doctrines—

DOCTRINE I. Forsaking of God in Christ, and betaking one's self to the creature in his stead, are two ill, signally ill things.

DOCTRINE. II. To forsake God in Christ, and take the creature in his stead, is a wretched exchange.

I return to the first of these—

DOCTRINE. I. Forsaking of God in Christ, and betaking one's self to the creature in his stead, are two ill, signally ill things.

In discoursing this doctrine, we shall consider the two branches of it separately, viz—1. The forsaking of God in Christ; and, 2. The betaking one's self to the creature in God's stead.

First, As to the first of these ill things, the forsaking of God in Christ, we shall consider,

1st, The object forsaken.

2dly, How sinners forsake God in Christ.

3dly, Why they forsake him.

4thly, The ill of this practice.

Lastly, Make application.

I. First, We shall consider the object forsaken. It is not simply God, but God in Christ: for the object in the text is "the fountain of living waters" to sinners, to refresh them, and satisfy their souls: but God out of Christ, an absolute God, is a consuming fire to them. We can no way, according to the scripture, conceive of God, as "a fountain of living waters" to us, but in Christ Jesus, Zechariah 13:1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin, and for impurity." John 4:10, "Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink; you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water." It is true, there is an infinite fullness of goodness, mercy, and grace, in the nature of God; but to sinners it would have been a sealed fountain forever, had not the Mediator interposed. So there is,

1st, A forsaking of God simply as God. Thus Adam, falling from his integrity, forsook God, shaking off the yoke of obedience to his Creator. This was a horrid evil, and it lies on all men in their natural state. They are in a state of desertion, having left God, Ephesians 2:12, "At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." The first covenant tie is no longer able to hold them with him. In this sense, the Pagans have forsaken God, who never heard of Christ.

2dly, A forsaking of God in Christ. And thus only his visible church and people called by his name, are capable of forsaking him; as the text hints. He becomes their God in a visible church state, bidding them welcome to all his fullness, for the supply of their needs and making over the same to them in the gospel offer: they professing their acceptance, by receiving the seal or seals of his covenant.

So the God forsaken by the hearers of the gospel, must be considered,

1. As God in our nature, for communion with guilty us, Matthew 1:23, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted is, God with us." We could have no communion with an absolute God: the rays of his Majesty would have burnt us up, as fire does the dry stubble. But he clothed himself with our nature, that he might be a refreshing spring to us, 2 Corinthians 5:19, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," etc. The rook of ages was found in our wilderness, and there he was smitten with Moses' rod, and the waters gushed out, the living waters, for us. He tabernacled among us.

2. As God in our nature, ready to communicate his fullness to us, for making us happy in time and eternity, John 4:10, forfeited. The spring is not to dig now; it is dug already, and running, that "whoever will, may take of the water of life freely," Revelation 22:17. The invitation is given out, to come and drink, John 7:37. All the saints have drunk, but the spring is running as much as ever for us.

3. Lastly, As a God we have professed to betake ourselves to for our happiness, Jeremiah 16:19, "O Lord, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto you from the ends of the earth, and shall say, surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit." We have found the scorching thirst that has seized us, through the disorder brought into our souls by Adam's fall; and have professed to look for our relief in God only; and so have sit down by the well.

II. The second thing on this head is, How sinners forsake God in Christ? Sinners forsake him,

STEP 1. Lowering their esteem of him, the value and honor they had for him sinking low, Psalm 50:21, "You thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself." It is the high esteem of Christ that brings sinners to him; and as that sinks, they will go away, John 6:68, "Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life." The mystery of Christ is ready to be despised by proud nature, because there is no seeing of the glory of it without a peculiar light Hence God in Christ is a stumbling stone to the blind world, Matthew 11:6, "Blessed is he whoever shall not be offended in me." And a stroke in the eye, whereby one sees no beauty in him, leads here.

STEP 2. The heart's falling off its rest in him, and turning restless, so that the fullness of a God cannot quiet it, Isaiah 30:15, "In returning and rest shall you be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." If the wife begin to harbor a discontent as to her husband, she is in a fair way to forsake him; and the heart that cannot be content with the fountain, will forsake it, to hew out cisterns for itself; when the view of the broad covenant, with all its benefits, is not sufficient to lay bands on the heart, and make it to say, "This is all my desire," 2 Samuel 23:5, it is as good as gone from the Lord.

STEP 3. Ceasing to cleave to him by faith, and letting go believing gripes of the promise, Hebrews 3:12, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." It is by faith one depends on and hangs about him for happiness and satisfaction. It is the hand by which his children hold him, Canticles 3:4. It is the eye which they are to keep on him for the supply of all their wants, Isaiah 45:22. While they do so, they are safe; and the fountain will spring forth to them; as in the case of Jacob, Genesis 32:26, when he said, "I will not let you go, except you bless me;" and in the case of the Syrophenician woman, Mark 7:24–30. But as soon as they let down their hands, and keep their eyes no more upon him for their supply, they are forsaking him. In the next place, they will be found,

STEP 4. Looking out some other way, for something to rest their hearts in. And then they are on their way away from him, Hebrews 3:12. Unbelief says, One may long wait at this fountain, before he get with which to quench his thirst; then he begins to think of hewing out cisterns. It says the promises of a rest are but fair words, not to be trusted to; then they are for turning back to Egypt again and think they must seek a seen good, Psalm 4:6, "There be many that say, who will show us any good?" Thus the restless heart, giving over to seek its rest and satisfaction in God, goes to the creature to find in it what it cannot find in God.

STEP 5. Growing remiss in duties, and slighting opportunities of communion with God; a form of duties may be kept up, but the heart is away, what avail they? Canticles 3:1, "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I found him not." Prayer is posted over; for it is for fashion's cause, rather than from faith or hope of gaining thereby, that they seek him at all: and by their coldness in their addresses, they court a denial. At sermons, they are not all there, their heart is away after someone idol of jealousy or other, like those spoken of, Ezekiel 33:31, "And they come unto you as the people comes, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness." Satan strikes in, picks up the word as it is sown, and fills their hearts otherwise, Proverbs 5:14, "I was almost in all evil, in the midst of the congregation and assembly." And Sabbaths become a burden, like those who said, "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?" Amos 8:5.

STEP 6. Having no regard to please him in their ordinary walk, Ezekiel 23:35, "Therefore thus says the Lord God, Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your whoredoms." Hence they are in no concern to acknowledge God in their ways, to seek counsel of God in particular cases, and to carry along with them a regard to his glory in all things; but are like the princes of Israel, Joshua 9:14, that "took of the Gibeonites, victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord." So, if they do a good thing, it is not because it pleases God, but because it pleases themselves; and if they do evil, and are touched for it, it is not because it is displeasing to him.

STEP 7. Laying aside the word for a rule, and regulating themselves by another standard, Psalm 119:53, "Horror has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake your law." Satan shuffles in the course of the world, the voice of the multitude, instead of the Bible into their hand; and it is enough for them that they see a throng in the way before them, though they hear not the voice behind them, saying, "This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left," Isaiah 30:21. But God speaks to us by his word, and binds us to it, Isaiah 8:20, "To the law and to the testimony," etc; and it is the appointed means of communion between God and us; the rule of our obedience, and must be the reason of it; and it is the appointed channel of influences, Isaiah 59:21, "As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord; My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed's seed, says the Lord, from henceforth and forever." So whose forsake the word, forsake God.

STEP 8. Forsaking his people for their companions, Proverbs 13:20," He who walks with wise men, shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Like as it is with the sinner returning unto God, he turns his back on the world lying in wickedness, and forsakes his former companions in sin, Psalm 45:10, for there is no going in the way of life otherwise, Proverbs 9:6; so men forsaking the Lord, are ready to forsake his people too. Indeed men may keep by God's people, and yet forsake God; but none can forsake the people of God, and not forsake God himself; more than they can throw off a living body, and yet hold by the head.

STEP 9. Forsaking ordinances, and the communion of saints therein. Ordinances are the trysting-places for the meeting between God and sinners; he walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks: he will account himself forsaken by people's turning their back on the trysting-place where he is to be met with. Mark Hebrews 10:25, 26, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another, for if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. "He has sent out his messengers with an awful certification, Luke 10:16," He who hears you, hears me; and he who despises you, despises me; and he who despises me, despises him that sent me." Therefore says Jeremiah, chapter 17:13, "O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake you shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me, shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters." It is an ill sign in a wife, when she is not to be found in the house of her husband; and of one forsaking God, when his feet are giving up treading his courts.

STEP 10, lastly, Throwing away the form of religion, casting off the mask, and giving the swing to their lusts. Thus the forsaking of God is completed, 2 Peter 2:22, "But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Then the devil re-enters with seven worse than himself, into where he had gone out. Thus men come to the end of this wretched rout. Yet even in this case all are not alike. Some give up themselves but to someone abomination or other; others give up themselves to all manner of abominations that come in their way, swimming in a sea of wickedness, as the former in a pool. Some again continue indifferent as to others yet in the way of God: others are possessed with a rancor and spite against the way of God, and those that follow it; so in times of peace, they are cruel mockers, and will do any ill turn they can; and in time of the church's trouble, will turn down-right persecutors.

III. The third thing is, Why they forsake him? how it comes they do so?

1. There is a natural bent to apostasy in all men; saints and sinners, Hosea 11:7, "And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt him." In saints it stirs, and often carries them very fearful lengths, as it did in Peter; in sinners it reigns, and so may carry them the full length. This woeful set of heart is natural to us, Genesis 8:21,—"The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." Our hearts, by Adam's fall, have got a bias to departing from God: there is need to take heed to it.

2. Many were never truly joined to the Lord, though they seemed to be so: so having never knit with him, no wonder they fall away from him; 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not of us." Professors, strangers to saving faith, in whom dwells not the Spirit of God, but of the world, lie fair to make apostates; Hebrews 10:39, "But we are not of them that draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." An error in the first taking up of religion, often makes it come to a sorry and shameful account at the long-run; men building without a foundation, Luke 14:28–30.

3. They often have some idol of jealousy secretly reserved, when they are at their best; and that upon a proper occasion does the business; like the young man in the gospel, that went away from Christ grieved, because "he had great possessions," Mark 10:22. It was not without reason that Pharaoh would have Israel leave their cattle: for then he knew this would bring them back again. One son of a stranger was the death of Gideon's seventy sons. One lust unmortified, and secretly spared, will be the death of a thousand good motions and inclinations. That proves the man's snare. So Judas' covetousness was sometimes peeping out, while he was following Christ; at last it broke out like a flood, and carried him quite away to betray his Master.

4. Their not pressing in to the sweet of religion, in an experimental feeling of the power of it. It is not for nothing that exhortation is given with so much earnestness; Psalm 34:8, "O taste, and see that the Lord is good!" Experience is the best way to keep a sinner with God; he feels how good it is "to draw near to God," Psalm 73:28. Disappointment causes forsaking, as in the case of Israel in the wilderness. And they who press not in to the inner court of religion by faith, hope, and diligence, but satisfy themselves with the form of it, cannot miss these fatal disappointments.

5. The want of a living principle of grace in the heart, that may bear out in all changes of one's condition; Psalm 78:37, "For their heart was not right with him." It fares with sinners as with springs and pools; when there is a shower from the clouds, the pools are full; but then when drought comes, the pool dries up, there being no spring in it. But the spring-well bears out then as at other times. The newness of religion serves people a while, to keep the affections astir; but when that is over, and there is no living principle of grace, the affections are lost, and religion turns unsavory. They cool like a stone taken from the fire, and wither like a branch that takes not with the stock.

6. Unwatchfulness. Thereby men are stolen off their feet, Proverbs 4:23, "Keep your heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life." Considering that we have a deceitful heart within, an ensnaring world without, and a busy devil going about us, no man can keep his feet without watching. By unwatchfulness there is a breach made in one's case, the conscience is defiled, and the heart is deadened; Ecclesiastes 10:18, "By much slothfulness the building decays, and through idleness of the hands the house drop through;" and no care being taken to make up the gap, it grows still wider and wider: a strangeness gets in between God and the soul; and that not being removed, they even wear out of acquaintance.

7. A conceit of being able to live without him; Jeremiah 2:31, "O generation, see you the word of the Lord: have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords, we will come no more unto you?"

8. Lastly, Ill company carries many away from God; 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." Joash kept the way of God as long as his good tutor Jehoiada lived; but when he was gone, and fell into the ill company of the princes, he went quite wrong, 2 Chronicles 24:17, 18. Many an apostate has ensnaring company made; and therefore we find God's people resolute to cleave to the Lord, will beware of it, as of a pest-house; Psalm 119:115, "Depart from me, you evil-doors; for I will keep the commandments of my God."

IV. The fourth thing here is, The ill, the ill of sin that is in forsaking God in Christ.

1. It is a downright perversion and deserting of the end of our creation. As God is the first cause of all things, so he is the chief and last end, whereunto all ought to have a tendency, Romans 11:36, "For of him, and through him, and to him are all things." When God made man, he gave him a disposition to bend towards him in all things, as his chief end; when he re-made the world in Christ, he set sinners on the same way again, Psalm 105:4, "Seek the Lord, and his strength; seek his face evermore." To forsake him, then, is quite contrary to our chief and last end. And for a man to forsake God, is as much opposite to the order established in things at the creation, as if the sun should leave his giving light, and the earth its yielding its fruit to men; as if the fire should go downward and the waters run upwards, and the whole course of nature should be turned upside down.

2. There is in it a setting up another in the room of God; therefore it is the first command, "You shall have no other God." For what is the forsaking of God, but going away from him to another? there is no mids: for seeking ourselves instead of God, is a deifying of self. So the scripture points it out as spiritual adultery, Ezekiel 16:32; and idolatry, Philippians 3:19. See it then as a palling down of our sovereign Lord God from his throne over us, and setting up a creature in his room, to pay it that homage which we owe to him alone.

3. Fearful ingratitude for the greatest mercy and kindness, Jeremiah 2:2, 12, "Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after me in the wilderness; in a land that is not sown. Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be you very desolate, says the Lord." God has condescended to veil himself with our flesh, that he might keep communion with us, with the safety of his honor; "God was in Christ," that he might be a refreshing fountain to a starving world; he has brought us to him by the gospel, to drink of the waters of his consolations, while many of the world have the fountain sealed to them. What monstrous ingratitude must it be for us to forsake him! Jeremiah 2:31, forfeited.

4. Notorious unfaithfulness to our kindest Head and Husband; Jeremiah 2:20, "For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands, and you said, I will not transgress: when upon every high hill, and under every green tree, you wander, playing the harlot." We cannot forsake him, but we must be false to our profession, our solemn vows and engagements. Our forsaking of him is treachery with a witness, casting off the strongest bands taken on us with our own consent, to abide with him and cleave to him. It is an aggravation that is not in the devil's deserting him, nor the Pagans.

5. Notorious unfaithfulness to our own interest, and folly with a witness. It was a pertinent answer which Peter gave; John 6:68, "Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life." It were good for sinners under temptation to forsake God, to propose it to themselves, and stay until they get a satisfying answer. Will men forsake one they are with, if they cannot do better, or as well with another? But we can never do as well with any other, 1 Samuel 12:21, "Turn you not aside from following the Lord: for then should you go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain." Nay, whatever we go to, from God, will do us hurt, and not good, Ezekiel 29:7. It is taking poison, leaving wholesome food. So those forsaking God sin against themselves, cutting the throat of their own interest, Proverbs 8:36, "But he who sins against me, wrongs his own soul: all they that hate me, love death."

6. An affronting of God before the world, casting dishonor on him, bearing false witness against him; Jeremiah 2:31, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords, we will come no more unto you?" That bears the language of their deserting to have been, that God had been to them as a wilderness. Those forsaking God are as the spies that brought up an ill report on the good land; Romans 2:24, "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, through you." What must the world say, seeing God's people forsake him, but that it is in vain to serve him, and that there is not that satisfaction and comfort to be found in him that the Word says there is?

7. A practical commendation of the way of the world, despising God, and seeking their happiness in things that are seen; Proverbs 28:4, "They that forsake the law, praise the wicked: but such as keep the law, contend with them." Deserters of God do not only cease to give a testimony against the world lying in wickedness, but give testimony for them, as if "they only were the people, and wisdom would die with them." And thus they fly in the face of the testimony of God in the world.

8. It is a sinning against the remedy of sin, and makes one's case very hopeless; Hebrews 10:26, "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins." When man forsook God as God and his God in the first covenant, there was a way found for bringing him back to God; 2 Corinthians 5:19, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" but if men shall forsake God in Christ, there is not another way to be expected for salvation. If the sinner fall at the Mediator's door, he must lie there, there is none to take him up. This is the last method of salvation; those who spurn it cannot escape perishing.

9. Lastly, It is an opened sluice for all other sins. So the text holds it out as a mother-sin. The man that forsakes God, he exposes himself a prey to all temptations, to be picked up by the first finder, Proverbs 27:8, "As a bird that wanders from her nest; so is a man that wanders from his place." He breaks off from communion with God in sanctifying, guiding, and strengthening influences; his soul being rendered as a pipe laid short of the fountain. He casts off his guide and protector in the wilderness; and no wonder to find him in all evil, who forsakes the fountain and only spring of goodness.

USE I. Then, let as be deeply humbled in the sense of our departures from the Lord, which we have had at any time in our life; Jeremiah 2:19, "Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you; know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord God of Hosts." How often have our hearts been found in this way, gadding after other lovers? Behold the wickedness, ingratitude, and unfaithfulness in it. What great lengths have we gone in affronting our God before the world, and causing his name to be blasphemed? Matthew 18:7, "Woe unto the world because of offences; for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence comes." It may be humbling to us,

1st, That we live in a land infamous for apostasies; a covenanted land solemnly married to God, but which in a national capacity did forsake her covenanted God, pursuing even to death such as dared not go into the national apostasy. It is like, when God shall raise the process against the land for these things, it will be terrible, especially to those that are still forsaking him.

2dly, We live in a generation that is fast apostatizing, not going, but running away from God. The sluice of untenderness is opened among all ranks, wickedness abounds; the current is so forcible, that it is taking away many, one after another, with it, stripping them of their form of godliness; driving them into sinful courses that once a day would have said, "Am I a dog that I should do such things?" And it is hard for any to keep their feet.

Let us be humbled under our own and the generation's forsaking of God, considering the dishonor to God thereby, and the danger to ourselves.

2. Beware of and watch against the beginnings of forsaking of God. We may apply that, Proverbs 17:14, "The beginning of strife is as when one lets out water; therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with." When the soul begins to decline from God, it is hard to say where it may stop; but one step still makes way for another. I doubt not there are many, who, when they first left God, going out of his way, they did not think to have been so long away from him as they have been; nor to have gone so far as they have gone. And it would have been a terror to them then, to have thought that they should run the length they are now at. But it is easier holding off the first step, than off the second, and so forward; for men are like those going down a precipice, that cannot stop until they be at the bottom. Therefore watch against the beginnings, and "let him that stands take heed lest he fall."

3. You that are far on, stop, and go no further; 1 Peter 4:3, "For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles," etc. Hold in time, lest you run to the utmost, and lie at the end of it a sacrifice to your own wilfulness. God is calling you to return, and promising to take you home again; Jeremiah 3:22, "Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." Are not your consciences convinced, that it was better with you before you went away than it is now? say then as Hosea 2:7, "I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now." Proceed not then in your course, to make ill worse. Why will you rush on "as the horse rushes into the battle?" Jeremiah 8:6.

4. Lastly, You forsakers of God, return, return; whatever length you are gone, whatever step you are in, return to God in Christ.

1st, Return by faith, and let the marriage covenant between Christ and you be renewed. There is access to it yet; Jeremiah 3:1, "You have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, says the Lord." Many a time matters are gone such a length between Christ and sinners solemnly espoused to him, that there must be as great a solemnity to the agreement and coming home again, as there was to the first taking them in; Revelation 19:7, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready."

2dly, Return by repentance; Jeremiah 31:19, "Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Return with the blush in your face, the tear in your eye, grief and sorrow in your heart, your hand smiting on your breast, and the rope of humiliation about your neck, for your going away. Rake through your departures, search your ways, and be converted from them. Many times matters go such a length in people's forsaking the Lord, that there must be a going over the road of conversion again, in the several steps of it, as at first, Matthew 18:3, "Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven." There must be new conviction, compunction, humiliation, etc.

MOTIVE I. If you will continue to forsake God, he will forsake you utterly, 1 Chronicles 28:9. We may say, God does not quite forsake us, though we have forsaken him; he is still doing us good, filling our hearts with food and gladness. But that will not last always so; the God that now follows us with mercy, will forsake us too, and give up with us, 2 Chronicles 15:2, "The Lord is with you, while you be with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you."

MOTIVE 2. Heavy will be your case, if God shall forsake you; Hosea 9:12, "Yes, wo to them when I depart from them." It is comprized there in a word of two letters; but men and angels cannot sufficiently unfold the import of it Saul got a taste of it in this world, and what a dreadful weight was it on him? 1 Samuel 28:15, "And Saul answered, I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answers me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams." How much more dreadful will it be in another world?

MOT. 3. It is a Hell by choice; and when it comes to be felt in its vigor, it will be nothing the easier, but the hotter, that it was your own choice. The sentence of damnation runs in these terms, "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew 25:41.

Now men will not stay with him, they will be away. The sending them to Hell will be a giving them their will; a forcing them to that in a penal way which is now their sinful choice.

MOT. 4. Lastly, The Lord calls you to return, and is courting you to come back. He needs us not; but he sees that we are ruined if we do not come back.

Secondly, As to the second evil, The betaking one's self to the creature in God's stead.

In speaking to this, let us consider,

1st, The object taken up with in God's stead.

2dly, How sinners take up with the creature in God's stead.

3dly, Why sinners take up with the creature in God's stead.

4thly, The ill of this practice.

Lastly, Improve the doctrine.

I. First, Let us consider the object taken up with to God's stead. It is the creature: A sorry exchange, Romans 1:25. "They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." It has two names in scripture, a negative and a positive one.

1st, It is not God; Deuteronomy 32:21. "They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God." This is the name of all the cisterns, of the whole creation, chosen in God's room. Whatever it is, whatever excellency be conceived in it, it is a not-God. They take it for a God, and so they take it for what it neither is nor can be; and so they cheat themselves. We may take up this name in these two syllables.

1. It cannot satisfy; Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfies not?" There are a great many empty spaces in the hungry heart, and it cannot fill them up. God's name is All-sufficient, Genesis 17:1; Hebrews that which is commensurable. Hereby he is distinguished from all not-God; none of them all will measure out, nor all of them together, with the necessities of any of us.

2. It cannot profit; 1 Samuel 12:21, "And turn you not aside: for then should you go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain." Whatever not-God one betakes himself to, it can not only not do him good enough, but it can do him no good; Jeremiah 2:11, "Has a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit. Yes, it can do him no good, even though it were a whole world gained; Matthew 16:26, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Paul was not out in his reckoning, when he said, (Philippians 3:8.) "Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord;—and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." A cistern of one's own hewing out for the fountain, is not only scant of water, but the little that is of it is naught.

2dly, It is the world, 1 John 2:15; the great bulky vanity, Ecclesiastes 1:2; the passing world, 1 John 2:17; the present evil world, Galatians 1:4; that there is a curse upon, whereby it is doomed to be burnt to ashes, and so can neither last, nor satisfy in the time it does continue. It is a name consisting of three syllables.

1. "The lust of the flesh," 1 John 2:16, that is, things grateful to the vile body. There is nothing in it for a pure holy soul, but what is noisome to it; as appears from the entertainment it gave to Christ. But the vile world affords for the vile body the pleasures of eating and drinking, of fleshly lusts, luxurious ease. It has with which to gratify the senses of touching, tasting, and smelling. And though "the Lord is for the body," 1 Corinthians 6:13, and can and will gratify its senses more than ten thousand worlds; yet men forsake God, and take up with the world and its lusts of the flesh.

2. "The lust of the eyes," 1 John 2:16, that is, things grateful to the covetous eye; Psalm 4:6, "Who will show us any good?" There is nothing in it for the single eye but grievousness, which makes them cry, Habakkuk 1:3, and makes it a weary land. But it has fuel for feeding the vitiated lusting eye; it affords silver and gold, houses and lands, farms and merchandise, cloths and ornaments, pompous and gaudy sights and shows, husbands and wives, children and servants, etc. And though there is a perfection of beauty in God in Christ, while he is represented as fairer than the sons of men, Psalm 45:2, and altogether lovely, Canticles 5:16; yet he is forsaken for the lust of the eyes the world affords; while in the meantime it never satisfies the eye, Ecclesiastes 1:8.

3. "The pride of life," 1 John 2:16, that is, things grateful to the vain mind. There is nothing in it for the pure mind, but what is vain, or else vile; 2 Corinthians 5:4, "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." Philippians 1:23, "For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." But it affords abundant entertainment for the vain mind; airy honors, credit, reputation, and esteem for this and the other imagined or real excellency in a person; a variety for entertaining the musical, light, or malicious ear; airy castles enough, for the fancy to rove up and down in at large, in vain projects, and vile desires, and dreaming enjoyments; and enough to busy the curious, while they live, if they were to live as long as Methuselah, that with all their learning and researches they shall never come to the end of. In God in Christ are "hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," Colossians 2:3, full satisfaction for the mind, 1 John 3:2. But he is forsaken for the world's pride of life, that will fall in a moment like foam on the water, Hosea 10:7.

11. Secondly, Let us consider, "How sinners take up with the creature in God's stead." This is done by setting the heart on the creature, giving it the chief or supreme room in the heart which is due to God only. And so men take up with the creature in God's stead. The steps of it are these.

STEP 1. Raising their esteem of and value for the creature, until it come to overtop their esteem of God in Christ, like Eve with respect to the forbidden fruit, Genesis 3:6. Men looking on the creature, are often as one standing looking over a precipice, until the head growing giddy, they fall over. Thus Achan came to forsake God for the wedge of gold, Joshua 7:21. The creature grows more and more bulky and glorious; and the beauty of a God in Christ is more and more veiled; until in end the soul gives the preference to the creature, and determines it is best for it. Now the unhappy match is begun, and the soul is in a fair way to go off to the creature.

STEP 2. Bending their chief desire towards the creature, Psalm 4:6, to obtain it, and the satisfaction they apprehend is to be found in it. The heart goes after it on the wings of desire, the soul flying after it as a ravenous bird on its prey, Proverbs 23:5. So the heart is boiling hot upon it, and grows cold towards God, and Esau, Genesis 25:30, 32. Then the man is making away to it as fast as he can.

STEP 3. Embracing and knitting with it in love, 2 Tim, 4:10. So Demas loosed his gripes of Paul and the gospel, and fastened his gripes on the world. It gets more of his love than God in Christ, and all the riches of Christ. He looks for his happiness from it, thinks he would be happy if he could be master of what is in it; and so he cleaves to it in love, until the love of God is extinguished in his heart, 1 John 2:15. And thus the man has betaken himself to it instead of God, and the fatal new match is made up.

STEP 4. Seeking a rest for their hearts in it; Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The man has a restless heart in his breast, that is gaping for something to satisfy it; and he carries it away to the creature, to rest there; to the cisterns, to drink there. And there he sucks at the breasts of the world's consolations, the consolations of God being now tasteless with him.

STEP 5. Trusting in it, and having their chief dependence on it, notwithstanding of the curse pronounced against such trust, Jeremiah 17:5. 6, It is their prop that supports them, the pillar they lean on. Happy had they been, if they had had such trust to God as they give to the creature. Though it frowns on them, they trust it will yet smile, and they will wait on; it has disappointed them often, and yet with the greatest confidence they will promise on its head. God's promises, that might be deferred but never failed, they can trust nothing to; but the deceitful promises of the world they trust in.

STEP 6. Using their chief and most earnest endeavors for it. Their trust in it is backed with suitable endeavors; they spare no cost, to get out of the creature what they are seeking; Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfies not?" They will spend their money on their lusts, and what is better than either gold or money, they will spare no pains; they will labor for it; they will labor in the very fire, and that to weariness, Habakkuk 2:13. It is not the sinner's fault, that he gets no satisfaction in the creature; if it were in it, he would surely have it out of it. Meanwhile, as is his trust and dependence on God, so are his endeavors that way; his trust nothing, and his endeavors languid.

STEP 7. Rejoicing most in their enjoyment of it, and delighting most in it. It is no more God, but the creature that is the man's chief joy; 2 Timothy 3:4, "Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." The joy of the corn and wine, the crop and cattle, is more to them than the light of the Lord's countenance. They can relish no other joys but what are carnal; let the world smile, the heavens may lower for them, they can be easy; and reign as kings without God, if the kind world will but set a fading crown on their head.

STEP 8. Sorrowing most of all for the want of it, under the frowns of it; 2 Corinthians 7:10, "The sorrow of the world works death." They can bear the frowns of the God that made them, better than the frowns of the creature; for the latter has more of their heart than the former. Though God's displeasure is burning against them, forsaking of him is not their grief; it will not mar their joy in the world, but their joy in the world will be an antidote against it; Hosea 12:7, 8, "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand; he loves to oppress. And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance; in all my labors they shall find none iniquity in me, that were sin." But all the joys of the gospel will now weigh down their sorrows from the creature, Exodus 6:7–9.

STEP 9. Still clearing to it, under never so many disappointments from it; nor forsaking it, but trying another mean, when one misgives; Isaiah 57:10, "You are wearied in the greatness of your way; yet said you not, There is no hope; you have found the life of your hand; therefore you were not grieved." When their expectations in God were deferred, they said, "Why should we wait on the Lord any longer?" and so they forsook him. But do they treat the creature so? No indeed; but when it raises their hope in one thing to the very foundation, they shift about from one creature to another, but never come back to God; when one cistern runs dry, they go to another, but return not to the fountain.

STEP 10. Lastly, Following the creature wherever it goes, even quite over the hedge of the law of God; Ecclesiastes 10:8, "He who digs a pit, shall fall into it; and whoever breaks an hedge, a serpent shall bite him." The man that has betaken himself to the creature, he may hold within the compass of lawful enjoyments, and perish by them, Matthew 24:38, 39, "For as, in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." But the sinner, disappointed of the satisfaction expected in lawful things, takes at length the liberty of unlawful; like a beast, that, having ate up all to the red earth within his pasture, breaks over the hedge, and eats up that which is not allowed. Thus the sinner is come to the last step, giving himself the swing in his lusts.

III. The third thing is, Why sinners take up with the creature in God's stead.

1. Because the heart of man is naturally wedded to the creature; and that bond not being truly broken, it is apt to return upon occasion to its natural bias. Adam, sinning, left God, and joined the creature; so there is the natural bond, there is the object that gets our first love. Hence, though the sinner seem to join himself to the Lord, he is apt to return to the creature; and will do it, if the power of grace prevent it not, Hosea 11:7, "And my people are bent to backsliding from me; though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt him.

2. Because man's corrupt nature finds a suitableness and agreeableness in the creature to itself, Isaiah 57:10, forfeited. Corrupt lusts, which otherwise must starve, find an agreeable entertainment in the creature, an entertainment they can relish or favor, while they cannot favor the things of God, Romans 8:5. Even as a swine brought into a palace will get back into an unclean place, where it will get mire and dirt which it cannot get there.

3. Because the creature takes by the eye and other senses; God and his favor is the object of faith, which is rare in the world. Men are naturally much addicted to sense, and apt to be led thereby, and are most feelingly touched by objects of sense; while it requires the exerting of a supernatural power on them to raise on them the faith of things invisible. Hence the natural cry, Psalm 4:6, "Who will show us any good?" And therefore God gives his people a spiritual sensation to balance it; verse 7, "You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."

4. Because the creature promises a present good, whereas the greatest things of God are reserved to another world. Though God does offer great things in hand to the sinner, Psalm 19:11, yet the greatest is in hope; but the world's good is offered as a present good; as that which is soon rotten is ordinarily soon ripe too, and contrariwise. Hence the sinner, making the comparison, looks on the spiritual good as the bird in the bush; on the temporal as the bird in hand, and so grips to it, letting the other go.

5. Because, by the power of a strong delusion, conveyed into the nature of man by the serpent in paradise, they expect a satisfaction and happiness in the creature, Genesis 3:5, 6. It is represented to them in a magnifying glass, as the forbidden fruit was to our first parents; and so strongly is this hope riveted in them, that though they meet with thousands of disappointments, yet still in new hopes they renew their endeavors to extract it out of them; Isaiah 57:10, "You are wearied in the greatness of your way; yet said you not, There is no hope.

6. Lastly, Because they must needs betake themselves to something without themselves, not being self-sufficient; so, having lost God, they fall of course to the creature in his stead; Ephesians 2:12, "At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:" compared with verse 3, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind." The sun being gone down on them, they set up their candles to enlighten their darkness, and compass themselves about with their own sparks. When the prodigal wanted bread, he fed on husks: when bread was not in Samaria, donkeys' heads and doves' dung were used.

IV. The fourth thing is, The ill of this practice, taking up with the creature in God's stead; the ill of sin in it.

1. It is an egregious wrong done to God, and his infinite excellency, Jeremiah 2:11, "Has a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit." To take up with the creature in God's stead, is to affront him, cast dishonor on him, and, as far as lies in us, to ungod him. To pull down the king from his throne, and to put a beggar from the dung-hill upon it; to pull down the sun from the firmament, and set up in its room a two-penny candle; the angels from their seats, and set glow-worms in their stead—would be no such injury as here; for the distance between these is but finite; but that between God and the creature, infinite.

It is a heap of practical blasphemies against God, and vilely misrepresents him, as if he were not,

(1.) The chief good. He is originally good, and the fountain of all goodness that is to be found in any creature; Matthew 19:17, "There is none good but one, that is God." Therefore he is the chief good. But this practice says, the creature is better than he; else why do men take up with it in his stead? What is our choice, in a plurality of things, one of which we may have, will always be reckoned the best in our judgment.

(2.) All-sufficient. He declares himself all-sufficient in himself, and to his creatures, Genesis 17:1. There is enough in him to make all the world of men, yes, a thousand worlds of men, happy; for his perfections are infinite. But the taking up with the creature in his stead, says, There is not enough in him for us. If it is not so, why do not we hold by him? if there is enough for us in God, why are we found at the creature's door? if the fountain is not dry, why at cisterns?

(3.) The most lovely. God is the perfection of beauty and excellency; for whatever is lovely in the creature, is a ray of beauty darted from him; James 1:17, "Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." Everything has its spots; only "he is altogether lovely," Canticles 5:16; so he is "fairer than the sons of men," Psalm 45:2; and nothing is so desirable. But the taking up with the creature gives the lie to this testimony. If the water is sweeter in the fountain than in the cistern, why is the cistern chosen instead of the fountain?

(4.) Communicative, willing to impart of his goodness to his creatures, Matthew 25:21. He has parted with his own Son for us, and is willing "with him to give us all things" Romans 8:32. And this is the testimony of the gospel of God. Yet sinners by this practice give it out, that all this is false; that they must needs take up with the creature, since the Creator looks up himself from them.

2. It is a wrong done to the creature, as being a putting it out of its proper place. It is a rape committed upon it, a violence done thereto, which makes it groan, Romans 8:21, 22. When Rachel put her husband in God's stead, he complained bitterly of it, saying, Genesis 30:2, "Am I in God's stead, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" So did the king of Israel, when the king of Syria, he thought, treated him so; 2 Kings 5:7, "Am I God, (said he), to kill and to make alive, that this man does send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?" So would the whole creation complain of men, if they had a mouth to speak. It exposes the creature to the fire of God's jealousy, Ezekiel 24:25. As there is not a readier way to break a bow, than to overbend it; so there is not a readier way to ruin the creature, than to make an idol of it. Nothing sits safe that sits in the seat of God.

3. It is a wrong done to the whole generation of the saints. Asaph takes notice of this in his case, Psalm 73:12–15, "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world, they increase in riches. Truly I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of your children." As it affronts their God, it grieves them to the heart; as it declares them to have made a foolish choice, it dishonors them, and proclaims them fools. Thus they sadden the hearts of those whom God has not made sad; and hold them for fools whom he counts wise.

4. Lastly, It is an egregious wrong to the sinner's own soul, putting the arrantest cheat upon it that one is capable to do, Proverbs 8:36, "But he who sins against me, wrongs his own soul; all they that hate me love death." It is the putting one in the hand of the soul, for an end it will never be able to answer. God says, He will be for a God to the sinner; but behold, the sinner says to his own soul, Let the creature be for a God to you. This is, instead of bread, to give a stone; instead of a fish, to give a serpent.

USE. Then have a horror of taking up with the creature in God's room and stead: look on it as a signal evil, and tremble at the very thoughts of it. And,

1. Look back on your guilt of that kind, and repent. O what of this idolatry has there been, and is there among us! See it, and be convinced and humbled under the sense of it.

(1.) Has not some creature or other had your chief affection set upon it? 1 John 2:15, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." How warmly have your hearts been carried towards it, while nothing for God but cold love, languishing desires? etc. The heart has been like a common inn, so thronged with strangers, that there was no room for the Master.

(2.) Have you not served the creature more than God? Romans 1:25. You have all been at pains for the world, and to serve that interest; but so long as you have lived, what have you done for God and his interest? Alas! are there not many who set themselves in opposition to it? and at best they think they do very well if they do not act against it; but how few set themselves to advance it. Do you serve the creature so? No. Then do you not serve the creature more than the Creator?

(3.) Has not your greatest care been to please another rather than God? yourselves, your lusts, this and the other person, whose favor you have valued rather than a God in Christ; Galatians 1:10, "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." How often have sinners pleased themselves and others, at the expense of God's high displeasure; and made their way to their own pleasure, over the belly of all the intimations of God to the contrary.

Look back on these things, see how you have set up another in God's stead; be ashamed, loathe yourselves, mourn, and repent for these things.

2. Reform, pull down your idols of jealousy; whatever it is that has had God's room with you, cast it down from the throne, and set it in a low place at his footstool; Hosea 14:3, "Ashur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods, for in you the fatherless find-eth mercy." Restore the throne to your Sovereign Lord, reduce the usurper; let a God in Christ command, and let all things else be at his disposal, and modeled according to his will and pleasure, 2 Corinthians 10:5.

3. Lastly, Watch, and beware of any creature's stepping at any time into the room of God; Proverbs 4:23, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Keep a jealousy of this sort over your hearts at all times; for there is a propensity in it to fall into this course; and it will be off to the creature, if you do not guard against it; and in special at some times, particularly,

(1.) When the Lord delays to answer. This is a time when the unbelieving heart, being in a haste, is ready to make its address to the creature instead of God, that it may do for the man what God defers to do. This was the ruining thing to those in the wilderness. God was not like to bring them into Canaan, and therefore they were for going back to Egypt. Resolve you with the church, Lamentations 3:49, 50, "My eye trickles down, and ceases not without any intermission; until the Lord look down, and behold from Heaven."

(2.) When the creature courts, and the world smiles; Proverbs 1:32, "For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." We are ready to hang by a frowning world; how much more dangerous is it when it smiles on us. Many have been hugged to death thereby. When, therefore, things go according to your wish, take heed you be not ruined, as the scum the higher it rises, the sooner it runs over and is lost.

DOCTRINE. II. To forsake God in Christ, and take the creature in his stead, is a wretched exchange.

For clearing of this doctrine I shall take it up in these four points—

POINT I. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain for a cistern.

POINT II. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain made ready to our hand, for a cistern that remains to be hewed by ourselves.

POINT III. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain for many cisterns.

POINT. IV.. Forsaking of God for the creature is an exchanging of a fountain for cracked and broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

I return to the first of these, namely,

POINT I. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain for a cistern. This is a wretched exchange, if you consider,

1. The water in the cistern is borrowed water; that in the fountain is from itself. Mark 10:18, "There is none good but—God;" none good essentially, underivedly, but God himself. All the cisterns of created enjoyments must be filled from God as the fountain, or else remain empty. The fountain has a spring in itself, the cistern none. If God communicate not to the creature, it is sapless and dry. The whole creation shines with borrowed light. Whatever sweetness is in any person or thing created, it is a drop from the fountain, from God. Would one exchange the sun for the stars?

2. The water must needs be sweeter and fresher in the fountain than in the cistern. Who would not drink rather from the spring, than from a vessel of water within the house? The enjoyment of God in Christ is far sweeter than of the whole the creation can afford; Psalm 4:6, 7, "There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift you up the light of your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." Everything is best in God as in the fountain. Heaven's riches, the riches of Christ, are better than worldly riches, which are but a stream from the other; Psalm 104:24, "O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your riches." The beauty of Christ surpasses all created beauties; Psalm 45:2, "You are fairer than the sons of men." The knowledge of Christ is more excellent than all other knowledge, Philippians 3:8, "Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord;—and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." The comfort of the creature is often unsavory, in God it is over sweet.

3. The water in the cistern is no more but a certain measure; in the fountain it is immeasurable. Whatever perfection or goodness is in any creature, there is an end of it which one may reach unto; Psalm 119:96, "I have seen an end of all perfection? but your commandment is exceeding broad." But God's perfections are infinite, there is no end of them. So in all created things there is a want, and therefore the heart cannot find true rest in them; but in God there is no want, the heart may rest in him, Hebrews 4:2, "For we which have believed, do enter into rest." No creature is commensurable to the boundless desires of man's heart; but God is; so in him sinners may be happy forever.

4. The water in the cistern is mostly very scanty; the fountain is ever full. There is a want in the creature at its best; it cannot satisfy the desires of the heart of man, Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." But even what may reasonably be expected from it, oft-times cannot be had from it; it sinks far below the measure of what it promises; so that often it is as Hag. 2:16; "When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the press-fat, for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty." But there is a perpetual fullness in a God in Christ, that one can never come amiss to him, if he should come never so oft. How wretched an exchange must it then be, to exchange the fullness of a Godhead for the empty creature?

5. The water of the cistern is always dreggy; the fountain clear and pure. Hence the end of the one is sorrow, but the other not so; Proverbs 10:22, "The blessing of the Lord it makes rich; and he adds no sorrow with it." There is a thorn of uneasiness in the softest bed one can make to himself in the whole creation; and the fairest rose wants not its prickles. Lawful enjoyments leave behind them a sting in the heart; and the more comfort one has in them, the more bitter is the parting with them. Unlawful ones leave a sting in the conscience, which will sting through eternity, if bitter repentance prevent it not; Proverbs 5:8, "Remove your way far from her, and come not near the door of her house." See Isaiah 50:11, "Behold all you that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have kindled. This shall you have of mine hand, you shall lie down in sorrow." A devil of covetousness, impurity, etc., rages in some; but bitter will be the dregs of it. But whoever hold by a God in Christ, shall swim in joy unspeakable forever.

6. Lastly, The water of the cistern is soon dried up; the fountain, never. A few days or years will put an end to all our lawful and unlawful comforts in the creature. A touch of the hand of God, by some heavy disease on the body, may soon make the now healthiest incapable of comfort either of these ways. And if such should spend their days in health and wealth, the moment they go to the grave, the candle will be put out, and they will pay for their folly by ever lasting bitterness. But a God in Christ will be an eternal spring of comfort to those that are his.

USE. See then the wretchedness of this exchange, and repent that you have made it. The result of it in end will be,

1. Cutting disappointment, Luke 12:19, 20, "And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be which you have provided?" No body forsakes God for the creature, but they think to better their condition thereby: but that is impossible; therefore they must be disappointed, and their expectations frustrated. Isaiah 20:5, 6, "And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whether we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?" They may get an offputting for a while with the creature to which they betake themselves in God's stead; but the day will come when they shall complain of it, as Job 6:15, "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away."

2. Bitter remorse, Proverbs 23:32, "At last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder." What comfort had Judas of his thirty pieces of silver, when he saw the end? the rich man of his faring deliciously every day, when in Hell he lift up his eyes? Since there is a God, and a judgment to come, he will certainly make those who swill down the cup of sin with so much pleasure now, wring out and drink the dregs thereof too at long run, Psalm 75:8, "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture, and he pours out of the same; but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them."

POINT II. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain made ready to our hand, for a cistern that remains to be hewed out by ourselves. The wretchedness of this exchange does appear in that,

1. The fountain is always ready for us, the cisterns often are unready. There is access at any time to be had unto God, through Christ, by faith, Psalm 46:1, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." The man that came to his friend at midnight, had access, and was served of all he wanted, Luke 11:5–8. God in Christ is that friend, and he will help early, Psalm 46:5. But the creature is an unready help; so that the man's case is often past cure, before help can be had.

2. The fountain is made ready for us by another hand, the cisterns must be prepared by our own; Zechariah 13:1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin, and for impurity." Jesus Christ has opened the fountain of the divine fullness, that we may come to it and drink. It is set wide open in the gospel, John 7:37.—"Jesus stood, and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Adam's sin stopped all the wells of creature-comforts to us; so that we find much ado to get them so far opened, as thence to get a little to quench our thirst: and O what pains it costs men to open them again!

3. At the fountain one has nothing ado but to drink, John 7:37, but it is no little pains that is necessary to fit out the cistern for us. It is a labor, Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do you spend—your labor for that which satisfies not?" Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me, all you that labor," and often a weary labor; Habakkuk 2:13, "Behold, it is not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" For the cisterns must be hewed out, as out of a rock; and this hewing work is the work that fills most men's hands all the days of their lives, until death make their tools drop out of their hands. Hewing work is,

1. Hard and sore work. But no hewing is harder than hewing out cisterns of creature-comforts in God's stead. Others may rack the whole body; but this racks the soul and conscience always, and sometimes the body too, Habakkuk 2:13, forfeited. How is the heart racked with anxious desires and impetuous lustings! the mind racked to contrive how to gratify them; the executive faculty, how to bring it to pass; and the conscience, to make way over its belly for them; and the body itself treated in the pursuit, as they would be reluctant to treat their beast? Psalm 7:14, "Behold he travels with iniquity, and has conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood."

2. Longsome work, that one comes but little speed in. The truth is, it is so longsome, that it is never at an end with men, until either God's grace reaching the heart cause one give it over as vain work, or else death drag him away from it; Job 15:20, "The wicked man travels with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor." It is a cursed work that one can never by their labor get to the end of. The worldly man must still be hewing; Ecclesiastes 4:8, "There is one alone, and there is not a second; yes, he has neither child nor brother; yet is there no end of all his labor, neither is his eye satisfied with riches, neither says he, For whom do I labor, and bereave my soul of good? this is also vanity, yes, it is a sore travel." The sensual man must be hewing, to please his fleshly lusts; Proverbs 23:35, "They have stricken me, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not; when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again." The proud man must be hewing, until he get his nest set among the stars; Obad. verse 4; though before he gets there justice will throw him down.

3. Weary work on these accounts; sore and long toil, and that many times for nothing, makes weary work, Habakkuk 2:13. forfeited. O it is an ungrateful world men set their hearts on, that causes them to go many a foot to no purpose. It is a hard rock, the creature, to work upon, where many a stroke is given for no effect. The man is thirsty, and he hews, but can get no water, Isaiah 57:10, "You are wearied in the greatness of your way." Many a man has much toil, and weary on-waiting, to get his own soul ruined, Jeremiah 9:5; the mischievous man wakes while others sleep, Psalm, 36:4; the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief wake also, Job 24:14–16.

Three things make this work about the cisterns such a hewing work.

(1.) The emptiness of the creature, brought into it by man's sin. There is an original emptiness in it, which took place in the state of innocence, that it could never afford a rest to the heart of man. There is an accidental emptiness in it by sin; the scripture calls it vanity, Romans 8:20, that it cannot now afford the satisfaction it sometimes could have given, being like an empty husk, a dry and parched ground, in comparison of what it once was, Psalm 102:26. Now here lies the case; there is less in the creature now, than some time there was; yet men's hearts eagerly seek out of it, and expect from it more than ever was in it. When, then, men in these circumstances fall a-hewing at it, how can it miss to be hard, long-some, and weary work.

2. The curse lying upon it for man's sin; Genesis 3:17. This has so locked up the little comfort that is in it, that it is made hard work to get at it. Hence so many disappointments, so often falling short of the comfort that otherwise it might really give. Thus, whereas God in Christ is an open fountain, the creature is a sealed cistern many times; Malachi 2:2, "If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart." And no wonder one find hard work in breaking through Heaven's seal on the creature.

3. Lastly, The opposition from Heaven the sinner must lay his account with in this work of his. It is a work which is against God, and God will be against it, and it is hard to kick against the pricks; Acts 9:5. Providence may let the man thrive in it a while, as the builders of Babel did; but they shall be sensible at length of God's working against them; Hosea 2:6, "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths." They shall plant, and God shall pluck up; build, and he shall destroy; they shall beautify, and he shall blast; fill their cisterns, and he empty them. They may find God working against them, and the effect of it on their wicked hearts may be, to cause them how the more forcibly and eagerly, as if they would carry on their work in spite of opposition from Heaven; but assuredly God shall dash them to pieces that contend with him; 1 Samuel 2:9, 10, "He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, out of Heaven shall he thunder upon them."

USE. Sinners, then, lay by your work of hewing out cisterns to yourselves in God's room and stead. You are at a great deal of work in seeking to get the sap and substance of the creature, in lawful and unlawful enjoyments, for a meal to feed your hungry hearts; and neglect God in Christ. Repent, and come drink of the fountain ready to your hands, and cease your hewing.

MOTIVE 1. Consider, it is unblessed work, Psalm 129:6–8, "Let them be as the grass upon the house-tops, which withers afore it grows up; with which the mower fills not his hand; nor he that binds sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord." God never set man to it; but Satan, and the corrupt heart, and they, are cruel masters, that fill the hand with self-ruining work. You cannot look to God for a blessing on it.

MOT. 2. It is vain and fruitless work, where you will never get worth the pains and cost wared on it; Isaiah 55:2, "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfies not?" You are seeking out of the creature what is not in it; you are waging your all upon it; and the cost will quite overgo the profit; Matthew 16:26, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Hard work may be the better borne that has a proportionable advantage following it; but see the emblem of this; Habakkuk 2:13, "Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity.

MOT. 3. You have found it heavy work already; why will you insist when God calls you to leave it?

(1.) Have you not in your hewing given many a fruitless stroke? sought and found nothing? Yes we may say as Isaiah 26:18, We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind, we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen;" having been like those hewing at a rock, where no impression could be made.

(2.) Have not the chips in your hewing flown out upon you, to your wounding? Instead of the good and comfort you have sought from the creature, you have got hurt by it; Ezekiel 29:7, "When they took hold of you by the hand, you did break, and rent all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon you, you broke, and made all their loins to be at a stand." Where you have expected your greatest comfort, thence has arisen your greatest cross; where the soundest rest, there greatest vexation.

(3.) Have you not often found, that all your cistern could hold when you got it, was not worth the pains you had been at in hewing it out? How often has your comfort in the enjoyment of the creature sunk vastly below the expectation you had of it?

(4.) Has not one touch often broke your cistern all in pieces, after you had been at all pains in hewing it out; and so you have in a moment lost all your expectation together, with all your pains. How many fine projects for this world do misgive, just when one is looking for the fruit of them? Sometimes a little providential incident, or a piece of one's own mismanagement, breaks all to pieces.

MOTIVE 4. Lastly, How will you answer it, that you are at so great pains for the cisterns, and will not be at pains to go to the fountain? Men refuse not to labor, to hew for the creature; but they will be at no tolerable pains for the enjoyment of God. O how well might it be with men, if they would be at as much concern to seek their happiness in God, as they are at in seeking it in the creature! But the opened fountain is slighted, while the cistern is hewn out of the hard rock.

POINT III. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain for many cisterns. When one forsakes God, and betakes himself to the creature, can he hold himself with one creature, as a man with one God? No, he cannot; he must have a plurality, a variety, a multitude of them, in his room; because,

1. None of them are sufficient, but all of them defective. All-sufficient, is a name peculiar unto God alone, Genesis 17:1, not communicable to the whole creation, in which, Ecclesiastes 1:14, "That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting, cannot be numbered." So the man must needs have a second, to make up the want of the first, and a third to make up the want of the second, and so on without end. This labors under one defect, that under another; so there is no rest in any of them.

2. There is something disagreeable and vexing in them all; Ecclesiastes 1:14, "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." There are some prickles in the fairest rose, except the Rose of Sharon; some thorn of uneasiness in the softest bed, except the bed of the covenant, the true Solomon's. Did ever anything bear so much delight, but it had withal something to fret you in it or attending it? The agreeableness of it is seen afar; but when one comes near he is made to feel the vexation too. So recourse must be had to one cistern, to put away the bitter taste or unsavoriness of another.

3. They enlarge the appetite, but do not satisfy it; Habakkuk 2:5, "Yes also, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, neither keeps at home, who enlarges his desire as Hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathers unto him all nations, and heaps unto him all people." The more men drink of the cisterns for satisfaction, the more they would drink. As one draught of salt water makes the necessity of another, so the gratifying of a lust does but open its month wider; as is evident from the case of those, who having once given themselves loose reins, nothing can prevail to bind them up, until the grace of God change them. They go from ill to worse.

Now, this is a wretched exchange; for,

(1.) The access to one fountain is far more ready than to many cisterns. He who has but one door to go to for sufficient supply, is certainly in better case than he who must go to many; so he who has the fullness of a God to satisfy himself in, is in circumstances a thousand times better than he who must go from creature to creature for that end. In God you would find happiness, as corn in a heap; whereas in the creature you would have it to pick up here and there, as corn that is sown abroad.

(2.) The water is better that is altogether in one fountain, than that which is parted into many cisterns. United force is strongest; and that which is scattered, the farther it is scattered abroad, it is the weaker. So the consolations of God are mighty, as liquor kept together in one vessel; while the comfort of the creature is comparatively weak, as water spilt on the ground.

(3.) It is with greater case of mind that one may apply to the one fountain, than to the many cisterns. The multitude of the cisterns to go to for what we need, fills the heart with much perplexity and distracting cares; while the oneness of the fountain creates ease; Jeremiah 17:5–8. O what ease has the man that goes to God's door for all, in comparison of him who begs at the doors of the creatures, ranging up and down among them!

USE. Repent then of this folly, and take the one fountain instead of your many cisterns; go to one God instead of the multitude of created things.

MOTIVE 1. This will contract your cares now so diffusive, lessen your labor, and spare you many a weary foot,

MOTIVE 2. You shall find enough in God, that you shall see no necessity of seeking any happiness without him; John. 4:14; more than shall supply the want of the corn and wine; Psalm, 4:7; that shall be commensurable to your whole desire; 2 Samuel 23:5.

MOTIVE 3. Lastly, Heap up as many cisterns as you can, they shall never do for you what the one fountain can, never make you easy or satisfied.

POINT IV.. Forsaking of God for the creature, is an exchanging of a fountain, for cracked and broken cisterns that can hold no water. A cistern as a cistern holds but little; the broken cistern spills the little put into it. Every created comfort is a cistern containing little at best; but withal it is cracked and broken, that cannot keep the little it has at any time.

(1.) At its best it is cracked; has such rifts in it, as that it begins to lose of the little that is in it. There is a powerful mixture of corruption in the best of persons in the world, whereby no body wants some remarkable defect; and in the best of things there, there is a defect with respect to the heart of man.

2. At length it is broken in pieces. Being always cracked, it is easy broken. All persons here are liable to death, all things to corruption or destruction, whereby they become useless as to our comfort; Matthew 6:19, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." These cisterns can hold no more water for us.

So this exchange is a wretched one; for,

1. The fountain is always certain to go to, the cisterns always uncertain; and worldly men here quit certain for uncertain hope. It is certain, we can never come amiss to God; but as for the creature, it is so uncertain, that there may be nothing in it at all but mud and mire, when we come to drink.

2. The fountain is lasting; the cisterns being broken, guide as we will, will last but a short while. God is an everlasting fountain of comfort; the creature is but for a time, and draws to an end. The whole universe is a cracked vessel, and in a little time it will be all in pieces by the general conflagration.

USE. Come away then from the broken cisterns of the creature, to the fountain of happiness in God. Seek no more your happiness in anything below the sun; but seek it in a God in Christ.