the particulars are numberlefs. The character agrees either,

1. To fin, that is, to finful ways, courses, or practices. And while there is a God in heaven to avenge the affront, no man fhall mend his condition in this way. You will not, indeed, want an invitation to turn afide, and go in at this door; but know for a certain that it will ruin you, for "the dead are there, and her guefts are in the depths of hell," Prov. ix. 18. Sin is the way in which you will never find reft to your fouls; on the contrary, it will produce a fting to your confcience, a conftant reftleffuefs to your heart, and eternal ruin to the whole man, if mercy recover you not, and bring you back to God.-Or the character agrees,

2. To the creature, to which, when men are turning afide from God, they turn to feek their happinefs. This comprehends all created comforts whatfoever. Of them we have two things to fay.

(1.) They are all uncertain, a person can never get a fure hold of them: Prov. xxiii. 5. "Wilt thou fet thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings, they flee away as an eagle towards heaven." Unchangeableness is an effential property of that which makes truly happy and fully fatisfies, for otherwife the very fear of lofing the thing mars the full reft of the heart in it. But where is this to be found but in God? The creature is fo uncertain, that there is not one moment in which we may not either be taken from it, or it from us; fo that a perfon may rest as well on the top of a wheel, as on any creature. And turning afide from God to it, is turning from the fountain to a ciftern, which, in that very moment when a person goes to drink out of it, may run dry.

(2.)

(2.) They are utterly infufficient. It is not in them to answer the cravings of the human heart, of an immortal foul. Hence it is faid, Ifa. ly. 2. "Wherefore do ye fpend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which fatisfieth not?" [1] There is no fuitableness in them to the foul, for they are not commenfurate to the defires of it; God only is fo, being an infinite good. Wherefore, wherever you go to make your bed among them, you will find it shorter than you can stretch yourself upon. [2.] They have no divine appointment for that end, without which grafs would be no more fatisfying to the flocks than fand. God has kept the fatisfying of the foul to himself, as his peculiar prerogative.Therefore the turning afide to fuch emptinefs can never make a man happy.-Here, however, may be ftated this

Objection, What! does not every body know that there is a goodness in the creature? Anfwer, But every body should likewife know that it is uncertain and infufficient, and therefore not worth the turning afide to from a good God. Befides, know this farther, that no creature can be to thee more than this God, from whom thou turnest afide, makes it to be. So thou mayest get it, and at the fame time there may come a withering curfe with it, that thou fhalt find no more fap in it than Haman in his riches, family, honours, which, by his own confeffion, availed him nothing, Efther, v. 13. Yea, thy ruin may rise from it, as Achan's from the golden wedge.

Secondly, For evincing the truth of this weighty point, confider what a perfon turns afide from, when turning afide from God. He turns from an upmaking portion; Pfal. lxxiii. 25. "Whom

have

have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I defire befides thee." Cleave to the Lord, turn not aside from him: For,

1. Thou art enriched for time: 1 Tim. iv. 8. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promife of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." The everlasting covenant fecures all that thou needeft. Thy provision is fure : Pfal. xxxvii. 3. "Truft in the Lord, and do good; fo fhalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou fhalt be fed." Ifa. xxxiii. 16. "He fhall dwell on high, his place of defence fhall be the munition of rocks; bread fhall be given him, his water fhall he fure." Thou shalt not want lodging: Pfal. xc. I. "Lord, thou haft been our dwelling-place in all generations." Fear not want of cloathing: Matth. vi. 30. "For if God fo cloathe the grafs of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is caft into the oven, fhall he not much more cloathe you, O ye of little faith?" What want ye more, then? Why, fome would have land alfo. Then cleave to Chrift as thy Lord and Hufband. He is Lord of all the land in the world; the earth. fhall be thine in the right of thy Hufband: Mat. v. 5. "Blessed are the meek, for they fhall inherit the earth." But what will a perfon do for money? Why, cleave to the Lord: Job, xxii. 24. 25. "Then fhalt thou lay up gold as duft, and the gold of Ophir as the ftones of the brooks. Yea, the Almighty fhall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of filver."-Here fome may propose this

Objection, Thefe are fine words, but what will they bring into our mouth, or on our back, what will they bring into the coffers? Anfwer, They are God's words, and his words are better than all the world's good deeds. Some to whom God

has

has no special love, he gives them their portion in their hand, and fets them off; others, who are his dear children, he gives them the good words of a promise, and keeps them at home with himfelf. Say now, which of these have the best of it? The following words determine it: Matth. XXV. 34. “Then shall the King fay unto them on his right-hand, Come, ye bleffed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." God approves not of thofe men who fay to the needy, "Depart in peace, be ye warmed, and be ye filled; notwithstanding, they give them not thofe things which are needful to the body," Jam. ii. 16. And will He himfelf treat his people fo? No, no. Many a faint has trufted to these words, when they had nothing elfe to trust to, and they have all been made out to them: Pfal. xxxiv. 8. 9. "O taste and fee that the Lord is good! bleffed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the Lord, ye his faints! for there is no want to them that fear him." The unbelie ver's mistake is, that God's bond cannot be paid, but in giving the very thing itself. Even this is often done, but he also gives his people more frequently what is as good. Mofes, wanting meat forty days, had no reafon to complain, when God in those days took away his ftomach, and fatisfied him otherwife than by meat. Adam lived well when the heavens were the roof of his house, and God was his God. And the enjoyment of God ftill will abundantly compenfate the want of all thefe things.

2. Cleave unto the Lord, turn not aside from him, and thus thou art enriched for eternity, 1 Tim. iv. 8. quoted above. Come death when it will, what then? thou fhalt be carried where thy happinefs fhall be completed: John, xiv. 2. "In my

Father's

Father's houfe are many manfions; if it were not fo, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you." The law cannot debar thee from this happiness, it is fatisfied; juftice has nothing to fay against thee, for the debt is paid: God is thy God; and the tongue of men, nor of angels, cannot fully exprefs this privilege.

Thirdly, The truth of this weighty point in the text will farther appear, by infpecting the pretended gain which is acquired by turning 'afide from the Lord.-It may all be funimed up in these two particulars.

1. It is nothing: Prov. xxiii. 5. (quoted above). All the gain is but children's gain, which they have won off their fellows, of which grown perfons make no account; and as little will a fpiritual heart account of gain got by turning afide from the Lord. It is a poor trade where a perfon is not gaining for his foul; and no perfon will gain for this by turning aside from God.

2. It is worfe than nothing. Whatsoever thou thinkeft thou gaineft by turning afide from the Lord, a thousand times more is going to deftruction in the mean time. Count what thou giveft out, as well as what thou gettest in, and thou wilt foon fee the gain worfe than nothing: Matth. xvi. 26. For what is a man profited, if he fhall gain the whole world, and lose his own foul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his foul ?”

From all which it is evident, that no man fhall better his condition, but ruin it, by turning afide from the Lord, let him turn to what hand foever he will.-I now proceed,

III. To make some improvement of this subject, in an use of information. Hence,

1. You.