Meditations the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Chapter 15
CHAP. XV.
Sheweth, that a natural man is an unprofitable Creature to himself. The several Ʋses that are to be made hereof. And how the Sins of Self-will and Self-seeking, the great Causes hereof, may be known; from the same Clause of the 13th. Verse, And there wasted his Substance with riotous living.
I Have done with the first Doctrine from this last Clause of the 13. Verse, viz. That a natural man is an unprofitable and unserviceable Creature to God. I proceed to a second from the same words, which is this, Doct. 2 That a natural man is an unprofitable Creature to himself, as well as to God. He wasteth his Substance in a far Countrey. No natural man is wise for himself; Prov. 9.12.he may be wise in his time, as the World counts wisdom. Our Saviour saith, Luke 16.8.The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light; i. e. in their contrivances for the things of this world.
But this is wisdom from beneath, such as the Serpent is, and teacheth: For indeed no man is truly wise for himself, who is not wise and a forecaster for eternity; Mark 8.36.What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and to lose his own soul? And as are his profits, Heb. 12.25.such are his pleasures; the pleasures of sin for a season: 2 Sam. 2.26.They will be bitterness in the end, as Joab said of the Sword.
Whatever natural men possess, health or wealth, or parts, or power, yea, or means of grace, they use them not to their true advantage in the end: When their accounts are cast up, it will be found that all is wasted, they have laid up nothing for their eternal comfort, but die infinitely in God's debt: and unless mercy and free grace forgive them and God put their debt on Christ's account, as Paul did Onesimus his, Philem.on his own, they must lie in prison for ever. Every man that dies in his natural state, John 8.dieth in his sins; he dieth poor, and miserable, Rev. 3.17.and naked: as our first Parents when they had sinned, Gen. 3.they saw themselves naked within as well as without; they saw a strange sight of themselves; they were afraid of themselves, as well as of God; they were Magor-missabib, Jer. 20.as Pashur was, a terrour to themselves; so will all natural men be, dying such.
They labour in the fire; Mos. 12.1.they sow folly, and reap misery; they feed upon the wind, and at length the Lord speaks to them out of the whirl-wind; They shall eat of the fruit of their own way, Prov. 1.31.and be filled with their own devices.
Those of them that make a fair shew in the world, Numb. 11.20. Psal. 106.15.their glut of these worldly things will prove a deadly furfeit to them, as Israels fill of flesh did to them. Death is in the pot of every natural man; and all their plenty and pleasure here will in the end be like that Manna which the Israelites kept till morning, Exod. 16.20.which rotted and stank.
Reason of the Doctrine.
Now the Reason why natural men are unprofitable Creatures to themselves is, because their selves, and the satisfying of their lusts, is the beginning and end of all their seekings and gettings. What God gives them, they use not to him, but to themselves, to feed their pride, or covetousness, or intemperance, or revenge: Some lusts or other are fed with all they have.
As whatever a man or woman eats that hath an Ulcer or Cancer in their bodies, feeds those sores; so does a natural man's estate, power, pleasure, yea his profession of Religion, all feed his lusts.
Natural mens lusts are their rule and their end; they fashion themselves according to their lusts. 1 Pet. 1.14. Judges 17.6.It is natural to men to do that which is good in their own sight. Nothing will be restrained from them that they have imagined, Gen. 11.6.as the Lord said of the builders of Babel, if they may have their own wills. They say as Pharaoh, Our lusts shall be satisfied, Exod. 15.9.
Now when a man's own lusts are his rule and his end in all, God will curse and blast all his works and ways in the end; Isa. 42.8.he will not give his glory to another, nor his will neither. Therefore did not the Lord make any account of the Jews their seventy years fasting in Captivity, Zach. 7.5.because they fasted not to him, but to themselves. This Prodigal in the Text was all for himself, and his own lusts, nothing for his Father, or his Father's house; he was for a far Countrey, and there he wasted and consumed all.
At first man would have had a parity with God, ye shall be as gods— O this took much with them. Isa. 14.13.This was Lucifer's language, I will be like the most high. It is spoken of the Babylonian Monarch; yea, man hath pride enough in his nature to prefer himself above God, to think himself wiser than God, Alphonsus.and juster than God. As a King of Spain said, as History tells us, That if he had been at the Creation, he could have ordered some things better.
How did Sennacharib exalt himself above the Lord! Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, Isa. 36.20.that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? He thought himself of more might than the Almighty. Thus is man by nature great in his own eye, and his own way good, yea the best; and hereupon he is so good a friend to himself, as to undo himself; Jer. 4.18.Thy way and thy doings have procured thee these things.
Application.
1. This shews us the sad Condition of meer natural men, in that their wit, and wealth, and honour, and all their contrivances dwindle away into vanity, as fire doth into smoke; as that rich fool's Barns did, when it was said unto him, Thou fool, Luke 12.20.this night shall thy soul be required of thee. They find at the end, that their accounts fall altogether short of their expectations; their disappointments amaze them, like theirs Hag. 1.6. Ye have sown much, and brought in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Poor natural man, he chooses his own ways, but to his own confusion: As Saul said to his son Jonathan, 1 Sam. 20.30.Thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion. At last, if his condition change not, he will say of all his possessions, and parts, and projects, and pleasures, as Haman did of all his, Esth. 5.13.All this availeth me nothing. All falls into a little gelly, as Star-like Meteors in the Air do. So unprofitable a Creature is a natural man to himself; he is ignorant of the true riches, and so hath cheated himself with a meer phantasm of happiness, as the holy Ghost calls Agrippa's and his Queens great pomp in which they came into the Court, Acts 25.23.they entred foreign, with great phancy.
2. Learn we hence, what a destructive thing it is to men to walk in their own ways, to make themselves and their lusts the rule and end of their practice. This young man had much ruined himself this way. It was God's heavy Judgment on the world of the Gentiles, Acts 14.16.when he suffered them to walk in their own ways: and it was the like Judgment on the Jews, Psal. 81.12.when he gave them up to their own hearts lust, and they walked in their own counsels. This self-will and self-endednes is the plague of most mens hearts, even in these last days. —Men shall be lovers of their own selves, 2 Tim. 3.2, 4.and lovers of pleasure, or their own lust, more than of God. O this self in our actions natural, civil, or religious, consumes all our good: It is to mens most specious conversations and accomplishments, as the worm was to Jonah's Gourd, withers all.
There may be leaves, but no fruit, when gathering time comes. This is the reason why many, when they come to die, have so little comfort, yea so much discouragement in the reflections they make on their lives.
3. Therefore in the third place, this point serves to Instruction. If you would be wise for your selves, and reap profit and comfort from your ways, keep corrupt self out of doors; else all the good you think you do for your selves will be your death, as that part of Annanias his goods he kept back from the Church was his. Acts 5.5.O learn and labour to have God in your eye, and to interest him above your selves in all your ways and undertakings, and then you'l make something of them; you will be sure to have your share in the fruit. Nothing will be lost this way, no not that which may seem to be lost; He that loseth his life for my sake, Mark 10.39.shall find it.
We count what we lay out in Land is not wasted, we shall have comings in by it; but what men or women lay out in intemperance in Meat, and Drink, and Apparel, that vanisheth into nothing, or worse. Thus so much of our time, and gifts, and estate we lay out for, and to God, will be as Land and Substance to us; we shall have our comings in that will exceed our layings out: But all we lay out on our lusts, it is consumed; James 4.3.and all we lay out meerly for self-ends, is all waste. There may be the profits and pleasures of sin for a season, as Heb. 11. but in the end we shall meet with the sting of the Bee; and all, like Moses's Rod, will turn into a Serpent. And
Condsider first, If your selves be your rule and end in your ways, you are not for God's use, and so he'l lay you aside; he will esteem you as broken Vessels, wherein is no pleasure, as he did Coniah; Jer. 22.28.The Lord sets apart the man that is godly for himself. The man that will eye God, Psal. 4.and concern God in all he does, this is a man after God's heart, Acts 23.22.as David was.
If a Vessel into which you put Bear, sours or distasts it, you'l lay it by till it be sweeter, and use another. Why did God repent that he had made Saul King? 1 Sam. 15.because he saw he was for himself in his ways and actions, and not for God. Yea,
2. While men make themselves their rule and their ends in their actions, in their particular Callings, or Profession of Religion, they set themselves in God's room; and how will God take this? We see how God took our first Parents attempting to be as gods.
God may make one man to be instead of God to another in some sense, Exod. 4.16.as he made Moses to Aaron; but no man may be instead of God to himself, which he is, while his own will is his rule, and himself is the chief end of his works and ways.
All God's own actions are for himself, because there is none above himself, Prov. 16.4.or like himself. God's holiness and righteousness lies much in willing his own glory; for he should do himself wrong if he should give it to another, Isa. 42.8.there being none besides himself capable of it. And so our holiness and righteousness lies much in improving all we are or have to and for God chiefly; none of our actions may terminate in any created being; they may not fall short of God and his glory, 1 Cor. 10.31.as their main scope. As Joab would have David, and not himself to have the honour of taking Rabbah: 2 Sam. 12.so should we do by God; He is all in all in heaven, and so he should be on earth.
3. The meanest of actions that have God for their bias and mark, hereby become glorious actions; and as mean as they be to the eye of the world, if it be but the giving a cup of cold water— Christ will have as great care such actions shall not be lost, as he had of the fragments of the miraculous bread and fish with which he fed many thousands; Matth. 14.he would have all gathered up, and none lost. A reward in heaven is the fruit the meanest actions bear which are thus terminated: They are more glorious things in the eye of God than an Angel's tongue, 1 Cor. 13.1.or a faith of Miracles. These are actions that will follow their Agents to heaven; such actions and works as are wrought in God, and for God, will follow a man to God; Rev. 14.13.his works shall follow him: They do not go before him, to make way for him; Christ's works alone have this honour: but they shall certainly follow him, and be to praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ; as St. 1 Pet. 1.7.Peter saith of the faith of Saints.
The Reason why I am so large on this matter is, because a man's dedicating his ways and works to his own will and end, is the reason, as you have seen, why natural men are so unprofitable Creatures to themselves.
Quest. Quest. But how shall we know whether God or our selves be our main rule and end in all our ways and actions?
Answ. 1. Answ. Observe what it is that puts you upon good actions, and that sweetens your labour and pains therein: If your own credit, or profit, or other outward self-advantages, then your selves are your main end, and not God: But if the will of God, and glory of God, pleasing of God, and injoying of God bear sway, and be the wings that carry you on; not your selves, but God is your supream end: As the pains that the people took in Psal. 84. in going from all parts of the Land to Jerusalem, was to meet God in Zion.
2. Observe where you mostly look for reward in your religious and good works. If from men, you are your own ends: if from God, God is your end, especially if you look at God himself for your reward. Gen. 15.2.The Nurse looks not for a reward of her care from the Child, but the Mother: And so when you look for your reward from God, and not men, you quit your selves from the Spirit of an hypocritical Pharisee, and have an argument for your sincerity, and that God is your mark and motive.
3. Observe what it is wherein thy heart resteth it self in thy passage through this world: If it be for that thou hast estate enough, or repute with men enough, or a sufficiency of other flesh-pleasing circumstances, it is a sign thou art thine own end; like that rich man in the Gospel, Luke 12.who sang to himself, Soul, take thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: but if thou hast no hearts ease longer than thou hast God's presence, or restest upon him, and art laying out thy self in his service, and for his glory, thou maist reckon upon it that God is thy great end. This was the great content of Christ's heart, That he did always the things that pleased his Father: John 8.29. John 17.4.and, Father, I have glorified thee on earth.
Our Lord Jesus, Heb. 1.4.even as the Son of man, was much better than the Angels; yet not his own, but his Fathers will was his rule, John 6.39. and his Fathers glory his high end; Joh. 12.27, 28.What shall I say? Save me from this hour. Father, glorifie thy Name. This was the comfort of Jesus Christ, when he went out of this world; Father, I have glorified thee on earth.
O my Brethren, this is one of the greatest points in religion, to look what is your great end in Religion, and in all your conversation in this World, your selves or God: if your selves, you will have a blast on all you do; do you never so much, you do but waste your Substance your Father hath given you, Isa. 55.2.as this younger Son did; You labour for that which satisfieth not. But if God be your motive and your end, you may be sure you labour not in vain, nor spend your strength for nought, for your judgment is with the Lord, Isa. 49.4.and your reward with your God.
Here is the excellency of grace, that it lifts up your eyes much to God: as it's the excellency of man's body above that of other living Creatures, in being made erect; his own figure teaching him to lift his eyes and thoughts up to heaven. Look upon it as an evidence and excellency of grace in your souls, Psal. 25.1. Psal. 86.4. Psal. 143.8.that they are thereby much carried up to God; Ʋnto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul, was much in David's mouth. And it was the use of our Lord Jesus to lift up his eyes to heaven, Joh. 17.1. & 11.41.