Thomas Manton · 35 of 57

The Sixth Verse. · Part 2

I come now to observe from the distribution of this common error: every man to his own way:—

Doct. 2. That there are many several ways of sinning; or thus, though there be one path to heaven, yet there are several ways of sinning and going to hell.

Every man hath his several course. And as the channel is cut, so his corrupt nature findeth an issue and passage: Eccles. vii. 29, ‘God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.’ One hath one invention, and another, wherein he imagineth to find contentment and happiness, but findeth none. Man swerving from the state of happiness and sufficiency wherein God had created him, thinketh to better his condition, and therefore hath many devices and inventions, which indeed make it worse. So 1 John ii. 16, ‘For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.’ Though no sin cometh amiss to a carnal heart, yet some are more kindly and suitable to that particular humour. One’s notorious blemish is the lust of the eyes, worldliness; another, sensuality; another, pride; one this sin, another that. Hence the psalmist saith, Ps. xviii. 23, ‘I kept myself from mine iniquity.’ That which most urgeth us, and prevaileth with us, we should endeavour to mortify.

The reasons how this cometh to pass are:—

1. Because of the activeness of man’s spirit. It is always a-devising wickedness, which as it is true most especially of the malicious musing mind, so of all evil hearts: Ps. lxiv. 6, ‘They search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search; both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.’ A wicked spirit is a searching spirit; they contrive new ways; they are always finding out new inventions and devices; they are not contented with the way God hath set them, and therefore will try others.

2. It happeneth through diversity of constitutions. Amores animi sequuntur humores corporis—the conditions of the mind follow the constitution of the body. The matter of some men’s bodies is more viciously disposed than others are. We plainly see the body hath some indirect operation upon the soul; the affections, in their work and exercise, depend upon the body; and these corrupt affections meeting with a disposed body for them, by a violent sway carry the whole man with them. And this reason is the stronger, because the devil joineth with our tempers to help on those sins to which we are naturally disposed, as wantonness, drunkenness, gluttony; or if of a better constitution, to pride and vainglory. As when the devil observeth a lustful man, he helpeth forward the temptation, and offereth occasions, stirring up raging and immoderate desires, until at length, forgetting all shame and modesty, or the danger of punishments, he does most foully pollute himself. So if to luxury and gluttony, he presents sweet baits till the soul is drowned and drenched in meats and drinks, and there be no sense of piety, and the heart is made unwieldy to prayer or any good duty. So for contentious or furious persons; whatever the constitution be, he ‘worketh mightily in the children of disobedience.’ Eph. ii. 2. Godly men find least hurt by him, as being led by the Spirit, and avoid the occasions and snares, and strive against evil suggestions, and yet they smart too much under his malice many times, through the advantage he hath over them by their constitutions.

3. It happeneth from their business and occasions in the world. Many men are engaged to ways of sin because they suit best with their employments, the sin of their calling, as vainglory in a minister. The apostle saith, ‘Ordain not a novice, lest he be lifted up of pride, and fall into the condemnation of the devil,’ 1 Tim. iii. 6. So worldliness suits a man of business, or deceitfulness in his trade; and corruption is common to a magistrate. Several callings and businesses have their several corruptions. Men easily slide into the corruptions of their way, and every calling, through the wickedness of our hearts, is made to serve this or that sin.

4. Custom and education. Aristotle saith, It is ill education that engageth men to a way of wickedness, and it is not easy to break them off from it. Vessels will not easily quit their first savour, and customs will not easily be left. Teach a child the way of the Lord and it will stick by him: Prov. xxii. 6, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’

5. Company and example. Men learn from them with whom they converse, and thence come national sins, partly as they run in the blood, but more by example. Of the Germans we learn drunkenness and gluttony; of the French, wantonness. Men shape their practices to the patterns that are before them, and learn their way; for it easily taints the spirits. And thus you see why there are so many inventions and ways of wickedness.

Use 1. Well, then, do not be too ready to bless yourselves, provided the sins of others break not out upon you: do not flatter yourselves that you run not into the same sins that others do. The devil may take you in another snare that suiteth more with your temper and condition of life. Some are sensual and some vainglorious, others worldly; many meet in hell that do not go thither the same way. A man may not be as other men, and yet he may not be as he should be: Luke xviii. 11, ‘The pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men;’ yet ‘the publican went down to his house justified rather than the proud pharisee.’ Those that slighted the invitation to the marriage-feast had their several diversions and reasons of excuse: Mat. xxii. 5, ‘But they all made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.’ One hath business to keep him from Christ, and another pleasures and the pomps and vanities of the present world, and another has his superstitious observances. But all obstruct the power of the truth, and the receiving of Christ into their souls. Every man will have his way, saith Luther upon this text. Some follow their hawks and hounds, and neglect their precious and immortal souls. Others busy themselves in heaping up riches; others are for plays and sports to fool away the day of grace. ‘My way,’ saith he, ‘when I was a monk, was to fast and pray till I had made myself sick; to observe the statutes of my order strictly. I called upon the blessed Virgin, and St George, and St Christopher’; and this was my way. And so vile a creature as I was, for all this, became the more sinful.’ Others may hate this or that public and visible blemish, but what are thy failings? John viii. 7, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.’ We may rashly censure others, and descant on their faults, but it is better to look inward. Do not I offend God as much another way as those whom I censure? There is a double madness—not only that which is idle and light, and breaketh out in strange freaks and furious extravagances, but that which is more sober, solemn, and grave. A frenzy betrayeth itself by deep musings and high conceits. So it is true of these discoveries of sin. Some delight in vain pleasures, others go to hell in a graver course. When a man perisheth, he ‘eateth the fruit of his own way, and is filled with his own devices,’ Prov. i. 31.

2. Stop your way of sinning, pluck out thy right eye, cut off thy right hand, Mat. v. 29, 30. Your trial lieth there, as Abraham was tried in offering up his Isaac; and David voucheth it as a mark of sincerity: Ps. xviii. 23, ‘I was upright before thee, and kept myself from mine iniquity.’ It will prove a stumbling-block, and eat out all the heart and power of grace if let alone. It concerneth us in our covenanting with God to set against the sin of this inbred and natural inclination. Though original sin dispose us to all sin, yet our particular and personal inclination may carry us more strongly to some one kind of sin: Heb. xii. 1, ‘Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.’ Thus childhood is wanton, and old age touchy and covetous. Sins take the throne by turns, according to our vocation and course of life. Every calling hath its temptations, and there is a snare which others meet not with. Every condition of life hath a predominant sin; as the young man with his great possessions. Oh! let us consider our tender parts, our Delilah, our Herodias, that sin that hindereth us most in closing with Christ, that sin that most engrosseth our thoughts; for they always follow the temper of our hearts. Some sins we hide under the tongue, Job xx. 12, which we cannot endure should be touched; our private sore is a tender place. Thus Herod would not be crossed in his Herodias, and Felix trembled when Paul ‘reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.’ Acts xxiv. 25, because he lived in intemperance with Drusilla, his pretended wife. That which you reserve in turning to God, that which you set up a toleration in your hearts for, even this sin must be bewailed to God, and you must seek the blood of Christ to mortify it with all the promising occasions of it. Act the contrary grace, and see how you can deny yourselves in what you most affect.

Use 2. Is caution not to walk slightly. There is but one right path, there are many evil ones. As one said, Evil is manifold, and the way of sin divideth itself into divers paths; you may easily mistake. See that place, Prov. iv. 26, 27, ‘Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established: turn not to the right hand, nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil.’ Walk with a great deal of care and circumspection. When it is so easy to err, a man would be solicitous. The apostle blameth those that did not ὀρθοποδεῖν, not ‘walk uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.’ Gal. ii. 14. They did not go with a right foot. The world thinketh strictness to be folly and niceness. You see there is a great deal of reason for it: there is error on both sides of truth, and you may easily miscarry: there is an extreme on both hands. A little to direct you, mind that place, Mat. vii. 14, ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it.’ There are some way-marks. I think, without wrong to that place, that I may give you three—a strait gate, a narrow way, and few company.

1. A strait gate. The entrance into it puts the soul shrewdly to it, whether taken for the coming out of ourselves, or the getting into -Christ. It is a narrow way to carry the soul right. It is like the pas sages by which Jonathan and his armour-bearer sought to get up to the Philistines: 1 Sam. xiv. 4, ‘There was a sharp rock on the one side, and a sharp rock on the other side; the name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other was Seneh.’ So here, between presumption and despair, it is hard to keep the soul right, sometimes the wind bloweth in one corner, sometimes in another. How to keep our selves from despair in going out of ourselves, how to keep ourselves from presumption by getting into Christ, is not so easy.

2. There is a narrow path, τεθλιμμένη ἡ ὁδὸς, an afflicted, rough way, such as will engage believers—

[1.] To the exercise of care. A diffident, regardless soul is out of his way: you have but a ridge to walk upon: Eph. v. 15, ‘Walk circumspectly;’ not even as it hitteth; for it is a hard matter to keep a good conscience, Acts xxiv. 16; and Prov. xxiii. 19, ‘Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the right way.’ You had need look to it.

[2.] To a great deal of pains and sorrow. He was mistaken that said, Take thine ease. Many can swallow sins, and pursue them, and yet have no sense of them that they are wrong. It is a way that will put you upon much sorrow and affliction, because you have such a distempered soul, and such a deal of pride and intemperance and anger in it: Rom. vii. 24, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Ps. cxx. 5, ‘Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!’ The saints are apt to grieve that they have such a worldly spirit in a heavenly journey.

[3.] To a great deal of self-denial. It is a way that restraineth nature; therefore we are called upon, Mat. iii. 3, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;’ Heb. xii. 13, ‘And make straight paths to your feet.’ There must be strictness in our course. It is not such a way as will leave you to the sway of your own hearts. Nature would have a thing many times, but you must put a knife to your throats, as if you were more ready to slay your appetite than to satisfy it. The thoughts, the affections, the speeches, the actions, must be reduced to the strict rules of the word. When men please nature to the full, it is a sign they have mistaken their way.

[4.] It will engage you to much mortification, to much opposition: Eph. vi. 12, ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ You have strong lusts to cope with, and those must be mortified, which you cannot do without the Spirit of Christ, Rom. viii. 13. It will cost you many prayers and tears, and fighting with spiritual wickednesses.

3. The next way-mark is, that you have but little company: ‘Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.’ Many walk as others do, and so mistake. Others sever themselves from the world, but go in the ordinary track of profession, not out of the common road. This is to be true to a sect and company of men, not to the ways of God. As Paul, when he was a pharisee, he lived by the eye, and did as others did; he lived after the strictest sect of religion y Acts. xxvi. 5. You must put a difference between the ordinary number of professors and yourself. But if you be vain and sensual, what do you more than they? Christians should look after the distinction and the difference between them and others: Mat. vi. 32, ‘For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.’ Implying, a man should do more than they, more than the men of the world can ever do: Ps. iv. 6, ‘There be many that say, Who will show us any good?’ That is the fashion of the men of the brutish multitude. But the godly say, ‘Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance upon us.’

Use 3. Is to press you to look into the state of your hearts, and see what you have by long experience observed, what is your sin, your way of wickedness, what assaults you most frequently, most fiercely; observe the frequency of temptations, and the strength of them, the law in the members, and a thorn in the flesh; so, as it is conceived, he calleth the violent stirrings of lusts. Now bend all your strength against these; as the king of Aram said, 1 Kings xxii. 31, ‘Fight not against small nor great, save only with the king of Israel.’ So bend the strength of the soul against this way of wickedness.

I come now to the last point of the first part of the text, and that is drawn from that possessive particle whereby every man’s by-path is expressed: Every man to his way.

Doct. 3. That this is the sin of men in their natural condition, that they turn to their own way.

The phrase implieth these two things—First, A defect or want of divine guidance; Secondly, A rejection of the ways of God when made known to us. We do not like them so well as some other, which we fancy to be better to us, because more suitable to our carnal desires; and therefore it is often charged upon the people of Israel, especially by Jeremiah, that they would not regard the ways of God, but the way of their own imaginations. See Jer. vii. 24. God had told them that all that he required of them was this, ‘Obey my voice, and walk in the way that I have commanded you; but they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsel and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.’ So that you see it argueth a refusal of God’s ways when discovered to them, as not being for their turns. So Jer. ix. 13, 14, ‘Because they have forsaken my law which I have set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein, but have walked after the imagination of their heart and after Baalim.’ They think their own path better, safer, or more comfortable, and therefore would not meddle with God’s. So Jer. xi. 8, ‘Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart.’ This refusal is the more sottishly perverse; as in Jer. xliv. 17, ‘But will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth out of our mouth.’ So that here is a scorning to have their ways prescribed, out of a presumption that they can better provide for themselves. The drunkard, the adulterer, thinks God’s way is either insipid or injurious. Our first parents thought their conceit was better, and that God in envy had denied it to them; and therefore they did not weigh God’s restraint and prohibition, Gen. iii. 17; she would eat, the devil had fastened her fancy to it, and she went on with the temptation.

1. There is a defect or want of divine guidance. God leaveth men to their own sway, and taketh away all check and restraint from them; and then whatever a man doth is purely from himself. So it is said, Ps. lxxxi. 12, ‘I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsels.’ When all divine guidance or direction is taken away, you will be left to the impure dictates of a corrupt mind, or at best to some poor remains of civility. As it is said, Gen. xx. 6, ‘I also withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore suffered thee not to touch her.’ Some restraints and chains God casteth upon men, that they are not able to do the evil which naturally they would. Though they do not go God’s way, they cannot go their own. But when God pleaseth he letteth men alone, and then they do what is right in their own eyes; as you shall see, Acts xiv. 16, ‘Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways;’ that is, to live according to their own pleasure, prescribing no restraint to them by discovering himself in a law; or, to those that have the outward written word, by using no inward motions of his Spirit. So that this is the first thing, the privative part, a defect of divine guidance, either by such outward prescriptions as may revive natural light, or such inward motions as may restore it.

2. That which is positive or more formally imported is a following of the dictates of our own corrupt minds, and fulfilling the desires of our own corrupt wills. For I conceive this turning to our own way is expressed by the apostle upon the same occasion, Eph. ii. 3; for he saith there, that natural men ‘have their conversations in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.’ There is a natural inclination to obey his corrupt mind, and to satisfy his corrupt will. It is but a pleasing of themselves. It is the way they have devised, and the way they have desired. But to speak of these things a little severally:—

[1.] There is a following the dictates of a corrupt mind. This is the first and chiefest, and therefore it is often expressed, ‘According to their imaginations and their counsels.’ There are a great many prejudices in a natural understanding against the ways of God. It is a way of their own contriving. Men think their way is good: Prov. xiv. 12, ‘There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.’ Their blind hearts dictate to them that their own way is the best, safest, most pleasant, and comfortable. The mind chooseth, pauseth, and determineth upon what it conceives to be better for it than the rule of obedience. Therefore it is called our own way, because it is not of God’s appointment, but our own choice. Men consult with their own hearts, and think sin is better. You may go through all the commandments of God, and you shall see a natural understanding dictates otherwise than God saith. As to the first table, man hath some confused knowledge that there is a God, who is to be worshipped, to be spoken of with reverence and observance; that there is some time to be set apart for his worship. Now what this God is, what is his worship, what time is to be set apart for it, and how it is to be spent, there reason faileth. We have some ways that seem right to us for that; and we are guided either by our own reason, or prescript of time, or education, or example, or custom. It is our own ways that we turn to, and therefore do not give God the glory that is due to his name: Rom. i. 21, ‘Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.’ They do not glorify him as God. We paint out worship by our own lazy thoughts, or overdo it by some fancies of our own: this is our own way. Then, as to the second table, there natural light is most clear. There we have some sparks and knowledge left of good and evil, and yet even there our carnal understanding easily leadeth us into a way that we think better to us than that which God hath set us; and so we think liberty is better than obedience to superiors; revenge is sweet, and injury is looked upon as profitable, and mere adultery as pleasant, some thinking nature never planted such strong desires in a man but to have them satisfied. And as to theft and oppression, why should a man be scrupulous and stand upon conscience when he seeth a present benefit? So calumny and reproach of others pleaseth us and serveth our ends, by making them odious to others whom we ourselves hate. Thus, by a little use, all knowledge of good and evil is blotted out of the mind, and a thing seemeth right to us, though condemned by God.

[2.] There is a fulfilling of the desires of our corrupt wills. Men go the way of their own affections; and though it be not according to the law of God, it is according to their desires, lust being their law; as if it were warrant enough to do a thing because they desire it. The apostle saith, Titus iii. 3, ‘Serving divers lusts and pleasures;’ that is, their mind was to obey their vile affections. They think the desire was planted in them that they might satisfy it, and they are not bound to thwart it: it were a wrong to their natures, whose bent and force they follow. It is said of Eve, Gen. iii. 6, that ‘when she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.’ Men think there is no harm as long as they do but please appetite, and only meddle with what tempts the desire. But, brethren, do not deceive yourselves: the mere fulfilling of natural desires without thwarting is a walking in your own ways; for even so you may wander beyond those bounds by which the word hath hedged up your way, be it of pleasures, honour, or profit. One of the first lessons in Christ’s school is self-denial. You must reckon upon it to go against your desires, and indeed it is a hard lesson. The way of natural men is their own way, they do not love to be restrained in their desires, and therefore they have ventured upon sin, notwithstanding great restraints, yea, the more for restraints. Men fancy some exceeding goodness in forbidden fruit, and think the prohibition cruel and envious, and therefore will venture and try their own way, as being loth to lose their longing and to disappoint nature. See that place, Rom. vii. 5, ‘For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death;’ that is, when in our natural condition, the restraints of the law revived sin, and we let it work, though it were to our destruction. Men’s voluptuous hearts will not let them enter upon such a strict course as the law prescribes. Well, now, gather all together, and you may see what it is to turn to our own way. It is to be left to ourselves, and then to reject the ways of God, upon a supposition that we have found something that is better for us, because it is more pleasing to our fancies, and more suitable to our desires.

The reasons may be referred to two heads. Our own way can never be right, either—

1. To please God; or,

2. To do ourselves good.

1. Not to please God. This appears in that:—

[1.] God will not stand to our appointment. Nothing pleaseth him but what he hath required; all other things he looketh upon as mere invention or imagination. Though man should be very zealous in his own way, with never so devout an intention, it is not acceptable. There is naturally implanted in the creature some desire to please God. Now, you will never do it in your duties, or in your lives, if your carriage be not suitable to his rule: Micah vi. 7, 8, ‘Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, and the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ Here is a very liberal proposal. Bat what doth the prophet rejoin upon this? ‘He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ There is the trial what God hath required of us. He will not stand to the creatures’ courtesy; it is his prerogative to appoint what pleaseth him best. God hath been angry with things, though done with a good intention, if not according to what he hath showed. Uzzah’s breach sets forth this: 2 Sam. vi. 7, ‘God smote him for his error;’ it is said there, for ‘doing besides the rule.’ So you may see in a case that concerneth conversation as well as worship: Rom. x. 2, it is said of the Jews, that ‘they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.’ They were very furious in it; they had good intentions, but they did not understand God’s way. A man may seem to have much zeal, and much scrupulous tenderness of doing good, and avoiding evil; but it is such as is in his own fancy and apprehension, but not in God’s law; he hateth it. The false teachers had some seemingly strict ordinances: Col. ii. 21, 22, ‘Touch not, taste not, handle not;’ but they were the doctrines and commandments of men. Thus you see God will not like our way, though it should be never so strict, and accommodated with the advantage of many devout and pure intentions. A popish spirit may be very devout, but God regardeth it not, because it is not according to his appointment. A good intention cannot make the action good, but the conformity of it to the rule; otherwise, those that slew the apostles and crucified Christ pleased him; many of them did it with a devout heart to that way which seemed right to them and they thought was pleasing to God: John xvi. 2, ‘The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service.’ They think this is well, and will please God. Usually that hath been the lot of the saints hitherto, to suffer under such rage as hath been rashly and unadvisedly conceived for God’s sake. Ecclesia nunquam magis passa est quam sub nomine ecclesiae. Therefore I say, God doth not look to the intention of a thing, but the conformity of it to the rule, and to his appointment, that he liketh; otherwise that which is odious to him would seem right in our eyes.