engaged in a wearifome labour. Were you condemned, till you forfook your lufts, to row in the galleys, chained to the oars, to dig ia mines, never to fee the light of the fun, it were not to be compared to this wedrifome labour, while out of Chrift.. If finners feel it not, it is because they are not at all themfelves. It is a truth, though a fad one, Ifa. Iv. 2. that they " labour for that which fatisficth not;" in the Hebrew, they "labour to wearinefs." Ecclef. x. 15. "The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them; because he knoweth not how to go to the city."

IN difcourfing this point, we may inquire, I. What it is that finners out of Chrift are la-bouring for.

II. How it is, that men out of Chrift labour for happiness and fatisfaction.

III. What fort of labour it is that they have in these things.

IV. Why finners labour in these things for fa tisfaction, and do not come to Christ.

V. Make fome practical improvement.

LET'us inquire,

I. What it is that finners out of Chrift are labouring for. No man engageth in a labour, but for fome end he propofeth to himself. Though the devil is overfman of thefe labourers, yet he does not make them go like clocks, without a defign. Every one that labours propofes fome profit to himfelf by his work, and fo do thefe; there is always fomething, either really or feemingly good, that men feek in all their labours. So, in a word, it is happiness and fatisfaction that they are labouring for, as well as the godly. For, confider,

1. The defire of happiness and fatisfaction is natural to man; all men wish to fee good. It is A. a 2

not

not the defire of good that may fatisfy, that makes the difference between the godly and the wicked, but the different ways they take: Pfal. iv. 6. 7. "There be many that fay, Who will fhew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou haft put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increafed." In whatever case a man is on earth, in heaven or hell this is ftill his defire; and he must cease to be a man, ere he can ceafe to defire to be a happy man. When that defire, mentioned Ecclef. xii. 5. fhall fail, this defire is ftill fresh and green; and it is good in itself. Our Lord fuppofeth this in the text, and therefore he promifes to them what they are feeking, reft, if they will come to him..

2. This defire is the chief of all; all other things are defired for it. All men's defires, however different, meet here, as all the rivers meet in the fea, though their courfes may be quite contrary. Therefore this is what they labour for. The devil has fome labourers at his coarfe work, others at the more fine, but they all meet in their end.

3. Defects and wants are interwoven with the very nature of the creature; and the rational creature finds that it cannot be, nor is felf-fuflicient. Hence it fecks, its happinefs without itfelf, and muft do it, to fatisfy these natural defires.

Lafily, Seeing, then, man's happiness is without himfeif, it must be brought in, which cannot be done without labour. It is proper to God to be happy in himfelf; but every creature must needs go out of itself to find its happinefs; fo that action is the true way to it, that is, reft cannot be found but in the way of action and labour, and because they are not in the right way, it is wearifome labour.

LET

LET us inquire,

II. How it is that men out of Chrift labour for Happiness and fatisfaction. Here it is impoffible for us to reckon up particulars, and that in regard,

1. Of the different difpofitions of men, and the various, as well as contrary opinions, concerning what may make a man happy. Varro fays, there were two hundred and eighty opinions touching the chief good in his time. It is true, Christianity, in the profeffion of it, hath fixed this point in principle; but nothing less than overcoming grace can fix it in point of practice. The whole body of Chriftless finners are like the Sodomites at Lot's door; all were for the door, but one grafps one part of the wall for it, another another part, not one of them found it. The world is, as the air in a fummer-day, full of infects; and natural men, like a company of children, one running to catch one, another another, while none of them is worth the pains. One runs to the bowels of the earth, another to the ale-houfe, &c.It is impoffible to determine here,

2. In regard of men's ftill altering their opinions: about it, as they meet with new disappointments. Like a man in a mist, seeking a house in a wildernefs, when every bufh, tree, &c. deceives, till, by coming near, he is undeceived. O! (thinks the man), if I had fuch a thing, I would be well.' Then he falls to labour for it; may be he never gets it, but he ever pursues it. If he gets it, he finds it will not do, for as big as it was afar off, yet it will not fill his hand when he grips it but it must be filled, or no reft, hence new labour to bring forth just a new difappointment: Ifa. xxvi. 18. "We have been with child, we have been in

pain, we have as it were brought forth wind,” It is difficult also,

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3. Because they cannot tell themselves what they would be at. Their starving fouls are like the hungry infant, that gapes, weeps, cries, and fucks every thing that comes near its mouth, but cannot tell what it would have, but is ftill reftlefs till the mother fet it to the breaft. It is regenerating grace that does that to the foul. The Hebrew word for believing, comes from a root that fignifies to nurse, as if faith were nothing but a laying of the foul on the breasts of Chrift, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead. The fcripture holds him out as the mother that bare them; hence his people are called, Ifa. liii. 11. "The fruit of the travail of his foul." He alfo is their nourisher; hence he fays, Ifa. i. 2. "I have nourifhed and brought up children." The breafts of the church, Ifa. lxvi. 11. at which they are to fuck and be satisfied, are no other than Chrift. But, in the general, to fee from whence it is that men out of Chrift go about to fqueeze out their happinefs, fee Pfal. iv. 6. 7. quoted above. From which obferve two things.

(1.) That it is not God, for thefe two are fet in oppofition; go to as many doors as they will, they never go to the right door; hence it follows, that it is the creatures out of which they labour to draw their fatisfaction : "Having forfaken the fountain of living waters, they hew out to themfelves cifterns, broken cifterns, that can hold no water."

(2.) That it is good they are feeking out of them; and indeed men can seek nothing but under that notion, though for the most part they call evil good, and good evil. All good is either profitable, pleasureable, or honeft; these, then, are all that they are fecking, not from God, but from themselves

themselves, or other creatures. The two former have respect to the cravings of men's defires, the latter to the cravings of the law. And feeing it is not in God that they feek their happinefs and fatisfaction, I infer hence, That all out of Chrift are labouring for their happinefs and fatisfaction in one or both of thefe ways, either from their lufts, or from the law; and this I take to be the very labour intended in the text. For which confider thefe three things.

ift, Ihat all natural men have two principles in them, (1.) Corruption; (2.) Confcience. Both crave of them: Rom. ii. 15. "Which fhew the work of the law, written in their heart, their conscience alfo bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accufing, or elfe excufing one another." Hence, because they do not mortify the lufts, they must be fed, or no reft; and therefore they labour for their lufts to fatisfy them. Then, because they fly not to Chrift for the fatisfaction of their confcience, they go to the law.

2dly, The bulk of natural men in the world have ftill been of two forts; (1.) The profane party; (2.) The formal party. Thefe have ftill been among Jews, Pagans, and Chriftians; the former labouring moft in lufts, the latter in the law.

3dly, Adam left us with two yokes on our necks, (1.) Of lufts; (2.) Of the law. The laft was of God's putting, but he gave strength with it to bear it; Adam took away the ftrength, but left the yoke, and put on a yoke of lufts befide; and in oppofition to both thefe, Christ bids us come and take on his " yoke, which is easy, and his burden, which is light," Matth. xi. 29.

As to the labour they have in their lufts, they call them, and they run after them. These infernal devils