March 31

For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned to the shepherd and bishop of your souls.—1 Peter 2:25.

In these few words, we have a brief and yet clear representation of the wretchedness of our natural condition, and of our happiness in Christ. The resemblance is borrowed from Isaiah 53:6.

Not to press the comparison, or, as is too usual with commentators, to strain it beyond the purpose, in reference to our lost estate, this is all, or the main circumstance wherein the resemblance with sheep holds—our wandering, as forlorn and exposed to destruction, like a sheep that has strayed and wandered from the fold. So taken, it imports, indeed, the loss of a better condition, the loss of the safety and happiness of the soul, of that good which is proper to it, as the suitable good of the brute creature here named, is, safe and good pasturage.

That we may know there is no one exempt in nature from the guiltiness and misery of this wandering, the prophet is express as to the universality of it. All we have gone astray. And though the apostle here applies it in particular to his brethren, yet it falls not amiss to any others. Ye were as sheep going astray. Yea, the prophet there, to the collective universal, adds a distributive, Every one to his own way, a man to his way. They agree in this, that they all wander, though they differ in their several ways. There is an inbred proneness to stray in them all, more than in sheep, which are creatures naturally wandering, for each man hath his own way.

And this is our folly, that we flatter ourselves by comparison, and every one is pleased with himself because he is free from some wanderings of others; not considering that he is a wanderer too, though in another way; he hath his way, as those he looks on have theirs. And as men agree in wandering, though they differ in their way, so those ways agree in this, that they lead unto misery, and shall end in that. Think you there is no way to hell, but the way of open profaneness? Yes, surely, many a way that seems smooth and clean in a man's own eyes, and yet will end in condemnation. Truth is but one, error endless and interminable. As we say of natural life and death, so may we say in respect of spiritual, the way of life is one, but there are many out of it. Each one hath not opportunity nor ability for every sin, or every degree of sin, but each sins after his own mode and power. Isaiah 40:20.

Thy tongue, it may be, wanders not in the common path-road of oaths and curses, yet it wanders in secret calumnies, in detraction and defaming of others, though so conveyed as it scarcely appears; or if thou speak them not, yet thou art pleased to hear them. It wanders, in trifling away the precious hours of irrecoverable time, with vain unprofitable babblings in thy converse; or, if thou art much alone, or in company much silent, yet is not thy foolish mind still hunting vanity, following this self-pleasing design or the other, and seldom, and very slightly, if at all, conversant with God and the things of heaven, which, although they alone have the truest and the highest pleasure in them, yet to thy carnal mind are tasteless and unsavory? There is scarcely any thing so light and childish, that thou wilt not more willingly and liberally bestow thy retired thoughts on, than upon those excellent, incomparable delights. Oh! the foolish heart of man! when it may seem deep and serious, how often is it at Domitian's exercise in his study—catching flies!

Men account little of the wanderings of their hearts, and yet truly this is most of all to be considered; for from thence are the issues of life. It is the heart that hath forgotten God, and is roving after vanity: this causes all the errors of men's words and actions. A wandering heart makes wandering eyes, feet, and tongue; it is the leading wanderer that misleads all the rest. And as we are here called straying sheep, so within the heart itself of each of us, there is as it were a whole wandering flock, a multitude of fictions, ungodly devices. This is the natural freedom of our thoughts; they are free to wander from God and heaven, and to carry us to perdition. And we are guilty of many pollutions this way, which we never acted. Men are less sensible of heart-wickedness, if it break not forth; but the heart is far more active in sin than any of the senses, or the whole body. The motion of spirits is far swifter than that of bodies. The mind can make a greater progress in any of these wanderings in one hour, than the body is able to follow in many days.

When the body is tied to attendance in the exercises wherein we are employed, yet know you not that the heart can take its liberty, and leave you nothing but a carcass? This the unre-newed heart doth continually. They come and sit before me as my people, but their heart is after their covetousness. It hath an-other way to go, another God to wait on.