Use. Well, then, the use is to reprove us that we are no more sensible of spiritual benefits. We love the body more than the soul, and therefore have a quick sense of bodily mercies. But now, in soul concernments we are not the like affected. It is for want of observation to descry the progress of grace, and God's dealings with the inward man : Col. iv. 2, ' Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.' And it is for want of affection. We are wrought upon by carnal arguments, mercies of flesh and blood, and showers of rain, food, and gladness. These things make us praise God ; but that wliich we get from God in an ordinance, we are not so sensible of.
3. I observe again, those that have learned God's righteous judg- ments, they are only fit to praise God : Ps. xxxiii. 1, ' Praise is comely for the upright.' It is unseemly in a wicked man's mouth that he should be praising of God. It is his duty, but it is not so comely ; but praise to the upright, this is suitable. Canticum novum et vetus
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homo male concordant, ^aith Austin. The new song, the psalm of praise, and the old man, make but ill music. We need a new heart, if we would i^o about this work. It is an exercise becoming the godly. We should be reconciled to God, and have his grace and favour. Under the law they were to bring their peace-otForing, and lay it on the top of the burnt-offering, Lev. iii. When we come to offer a thank-offering to God, we should be in a state of amity and friendship with him. That is the clear moral of that ceremony : ' Sing with grace in your hearts/ Col. iii. 16. Others have not such matter nor such hearts to praise God ; they are but tinkling cymbals. But those that have grace, it is acceptable and comely for them.
4, I observe again, ' I will praise thee Avhen I shall have learned,' (fee. Those that profit by the word, they are bound to praise God, and acknowledge him as the author of all that they have got. The grace of a teachable heart, "we have it from him, therefore the honour must be his. He that gave the law, he it is that writes it upon the heart. Alas ! we in ourselves are but ' like the wild ass's colt,' Job xi. 12, both for rudeness of understanding, and also for unruliness of affection. AVeil, then, if we be tamed and subdued, he must have all the glory and the praise : Ps. xvi. 7, ' Blessed be God that gave me counsel in my reins.' It was God which made the word effectual, and counselled us how to choose him for our portion. We were as indocile and in- capable as others. If God had left us to our own swing, what fools should we have been !
Use. It reproves us because we are so apt to intercept the revenues of the crown of heaven, and to convert them to our own use, like rebels against God. This proud pronoun ego, I, I, is always interposing : ' This Babel which / have built.' We are sacrificing to this proud self : This / have done ; and if God be mentioned, it is but for fashion's sake, as those women in the prophet Isaiah, ' Only call us by thy name; Ave will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel' — I allude to it. God must bear the name, but we sacrifice to ourselves in all we get, as if it were our own acquiring. ' God, I thank thee,' saith the Pharisee ; yet he trusted in himself that he was righteous, Luke viii. Oh, learn, then, the commendable modesty of God's servants, of ascribing all to God : Luke xix. 16, he doth not say mij indtistnj, but ' tlvj found hath gained another.' And ' by the grace of God I am what I am.' And ' I laboured more abundantly than they all.' He corrects it presently, ' Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me,' 1 Cor. xv. 10. So again : Gal. ii. 20, ' I live ; ' and then, presently, ' not I, but Christ liveth in me.' Thus should we learn to be faithful and loyal to God, and deal with him as Joab did to David when he was like to surprise Eabbah, and take it : 2 Sam. xii. 28, ' Encamp against the city, and take it, lest I take the city, and it be called after my name.' Let us be very jealous that we do not get into God's place, and self interpose, and perk up with what we have attained unto; for the Lord must have all the glory, the praise must be his.
The foic7'th circumstance in the text is the manner of performing this duty of rendering praise ; luiih an upriglit heart. I shall not dis- course of uprightness in general, but uprightness in praising God.
70 SEP.MONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SePv. IX.
God must be praised with a great deal of uprightness of soul ; that is the note. This uprightness in praising lieth in two things, — not only with the tongue, but the heart ; not only with the heart, but the life.