It is a rule that teaclieth us how to think well, for it reacheth to the thoughts ; to speak well, for it giveth a law to all our words ; to do well in all our civil actions and trading : how to keep a good con- science, and approve ourselves to God; how in natural actions, eating, drinking, to season them with God's fear ; and religious actions, how we may pray and worship; how to govern ourselves, our own hearts and affections ; to converse with others in all relations, as fathers, children, masters, servants, magistrates, ministers, people ; and how to hold communion with God : all which are demonstrations of the sufficiency of the scripture for our direction, and what reason there is that we should take the testimonies of God to be the men of our counsel.
Use 2. For reproof to those that turn the back upon God's counsels. Who are those ?
1. Such as neglect the general duties of Christianity, as fiiith, and repentance. God hath given us counsel what to do in order to eternal life, and we regard it not. The great quarrel between God and sin- ners is about the neglect of this counsel, which he hath given them for their soul's good : Prov. i. 25, ' They set at nought all my counsel ; ' and ver. 30, ' They would none of my counsel.' Oh ! when your friends have advised you, and you despise it, and take another course, it troubleth them. You know how heinously Achitophel took it when his counsel was despised. Equals, when their counsel is despised, take it very ill ; much more superiors when they give counsel. The en- treaty and advice of a superior carrieth the force of a command. So it is here with God ; it is called counsel, not as if it were an arbitrary thing whether we did regard it or no ; but because of God's mikl con- descension. When men are in danger of perishing for ever, the Lord gives us counsel. You are in a miserable estate ; he is pleased to tell you how to come out of your misery. The word of God, therefore, is called the counsel of God. It is sad when we shall reject the counsel of God: Luke vii. 30, ' They rejected the counsel of God against them- selves.' There is two sentences, they rejected the counsel of God, and it was against themselves ; it was to their own loss and destruction. God loseth nothing when we despise his counsel ; but you lose all — your eter- nal happiness. This is so great an evil that God punisheth it with itself. When men will not take God's counsel, then it is the most dreadful judgment he can lay upon us to give us up to our own counsel, Ps. Ixxxi. 11. Oh, what a heavy judgment was it to be given up to the counsels of their own heart !
2. It reproves such as do not consult with God's word about their affairs, but merely live as they are acted by their own lusts, or ' walk at all adventures ; ' so the expression in the marginal reading is. Lev. xxvi. 21. It is as the action falls ; they do not care whether it please God, or be the rule of their duty, yea or nay. These are far from the temper of God's children. It is sad in persons, much more in nations, when men run headlong upon all manner of disorders, against right and honesty ; it tends "to ruin : Dent, xxxii. 28, ' They are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.'
3. Such as go flatly against the counsel of God, and, to gratify their own interest, pervert all that is just and honest : Ps. cvii. 11,
VeR. 24.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 233
' They rebelled against the word of the Lord, and contemned the coun- sel of the Most High.' These do but expose themselves to speedy ruin. Job xviii. 7, Bildad said of the wicked, ' His own counsel shall cast him down.' They need no other means to ruin them than their own brutish course. When men dare break the commandment of God without any rcluctancy, to gratify a worldly interest, though for the pre- sent no evil comes of it, yet afterwards they shall smart : Prov. xix. 20, * Hear counsel and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise for thy latter end.' Consider what it will come to afterwards, when thou comest to die ; then you will wish, Oh that I had taken God's counsel, that I had not gone with such a daring spirit against the plain counsel of God's word !
4. Such as pretend to ask counsel from the word, but it is accord- ing to the idol of their own hearts ; that come with their own conclu- sions and preconceptions and prejudices, against God's counsel : Ezek. xiv. 3, 4, ' Son of man, these have set up their idols in their heart,' &c. Men will come and pretend to ask God's counsel and leave upon their undertakings, when they are resolved upon a wicked enterprise before ; then God must be called upon and sought to, and so they make God's ordinance a lacquey, merely to be a covert to their evil practices ; as those in Jer. xlii., that came to the prophet, and they were prepos- sessed, and had their resolutions aforehand.