Secondly, I now come to the argument, ' Strengthen me according to thy word.' God's word binds him to relieve his people in distress. There are two promises ; one is, 1 Cor. x. 13, ' God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.' A good man would not over- burden his beast ; certainly the gracious God Avill not suffer tempta- tions to lie upon us above measure. Another promise is in Isa. Ivii. 15-17, ' To revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.' He hath promised comfort and relief to poor broken-hearted sinners ; you are called by name in the promise, it is spoken to people in your case. Again, upon such a word and promise of God is David's prayer grounded. A prayer grounded upon a pro- mise is like to prevail ; you may put a humble challenge upon God, plead his word to him. It is strange fire else you put in the censer, when you beg that which God never undertook to grant. David often saith ' according to thy word.' Again, the word of God is the only cure and relief foi- a fainting soul. When David was languisning away under deep sorrow, then, Lord, thy word did bring strength. (1.) This is the proper cure. Natural means cannot be a remedy to a spiritual distemper, no more than a fine suit of apparel to a sick man, or a posy of flowers to a condemned man. Natural comforts carry no proportion with a spiritual disease; nothing but grace, pardon, strength, and acceptance from God can remove it. They that seek to quench their sorrows in excess and merry company take a brutish remedy for soul diseases. 0 foolish creatures ! that think to sport away or drink down their troubles ! it is as foolish a course as to think that to sew up a rent in the garment will cure a wound in their body. And (2.) it is a universal cure ; we have from the word life, comfort, strength. It is the word that must guide us and keep us from fainting, quicken us and keep us from dying. This is a full remedy in conjunction with the power of God, and makes the sore^ joyful in the midst of outward troubles : Ps. Ivi. 10, ' I will rejoice in God because of his word.'
Lastly, This word must be applied to the conscience by God himself, * Strengthen thou me according to thy word.' He goes to God that he would apply his word, that it might be for his strength ; for we can neither apprehend nor apply it further than we receive grace from God. The word is God's instrument, and worketh not without the principal agent.
SERMON XXX.
Remove from me the imy o/hjiiuj ; ami grant me thy law graciously. — Ver. 29.
There are two parts of Christianity — destructive and adstructive. The destructive part consists in a removing of sin ; the adstructive part
iQu. 'soul'?— Ed.
276 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. XXX.
makes way for the plantation of grace ; there is escliewino; evil, and doing good. We are carried on in a forward earnestness in the way of sin, but there is a great backwardness and restraint upon our hearts as to that which is good. The one is necessary to the other ; we must come out of the ways of sin before we can walk in the ways of God. In this prayer David respects both. (1.) In the first he instanceth in one sin, ' the way of lying ; ' not only lying, but '_ the way of lying,' as being conscious to himself of his too often sinning in this kind. Now, he woutd not have this settled into a course or way ; therefore he beggeth, Kemove it, the guilt, the fault of it. (2.) As to the adstructive part, for the regulation of his conversation, he begs the favour and grant of the law, and that upon terms of grace. David had ever the book of the law, for every king of Israel was to have it always by him, and, the rabbis say, written with his own hand. But ' grant me thy law graciously ; ' that is, he desires he might have it not only written by him, but u]ion him, to have it imprinted upon his heart, that he mi^ht have a heart to observe and keep it. That is the blessing he begs for, the law ; and this is begged graciously, or upon terms of grace, merely according to thine own favour and good pleasure. Here is —
1. The sin deprecated, remove from me the ivay of lying.
2. The good supplicated and asked, grant me thy laio graciously. In the first clause you have his malady : David had been enticed to
a course of lying. In the second we have his remedy, and that is the law of God.
First, Let me speak of the evil deprecated ; here observe —
1. The object, the way of lying.
2. God's act about it, remove from me, &c.
First for the object, ' The way of lying.' .It is by some taken gener- ally, by others more particularly.
1. For those that expound it more generally, they are not all of a mind. Some think by the way of lying is meant corruption of doctrine ; others of worship ; others apply it to disorders of conversation ; some take it for error of doctrine, false opinions concerning God and his worship, which are called lying, and so opposed to the way of truth spoken of in the next verse, ' I have chosen the way of truth.' Heresy and false doctrine is called a lie, Ezek. xiii. 22, ' Their diviners speak lies; ' so 1 John ii. 21, ' A lie is not of the truth ;' and the word used, ' The way of lying' is elsewhere rendered ti ' false way,' ver. 104, and ver. 128 there is the same expression. Now, this he desires to be removed from him, because it sticks as close to us as our skin. Error is very natural to us, and man doth exceedingly please himself with the fig- ments of his own brain. All practical errors in the world are but man's natural thoughts cried up into a voluble opinion, because backed with defences of wit, and parts, and secular interests, and other advan- tages ; they are but our secret and privy thoughts Avhich have gotten the reputation of an opinion in the world ; for we * speak lies from the womb ; ' even in this sense we suck in erroneous principles with our milk. Nature carrieth us tq wrong thoughts of God, and the ways of God, and out of levity and inconstancy of spirit we are apt to be ' carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men.' Now, to this sense the latter clause will well agree, ' Keep me from a