VeR. 35.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 365
is put into some great disorder, in a great storm of spirit, the distem- per should first be mourned for and prayed against.
The reasons why from first to hist he must make us go in tlie way of his commandments.
1. God keeps this power in his own hands, that his grace might he all in all, and it is the glory of his actions always to set the crown upon grace's head. Not only those permanent and fixed habits which constitute the new man, but those daily supplies, without which the motions and operations of the spiritual life would be at a stand, are of grace. When the Lord reckons with his servants about the im- provement of their talents, he doth not say. My industry, but, ' Lord, thy pound,' Luke xix, 18 ; he puts all the honour upon grace. So 1 Cor. xvi. 10, ' Not I, but the grace of God ; ' so Gal. ii. 20, ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' So that still they are giving the glory to grace. Acts are more perfect than habits ; therefore if Ave had only the power from God, and acts from ourselves, we should not give all to God. That acts are more perfect than the power is clear ; it is more perfect to understand than to have a power to understand ; power is in order to the act, and the end is more noble than the means.
2. This is a very great encouragement to us to set upon the exercise of grace in the midst of weaknesses, and several difficulties and temp- tations wherewith we are encompassed. Because God will enable and assist us, he will not leave us to our standing strength, but he concurs : Phil. ii. 12, 13, ' Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.' Why ? * For it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.' When God M^ill concur to the will and to the deed, to both, Avhen we have wind and tide, he is very lazy that will not take his advantage and ply the oar then. And the apostle was not dis- heartened with the several conditions he was to run through in his passage to heaven : Phil. iv. 13, ' I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.' When we have such an able second — ' God is at our right hand,' Ps. xvi. 8 — we need not be so dismayed with temptations and difficulties we meet with in the progress of our duty ; though we have many lets and hindrances, yet God will cause us to walk in his ways.
3. This keeps us humble and lowly in our own conceit, and that is very necessary for us ; for pride is that sin which cleaves to us all our life, and is called ' jDride of life,' and lasts as long as life lasts. How doth this keep us humble and lowly ? Partly thus : because we have all by gift ; ' What hast thou that thou hast not received ? ' 1 Cor. iv. 7. All the strength that we have is but borrowed ; and who will be proud that is more in debt than others ? We would laugh at a groom that is proud of his master's horse. All grace comes from God. Shall we usurp the honour due to God ? And partly because we have but from hand to mouth. Though we have all from God, yet we should soon grow proud if God did not diet us, and give out renewed evi- dences of his love and care over us by degrees, some now, some then, by fresh influences and acts of grace. Look, as David prays, Ps. lix. 11, of his outward enemies, ' Destroy them not, 0 Lord, lest my people forget : scatter them by thy power, and bring them down.' Oh ! if all enemies were destroyed at once, the people would forget thee, the
366 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. XXXIX.
deliverance would be past, antiquated, and out of date, and would not be so freshly thought of, nor produce such warm affections in the hearts of his people. So it is true in the spiritual world, God doth not destroy all at once, but brings down our spiritual enemies, that we may acknowledge whence we have it. And partly because this is a means to make us sensible of the mutability of our nature ; for when all depends upon God, his coming and going, it will make us see what poor creatures we are of ourselves. When he comes, we are able to do something ; when he goes, what poor creatures are we ! 2 Chron. xxxii. 31, ' God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.' When we are renewed yet are not fully recovered, there is a great deal of tang and taste of the old leaven, and if God leave us we shall soon sin ; whereas if we were carried on with an even constant tenor of grace that is in our own keeping, we should be proud.
4, It endears the heart to God, and God to the heart, by acts of friend- ship and familiarity, as it extracts from us acts of prayer and depend- ence, and as we receive new supplies and daily influences of grace from him. God is more endeared to the soul by his multiplied free gifts. Look, as at every lifting up of the foot there are new influences of life go to that stirring and motion, so all in the spiritual life are his acts of grace. If so much rain fell in one day as would suffice for seven years, there would be no notice taken of God's acts of providence ; God would not have such witness to keep up his memory to the sons of men. So here ; if we had all graces in our souls, and needed not new excitement, but he dispensed all at once, God and we should grow strangers, AVhen the prodigal has his portion in his own hands, he leaves his father : and therefore there must be continual acts of kind- ness to maintain a holy friendship between God and us.