VePv. 40.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 437
2. Because, too, without this supervening^ and quickening grace, they can never serve God cheerfully, nor do anything to purpose in the heavenly life ; our general work of obedience goes on slowly : Ps. cxix. 88, ' Quicken me, so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth,' then I shall do good to purpose. But religion is an irksome thing when we are dead-hearted. For particular duties, it is not enough to pray, but it must be with life : Ps. Ixxx. 18, ' Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.' It is not enough to hear, but to hear with life, Mat. xiii. 15, It is a judgment to be dull of hearing.
3. As it is uncomfortable to themselves to act without quickening grace, so it is a thing very hateful with God, a cold lukewarm temper : Eev. iii. 16, ' I will spew thee out of my mouth.' This dull and stupid l^rofession is contrary to God and hateful to God, and such as content themselves with this dead profession, God will spew them out of his mouth. And it is contrary to all the provision God hath made for us. Christ is set up as a fountain of grace in our nature : John x. 10, ' I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' The Lord hath justified us by his grace, sprinkled our hearts that we might serve the living God, serve him in a living manner ; for titles given to God imply the qualification in hand, Heb. ix. 14 ; and he hath sanctified us, planted grace in our hearts on purpose to maintain the life given us, that there might be a lively hope. And all hearing is for life, Isa. Iv. 3 ; we come to lively oracles that we may be quickened. The joys of heaven, redemption by Christ, hell's torments, these doctrines are all quickening truths. And the Lord hath given his flesh, not only to God for a sacrifice, but to us for food that we may live, John vi. 51. Therefore to be cold is odious to God.
Use 1. For caution.
1. Let us take heed we lose not quickening through our own de- fault, that we lose not this enlivening grace. We may lose it by any heinous sin of ours, for by grieving the Spirit we bring on deadness upon the heart, Ps. li. 10-12. When David sinned heinously, he begs the Lord to quicken him, and restore his free spirit and the joy of his salvation. The spirit is a tender thing. Every heinous sin is as a wound in the body, which lets out the life-blood, and so we contract a deadness upon ourselves.
2. Take heed of immoderate liberty, or vanities of the world, or plea- sures of the flesh, if you would not lose this quickening. The apostle tells us, 1 Tim. v. G, ' The woman that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.' Pleasures have a strange infatuation ; they bring a brawn and deadness upon the heart, and hinder the sprightliness of spiritual and heavenly affections: Ps. cxix. 37, 'Turn away mine eyes from be- holding vanity, and quicken thou me in thy way.' These two prayers joined together speak thus much : if you be too busy about vanity, it will bring on a brawn and deadness, and so you need to go to God for quickening. And Christ tells his disciples, Luke xxi. 34, ' Take heed of being overcharged,' &c. The soul is mightily distempered by too free a liberty of the delights of the flesh ; for sufeiting and drunkenness must not be taken there in the gross notion.
3. Let us take heed that we do not lose it by our slothfulness and
438 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. XL VI.
negligence in the spiritual life : Isa. Ixiv. 7, ' There is none that stir- reth up himself to take hold of thee.' As in a watch one wheel pro- trudes and thrusts forward another, so when we are diligent all is lively in the soul, but when we are not active and serious in a godly course all goes to rack. An instrument, though it he never so much in tune, yet laid by and hung up, it grows out of order. Wells are sweeter for draining ; our graces, if we keep them not awork, lose their vitality ; if we do not stir up the grace of God, 2 Tim. i. 6, they are quite quenched ; when we grow careless, and neglectful of our souls, we lose this activity of grace.
4. Vain and dead-hearted company and converse are a very great means to damp the spirit and quench the motions of the heavenly life. We should ' provoke one another to good works,' Heb. x. 24. There is great provocation in good examples ; but we grow lazy, formal, slight by imitation. Others profess knowledge, yet are vain, dead-hearted ; so are we, we have adopted it into our manners, and leaven one another by this means. There should be a holy contention who should be most forward in the ways of godliness, and excel in our heavenly calling ; this keeps Christians lively. Saul, when he was among the prophets, he prophesied ; but when we converse with dead-hearted company, it breeds a great damp. You read in Isa. xli. 6, 7, how the idolaters en- couraged one another — it was when the isles were to wait for the Mes-