3. God's eye is always upon us ; he is alike everywhere ; therefore a Christian should be alike everywhere, always like himself, at home and abroad, alone and in company : Phil. ii. 12, 'As ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more in my absence.' Many are devout abroad, but carnal, careless, profane, if jon follow them home to their families. When you ai'e alone you are not alone, God is there ; we have a heavenly Father that seeth in secret, Mat. vi. 4 ; what you do in your closets, the doors made fast, and all company shut out. A man might allow himself in carnid liberty if he could go any- wiiere where God doth not see him ; but his eye is still upon us ; and therefore we should say with David, ' I will keep thy law continually.' ' Will he force the queen before my face ? ' saith Ahasuerus. • We break God's laws before his face ; his eye is always upon us, and all our ways are before him.
VeR. 44.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 473
4. God is always at work for ns : John v. 17, ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,' He sustains ns every day, honr, moment, and waketh for ns, watcheth over ns l)y night and hy day. When we sleep, the devil is awake to do us mischief. Ay ! but the God of Israel, ' he that keepeth Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth,' but watcheth for our good. As soon as we arise, ' his compassions are new every morn- ing,' Lam. iii. 22, 23. Now, can we offend him from whom we receive life and breath every moment? If God should intermit his care but for one day, nay, but suspend it for one hour, what would become of thee ?
5. All our actions concern eternity. This life is compared to a walk, Eph. ii. 10. Everything we do or speak is a step either to heaven or hell, therefore to have an influence or tendency on that action. The more good we do, the more we are acted with a fear of God, and love of God, to do all things to his glory, the nearer heaven ; and the more evil, the nearer hell. We should not stand still or go back, but always be getting ground in our journey.
6. To be off and on with God will cost us much sorrow ; it will be bitterness in the end. Either it will cost us the bitterness of repent- ance here, or of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for ever ; either lioly compunction or everlasting horror. When you straggle from God, there is no returning to your former husband but by Weep- ing-cross, Hosea ii. 14. And who would provide matter of sorrow for himself ? I say, when you thrust your hand into Satan's dish, there is some sauce mingled with his meat, and then everlasting horror if not compunction, for that will be the end of them that are always un- stable in all their ways, James i. 8. God will not always bear with them; he may at first, while they are children, poor weak novices, but will not always, Eph. iv. 14. God expects that at length we should grow more constant, and grow up to a radicated state of grace ; there- fore, if we are always children, off and on with God, then he will cast us off.
7. By every intermission we may lose ground, and possibly may never wholly, if we recover it in part again. We may lose ground, for ' the way of the Lord is strength to the upright,^ Prov. x. 29. The more we continue in it the fitter we are to walk in it. A bell, when once up, is kept up with greater ease than if we were to raise it anew. A horse warm in his gears is more fit for his journey than at first setting forth ; and therefore keep up while you are in the way of God. If it be hard to keep in with God, it will be harder to recover when you are out of the way. The only way to make religion easy is to be still in it, and to have our hearts still upon it ; and therefore you lose by your intermission. And if you recover yourselves after intermis- sion, it is not always to that degree of largeness of heart and fulness of spiritual comfort. A prodigal that hath riotec^ away his estate, if set up again, is not trusted with the like stock ; and after a great disease, though a man recovers, yet it is not to the degree of his former health many times. Therefore we should without intermission persevere in our duty to God.
To apply this part.
Use 1. It should humble us all that we are so fickle and inconstant
474 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. L,
in that which is good. Our liearts are unstable as water. In the space of an hour, how are our thoughts changed from good to evil, and from evil to good in a moment ! What a monster would man seem, if his heart were visible, in the best dut)- that ever he performed ! Our devotion and goodness comes by pangs and fits ; now humble, anon proud ; now meek, anon passionate ; now confident, then full of fear and anguish. Like men sick of an ague, sometimes well, some- times ill, we do not seem to be the same men in a duty and out of a duty ; nay, sometimes in the same duty we do not seem to be the same men, are not carried on with the same largeness of heart, and confi- dence in God, and savouriness and spirituality. Oh, how changeable and fickle are our hearts ! This should humble us.