Direct. 2, Be fortified within by taking heed to the causes of apostasy and falling off from the truth, either in judgment or practice. What are those things ?
1. Ungrounded assent. A choice lightly made is lightly altered, when men do not resolve upon evidence. We are to ' try all things,' 1 Thes. V. 21. When we take up a profession without evidence, we soon quit it : men waver hither and thither for want of solid rooting in the truth,
2. Ungrounded profession, want of solid rooting in grace, when not rooted either in faith, Col. ii. 7, or grounded in love, Eph. iii. 17, or established by grace, Heb. xiii. 9. There must be a foundation before a building, a thorough sense of the love of God, and a being rooted, when our hearts are sound in God's statutes.
3. Unmortified lusts. That which is lame is soon turned out of the way. While men keep up their respects to the pleasures, profits, and honours of the world unbroken, they are sure to miscarry ; though they should stand for a while, yet temptation will come that will take them away. Lusts put us upon great uncertainty, as fear, or the favour of men, or as carnal hopes sway : 2 Tim. iv. 10, ' Demas hath forsaken us, having loved this present world.'
4. A fond easiness. Men change their religion with their company, out of a desire to please all, as the cameleon changeth colours according as it touches. True religion is indeed ' easy to be entreated,' James iii. 17. But now, to make bold with God and conscience, to please men, is a sad adventure ; it is not a good disposition, but pusil- lanimity.
5. Self-confidence, when we think to bear it out with natural courage and resolution, and will be playing about the cockatrice's hole, and dallying with temptation ; as Peter's confidence ; you know how dear it cost him, John xviii. 16, 17. It is God which 'keepeth the feet of his saints,' and he will be known to be their guardian, 1 Sam. ii. 9 ; therefore he will be depended on.
Direct. 3. Take heed of the first decays, and look often on the state of your hearts. A man that never casts up his estate is undone insensibly. It is the devil's policy, when once we are a-declining, to carry us further and further. A gap once made in the conscience,
478 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SePv. LI.
grows wider and wider every day. The first declinings are the cause of all the rest. Evil is best stopped in the beginning. When first you begin to be careless, mindless of God, and neglectful of communion with him, oh ! then take heed. It is easier to crush the egg than kill the serpent. He that keeps the house in constant repair prevents the ruin and fall of it ; so do you keep your soul in constant repair, take notice of the first swerving, lest it carry you further and further. Men fall off by degrees, and grow worse and worse, neglect this duty and that, till they cast off all. LilvC Nebuchadnezzar's image, which was of gold, silver, iron, clay, from worse to worse, they presently run from one extremity to another. There are degrees of hardness : Heb. iii. 14, ' Let us hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.' The first sense, taste, and liveliness of it : learn from whence you are fallen. And then a steadfast expectation of the reward, 1 Cor. XV. 58. You have but a few years' service more, a little while to be put upon labour and striving, then you shall be as happy as heart can wish. Then a religious use of the Lo'rd's Supper, for here you renew again the oath of allegiance to God. The great purport of this duty is to bind yourselves to this firm and close walking. The Lord's Supper is a renewing of covenant, to fix our hearts by new promises of obedience. When we begin to waver and faint, and stand, we receive new strength ; as they, when they had a little refreshing, then they went on from strength to strength, Ps. Ixxxiv. 7, 8. The Lord's Supper is our viaticum, our well and refreshing by the way, that we may hold out to our journey's end.
SEKMON LI.
And I loill loaTk at liberty ; for I seek thy precepts. ^-Yeb.. 45.
The copulative in front of the text showeth some dependence which the words have upon the former. His last request was, ver. 43, for an opportunity and heart to own the ways of God. His arguments are —
1. His present hope, in the end of that verse.
2. His perseverance in obedience, ver. 44. Now —
3. The freedom of his heart in that continued course of obedience. A free and open confession of the truth may seem to cast us into bonds and straits, but yet it giveth us liberty : the truth sets us free, John viii. 32. If it bring the body under fetters, yet it enlargeth the heart. We never have greater freedom than when we are pleasing God, though at our bitter cost : ' I will walk at liberty,' non in angustiis timoris^ sed in latitudine dilectionis — not straitened by fear, but set at large by love : ' I will walk at liberty ; for I seek thy precepts.' In the words observe —