VeR. 45.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 485
brutish affections hurry them ! What pains, aches in the body, wounds in the conscience ! How many secret gripes and scourges ! No such subjection, no slave so subject to the will of his lord, as a man to his lusts and sinful desires, — will speak, think nothing but what sin commands. It is a besotting slavery. Wicked men remain in this bondage with a kind of pleasure. Galley-slaves would fain he free, wish for liberty. Israel was in bondage in Egypt, but they groaned under it : ' The cry of the children of Israel is come up to me.' Here men loathe to come out of their slavery, and are enemies to those that would help them out. Their work is hard and oppressive, — loss of name, health, estate. They tire their spirits, rack their brains, and after all their drudging are cast into hell. Use 2. Do we walk at liberty ?
1. There was a time when we served sin ; but being converted, we change masters : Rom. vi. 18, ' Being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.' If there be such a change, it will dis- cover itself. (1.) You will do as little service for sin as formerly lor righteousness : Eom. vi. 20, ' When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness ; ' righteousness had no share in your time, thoughts, cares ; you made no conscience of doing good, took no care of it : so now you do as little for sin. (2.) Positively do as much for grace as formerly for sin : ver. 19, ' As you yielded your members servants unto uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members servants unto righteousness unto holiness ; ' as watch- ful, as earnest, as industrious to perfect holiness, as formerly to com- mit sin : it is but equal. He that hath been servant unto a hard and cruel master is thereby fitted to be diligent and faithful in the service of a loving, gentle, and bountiful master. You can judge what a tyrant sin was. Shall not grqce have as much power over you now, and will you not do as much for God as for your lusts ?
2. What do you complain of as the task and yoke — the strictness of the law, or the relics of corruption? Eom. viii. 7, ' The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be ; ' compared with 1 John v. 3, ' This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and liis commandments are not grievous.' What is a bondage — sin or duty ? Is the command- ment grievous, or indwelling sin ? The apostle was complaining, but of what ? The purity of the law ? No ; but the power of indwelling corruption, the body of death : Rom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of death ?' Which do your hearts rise against ?
3. What freedom ? Luke i. 74, 75, ' That you, being delivered out of the hands of your enemies, might serve him without fear, in holi- ness and righteousness before him all the days of your lives.' If you are enslaved to any one lust, you cannot Avalk at large. Are your gyves and fetters knocked ofl'H Have you that free spirit? Ps. li. 11, 12, ' Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me ; restore unto me the joy of tliy salvation, and uphold, me by thy free spirit.'
486 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. LII,
SERMON LII.
I luill speak of thy testimonies also hefore kings, and ivill not he ashamed. — Ver. 46.
The man of God had prayed, ver. 43, that Grod would ' not take tlie word of truth utterly out of his mouth ; ' that is, deny him the liberty or the grace, the opportunity or the heart, to make an open profession of his faith and respect to Grod and his ways. This suit he backeth with sundry arguments.
1. From his hope : ver. 23, ' For I have hoped in thy judgments.' He had placed all his confidence in them, and therefore would openly profess what rule he lived bv, and what expectations he had from God.
2. His resolution to persist in this course, whatever befell him : ver. 44, 'So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever;' it would engage him to constancy to the end of his life.
3. From the alacrity and readiness of his obedience, as well as the constancy : ver. 45, ' And I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy pre- cepts.' Then we have true liberty.
4. That no worldly splendour or terror should take him off from making tliis confession, if God would give him liberty and oppor- tunity. Two things hinder a free confession of God's truth — carnal fear and carual shame. Both are obviated by the resolution of the man of God ; he would neither be afraid nor ashamed to recommend the ways of God to the greatest princes of the world.