4. For setting about any action, especially of weight : Gen. xli. 44, ' Without thee shall no man lift up his hand,' that is, attempt or do anything ; so Ps. x. 12, ' Arise, 0 Lord, lift up thine hand ; forget not the poor,' that is, set to thine active hand for their assistance ; so Heb. xii. 12, ' Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees,' that is, set actively and vigorously about the Christian task. To this rank may be also referred what is said Mat. vi. 3, ' Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.' The hand is the instrument of action.
Now all these senses might be applied to the present place.
[1.] Praying for God's grace to perform them.
[2.] Blessing God, as we do for our daily food, giving thanks for them.
[3.] Vowing or promising under an oath a constant obedience to them. But the commandments are not the proper object to which the acts of praying, blessing, swearing are directed, but God. It is not.
VeR. 48.] SERMONS UPON P5ALM CXIX. 13
I will lift up my hand to God, but ' thy commandments/ We ought indeed to bless God and praise God for the blessings we receive by his word, to vow our duty ; but lifting up the hand in all these senses is to God. Therefore —
[4.] Here it meaneth no more but I will apply myself to the Ivceping of them, or set vigorously about it, put my hands to the practising of thy law with all earnestness, endeavouring to do what therein is en- joined. Two points : —
Doct. 1. That it is not enough to approve or commend the command- ments of God, but we must carefully set ourselves to the observance of them.
Doct. 2. Whosoever would do so must use great study and meditation.
Doct. 1. That it is not enough to approve or commend the com- mandments of God, but we must carefully set ourselves to the practice of them.
1. Hearing without doing is disapproved : Deut. iv. 5, 'I have taught you good statutes and judgments, that ye might do so ; ' Deut. v. 1, ' Hear, 0 Israel, the statutes and judgments w^iich I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and do them.' Otherwise we deceive our own souls : James i. 22, ' But be 5^e doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own souls.' We put a paralogism on ourselves, build on a sandy foundation : Mat. vii. 26, ' Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man that built his house upon the sand.'
2. Knowledge without practice is not right : Luke xii. 47, 48, ' He that knoweth his master's will, and prepareth not himself to do it, shall be beaten with many stripes.' Better never known, if not done, for then they do but aggravate our guilt and increase our punishment.
3. Our love is not right unless it endeth in practice. A Christian's love, to whatever object it be directed, must be an unfeigned love. If God, if the brethren, if the word of God, those words must ever sound in our ears, 1 John iii. 18, ' My little children, love not in word and tongue, but in deed and in truth.' Do you love the word of God ? Do it not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
4. Our delight is not right ; the pleasure is but an airy, idle, and speculative delight, unless it set us about the practice of all holy obedience unto God, making it the design and business of our lives to exercise ourselves unto godliness. That slioweth the reality of your delight, when you come under the power of the truth, and are abso- lutely governed by it ; for then you delight in them aright as mysteries of godliness. The Lord complaineth of them that had a delight in the prophet, ' His voice was as pleasing to them as a minstrel ; they hear the words, and do them not,' Ezek, xxxiii. 32. They may delight in sublime strains of doctrine or flourishes of wit. Demosthenes had made a plausible speech to the Athenians ; Phocion told them that the cypress-tree is goodly and fair, but beareth no fruit. There may be flourishes of wit, but no food for hungry consciences.
5. Our commendation is not right unless it endeth in practice. Many may discourse of the ways of God, never speak of them but with commendation, but they do not lift their hands to this blessed work : they show some love to God's commandments, but when it
14 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. LIV.
cometli to action, their hands are remiss and faint. Christ refuseth that respect of bare naked commendation : Luke xi. 27, 28, ' Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that tliou hast sucked. Mevoupye, yea, rather, blessed is he that heareth the word of God, and keepeth it/ We are disciples of that master that did both teach and do : Acts i. 1, ' The former treatise have I made, 0 Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.' Of the Pharisees it is said, ' They say, and do not,' Mat. xxiii. 2, 3. But in Christians there must be saying and doing : James ii. 12, ' So speak, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.' We shall be rewarded, not for speaking well, but for doing, hands lifted up.