58 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. LIX.
Grod take it at their hands ? And therefore the children of God, who have a great reverence of God's authority, when they see it so openly violated and contemned, are filled with horror. Will not God be tender of his power and sovereignty ? will he see his authority so lightly esteemed, and take no notice of it ?
[3.] It is shameful ingratitude. Man is God's beneficiary, from whom he hath received life and being, and all things, and therefore is bound to love him and serve him according to his declared will. We con- tinually depend upon him every moment: ' In him we live, and move, and have our being,' Acts xvii. 28 ; and surely dependence should beget observance, and therefore men should be loath to break with God, or careful to reconcile themselves to him on whom they depend every moment : Acts xii. 20, ' Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon ; but they came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus, the king's chamberlain, their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king's country.' There- fore it is extreme unthankfulness, stupidity, and brutishness for them to carry themselves so unthankfully towards God, who giveth them life and being, and all things. The brutes themselves, who have no capacity to know God as the first cause of all being, yet take notice of the next hand from whence they receive their supplies : Isa. i. 3, ' The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib ;' and in their kind express their gratitude to such as feed them, and make much of them ; but wicked men take no notice of the God who hath made them, and kept them at the expense and care of his providence, and hath been beneficial to them all their days ; but as they slight their lawgiver, so they requite their great benefactor with unkindness and provocation.
[4.] It is a disowning of his propriety in them, as if they were not his own, and God had not power to do with his own as he pleaseth. The creature is absolutely at God's dispose, not only as he hath a jurisdiction over us as our lawgiver and king over his subjects, but as a proprietary and owner over his goods. A prince hath a more abso- lute power over his lands and goods than over his subjects. God is not only a ruler but an owner, as he made us out of nothing, and bought us when worse than nothing, and still keepeth us. from returning into our original nothing ; and shall those who are absolutely his own with- draw themselves from him, and live according to their own will, and ispeak and do what they list ? AVhat is this but a plain denial of God's propriety and lordship over us ? as those, Ps. xii. 4, ' Who have said, With our tongues will we prevail, our lips are our own ; who is Lord over us?' Surely it should strike us with horror to think that any creatures should thus take upon them. Sin robbeth God of his pro- priety in the creatures. If we consider his natural right, sin is such an injury and wrong to God as theft and robbery. If we consider our own covenant, as we voluntarily acknowledge God's propriety in us, so it is adultery, breach of marriage vow ; and with respect to the de- voting and consecrating ourselves to him, so it is sacrilege.
[5.] It is a contempt of God's glorious majesty. What else shall we make of a plain contest with him, or a flat contradiction of his holy will ? For whilst we make our depraved will the rule and guide of our actions against his holy will, we plainly contend with him whose will
VeR. 53] SERMONS UPON l'SAL3I CXIX. f)9
shall stand, his or ours, and so jostle him out of the throne, and pluck the crown off his head and the sceptre out of his hands, and usurp his authority ; and so slight the eternal jx)wer of this glorious king, as if he were not able to avenge the wrong done to his majesty, and we C(^uld make good our party against him : 1 Cor. x. 22, ' Do we pro- voke the Lord to jealousy ? are we stronger than he ? ' Isa. xlv. 9, ' Woe to him that striveth with his Maker ; let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth.' Surely they that strive with their Maker will find God too hard for them. Now all these and many more considerations should make a serious Christian sensible, when he considereth how God is dishonoured in the world.
2. Their punishment. This relateth to the sanction by penalties and rewards. They that forsake the law have quite divested them- selves of all hope, and cast off all dread of him. The law offereth death or life to the transgressors and observers of it : Deut. xxx. 15, * Behold, I have set before you good and life, death and eviL' Now this is as little believed as the precept is obeyed ; and thence cometh all their boldness in sinning and coldness in duty.