1. David's exercise, / have remembered thy name, 0 Lord, in the night.
2. The effect and fruit of it, and have hept thy laio.
The one may be considered as the means, the other as the next and immediate end. Eemembering and thinking is but a subservient help and means to promote some higher work. 1. In the first branch you have —
1.] The act of his soul, / have rememhered.
2.] The object about which it was conversant, thy name, 0 Lord.
3.] The season, in the night.
1.] For the act of his soul, ' I have remembered.' Eemembrance is an act of knowledge reiterated, or a second agitation of the mind unto that point unto which it had arrived before. Or, more plainly, remembering is a setting knowledge awork, or a reviving those notions which we have of things, and exercising our thoughts and meditations about them.
[2.] The object was God's ' name ;' that is, either God himself, as Ps. XX. 1, ' The name of tlie God of Jacob defend thee;' or that by which God is known, his wi-^dom, goodness, and power, especially those notions by which he hath manifested himself in the word.
[3.] The season, ' In the night.' Some take the night metaphori- cally for tiie time of trouble and affliction. It is often a dark time
VeR. 55.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 77
with the people of God, a very dark night, and then it is comfortable to them to think of his name, according to that of the ])rophet, Isa. 1. 10, ' He that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him stay him- self upon the name of his God.' I think it is meant literally ; that the man of God took such pleasure in the name of God, that what time others gave to sleep and rest he would give to the contemplation of his glory. In the solitude and darkness of the night he sustained and supported his spirit with the thoughts of God, and thereby took up a courage and constancy of resolution to keep his law.
2. The other branch, ' I have kept thy law ;' that is, with a good and sincere heart set himself to the keeping of it ; this is spoken partly to intimate his own seriousness in this work, and partly God's blessing upon his endeavours therein.
[1.] His seriousness and sincerity in the work. There is a twofold- remembrance of things : —
(1.) Notional and speculative.
(2.) Practical and affective.
The notional and speculative remembrance of things is when we barely think of them, without any further profit or benefit ; but the practical, powerful and affective remembrance is to be affected with matters called to mind as the nature of them doth require : as when we remember God so as to love him, and fear him, and trust in him, and make him our delight, and cleave to him, and obey him. And we are said to remember his commandments, when our hearts are set upon the practice of them. Verba notitke connotant affectus: we must not think of God indifferently, and by the by, but we must be answerably affected, and act accordingly. Thus did David, ' I re- membered thy name, and kept thy law.'
[2.] God's blessing upon his endeavours; for he presently addetli in the next verse, ' This I had, because I kept thy precepts." Our heavenly Father, who ' seetli what is done in secret, will reward it openly,' Mat. vi. 6. And the blessing of time well-spent in secret, or a few serious thoughts of God in the night, will publicly appear in their carriage before men. If we be frequently and seriously with God Avhen we are solitary, the fruit and benefit of it will be manifest by our holiness and heavenliness when we are in company. Your most private duties do not lose their reward. As a man's pains in study will appear in the accurate order, strength, and rationality of his discourse, so his converse with God in private will be seen in the fruits of it, in his holy, profitable and serious conversation.
The points are three : —
Doct. 1. Eemembering God is an especial help to the keeping of his law.
Doct. 2. God is best remembered when his name is studied.
Doct. 3. Those that have spiritual affections will take all occasions to remember his name. ' I have remembered thy name in the night season,' saith holy David.
Doct. 1. That remembering God is an especial help to the keeping of his law.
First, What it is to remember God.
1. It supposetli some knowledge of God, for what a man knoweth
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not he cannot remember. The memory is the cofferer and treasurer of the soul ; what the understanding taketh in, the memory layeth up ; and actually we are said to remember when we set the mind awork upon such notions as we have formerly received. And par- ticularly to remember God is when we stir up in our minds clear and heart- warming apprehensions about his nature and will.
2. It supposeth some faith, that we believe him to be such as the word describeth him to be; for spiritual remembrance is the actuation of faith, or, in this case, the improvement of that wis- dom, power, goodness, holiness, justice, and truth, which we believe to be in God. Otherwise, without faith, those thoughts which we have of the greatest matters affect us no more than a dream doth a sleeper.