3. The studying of God's name increaseth our reverence and fear : Ps. cxi. 9, ' Holy and reverend is thy name ; ' Ps. Ixxxvi. 11, ' Unite my heart to the fear of thy name.' The more you study the nature of God, the more awe-ful, serious, humble, watchful will you grow. Thus
90 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX, [SeR. LXII.
you see serious and becoming thoughts of God do much increase our iaith, fear, and love.
Use. The use is to exhort you more —
1. To study the name of God, and to dwell upon the meditations of the Almighty, and to possess your mind with him till no place be left for sin or vanity.
[1.] The name of his being. God is not only the best of beings, but properly that which is ; because he is a self-being, that gave being to all things else, and from everlasting to everlasting. We are but as it were of yesterday, and our being is from him, and our life in his hands ; we cannot live an hour without him, nor fetch a breath with- out him, nor think a thought, nor speak a word, nor stir a hand or foot without him. There is a continual providential influence and supporta- tion: as the beams of the sun vanish as soon as the sun is clouded, so do we fail when God suspends his influence. A watch goeth of itself, a mill of itself when the workman taketh off his hand from them : it is not so with us and God ; for, Acts xvii. 28, ' In him we live, move, and have our being.' What Paul said of spiritual life. Gal. ii. 20, is true also of life natural, * I am, yet not I, but God is all in all.' He is in us, and liveth in us, or we could not subsist for a moment. We need not seek God without in the workmanship of heaven and earth, for we have God within ourselves, and may feel him and find him in our own life and motion ; as the child in the womb liveth by the life of the mother, before it is quickened and liveth apart by a life and soul of its own ; or as a pipe sounds by the blowing of the musician ; if he stop his breath it is altogether silent ; so we live and breathe in God, and all the tune- able variety of our motions cometh from his breathing in us. Now, if God be so near us, shall we not take notice of his presence, and carry ourselves accordingly ? Shall we offend him and affront him to his face, and dis})lease him without whom we cannot live ? But alas ! how seldom do we reflect upon this ! How is it that we move and think not with wonder of the first mover in whom we move ? How is it that we live and persevere in being, and do not consider of this fountain and self-being who gave our life to us, and still continues it ? Oh, the negligence of many souls professing the knowledge of God and godliness! We speak, walk, eat, and drink, and go about all our business, as if we had a self-being and independent, never thinking of that all-present and quickening Spirit that acts us, moveth in us, speaketh in us, maketJi us to walk, eat, drink, and do all the functions of nature ; like the barbarous people who see, hear, speak, and reason, and never once reflect upon the principle of all these — a soul within.
[2.] Let us think often of the name of God, his attributes.
(1.) Of his wisdom, that we may compose ourselves to worship, adore him, serve him according to his will and pleasure, and may admire him in the justice and equity of his laws, and the excellent contrivance of his providence, that so we may submit to the directions of the one and the determinations of the other. To the directions of his word: Can we count God to be a wise God, and refuse his counsel ? Doth not our practice give our profession the lie when we rather walk after our hearts' counsels, and the examples and fashions of the world, than observe the course God hath ])rescribedto us in the word? Who, then,
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is thought wise — God or men ? So for submission to the determina- tion of his providence. The flesh woukl fain be pleased, and therefore quarrelleth many times at God's dispensations as hnrsh and severe ; but in good earnest who is wiser — God or men ? Do we think we are fitter to sit at the liehii, and govern and steer all affairs, than the wise Creator of heaven and earth ? Shall we sit as judges upon his actions, and think that might have been prevented, this might have been better ordered, either for God's interest or our own comfort ? Men will be teaching God how to govern the world ; for we prescribe to him as if he did not understand what were fit for us : he pleaseth us not in his wisest dis- pensations, and we bear it out as if we could mend his works : Job xxi. 22, ' Shall any teach God knowledge?' Those that disallow of God's proceedings take upon them to be God's teachers. It was a blasphem- ous speechof AlphonsuSj/S'i Deo a consiliis adfidssetin creatione mumU, multa se consultius ordinaturum — if he had been of God's counsel when he made the world, he would have ordered many things better. Many abhor such a gross speech, yet think almost to the same effect. If they had the governing of the world, such men should not prosper ; such and such things should not be done.