224 SERMONS UPON PSALM cxix. [Sek. LXXVI.
ourselves, how soon are we out of the rig-bt way? into what sad errors do we run ourselves ? Ps. xix. 12, ' Who can understand his errors ? cleanse thou me from secret sins.' Since grace, we all have our de- viations ; though our hearts be set to walk with Grod for the main, yet ever and anon we are swerving from our rule, transgressing our bounds, and neglecting our duty. Good David had cause to say, Ps. cxix. 176, 'I have gone astray like a lost sheep: oh, seek thy servant!' We go astray not only out of ignorance, but out of perverseness of inclination : Jer. xiv. 10, ' Thus have they loved to wander ; they have not restrained their feet.' We have hearts that love to wander ; we love shift and change, though it be for the worse ; and so will be making excursions into the ways of sin.
2. Tliis straying humour is much increased and encouraged by prosperity, which, though it be good in itself, yet, so perverse are we by nature, that we are the worse for it. That the wicked are the worse for it, is clear: Isa. xxvi. 10, 'Let favour be showed to the wicked, yet will they not learn righteousness.' The sunshine upon the dung- hill will produce nothing but stinks, and the salt sea will turn all that falleth into it into salt water ; the sweet dews of heaven, and the tribute of the rivers all becometh salt when it falleth into the sea. So wicked men convert all into their humour : neither God's mercies nor judgments will have any gracious and kindly work upon them : but, if it be well with them, they take the more liberty to live loosely and profanely : the fear of God, which is the great holdback from all wickedness, is lessened and quite lost in them when they see no change : Ps. Iv. 19, ' Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.' That little slavish fear which they have, which should keep them back from wandering, is then lost, and the more gently God dealeth with them, the more godless and secure they are. When they go on prosperously and undisturbedly, the more obdurate ever. But is it not so with the people of God also ? Yes, verily. David, whose heart smote him when he cut off the lap of Saul's garment when he was wandering in the wilderness, could plot the death of Uriah, his faithful servant, when he was at ease in his palace. We lose much tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against sin, much of that lively diligence that we should otherwise show forth in cany- iug on the spiritual life, when we are at ease, and all things go well with us. We are apt to indulge the flesh when we have so many baits to feed it ; and to learn how to abound is the harder lesson of the two than to learn how to be abased, Phil. iv. 12 ; and therefore, did not God correct us, we should grow careless and negligent. The beginning of all obedience is the mortification of the flesh, which naturally we cannot endure. After we have submitted and subjected ourselves to God, the flesh will be seeking its prey, and be rebelling and waxing wanton against the spirit, till God snatch its allurements from us. Therefore the Lord by divers afflictions is fain to break us and bring us into order. We force him to humble us by poverty, or disgrace, or diseases, or by domestic crosses, or some inconveniency of the natural and animal life, which we value too much. Besides, our affections to heavenly things languish when all things succeed with us in this world according to our heart's desire ; and this coldness and
VeR. 67.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 225
remissness is not easily shaken off. Many are like the children of Keuhen and Gad, Num. xxxii., who, when they found convenient pastures on this side Jordan, were content with it for their portion, without seeking aught in the land of promise. So their desires insensibly settle here, and have less respect to the good of the world to come.
3. When it is thus with us, God seeth fit to send afflictions. Much of the wisdom of God's providence is to he observed ; — partly in the season of affliction, in what state and posture of soul it surpriseth us, when we are wandering, when we most need it, when our abuse of prosperity calleth aloud for it ; when the sheep wander, the dog is let Joose to fetch them in again. God suiteth his providence to our necessities : 1 Peter i. 6, ' For a season ye are in heaviness, if need be.' Alas ! we often see that afflictions are highly necessary and seasonable, either to prevent a distemper that is growing upon us, or to reclaim us from some evil course in which we have wandered from God. Paul was in danger to be lifted up, and then God sendeth a thorn in the flesh. This discipline is very proper and necessary before the disease run on too far. Partly in the kind of affliction. All physic doth not work upon the same humour; divers lusts must have divers remedies. Pride, envy, covetousness, wantonness, emula- tion, have all their proper cures. AH sins are referred to three impure fountains : 1 John ii. 16, ' For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.' From the lusts of the flesh do arise not only the gross acts of wantonness, fornication, adultery, gluttony, drunken- ness, which the more brutish and base part of mankind are taken with, but an inordinate love of pleasures, vain company, and vain de- lights, carnal complacency, or flesh-pleasing, wherewith the refined part of the world are too often captivated and bewitched. The lust of the eyes, covetousness and worldly-mindedness, produce wretched- ness, rapines, contentions, strife, or that immoderate desire of having or joining house to house, field to field, and building up ourselves one storey higher in the world. From pride of life cometh ambition, lofty conceit of ourselves, scorn and contempt of others, affectation of credit and repute in the world, pomp of having multitudes of servants, or greatness of train, fineness of apparel, and innumerable vanities. Now God, that he may meet with his servants when they are tripping in any kind, he sendeth out afflictions as his faithful messengers to stop them in their career, that the flesh may not sail and carry it away with a full and clear gale. Against the lusts of the flesh he sendeth sicknesses and diseases ; against the lusts of the eyes, poverty and disappointments in our relations ; against pride, disgraces and shame : and sometimes he varieth the dispensation, for his providence doth keep one tenor, and every cure will not fit every humour; all will not work alike upon all. He sendeth that affliction which is sure to work ; he knoweth how to strike in the right vein : thus he curetli Paul's pride by a troublesome disease. None that study providence but may observe the wisdom of God in the kind of affliction, and how suitable it is to the work it is to do ; for God doth all things in num- ber, weight, and measure. Partly by the manner how it cometh upon us, by what instruments, and in what sort. How many make them-