TeR. 77.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 321
sit easy. Comfort follows holiness as light doth fire, and sin will cause trouble as the prick of a needle doth pain. The soul cannot be serious and mind things but it will be so. Indeed, at some times, by careless- ness, our sense of the necessity of obedience is extinguished, and then a little serveth turn to keep the conscience quiet or stupid ; but it will return again. Never leave till holiness and obedience be your delight as well as your care.
Use 3. To press us to be earnestly dealing with this merciful God for comfort. We need it now in a time of judgment, when delivered over to judgments, Hosea xi. 8, as sometimes to sin, so to plagues ; when God opens the floodgates, lets out judgments upon a people without restraint : ' I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be,' Dent, xxxii. 20. So also the 30th verse, ' Their rock sold them, and the Lord hath shut them up.' Mercy can put a stop, but that will interpose no more. Again, when the people of God are much hated and maligned ; now, ' We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, but not in despair,' 2 Cor. iv. 8.
1. If it be God's nature to be merciful and kind, why should we be discouraged ? Mercy is free, favour is shown to a miserable person. Mercy can recall the punishments due to us, and mitigate corrections, and sweeten our comforts.
2. But, then, you must be content that mercy should issue out in its own way and order ; first giving us principal mercies, then neces- sary ; first sanctifying, and then comforting : ' Saving us by washing us in the laver of regeneration.'
3. Beckon your comfort more by a sense of God's care than by removing temporal trouble. Spiritual comfort is more excellent than bodily.
4. You must sue it out by prayer, wherein, first, it must be with brokenness of heart. Let true spiritual misery be discerned and com- plained of. Let us lay our sins and sores before his pity. Secondly, with faith, for here is the word mentioned. Why are we so disconso- late ? is there no balm in Gilead ? It is our usual fault, we pore too much upon our troubles. There is a God of comfort, who answereth his name every way, and will keep his word with his people. Let us come to him in all our wants. Thirdly, with resolution of more fliith- f ul obedience, for God's servants are only capable ; renew your covenant of serving God.
5. The godly have common comforts. What will serve one's turn will serve another's also. They have all the same fundamental work of grace in their hearts ; they are all born of God, have his image stamped on them, have the same Eedeemer ; the same Spirit worketh in all, and the promises are made alike unto all, not upon personal considerations.
VOL. VIL
322 SERMONS UPON PSALM cxix. [Ser. LXXXVI.
SERMON LXXXVI.
Let the proud he ashamed ; for they dealt perversely ivith me loithout a cause : hut I loill meditate in thy precepts. — Yer. 78.
In these words you have — (1.) David's prayer ; (2.) David's resolu- tion.
First, David's prayer ; and there take notice of —
1. The petition itself, let the proud he ashamed.
2. The reason, for they dealt perversely loith me ivithout a cause. In tlie prayer he beggeth the repression of his enemies. Tliere
take notice of —
[1.] The notion by whicli they are described, the proud.
[2.] The event or effect of God's providence desired concerning them, let them he ashamed.
The notion is considerable. The wicked, especially the persecutors of God's people, are usually characterised by this term in this Psalm, 'the proud,' ver. 51, 69, 122 ; and will give us this note : —
Doct. That pride puts wicked men upon being troublesome and in- jurious to the people of God.
But why are the persecutors and the injurious called the proud ?
Ans. 1. Because wicked men shake off the yolce of God, and will not be subject to their Maker, and therefore desist not from troubling his people : Exod. v. 2, ' Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice, and let Israel go?' What was in his tongue is in all men's hearts ; they contemn God and his laws. Every sin hath a degree of pride and depreciation of God included in it : 2 Sam. xii. 9, ' Where- fore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight ? ' There is a slighting of God's authority, and a lifting up our will against the will of God.
Ans. 2. Because they are drunk with worldly felicity, and never think of changes : Ps. cxxiii. 4, ' Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.' When men go on prosperously, they are apt wrongfully to trouble others, and then to shout at them in their misery, and to despise the person and cause of God's people, which is a sure effect of great arrogancy and pride. They think they may do what they please ; they have no changes ; therefore they fear not God, and put forth their hands against such as be at peace with them, Ps. Iv. 19, 20; whilst they go on prosperously and undisturbedly, they cannot abstain from violence and oppression. This is certainly pride, for it is a lift- ing up the heart above God and against God, and without God. And they do not consider his providence, who alternately lifts up and casts down, that adversity may not be without a cordial, nor prosperity without a curb and bridle. But when men sit fast, and are well at ease, they are apt to be insolent and scornful, liiches and worldly greatness make men insolent and despisers of others, and care not what burdens they impose upon them ; they are intrenched within a mass of wealth and power and greatness, and so think none can call them to an account. Solomon speaketh of two sorts of people : Prov.