Use 1. To direct us to carry the cause to God, as David in the text : Ps. Ixxxiii. 2-4, ' Por lo, thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lift up the head : they have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones : they have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.' You must make the Lord the party still against the wdcked. So Ps. xxxvii. 12, ' The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.' The wicked plotteth ; but do the just countermine him ? No ; the Lord interposeth ; he laugheth at him. It is a mighty support to the soul to oppose his justice to their wickedness, his omnipotency to their power, his wisdom to their craft, his love to their enmity. They are in God's hands, and cannot stir without him : as if one designed to poison me, but cannot do it without my father's consent. Wicked men are full of their boasts, but their brags and threats are but as the brags of a man on the scaftold, who is ready to be executed. Their day is coming.
2. When God doth so it must be acknowledged with thankfulness and praise ; yea, though an old mercy, Micah vi. 5. The godly are preserved though there be pits digged for them. Surely such experi- ences ought much to engage his people's hearts to him, for it showeth how mindful he is of their safety and welfare. Blessed be God that yet we subsist, that their devices are disappointed, and their designs brought on them what they had projected against others.
Fourth point. That God's law forbiddeth all ungodly, treacherous designs, attempts, and actions.
As contrary to justice. To design mischief and treachery against the life of any is the guise of wicked men.
As contrary to sincerity and godly simplicity : 2 Cor. i. 12, ' For our rejoicing is this, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you- wards.' Crafty and subtle deal- ings consenteth not with those that profess to dii'ect their ways by the word of God.
390 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. XCII.
As contrary to charity and mercy, which we owe to all men. How God hath guarded the life of the innocent by his precepts, and what a base perverse spirit it is to dig pits for them.
Use. Here is some plea for religion. It is not feralis superstitio. Tantum i-eligio potuit suadere malorurii ? It is not a false, unnatural, unkind superstition, when men, under pretence of it, commit such evils, digging pits, laying mines and barrels of gunpowder, that religion should persuade all this. The world thinks that religion is a sour superstition, that it makes men ill-natured. No ; it is the peaceablest and meekest thing t]iat can be. A false religion indeed efferates the mind, begets a bloody spirit : Jude 11, ' Gone in the way of Cain ;' in the way of blood and murder. They that have either a false religion, or are false in the true religion, indeed they are ill-natured and possessed with a rough spirit, unfit tor human society. The true religion, which God hath established in his law, is the meekest thing in all the world.
Fifth point. That the innocent should not be much troubled to be maligned and hated by them who contemn God's laws. Why ?
For their wickedness, fraudulency, and cruelty is a certain prognostic of their ruin. The more their sins are aggravated, their judgment Cometh the sooner, God's law is wronged, as well as our interest endangered.
It is a great ease to the conscience of the godly that they dig pits for us without a cause, Ps. xxxv. 7. The most godly and innocent may have pits digged for them. It encourageth us in our addresses to God, that we have no enemies but those who are enemies to God also and his ways ; and the most wicked men are most violent against God's people. Who was it first raged against the Christians but Nero ? And what a beast was Nero ! That must needs be some great good that was condemned by Nero, but it was an honour and credit to religion to have such an enemy as Nero : Ps. v. 10, ' Let them fall by their own counsels ; cast them out in the multitude of their transgres- sions, for they have rebelled against thee.' It is some argument of confidence that their ruin is coming.
Use. What use shall God's people make of the whole for themselves?
1. Never to engage in any design but what will suit with God's word, and you may commend to God in prayer. Do not dig pits which are not after God s law. Examine it according to rule. Never break a law for safety, nor for the best ends in the world dispense with your duty to God or man. It is horrible distrust of God's promises to venture upon the breach of his precepts for our pretended safety. Take heed of doing anything or carrying any plot against God's law, unless you would be like the enemies of the gospel.