VeR. 89.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 397
Jacob are not consumed ;' Ps. cii. 27, 28, * Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end ; the children of thy servants shall con- tinue.' So when the flourishing of the wicked is spoken of, when they spring as grass : Ps. xcii. 8, ' But thou, 0 Lord, art most high for evermore,' If they be high, God is higher, and they are but upstarts to him ; their power is of a late rise and short continuance. So Ps. xciii. 2, ' Thy throne is established of old ; thou art from everlasting.' God's throne is as eternal as his being. So Lam. iii. 17, ' Thou, 0 Lord, remainest for ever, and thy throne from generation to genera- tion.' Is the life of thy enemies long? God endin-eth for ever. Is their power great ? It is but dependent. God had power before them, and w^ill have power when they shall be no more.
Use 2. Terror to the wicked : Heb. x. 31, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' They may outlive other enemies, but they cannot outlive God, who abideth for ever, to avenge his quarrel against them. And judge you if his controversy against them be not just, since they are such impious fools and brutes as that they prefer the creature before the creator, and choose temporal things i-ather than everlasting, and prefer earth before heaven, and the satisfaction of their bodily lusts before the saving of their souls. Can you blame God of any injuGtice in dooming them to everlasting misery ? What ]iart of the punishment would you have relaxed ? the loss, or the pain ? The loss is double — of God's favour or their natural comforts. Would you have God admit those to the sight and everlasting fruition of him- self who never cared for him ? Or return again to their natural com- forts, that they may eternally run riot with them, or abuse them to an occasion of the flesh ? Or is it the pain ? Would you have God take off that when the sin and impenitent obstinacy doth still continue, since they preferred a temporal good before that which is eternal, and would ' sell their birthright for one morsel of meat' ? Heb. xii. 16. How just is it for God to make them everlastingly to lie under the fruits and effects of their own evil choice !
Use 3. To press us to seek after the everlasting fruition of this ])lessed and ever-glorious God, because many live as if they had never heard of things eternal ; most live as if they did not believe any such thing ; the best do not improve those things as they ought : therefore I shall a little insist upon a quickening exhortation, to stir you up to seek an eternal happiness in God.
1. As we are reasonable creatures, we were made for eternity ; for God hath given us an immortal spirit, and there is no proportion be- tween an immortal soul and temporal things. It cannot be content with anything that shall have an end, for then we may survive our happiness. If we had souls that would perish, it would be more ex- cusable to look after things that perish. What will you do when your souls shall be turned out of doors, when ye fail ? Luke xvi. 9. To what region will the poor, shiftless, harbourless soul betake itself when you die ? All your thoughts that concern the present world perish ; and if you did perish too, it were no such great matter. But you shall live ; and what will you have to comfort yourselves if you have not an interest in the eternal God ? In whose hands will you be if you have slighted him while you were upon earth, and the eternal happiness he
398 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SePv. XCIII.
offereth to us, and could not find enough in God and his eternal salva- tion to take off your hearts from the pleasures and vanities of the world ? Can you expect that he will favour you and be kind to you ?
2. Eternity is made known to us Christians, and clearly set before us in the doctrine of the gospel : 2 Tim. i. 10, ' He hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel/ Nature hath but guesses at it, the law but shadows ; but here it is clearly, certainly, and fully revealed. You know that you have an eternal God to please, and an infinite and eternal reward to expect. The whole drift of our religion is to call us off from time to eternity, from this world to a better. Christ came not to settle us here in a state of prosperity, nor to make this world our rest and portion, but to draw us up to God and heaven.
3. The same religion showeth that we are already involved in an eternal misery, and stand under a sentence binding us over to the curse and everlasting wrath of God : John iii. 18, ' He that believeth not is condemned already : and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness more than light, because their deeds are evil.' God hath offered life and immortality to them who have so miserably lost it, and involved their souls in eternal death. Therefore, if we know what it is to be liable to the wrath of an eternal God, and to be interested in the hopes of eternal glory, we should awaken and be more serious in a business of such concernment.