2. If you have this love to the word of God, you will delight to get it into your hearts. There is the great business of a Chiistian, that it may not only be in the Bible, but may be impressed on the heart, and expressed by a sincere, uniform, impartial obedience, when we study conformity thereto in heart and life. Hypocrites may delight in speculation, but a child of God is delighted in the obedience and in conformity to his word : Ps, cxix. 14, ' I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches.' Not only in the testimonies themselves, in the naked contemplation of these blessed truths, recon- ciliation with God, and the way to true happiness, but in the way and practice of these things. He that loves his rule will study an exact conformity thereunto. The love a child of God hath to the word differs from the love of a hypocrite or a temporary believer thus, by this similitude : in a rare piece of painting, an ordinary beholder takes a great deal of comfort when he seeth it or looks upon it, but this is nothing to that contentment which an artist takes in imitating and copying it out, in expressing it, when he can by his own pencil copy it out to the life ; so that which a child of God delights in is when he
VeR. 97.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 477
can copy out this word of God, get it into his heart, and hold it forth in his conversation, for the scripture speaks of both. Of the word got into the heart: James i. 21, ' Eeceive with meekness the ingrafted word ; ' when it is not on]y an external rule, but an ingrafted word. So Ps. xxxvii. 31, ' The law of God is in his heart,' and Ps. xl. 8, ' Thy law is in my heart.' Here is the great testimony of our love to God's law, when we strive to have it impressed on the heart and ex- pressed in the conversation: Phil. iii. 16, ' Let us walk by the same rule.' This is a double contentment when it comes to that, not only to the view of truth, but when the heart is a ready transcript of tlie word of God, when these things are not only revealed to him, but revealed in him : Gal. i. 16, ' It pleased God to reveal his Son in me.' There is a revealing things to us and a revealing things in us. Now, when this is our business, that all this may be revealed in us, and we may be cast into the mould of this doctrine, then indeed do we love the law of God : Eom. vi. 17, ' Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you,' or ' whereto ye were delivered.'
3. They which love the word of God, love the whole word, even that which thwarts their natural desires, and discovers their sin to them. Paul saith, Rom. vii. 12, ' The law is holy, and the command- ment holy and just and good.' AVhat is the meaning of this disjunc- tive, the laiu and the commandment? By the commandment he means that particular law which had so strangely affected him, that had wrought such tragical effects upon his heart, made sin revive, dis- turbed him, discovered himself to himself; he loves that law which broke in upon his heart with so much power and evidence, and stirred up his afiections. Carnal men love the comfortable part of the word, to be feasted with privileges ; but that part which urgeth them to un- pleasiug duties, or discovers their sins, they love not: 1 Kings xxii. 8, ' He doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil ; ' therefore I will not hear him. Though he was a prophet of the Lord, and came with the word of the Lord, yet, He never prophesied good to me ; that is, such things as did please him. Do you think that was the temper of that wicked king alone ? No ; it is the temper of every wicked man's heart : Amos v. 10, ' They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.' All wicked men have such a disposition ; they hate that part of the word which doth stir up their fears, revive their doubts, and is contrary to their lusts. It is their general disposition : John iii. 20, ' Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved,' They shun that part of the word whereby they might come to know themselves ; either they could wish such things were not sins, or that they did not know them to be sins : 2 Peter iii. 5, ' For this they willingly are ignorant of.' A guilty soul hath a secret enmity to the word of God, being loath to read his own doom there, and be much occupied and employed in that which condemns and accuseth him ; as a man that hath light ware is loath to come to the balance, or a man that hath counterfeit coin is loath to come to the touchstone ; so they are loath to come too close and near the word of God, that their whole course may be discovered to themselves. None