VeR. 100.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 17
2. As it is a more exact, so a more sure way of learning wisdom, whereas experience is more uncertain. Many have much experience, yet have not a heart to see and to gather wisdom from what they feel : Deut. xxix. 2, 3, ' Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt. Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.' Tiiey saw it, that is, had experience of it, yet not a heart to improve it : Ps. xlix. 13, ' This their way is their folly, yet their posterity approve their sayings.' The father gets an estate ; when gotten, he thinks to enjoy it; God takes him off ; their posterity live by their carnal maxims, and do not profit by their experience. Though they stand upon the graves of many that made a great bustle in the world to compass their worldly ends, yet they are never the wiser for all this. Therefore it is a great advantage to have a stated fixed rule to our hands, to have a rule of wisdom and principles given us by God himself, wherewith to steer and guide our course.
3. It is a safer and cheap way of learning, to learn by rule, than to come home by Weeping Cross, and to learn wisdom by our own smart. Experience is too expensive a way ; and if we had nothing else to guide us, into how many thousand miseries should we run ! how would a man s life be exposed to inevitable hazards and soul-dangers ! And if by chance he should get out of the snare (which is uncertain), yet the taint of former practices will remain in him a long time ; therefore it is God's mercy he will teach us by precept rather than by experience ; tliat he doth not teach us, as Gideon tauglit the men of ^uccoth, b}^ briars and thorns, but that we may learn wisdom at a cheaper rate. If we were only to know (as God saitli of his people, Jer. ii. 19, ' Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy back- slidings shall reprove thee ') when we had smarted for it, this were an expensive costly way; but if we will hearken to God's precepts, all this smart and trouble and bitterness of affliction may be saved. There- fore the precepts of God are better.
4. The way by age and experience is a long way, and so for a long time all a man's younger age must needs be miserable and foolish, Now here you may come betimes to be wise, by studying the word of God : Prov. i. 22, ' How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, imd ye fools hate knowledge ? ' It concerns a man not only to be wise at length, but to be wise betimes. The foolish virgins were wise too late, but never any were wise too soon. Therefore surely that is better which will make us wise betimes, as soon as we come, to be exposed to dangers. In these respects he that applies himself to God's precepts will get more wisdom than he that gets wisdom by age and experience ; he hath it in a shorter way, a safer way, a less expensive way, and in a more certain and exacter way.
Use 1. To reprove the folly of men that will not take God's direc- tions, but will be trying experiments at their own cost ; as Solomon gave out his heart to a critical search, he would find where happiness and comfort was, and at length was forced to come home by Weeping Cross, to the fear of God and keeping of his commandments. This is the whole of man, he had tried pleasure, profit, and all things. The [)rodigal would be running out of his father's house, and we all would
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18 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CVL
be trying, because we will not take God's word. God hath given his word here to man, we need not search elsewhere ; and it is a thousand to one that, when you are trying, that ever you recover yourselves out of the snare. Here or there a man returns ; I found them, saith Solomon, but there are very few ; and therefore, as the prophet saith, Jer. xxxi. 32, ' How long wilt thou go about, 0 thou backsliding daughter ? ' Wliy do you compass about ? There is a shorter way to true happiness, if we had a heart to take it. Oh, but we must have our swing and our scope, and then come home by shame and sorrow: Mat. xi. 28, ' Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.' Mark, they that come to Christ, come not only laden with their sins, but weary with vain pursuits. But this is the fashion of man, to be running about, to be wearying himself, and contract weariness and thirst, as the prophet speaks, Jer. ii, 13.
Use 2. To recommend the study of the word. 0 Christians ! God hath provided for us better than the heathens, who were forced to hunt up and down to find a spark of wisdom here and there ; it is all brought home, and suited to your hands in the word of God ; there is more wisdom to be gotten there for the guiding of your affairs and course of life in order to true happiness than by age and long experience you can possibly reach. Two ways doth this appear : —