2. Another grace is a fear of God and his word. A fear of God : Prov. viii. 13, ' The fear of the Lord is to depart from evil ;' Job i. 1, * Job feared God, and eschewed evil' Surely a fear of God will make you refrain yourselves from every evil way. And not only so, but a fear of his Avord, that is useful : Prov. xiii. 12, ' He that feareth a commandment shall be rewarded.' It is not said he that fears a judg- ment, but he that fears a commandment. If the word stands in his way, it is more than if all the inconveniences in the world stand in his way. This also should be improved by holy reasoning and discourse. Yon may reason as Joseph : The Lord seeth me, and ' how can I do this wickedness and sin against God ? ' Gen. xxxix. 9. Shall I break the Lord's laws before his face ? What ! when my heavenly father hath forbidden me ? The sons of Jonadab the son of Piechab, Jer. xxxiv. 5, 6, they were afraid to drink wine when the prophet brought pots before them. No, we dare not ; our father hath commanded us the contrary. Their father was dead, and could not take cognisance of their actions, to call them to account for breaking the rule of the institution ; but there was an awe upon them. But our Father's eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Therefore when you are tempted to sin and folly, say, I dare not ; God hath commanded me in his word to the contrary. Set fear a-work ; here is a command- ment stands in my way ; the great God he sees all things, and will one day call us to an account.
The two duties into which these graces do run and issue themselves are watchfulness and resistance. Watchfulness ; we are poor creatures, in the midst of snares, very easily may miscarry, partly through our constitution ; there is flesh as well as spirit, and the flesh doth always stir, and not lie idle. Old sins, that seemed to be laid asleep, may easily waken again. The devil suits the bait to the season and affec- tions we are under, as angels furnish their hook with a proper bait. Oh ! saith Bernard, here are fears, there snares ; that which pleases is apt to tempt me, that which frightens is apt to terrify me. What should a poor creature do ? Be watchful, stand upon your guard, that you be not surprised by the craft of Satan, that you may not swallow the hook when he sets the bait to your appetite. And then powerful resistance of evil, that sin may not prevail, and we more and more drawn off from God. Do not yield a little ; smaller sins make way for greater ; when the gap is once open, it is wider and wider ; if sin be not stifled at first, it will increase.
I
36 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CVIIT.
SERMON CVIII.
Ihave not deparled from thy juclqmenis : for thou hast tcmcjht me. —
'Ver. 102.
In the former verse he had spoken of his vif^ilancy against evil, as the result of that wisdom which he got by the word ; now he speaketh of Ins constant adherence to God's direction. Here you may take notice of two things — (1.) David's exactness and constancy in obedience, / have not departed from thy judgments. (2.) The reason of it, /or thou hast taught me.
Branch 1. By misphalim, judgments, is meant God's law, for there- by he will judge the world. And the word departed not intimateth both his exactness and constancy ; his exactness, that he did not go an hair's-breadth from his direction : Deut. v. 32, ' Ye shall observe to do what the Lord your God hath commanded you : ye shall not turn aside to the right liand or to the left.' And his constancy is employed in it ; for then we are said to depart from God and his law when we fall off from him in judgment and practice, Jer. xxxii. 40.
Branch 2. God's institution and continual instincts. The Septua- gint, evofiodkrr]ad<; /xe ; and thence the vulgar. Legem jjosuisti mihi — thou hast given me that law ; and so the reason would be drawn from God's autliority ; but rather it is meant of his internal illumination and constant direction. Observe —
1. A man that would show love to the word must show it by a constant and exact adherence to the directions thereof, whatever temptations he meet with to the contrary. David produceth this as one evidence of that affection in the first verse of this section or part : ' Oh, how I love thy law !' I shall show you —
1. What temptations there are to the contrary.
2. A¥hat reason there is to be exact and constant. First, What temptations to the contrary.
1. From the natural instability of our own hearts ; nothing is so changeable as man. We have certain heats for the present, but we soon cool again ; and when temptations arise, are carried off from God, and that exactness and care that we were wont to show in our obed- ience to him. What was said of Reuben is true of every man in some degree, Gen. xlix. 4, ' Unstable as water.' It is carried hither and thither, in various and uncertain motions. So are we up and down, off and on, ebbing and flowing, not steadfast in any good frame ; some- times seen to have strong motions towards God and holiness, but anon grow cold and careless, or as a bird is now upon the top of a tree, by and by upon the under branches, and then upon the ground. Such a different posture or spirit may every one observe in himself, and some- times in the same duty. God is always the same, and so are his ways ; they have the same loveliness which they had before, but we are not always the same. The rock standeth where it did, but the waters flow to and again. The least blast of a temptation maketh us break olf our course. Now this natural levity of spirit is a great hindrance to us. We do not always sec with the same eyes, nor have we the