VeK. 104.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX, 53
tilings to come, this will work out that taste, the love, the sense we have of better things. Godly men, when they turn out to the content- ments of the flesh, they lose their taste, it becomes dead. This is a considerable loss as to the vitality of your graces ; for without a taste of good or evil, we shall neither eschew the evil, nor follow that which is good, with that serious constancy and diligence that is necessary. A man that hath tasted of the poison of asps, and the bitterness of the gall and wormwood that is in sin, will be afraid of it, Rom. vi. 21. So a man that hath tasted of the sweetness of communion with God in Christ, he is qidckened and carried on with life, courage, and con- stancy. That is a dreadful place, Heb. vi. 4, 5 ; the loss of their taste is a degree to final apostasy. Oh, how many lose their taste, their relish of Christ, the good word of God, the powers of the life to come, and are fallen foully, some forward into error, some backward into a licentious course, so that it is impossible to recover themselves by repentance 1
SERMON ex.
Through thy precepts I get imderstanding : therefore I hate every false loay. — Ver. 104.
In the former verse, the man of God had spoken of the pleasure that was to be had by the word, now of the profit of it. There is a great deal of pleasure to spiritual sense ; if we could once get our appetite, we should find a world of sweetness in it ; and there is as much profit as pleasure. As the pleasure is spiritual, so also is the profit to be measured by spiritual considerations. To escape the snares of the devil, and the dangers that waylay us in our passage to heaven, is a great advantage. Now the word doth not only warn us of our danger, but where it is received in the love of it, breedeth a hatred of all these things that may lead us into it : ' Through thy precepts I get under- standing : therefore I hate every false way.'
In which sentence, the prophet seems to invert the order set down, ver. 101. He had said, ' I refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word,' where the avoiding of evil is made the means of profiting by the word. Here his profiting by the word is made the cause of avoiding evil. In the one verse you have an account of his beginning with God, in the other of his progress.
In this verse there is —
1. The benefit he received by the word, and that is sound and saving l^noiuledge.
2. The fruit and effect which this knowledge produceth in his heart, therefore I hate every false ivay.
Mark, first, The firmness of this effect, / hate. He doth not say / abstain, but I hate.
Secondly, The note of universality, every.
Thirdly, The object, false ivay. It is not said evil way, but false way ; or, as it is in the original, ' every path of lying and falsehood.'
54 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CX.
Falsehood is either in point of opinion or practice. If you take it in the first sense, for falsehood in opinion, or error in judgment, or false doctrine, or false worship, this sentence holds good. Those that get understanding by the word are established against error ; and not only established against error, or against the embracing or profession of it, but they hate it.
1. They are established. All error cometh from ignorance, or else judicial blindness.
[1.] From ignorance, or unacquaintedness with the word of God; so Christ said to the Sadducees, ' Ye do err, not knowing the scrip- tures,' Mat. xxii. 29. When men study not the word, wliich is the rule of truth, no wonder if they lie open to every fancy ; they take up things hand over head, and by a fond credulity are led away by every suggestion presented to them. So it is said, 2 Peter iii. 16, that ' the unstable and unlearned wrest the scriptures to their own destruction.' By the unlearned, is meant not those that are unskilful in human literature, though that be a great help ; but those that are unskilful in the word of righteousness, poor deluded souls that lie under a great uncertainty.
[2.] Judicial blindness. For men that have great parts, and a pre- sumption of their own wit, are given up to be blinded by their own lusts ; and though tliey know the scriptures, yet they wrest them to speak according to the sense of their carnal interest, 1 Thes. ii. 12. And so they see not what they see, being given up to the witchery and enchantment of error : Gal. iii. 1, '0 foolish Galatians ! who hath be- witched you ? ' So that all false ways proceed from the want of reason and the pride of reason. The one is the cause of the simple's erring, who believeth every word ; the other of those that are knowing, and are otherwise of great parts, but they make their wit their idol, and so would be wise above the scriptures, or else are swayed by their own lusts. They do not fix themselves in the power, love, and practice of truths revealed in the scriptures, and so are given up to hellish delusions. Now, in this sense, I might speak with great profit of these words, especially now when so many errors are broached, and all the errors of Cliristianity come abreast to assault it at once ; and such changeable times as produce several interests, whereby men are blinded, and such levity in the professors of religion. Why, then, study the word with a teachable heart ; that is, renounc- ing your own wit, and giving up yourselves to God's direction, and practise what is plain, without being swayed with the profits and pleasures of the world, and you may come to know what is the mind of God. Men think all is uncertain in religion, and are apt to say with Pilate, 'What is truth?' John xviii. 38. No; the scriptures are not obscure, but our hearts are dark and blind with worldly lusts. Otherwise the counsel is plain, and you might say with David, ' Through thy precepts I get understanding ; therefore I hate every false way.'