Use 1. To press you to get this bent of heart, otherwise all your labour in religion will be in vain, every difficulty will pnt you out of the way, and make you think of a revolt from God ; till this the work of grace is not begun. God's first gift is a new heart : Ezek. xxxvi. 26, * A new heart also will I give unto you, and a new spirit will I put within you.' Without this you can never hold out, but you will bo uncertain and nnitable in the profession of godliness ; whatever restraints are upon you for a time, sin will be breaking out ever and anon with violence ; and at length men will ' return with the dog to the vomit, and with the sow to her wallowing in the mire,' 2 Peter ii. 20. Oh ! then, go to God for it : Jer. xvii. 10, say, * Heal me, 0 Lord, and I shall be healed ; save me, and I shall be saved.' Carry forth the work of God so far as you receive it ; follow after
VeR. 112.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 153
to 'apprehend that for which we are apprehended of Christ,' Phil, iii. 12.
Use 2. Have we such a heart, a heart inclined to do the will of God?
1. Though there be such a bent and inclination, there will he failings, yea, reluctances and oppositions : Piom. vii. 18, ' To will is present with me, yet how to perform that which is good I find not.' Tiiere is a ready will asserted, and a weak discharge complained of. Observe, it is a will, not a wish ; a weak discharge ; not that nothing is done, but not all that good that is required, nor in that purity; the work doth not perfectly answer tlie will, nor the motions of the spirit by which it is excited ; and mark, this weakness is not rested in, but complained of ; and not only complained of, but resisted : ' I find not,' that implieth he sought it ; for the word ' finding' implieth a diligent search ; he laid about him on every side, he did not expect it should come by chance or a lazy inquiry.
2. If wrought : —
[1.] How was it wrought in you ? Did God turn thee, and thou wast turned ? Were you ever brought to self-resignation ? By what steps was this work carried on ? Thy heart was naturally wedded to thy lusts and to carnal vanity ; did ever God make you see the odious- ness of sin, the vanity of the creature, the insufficiency of self ? Evil men seek contentment in the world as long as conscience will let them hold out in that way. You cannot cleave to God till you are rent off from the world and self. Was there ever such a separation ? such a rending work ? Conversion, or the altering the bent of the heart, lieth in three things — in turning from the creature to Gf)d, from self to Christ, from sin to holiness, How to God? By making us a willing people, to yield up ourselves to his service. How drawn from self to Christ ? To seek all this good in him. How from sin to holiness? By seeing tlie beauty of God's ways. Paul found it a sensible work before he was brought to this self-resignation ; Acts ix. 6, ' Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' How did God draw you or drive you to this ?
[2.] How is this bent of heart kept up towards God ? Nature \f> apt to recoil, and the heart to return to its own bent and bias again. David beggeth, ver. 36, ' Incline my heart to thy testimonies.' It is a hard matter to keep up a bent of lieart towards God ; it will cost us much watching, striving, praying, to keep it fixed. The frame of man's heart is changeable and various, doth not always continue at the same pass ; and lust will waken, and be pressing and importunate ; deadness will creep upon us. The great business of the spiritual life is to keep the bent of the heart steady : neglected grace will suffer decay, and worldly vanities and listlessness and deadness to holy things will incroach upon the soul, and a gracious heart is much discomposed. As a needle that bendeth towards the pole may be jogged and put aside, though it cannot rest there, but turneth thither again, so the bent of the soul towards God may be much disordered, and we may lose much of our free spirit and ready mind, and grow uncomfortable and uncheerful in God's service, and it may cost us much sorrow and deep humiliation to get in frame again. A cold profession is easily
154 SERMOKs UPON rsALM cxix. [Ser. CXXIII.
maintained, but to keep up a spiritual inclination is the work of Labour and cost.
[3.] How dotli it work in you ? This bent of lieart is seen in two things : —
(1.) In pulling back the heart from those sins to which corrupt nature doth incline us. Nature carrieth us to carnal things. There is something within that puts you on, and something without to draw you forward. Nature thrusteth, occasion inviteth, but grace interposeth and checkcth the motion : Gal. v. 17, ' The s])irit lusteth against the flesh ; ' it is against the bent and inclination of the new nature ; there is a back bias. Joseph had a temptation ; we read of occasion in- viting, but not of nature inclining ; but presently his heart recoiled. The heart of man is seldom without these counterbuft's. It is an ad- vantage to have the new nature as ready to check as the old nature to urge and solicit : 1 John iii. 9, ' He cannot sin, for his seed remaineth in him.'