VeR. 133.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 397
selves headlong into an ocean. And so there is a difference between infirmities and iniquities, a failing out of ignorance and weakness, or some powerful temptation, and a running headlong into all ungodli- ness. God's children have their failings, but a burning desire to be freed from them, though others wallow in their sin without any care of a remedy. In one there is a failing in point of dutj^, in the other a rebellion. Take Judas and Peter ; both sinned against their Master ; the one denied, the other betrayed him ; the one denied him out of fear, the other betrayed him out of covetousness and greediness of gain ; the one plotted his death, the other was surprised on a sudden. There is a great deal of difference between purpose and a surprise ; the one wept bitterly, the other is given up to a raging despair. David did not make a trade of adultery, and bathe himself in filthy lusts. Noah was drunk, but not knowing the power of the juice of the grape. They dare not lie in this estate, but seek to get out l)y repentance.
[3.] Some things may beget caution, and move you to suspect your- selves ; that is, when your souls readily comply with the temptation, you are at sin's beck. If it saith, Go, you go ; if it saith, Come, you come. It is of great concernment to know what goes to the determin- ing a man's condition, to know at whose beck he is, whether he is at the flesh's or spirit's beck. Ps. ciii. 20, the godly are described that they hearken unto the voice of his word ; so the wicked are those that hearken to the voice of sin. If sin but make a motion, it is a match presently. If ambition bid Absalom rise up against his father, then he will trouble the whole kingdom, it will hurry him to run his father down ; if envy bid Cain kill his brother Abel, he will not stick at it ; if covetousness bid Achan take a bribe of that which was devoted to the flames, and must be offered as a burnt-offering to God, yet Achan obeys his covetousness ; if adultery bids Joseph's mistress tempt her servant, presently she yields. So when a sinner yields, and is led away like a fool to the correction of the stocks. Meadow ground may in a great flood be drowned, but marsh ground is overflown by every return of the tide ; so they cannot cease to sin, every temptation carries them away. When men are impatient of reproof, when they have a privy sore they cannot endure should be touched, if a man speak to them anything to help them on to interpret their condition. Herod must not have his Herodias touched, though he heard John the Baptist gladly in many things. Or when men set up a toleration and court of faculties in their hearts, and they will have a dispensa- tion : if God will be contented with obedience in some things, they will dispense with other things, pardon for some sins, but not break them oft" ; have an indulgence that they may continue in them, or in vain practices. This shows the reign of sin.
398 SERMONS UPON PSALM cxix. [Ser. CXLIX.
SEEMON CXLIX.
Deliver me from the oppression of man ; so will ITceep thy precepts. —
Ver. 134.
In tlie former verse, the man of God had beg<:^ed grace with respect to internal enemies, to the bosom enemy the flesh, that no sin might have dominion over him ; now he beggeth deliverance from external enemies. The saints are not only exercised with their own corruptions, but the malice of wicked men. We have to do both with sin and sinners, with temptations and persecutions ; and therefore he desireth first to be kept from siti, and after that from danger and trouble ; first from the dominion of sin, and then from the oppression of sinners. Both are a trouble to us ; they were a trouble to David ; and God can and will in time give us deliverance from both, deliver me from the oppression of man, &c.
In the text we have —
1. A prayer for mercy.
2. A resolution, vow, and promise of duty. The one is inferred out of the other, so loill I keep tMj precepts.
First, A prayer for mercy, ' Deliver me from the oppression of man.' In the Hebrew it is, from the oppression of Adam, the name of the first father, for the posterity. This term is put either by way of dis- tinction, aggravation, or diminution.
1. Man by way of distinction. There is the oppression and tyranny of the devil and sin ; but the Psalmist doth not mean that now. Hominum nan dwmonum, saith Hugo.
2. Man by way of aggravation. Homo homini hipus ; no creatures so ravenous and destructive to one another as man. It is a shame that one man should oppress another. Beasts do not usually devour those of the same kind, but usually a man's enemies are those of his own household, IMat. x. 36. The nearer we are in bonds of alliance, the greater the hatred. We are of the same stock, and reason should tell every one of us that we should do as we would be done to. Nay, we are of the same religion. Eodcm sanguine Christi glutinati. We are cemented together by the blood of Christ, which obliges to more brotherly kindness ; and if we differ in a few things, to be sure we have cords of alliance and relations enough to love one another more than we do. But for all this there is the oppression of man.