Use 2. Exhortation.
1. Let this take us off from seeking things that have no continuance in them. The everlastingness of the word is opposed often to the transitory vanities of the world : 1 Peter i. 23-24, ' All flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass : the grass withereth, and the flower falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.' Why should we hunt after that glory that soon fadeth ? So 1 John ii. 17, ' The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.' All these things change, .and move up and down by divers circumrotations ; we sit fast and loose in the world, but in the covenant of grace all is sure.
2. Let us choose this word to live by, that we may be partakers of that everlasting good which cometh by it. Oh, let us regard it ! Eternity is concerned in it. If the righteousness of God be everlasting, let us begin betimes to get interested in it, and persevere in it to the end. Let us begin betimes, for we have but a few days to live here in the world, and so either to express our thankfulness or lay a foundation for our eternal hopes ; therefore let us set about the work the sooner. And let us persevere ; our care to keep this law must be perpetual, not like temporaries. Many will carry themselves well and godly for a while, but afterwards fall off ; this doth not become an everlasting law ; there is the same goodness in God's law that there was at first.
3. Let us comfort ourselves with the everlastingness of the privi- leges offered to us in God's word. The redeemed of the Lord should have an everlasting joy: Isa. xxxv. 10, 'And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.' Let other things end and change as they will, our right by the new covenant changeth not. Sometimes we are in request in the world, and sometimes in disgrace ; but God's love is everlasting and sure. We are not in with him to-day and out to- morrow ; he hath dealt with us upon sure and unchangeable terms ; nay, when you die, you may comfort yourselves in this, Ps. ciii. 17, 4 The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting, upon them that fear him, and his righteousness upon children's children.' Yea, not only in the changes of your outward condition is here an everlast- ing spring of comfort, but also in the ups and downs of your spiritual condition, and the clouds which now and then darken your comfort and hope in God. In a time of desertion we seem to be dead and cast off ; yet remember God loves to be bound for ever : 2 Sam. xxiii. 5,
8 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. CLIX.
1 Although my house be not so with. God, yet lie hath made an ever- lasting covenant.' Though we are not so punctual, exact, and faith- ful, but are subject to many errors and failings, yet God will mind his eternal covenant: Ps. Ixxxix. 33-34, ' Nevertheless my loving-kind- ness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail ; my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.' Death doth not dissolve it, nor desertions break it off.
Now for the second notion by which the word of God is expressed, ' thy law,' from whence observe —
Doct. That the word of God hath the nature and force of a law.
It is often so called in scripture ; not only the decalogue, which is the abridgment of all moral duties, but the whole scripture is God's law : Isa. li. 4, ' A law shall proceed from me ; ' and Ps. i. 2, ' His delight is in the law of God ; ' and the gospel is called ' the law of faith,' Rom. iii. 28. Here I shall show you how necessary it was that God should give man a law, both as .we are considered apart, and with respect to community ; and then show that the word hath the force of a law.
1. Consider man apart. Surely the reasonable creature, as it is a creature, hath a superior to whose providence and ordering it is sub- ject. So all the creatures have a law, by which the bounds of their motion are fixed and limited : Ps. clxviii. 6, ' He hath established them for ever and ever; he hath made a decree which shall not pass ; ' Prov. viii. 29, ' He gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment.' The sun, moon, and stars are under a law ; all the creatures are balanced in a due proportion, and guided and fixed in their tract and course by an unerring hand, which is a kind of law to them. As a creature, man is subject to the direction of God's providence, as other creatures are; but as a reasonable creature, he is capable of moral government ; for so he hath a choice of his own, a power of refusing evil and choosing good. Other creatures are ruled by a rod of iron, necessitated to what they do by an act of God's power and sovereignty ; but man, being a voluntary agent, is governed by laws which may direct and oblige him to good, and warn and drive him from evil. This law was at first written upon man's nature, and that was sufficient while he stood in his integrity to guide him and enable him to serve and please God in all things pro- pounded to him. The law written on the heart of man was his rule and principle. But that being obliterated by the fall, it was needful- that God should give a new law, to guide man to his own blessedness, and to keep him from erring. The internal principle of righteousness being lost, the laws of men could not be sufficient, for they have another end, which is the good of human society. They aim not at such a supernatural end as the enjoyment of God ; their laws reach no further than the ordering of men's outward conversations, and meddle not with the inward workings and motions of the heart, of which they can take no cognisance. These may be inordinate, do a great deal of mischief ; therefore, as the wise God directed men to give laws to order men's actions, so he would himself give laws to order the heart, which man cannot reach. Lay all these together, and there is a necessity that God should give a law to man.