2. In obedience. The weakness of our faith and dependence necessarily inferreth that they that do not trust God cannot be long true to him : James i. 8, Sfyvxps dtcaTacrTaTos, ' A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways/ Sometimes when we are soul-sick, we mourn and complain of sin, and seem to have a passionate hatred of sin ; at other times, when the fit is over, we give it harbour and enter- tainment, and embrace our Delilah again ; whereas the same reasons that once made us hate sin should still make us hate it, for sin is sin still. The scripture doth not one while condemn it, and another while allow it ; but we are not swayed by our rule, but act as we are inclined by our changeable affections, and therefore complain of sin to-day, and commit it to-morrow, and lick up our vomit again. So for duty : Hosea vi. 4, ' Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away.' Nothing so fickle and changeable as man in anything that is good, so vain and inconstant are we in our motions and devotion ; pangs that can no more endure a trial than the morn- ing cloud and early dew can endure the heat of the rising sun ; it cometh by fits.
3. In our opinions and professions, how do we say and unsay, and build again the things we have destroyed, and destroy the things we have builded ; so that Ave know not where to have them, and are like children tossed to and fro, aud carried about with every wind of doctrine ! Eph. iv. 14, where are two metaphors ; they are compared to children for inconstancy in their choice, and to ships destitute of
VER. 152.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 117
skilful masters, tossed this way and that way with contrary winds and tides. So they with divers doctrines and opinions. Sometimes taken with one opinion, sometimes with another ; irepi^epoixevoi,, circled about by all the winds in the card. Is this becoming the constant unerring certainty of the scriptures ? It will be necessary for us to quit this childish temper ; God will not always bear with it in us, whatever he may do in babes ; therefore let us not receive the truth of God lightly and uncertainly, but fix ourselves in the knowledge, the love, and practice of the truths that are there commended to us : Gal. i. 6, 'I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.' This lightness is a disease incident to our natures, soon off, soon on ; that other gospelling, or pre- tence of a purer way.
Use 2. Is comfort to the people of God —
1. In all the particular changes that pass over our heads. Our estate and condition is many times changed, but God's word is no more changed than himself is changed ; all things shall come to ruin sooner than these foundations be overturned : Mat. v. 18, ' Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' The promises are still the same, even as God is : Mai. iii. G, ' For I am the Lord, I change not ; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.' And these mercies we should take comfort in : Heb. xii. 28, ' Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear/ So also 1 John ii. 17, 'And the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.'
2. In times of general confusion, when that which they apprehended to be right and a duty proveth a sin, when wickedness is established by a law : Ps. xciv. 20, ' Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law ? ' and all that is just and right seemeth to be perverted. There is a God in heaven, who will judge not according to the opinions of the times, but according to the reality of things revealed in his holy word. These ordinances of men shall be forced to give way to those eternal testimonies ; a duty in former times, a sin now.
3. Comfort against the encounters of violence, when we seem to be borne down with force, and have no hope. The testimonies of God are firm and steadfast, that none shall overthrow and frustrate them. They are but as the dashing of waves against a rock : Isa. xxviii. 15, ' When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us.'
4. It is a comfort in prayer ; so David useth it here. Yea and Amen, that relateth to our desires, as before.
Use 3. To persuade us to behave ourselves to the word of God as an unchangeable unerring rule.
1. To the directions and precepts of it. There are no other terms to be expected, but what God hath set down in the word ; there- fore frame yourselves to observe them, and be constant in this prac- tice, then will you have the everlasting comfort of it. Bind them upon your hearts : you must take up Christ's yoke one time or other ;