3. Do you hope of repentance hereafter, but in the meantime ye run a desperate hazard to leave the soul at pawn in Satan's hands ? It is not easy work to get it out again. Who would poison himself upon a presumption that before it cometh to his heart he shall meet with an antidote ? Judicial hardness is laid on them that withstand seasons of grace : Isa. lv. 6, ' Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near;' Prov. i. 24-26, ' Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded, but ye have set at nought all my counsels, and would none of my reproofs ; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh;' Luke xiv. 24, 'None of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper.'
4. The heart is more hardened the longer you continue in this course : Heb. iii. 13, ' But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.' Inveterate diseases are seldom cured ; a tree that hath long stood, and begun to wither, is unfit to be transplanted : Jer. xiii. 23, ' Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.'
5. There is a stint and measure as to nations : Gen. xv. 16, ' The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.' Persons, vessels of mercy, vessels of dishonour : Kom. ix. 22, 23, ' What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-
VER. 155.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 155
suffering the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction ; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared unto glory ? ' Meet for heaven, ripe for hell. Saints like a shock of corn in season ; so when sinned enough, then away to hell.
But this exhortation is like to be lost, because nobody will apply it ; let us see, then, the character of wicked men.
Secondly, ' They seek not thy statutes.'
Doct. They are wicked men who seek not God's statutes.
Here I must inquire —
1. What it is to seek God's statutes.
2. Show why they are wicked that do not seek them. First, What it is to seek God's statutes ? There —
1. The object or thing sought is God's statutes, those rules and counsels which he hath given us to guide us in our service of himself, and pursuit of true happiness. These are all enforced by his authority, and enacted as laws and statutes, which we cannot transgress without violation and contempt of his authority. Now, he saith ' statutes ' indefinitely, because they must all be regarded without exception, for they all stand upon the same authority. It is said of Ezra, that good scribe, Ezra x. 7, ' That he prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it ; ' that is, to be thoroughly informed of, and to practise whatsoever was enjoined in the law of God ; so must we prepare our hearts to do all. And because our Christian law is broader, and compriseth gospel too, which is the law of faith, we must take care of all which God hath given us in charge, and all that is adopted into our rule of faith and repentance, as well as moral duties , and because there are minutula legis, and (3apvrepa vo/jLov, therefore our chief care must be about the weighty things ; and those of greater moment must be sought most earnestly. Therefore it is said, Mat. vi. 33, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof ; ' these concern the change of our estate.
2. The act of seeking. The word implieth earnest and constant endeavour : I seek for that which I mind and pursue with all my heart, and use all means that I may obtain it, till I do obtain or find it. Thus we are bidden to seek that which is good : Amos v. 14, ' Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live ; ' and Zeph. ii. 2, ' Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgments : seek righteousness, seek meekness ; it may be ye shall be hid in the clay of the Lord's anger.' So Christ : John v. 30, ' I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father, which hath sent me.' And here the Psalmist speaketh of seeking God's statutes.
[1.] It implieth earnest endeavour (for a man's heart is upon what he seeketh), that it be the business of our lives, not a thing done by the by, but our epyov, our work to please God, and to this all other things must give way. Many think it is a foolish thing for them to trouble their heads with matters of religion, and to lay bands of strictness upon themselves ; but it must not only have its turn and respect among other affairs, but be indeed as the great affair of our lives. There is no business of such weight and necessity, because the saving of our souls lieth on it ; and therefore it must be followed in good