5. When our sense of sins and miseries hath most recommended mercy to us, we should magnify it, both with respect to supplication and gratulation.
[l.j With respect to supplication. When we are under fears and discouragements, we should oppose and set these great and tender mercies in the balance against our doubts and fears. Our sins are many, our troubles great, yet let us not be discouraged from praying, and making our supplication to God ; for God will pardon a penitent people, and help a sensible supplicant. The more sensible of our misery, the fitter objects for mercy. What is it that troubleth us ? fear of not speeding with God in prayer ? You hear how soon he
1G6 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SER. CLXXV.
relenteth when you relent and lie at his feet ; for to what use cloth pardoning mercy serve but to encourage broken-hearted sinners ? ' We have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings.' Ben- hadad having lost the day, and in great fear of losing his life with his kingdom, his friends comforted him with the fame they had heard of Israel's kings, 1 Kings xx. 31. We know most certainly it is hard to raise up truly poor, downcast sinners, how presumptuous soever they have been before. God would have these by all means to be encouraged; so that though you have many objections from your unworthiness, the multitude and greatness of your sins. Or is it the power of men, and difficulty of our deliverance? God's mercy is beyond the proportion of their cruelty. The more violent and ungodly our oppressors are, the more hope of God's pity towards us: Ps. lxxxvi. 14, 15, '0 God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul, and have not set thee before them : but thou, 0 Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.'
[2.] Let us magnify it as to gratulation : Gen. xxxii. 10, ' I am not worthy of all the mercy,' &c. Less than the least of all thy mer- cies. Let us consider our unworthiness ; that God may have all the glory.
Use 2. To press us to be merciful : we should be like God, let us put on bowels of mercy: Col. iii. 12, ' Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering ; ' Luke vi. 36, ' Be ye therefore merci- ful, as your heavenly Father also is merciful.'
SERMON CLXXV.
Princes have persecuted me toithout a cause : but my heart standeth in awe of thy ivord, — Ver. 161.
In this verse we have — First, David's temptation. Secondly, The godly frame of his spirit. First, In David's temptation, take notice of —
1. The nature of it, it was a persecution.
2. The instruments of it, Saul, and the chief men about him, princes.
3. The malice and groundlessness of it, tvitliout a cause. Secondly, The godly frame of his heart, but my heart, &c. And
there we have —
1. The seat of his affection, my heart.
2. The kind of the affection, standeth in awe.
3. The object of it, the ivord of God.
First, With David's temptation I will not meddle any further than an introduction, or the necessity of an exposition enforceth me a little to reflect upon. And —
1. From the nature of it. Persecution is one of the ordinary trials of God's children. As God chasteneth them because they are no better.
VeR. 161.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 167
Isa. xxvii. 9, so the world persecuteth them because they are so good, John xv. 19. This ever hath been and ever will be the lot of God's children while there are two seeds in the world : Gen. iii. 15, ' And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.' And the apostle saith, Gal. iv. 29, ' But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, so it is now.' The first place speaketh of the antipathy between the church and its open opposites ; the second was in Abraham's family, and it is brought to comfort the true members of the Christian church against those persecutions which they sustained from the false apostles and such as adhered to the Jewish synagogue. Isaac was begotten by the power of God's Spirit, according to the tenor of the promise ; Ishmael by the ordinary strength of nature, a figure of the regenerate and unregenerate, John i. 13. Persecution is a thing common to the church in all ages, then and now ; therefore, as they grow worse, let us grow better ; and let us be content to take the ordinary way, by the cross, to come to the crown.
2. The instruments of his trouble were Saul and his chief men about him. The man of God had said, ' Many are my persecutors,' ver. 157 ; now he showeth they were not mean ones, and of the in- ferior sort, but such as by their power were able to crush him, such as by their place should be a refuge to him. I observe, the trial is the sorer when our trouble cometh not only from the basest of the people, but from the rulers themselves. No doubt a great part of the people followed Saul in his persecuting of David, yet the nobles most troubled him. In the primitive times, lapidibus nos invadit inimicum vtdgus — the base riff-raff were most ready to stone the Christians ; but this was mere brutish rage : a multitude, though they have power, yet they have no authority. But when the rulers were set against them, and persecuted them with edicts and punishments, then the greatest havoc was made of them. To see God's ordinance abused maketh the trial the more grievous. The godly should be defended by their governors, for therefore they are called the shields of the earth, Ps. xlix. 9. But now when they persecute them for righteousness' sake, it is a sore but no strange temptation. They may do so partly out of ignorance : 1 Cor. ii. 8, ' Which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory ; ' and partly out of prejudice and blind zeal ; so the corner-stone is refused by the builders, Ps. cxviii. 22, applied to Christ's persecutors: Acts iv. 11, ' The stone that was set at nought by you builders is become the head of the corner ;' and partly by the instigation of evil men. Wicked men labour to engage those who are in power against the people of God, and make them odious to them : Prov. xxix. 10, ' The bloodthirsty hate the upright.' Flattery giveth the first onset to the work of im- piety, Acts xxiv. 1-3. And partly because riches and power efferate men, swell them with pride, fill them with enmity against the ways of God : Ps. cxxiii. 4, ' Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and the contempt of the proud/ Well, then, let us not be dismayed though great men be prejudiced against us, and we have powerful enemies in church and state : Mat. x. 17, 18, ' But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and