5. Wisdom is necessary: Col. iv. 6, 'Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer every man ;' that is, seasoned with the salt of holy and divine wisdom, that it may be savoury and acceptable to the hearers ; and both delight and edify. Without this holy skill and wisdom, how often is confer- ence turned into jangling or mere babbling !
G. Watchfulness and heed, otherwise corruption will break out in pride, in a vain ostentation of parts, passion in some heat of words, wTorldliness and sensuality in diverting from holy conference to that which is carnal and worldly, discontent in some, unseemly expressions of God's dealings with us, indiscretion and folly in a multitude of impertinent talk : Ps. cxli. 3, ' Set a watch, 0 Lord, before my mouth ; keep the door of my lips.' The tongue must be watched as well as the heart. All watching will be to little purpose unless God bridle and direct our tongue, that nothing break out to his dishonour. There must be a constant guard that nothing break from us that is unseemly.
Secondly, We come to the reason, ' For all thy commandments are righteousness.'
Boot. There is righteousness, nothing but righteousness, all right- eousness to be found in the word of God.
1. There is a perfect uprightness in all God's promises. They are sure principles of trust and dependence upon God : Ps. xviii. 30, ' The word of the Lord is tried ; he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.' He is most just and faithful, and his promises without all deceit or possibility of failing, and will certainly protect all those that rely and depend upon him.
2. As to his precepts, nothing is approved in them, or recommended to us, but what is holy, just, and good. There is no virtue which it commendeth not, no duty which it commandeth not, no vice which is not condemned therein, nor sin which is not forbidden.
I shall prove the doctrine by three things : —
1. By the sufficient provision that is made for man's duty. In a moraL
262 sermons upon psalm cxix. [Ser. CLXXXY.
consideration there are but three beings — God, neighbours, and self. Paul's three adverbs are suited to these, Titus ii. 12, ' soberly, right- eously, godly.'
[1.] For self-government, or living soberly in the present world, nothing conduceth to that more than God's precepts. The whole drift of his word is to check self-pleasing and sense-pleasing, and to condemn all excess of meat, drink, or apparel, lest onr hearts be besotted and overcharged, and, by indulging sensuality, diverted from spiritual and heavenly things.
[2.] For carriage to our neighbour. What religion provideth so amply as the word of God doth against all fraud and violence, requireth us in all things to do as we would be done by ? Yea, it not only enforceth justice, but charity, and to love our neighbour as ourselves, and to account his welfare our own, and rejoice in his good, and mourn for his evil, as for our own.
[3.] For the third, godliness. God is nowhere represented and discovered so much as in his word ; nor a way of commerce between him and us anywhere else so clearly established ; nor what kind of worship we should give unto him, both for matter and manner. In short, the scripture is written to teach us how to love him, and enter- tain communion with him, and to serve him in holiness and righteous- ness all our days ; and maketh our daily converse with God in holiness our great work and business.
2. It appeareth by the connaturality and suitableness which they have to the best and holiest : Ps. cxix. 140, ' Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.' It is written in our hearts as well as in God's book ; and there is something in the one akin to the other : Heb. viii. 10, ' I will write my law in their hearts and minds.' On the contrary, so far as a man is depraved, so far he hateth it, Rom. viii. 7 ; yea, the more he feareth it : John iii. 20, 21, ' He that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.'
3. The event showeth it ; for the more the word of God is preached, the more is righteousness spread in the world, and men grow wiser and better. Banish the word of God, or discourage the preachers of it, and there followeth nothing but confusion of manners and corrup- tion in religion. The word, then, is the only means of reforming the world, and curing the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Where either the word hath not been received, as among the pagans, or where it hath been restrained, as in Popery, scriptures locked up in an unknown tongue, or where neglected or sleepily urged, as in churches that have left their first love, there is a greater overflow of wickedness ; their ignorance hath caused a great part of them to dege- nerate into a more sensual, sottish sort of people.
Quest. But are not people very bad that have the scriptures ? Do not we ourselves complain of a flood of wickedness ?