2. What encouragement they have to apply themselves unto the Lord.
First, Who are those that are right for the main, and whose sins are infirmities, such as David's are represented to be here in this text ? (for I will go no further than the text). To represent that in five things: —
1. Such as have a conscience, an aweful sense of their duty : ' I do not forget thy precepts.' He had transgressed some of God's com- mandments, but still he had a sense of his duty ; that was kept alive in his heart, that awakened him to return again to the Lord.
2. Such as have a habitual will to keep the commandment of God, though there be failings ; as David, when he asks for his servant, ' Seek thy servant,' he acknowledged his duty still. God's children may sometimes go astray, but not totally and finally ; they never fall so but there remains something that maintains God's interest in the soul : 1 John iii. 9, ' He that is born of God doth not commit sin,' he cannot sin, &c. He doth not sin so as to lie in sin ; the seed of God still remains, and so is more easily reclaimed than others. Look, as in Nebuchadnezzar's vision there was represented a tree that was to be cut down by the watchman, but yet the stump of the roots remained in the earth, Dan. iv. 23, that is in his melancholy, when he crept on all four, like beasts (I suppose there was not a transformation into a beast), he did lodge in the forest among beasts, and ate their kind of food ; yet there was a stump of this great tree that should bud and scent again, there was a stock of human nature that should recover and show itself again ; so here, though a child of God behave himself like a brute beast, and be mastered by his sense, yet the root of the matter is still in him ; there is something that will put forth itself again. Or as a spinster leaves a lock of wool to draw on the next thread, so there is something left ; they do not wholly cast off the fear of God, nor the yoke. No ; their souls are habitually bent to please God more than they are to sin : 'I am thy servant.'
3. As here is a conscience of his duty, and a habitual will to serve God, so here is a broken-hearted confession of his error : ' I have gone astray like a lost sheep ; ' and so a repentance of the sin committed.
310 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SER. CXO.
It is grievous to a child of God in the remembrance of it ; the sin is thereby more mortified and subdued.
4. Here is an unfeigned desire to return to his duty, and grace humbly sought that he may be set in joint again : ' Lord, seek thy servant/ He would not remain in this condition still ; his desire was to do the will of God, and to live in no neglect ; and therefore he complains of his straying disposition, and would fain have it cured : 'Lord, seek thy servant.'
5. The conscience of his sincerity was not wholly lost. Mark, not only the conscience of his duty, but of his sincerity; for he prays still to be sought as a sheep belonging to the fold. I am thine, though I am gone astray : John x. 3, ' The sheep hear his voice.' Now this evidence was yet left, I am, Lord, thy servant, and I do not forget thy precepts. He was willing to hear the voice of God. In grievous falls it is otherwise. If a man fall grievously (this doth not relate to any grievous fall), then all were to begin anew. That robs all our peace ; as David, ' Lord, create in me a clean heart,' Ps. li. 10. After his grievous fall he speaks as if all was lost. David here professeth still his devotedness to God as his servant, his love and respect to his law as his rule ; he could own such a thing in it ; it was an evil that annoyed him, but it had not rifled his peace.
Secondly, To speak of the encouragement that we have to go to God if this be our case, as the man of God here desires the Lord to seek him out, and to bring him again into the right way. Those that have gone astray, yet should not keep off, but run to their shepherd : ' Seek thy servant.' Why ?
1. We have a shepherd that loves us, whereof he hath given full proof and demonstration in that he died for us : John x. 11, ' I am the good shepherd, that lay down my life for the sheep.' He is not only the great shepherd, as called sometimes, but the good shepherd gave his life in a way of ransom to expiate our sins. When he came to seek and save that which was lost, his first work was to redeem them by his blood. If he could find in his heart to redeem us by his blood, and expiate all our faults, he will recover us.