1. How inseparable is the union between duty and privilege —
[The self-depending formalist who dreads the mention of privilege, and the Antinomian professor who hates the mention of duty, are equally remote from the truth of God. Depend on God we must ; for it is he who must Vv'ork all our works in us. And obey his law we must : for " without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Neither can supersede the other. To the Anti- nomian then I say, " Let the word of God abide in you ; and " let it dwell in you richly in all wisdom." And to the Formalist I say. Look unto God to begin, and carry on, the whole work of grace in your hearts ; for without him you can do nothing. Let both of you know, that both confidence in God, and obe- dience to him, are necessary : it is only by a reliance on him that you can obtain strength for obedience ; and it is only by obedience that you can prove the sincerity of your faith and love. *' What therefore God has joined together, let no man attempt to put asunder."]
David's distress and consolation.
Ps. xxxviii. 1 — 9. 0 Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure: for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no sound- ness in my flesh hecaiise of thine anger ; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head; as an heavy burthen, they are too heavy for me. My wounds slink and are corrupt, be- cause of my foolishness. I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filed with a lothcsome disease ; arid there is no sound- ness in my flesh. I am feeble, and sore broken : I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.
IT will be of great use to us through life to trea- sure up in our minds the dealings of God with us on some particular occasions. As his care over us in our difficulties may well call for " a stone of remem- brance, which shall be called our Eben-ezer," so his merciful attention to us at the first commencement of our humiliation before him may well be written in indelible characters upon our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah, looking back to some season of peculiar distress, records his experience in terms of lively gratitude'': and, in like manner, David opens to us all his views and feelings when he sought the Lord after a season of darkness and distress ; and he tells us that this psalm was written by him " to bring to remembrance" the troubles he then endured, and the tender mercies of God towards him.
From the part we have just read, we shall be led to consider,
I. His distress — This was exceeding great. — Let us notice, 1 . The source and cause of it —
[He traces it to sin as its proper cause'' : and sin is the true
and only source of all trouble Sin is an object of God's
abhorrence; and wherever it exists unlaniented and dominant, he
will * Lam. iii. I— 4, 12, 13, 17— 21. ''ver.3, 4, 5.