have. " Luke xxi. 34. •" Gal. v. 17.
421.} HINDRAlSrCE OF WORLDLY VANITIES. 407
have found to their cost, that one sinful idea, which they have either seen in a book or picture, or heard in conversation, has abode with them tlu'ough Hfe, when they have greatly desired to forget it ; whilst hundreds of sermons which they would have been glad to have remembered, have passed from their minds like the early cloud. Behold David, the man after God's own heart ; What reason had he to curse the day that he ever looked upon
Bathsheba ! What reason too had Solomon's fool to
lament that ever he listened to the voice of the enchanting adulteress'' ! It is not without reason that Solomon advises us not to look upon the wine when sparkling in the glass '^. We must resist the very first entrance of sin into the soul ; for it will operate like fire on a house of wood. Alas ! " how great a matter does a little fire kindle^ !" Its progress is very rapid : and who shall stop the conflagration, when once it is begun ? *^ When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death ^" We exhort all then, like Solomon, to make a covenant with their eyes, and with their ears also, yea, and with the very imaginations of their heart ; that neither their corporeal nor intellectual eyes become ministers of sin, or traitors to their souls.]
We should cry earnestly to God for his effectual grace —
[God does and will preserve his people from evil, if they cry unto him. We should therefore call upon him both for his preventing and his quickening grace : we should pray, as David, *' Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity ; and quicken thou me in thy way."
There are many ways in which God will turn away our eyes *' from beholding vanity." He will, if we are really seeking it at his hands, keep temptation from us. And how much we are all indebted to him for this, we shall never know, till we come to the bar of judgment, and have all his mercies unfolded to our view. Thousands of our fellow-creatures, who were once as respectable in every point of view as ourselves, have in an hour of temptation so fallen, as to destroy all their own honour and happiness through life. And why have not we done the same ? Are we sure that we, if subjected to the same temp- tations as they, should not have done the same? Oh 1 if we are wise, we shall cry day and night, '' Lead us not into temptation." But there are many other ways in which God can, and does, impart the same blessing. Perhaps he lays some affliction upon our loins, and visits us with some personal or do- mestic calamity. We are apt on such occasions to complain of the affliction ; whereas, if we saw from what evils the visitation
was
■= Prov. vii. 6—23. * Prov. xxiii, 31, 32.
' Jam. iii. 5. ' Jam. i. 15.
408 PSALMS, Gxix. 37. [421.
was sent to deliver us, we should be adoring God for it as the richest of all mercies. Let our distress be either in body or mind, who will not bless God for it, if it be the means of weakening the influence of worldly objects on his soul, and of keeping his
eyes from beholding vanity ? —
But, in addition to this, we should cry to him also for his quickening grace. However active we may be in the pursuit of earthly things, we all are too sluggish in our heavenly course. Nine times in this psalm does David cry, " Quicken me ;" and ninety times nine do we need to renew the petition every day of our lives. Beg of God then to shew you more and more clearly the excellency of " his way" (even of that salvation which