m Ps. xix. 10.
which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified n." Certain I am that " it is profitable for all that your souls can desire ;" and that if you improve it aright, it shall render you perfect, thoroughly fur- nished unto all good works °," and shall " make you wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus p."]
n Acts xx. 32. o 2 Tim. iii. 17. p 2 Tim. hi. 15.
Ps. cxix. 30 — 32. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judg- ments have I laid before me. I have stuck unto thy testi- monies : O Lord, put me not to shame ! I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
EVERY thing which has an aspect of egotism is for the most part to be avoided ; or, at all events, it should be entered upon with extreme care, and be relinquished as soon as the occasion for it has ceased. Yet, whilst this rule is proper for private Christians, we have reason to be thankful that the Inspired Writers were under no necessity of submitting to it ; but that, on the contrary, they were constrained, by the powerful motions of the Holy Spirit, to record the secret workings of their hearts, and to develop the principles by which they were actuated in the divine life. What a treasure has in this view been committed to us in the Psalms of David ! In him we see what is the experience of God's saints in every age. In the very words which we have just read we may behold a Christian's mind :
I. His retrospective testimony —
We may take the words as declaring,
1. His deliberate choice —
[Whatever was his state in former life, he is now become a new creature : his former sins and errors he has utterly re- nounced ; and has determinately embraced the truth of God, even that truth which God has revealed in the Gospel of his Son. He knows that, as a sinner, he is justly obnoxious to God's heavy displeasure ; and that there is no hope for him,
but in that Saviour who died for him upon the cross
Hence, with the fullest conviction of his mind and the most