4. As the upright, so their upright life and duties are specially delightful and acceptable to God, Prov. xv. 8. The prayer of the upright is his delight, Psal. xv. 2. Therefore God blesseth their duties to them, and they are comforted and strengthened by experience of success. "The way of the Lord is strength to the upright, but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity," Prov. x. 29. "Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly," Micah ii. 7.
5. No carnal policies, no worldly might, no help of friends, nor any other human means, doth put a man in so safe a state, as uprightness of heart and life. To walk uprightly, is to walk surely, because such walk with God, and in his way, and under his favour, and his promise; and if God be not sufficient security for us, there is none. "Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence," Psal. cxl. 13. "The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness," Prov. xi. 3, 6.
6. Lastly, the failings and weaknesses of the upright are pardoned, and therefore they shall certainly be saved, Rom. vii. 24, 25; viii. 1. The upright may say in all their weaknesses as Solomon; "I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness; as for me, in the uprightness of my heart, I have willingly offered all these things," 1 Chron. xxix. 17. "God will do good to them that are good, and to them that are upright in their hearts," Psal. cxxv. 4. The upright love him, Cant. i. 4, and are loved by him. "No good thing will he withhold from them," Psal. lxxxiv. 11. The way to right comforting the mind of man, is to show to him his uprightness, Job xxxiii. 23. "And whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved," Prov. xxviii. 18. "For the high way of the upright is to depart from evil; and he that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul," Prov. xvi. 17. I conclude with Psal. xxxvii. 37, "Mark the upright man, and behold the just, for the end of that man is peace."
II. The true rules of an upright life are these that follow.
1. He that will walk uprightly must be absolutely devoted and subjected unto God: he must have a God, and the true God, and but one God; not notionally only, but in sincerity and reality: he must have a God whose word shall be an absolute law to him; a God that shall command himself, his time, his estate, and all that he hath, or that he can do; a God whose will must be his will, and may do with him what he please; and who is more to him than all the world; whose love will satisfy him as better than life, and whose approbation is his sufficient encouragement and reward.[1]
2. His hope must be set upon heaven as the only felicity of his soul: he must look for his reward and the end of all his labours and patience in another world; and not with the hypocrite, dream of a felicity that is made up first of worldly things, and then of heaven, when he can keep the world no longer. He that cannot, that doth not in heart, quit all the world for a heavenly treasure, and venture his all upon the promise of better things hereafter, and forsaking all, take Christ and everlasting happiness for his portion, cannot be upright in heart or life.[2]
3. He must have an infallible teacher (which is only Christ) and the encouragement of pardoning grace when he faileth, that he sink not by despair; and therefore he must live by faith on a Mediator. And he must have the fixed principle of a nature renewed by the Spirit of Christ.[3]
4. He that will walk uprightly, must have a certain, just, infallible rule; and must hold to that, and must try all by it; and this is only the word of God. The teachings of men must be valued as helps to understand this word; and the judgments of our teachers, and those that are wiser than ourselves, must be of great authority with us in subordination to the Scripture. But neither the learned, nor the godly, nor the great, must be our rule in co-ordination with the word of God.[4]