how loving soever the spirit of life be, it will not stay in a diseased soul. My soul is loath to go from my body, but sickness and pain will driye it out; so will sin, the spirit of life from my soul. God compasses us with songs of deliverance, we are sure he would not leave us; but he compasses us with cries too, we are afraid, we are sure, that we may drive him from us. Pray we therefore our Lord of everlasting goodness, that he will be our hiding-place, that he will protect us from temptations incident to our several callings, that he will preserve us from troubles, preserve us from them, or preserve us in them, preserve us, that they come not, or preserve us that they overcome not; and that he will compass us, so as no enemy find overture unto us, and compass us with songs, with a joyful sense of our perseverance, but yet with cries too, with a solicitous fear, that that multiplicity and heinousness of our sins may weary even the incessant and indefatigable Spirit of comfort himself, and chase him from us.

SERMON LIX.

PREACHED UPON THE PENITENTIAL PSALMS.

PSALM XXXii. 8.

I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye.

any

THIS verse, more than other in the Psalm, answers the title of the Psalm. The title is, David's Instruction; and here in the text it is said, I will instruct thee, and teach thee, in the way thou shalt go. There are eleven Psalms that have that title, Psalms of Instruction; the whole book is Sepher Tehillim, The Book of Praises; and it is a good way of praising God, to receive instruction, instruction how to praise him. Therefore doth the Holy Ghost return so often to this catechistical way, instruction, institution, as to propose so many Psalms, expressly under that title purposely to that use. In one of those, the manner how instruc

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tion should be given, is expressed also; it must be in a loving manner, for the title is Canticum Amorum', A Song of Love for Instruction. For Absque prudentia, et benevolentia, non sunt perfecta consilia: True instruction is a making love to the congregation, and to every soul in it; but it is but to the soul. And so when St. Paul said, He was mad for their sakes, Insanicit amatoriam insaniam, says Theophylact, St. Paul was mad for love of them, to whom he writ his holy love letters, his epistles. And thereupon do the Rabbins call this Psalm, Leb David, cor Davidis, The opening and pouring out of David's heart to them, whom he instructs. We have no way into your hearts, but by sending our hearts. The poet's counsel is, Ut ameris, ama, If thou wouldst be truly loved, do thou love truly; the Holy Ghost's precept upon us is, Ut credaris, crede, That if we would have you believe, we believe ourselves. It is not to our eloquence that God promises a blessing, but to our sincerity, not to our tongue, but to our heart: all our hope of bringing you to love God, is in a loving and hearty manner to propose God's love to you. The height of the spouse's love to Christ, came but to that, I am sick of love: the love of Christ went farther, to die for love. Love is as strong as death; but nothing else is as strong as either; and both, love and death, met in Christ. How strong and powerful upon you then should that instruction be, that comes to you from both these, the love and death of Christ Jesus? and such an instruction doth this text exhibit, I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye. God so loved the world, as that he sent his Son to die; the Son being dead so loved the world, as that he returned to that world again; and being ascended, sent the Holy Ghost to establish a church, and in that church, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world, shall that Holy Spirit execute this catechistical office, He shall instruct thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, he shall guide thee with his eye.

Though then some later expositors have doubted of the person, who doth this office, to instruct, who this I in our text is, because the Hebrew word Le David, is as well Daridis, as Daridi, An

1 Psalm XLV. Title.

* Bernard.

3 Cant. ii. 5.

instruction from David, as an instruction to David, and so the catechist may seem to be David, and no more; yet since this criticism upon the word, Le David, argues but a possibility that it may, and not a necessity that it must be so, we accompany St. Hierome, and indeed the whole body of the fathers, in accepting this instruction from God himself, it is no other than God himself that says, I will instruct thee, &c. No other than God himself can undertake so much as is promised in this text. For here is first, a rectifying of the understanding, I will instruct thee, and in the original there is somewhat more than our translation reaches to; it is there, Intelligere faciam te, I will make thee understand. Man can instruct, God only can make us understand. And then it is Faciam te, I will make thee, thee understand; the work is the Lord's, the understanding is the man's: for God does not work in man, as the devil did in idols, and in pythonissis, and in centriloquis, in possessed persons, who had no voluntary concurrence with the action of the devil, but were merely passive; God works so in man, as that he makes man work too, faciam te, I will make thee understand; that that shall be done shall be done by me, but in thee; the power that rectifies the act is God's, the act is man's; Faciam te, says God, I will make thee, thee, every particular person, (for that arises out of this singular and distribute word, Thee, which threatens no exception, no exclusion) I will make every person, to whom I present instruction, capable of that instruction, and if he receive it not, it is only his, and not my fault. And so this first part is an instruction de credendis, of such things, as by God's rectifying of our understanding, we are bound to believe. And then in a second part, there follows a more particular instructing, Docebo, I will teach thee, and that in via, in the way; it is not only de via, to teach thee, which is the way, that thou mayest find it, but in via, how to keep the way, when thou art in it; he will teach thee, not only ut gradiaris, that thou mayst walk in it, and not sleep, but quomodo gradieris, how thou mayst walk in it, and not stray; and so this second part is an institution de agendis, of those things, which, thine understanding being formerly rectified, and deduced into a belief, thou art bound to do. And then in the last words of the text, I will guide thee with mine eye, there is a

third part, an establishment, a confirmation, by an incessant watchfulness in God; he will consider, consult upon us, (for so much the original word imports) he will not leave us to contingencies, to fortune, no nor to his own general providence, by which all creatures are universally in his protection, and administration, but he will ponder us, consider us, study us; and that with his eye, which is the sharpest, and most sensible organ and instrument, soonest feels, if anything be amiss, and so inclines him quickly to rectify us; and so this third part is an instruction de sperandis, it hath evermore a relation to the future, to the constancy and perseverance, of God's goodness towards us; to the end, and in the end, he will guide us with his eye: except the eye of God can be put out, we cannot be put out of his sight, and his care. So that, both our freight which we are to take in, that is, what we are to believe concerning God; and the voyage which we are to make, how we are to steer and govern our course, that is, our behaviour and conversation in the household of the faithful; and then the haven to which we must go, that is, our assurance of arriving at the heavenly Jerusalem, are expressed in this chart, in this map, in this instruction, in this text, I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye. And when you have done all this, believed aright, and lived according to that belief, and died according to that life, in the last voice, surgite, you shall find a venite, as soon as you are called from the dust of the grave, you shall Enter into your Master's joy, and be no more called servants, but friends, no more friends, but sons, no more sons, but heirs, no more heirs, but co-heirs with the only Son of God, no more co-heirs, but idem Spiritus, the same Spirit with the Lord.

First then, the office which God by his blessed Spirit, through us, in his church, undertakes, is to instruct. And this being done so by God himself, God sending his Spirit, his Spirit working in his ministers, his ministers labouring in his church, it is strange that St. Paul speaking so, in the name of God, and his Spirit, and his ministers, and his church, should be put to entreat his hearers, to suffer a word of exhortation. ye, brethren, suffer a word of exhortation.

J Heb. xiii. 22.

Yet he is; I beseech

And the strangeness

of the case is exalted in this, that the word there is Tаρакλnσéws, Solatii, and so the Vulgate reads it, and justly, Ut sufferatis terbum solatii, I beseech ye to suffer a word of comfort. What will ye hear willingly, if ye do not willingly hear words of comfort? With what shall we exercise your holy joy and cheerfulness, if even words of comfort must exercise your patience? And yet we must beseech you to suffer, even our words of comfort; for, we can propose no true comfort unto you, but such as carries some irksomeness, some bitterness with it; we can create no true joy, no true acquiescence in you, without some exercise of your patience too. We cannot promise you peace with God, without a war in yourselves, nor reconciliation to him, without falling out with yourselves, nor eternal joy in the next world, without a solemn remorse for the sinful abuses of this. We cannot promise you a good to-morrow, without sending ye back to the consideration of an ill yesterday; for your hearing to-day is not enough, except ye repent yesterday. But yet, though with St. Paul we be put to beseech you, ut sufferatis, That ye would suffer instruction, though we must sometimes exercise your patience, yet it is but verbum instructionis, a word of instruction; and though instruction be increpation, (for as the word is solatium, comfort, so we have told you it is, it is increpation too, for all true comfort hath increpation in it) yet it may easily be suffered because it is but verbum, but a word, a word and away. We would not dwell upon increpations, and chidings, and bitternesses; we would pierce but so deep as might make you search your wounds, when you come home to your chamber, to bring you to a tenderness there, not to a paleness or blushing here. We never stay so long upon denouncing the judgments of God, but that we would, as fain as you, be at an end of that paragraph, of that period, of that point, that we might come into a calm, and into a lee-shore, and tell you of the mercies of God in Christ Jesus. You may suffer instruction, though instruction be increpation, for it is but a word of instruction, we have soon done; and you may suffer, them because they are but verba, not verbera, they are but words, and not blows. It is not traditio Satana, a delivering you up to Satan, it is not the confusion of face, nor consternation of spirit, nor a jealousy and suspicion of God's