Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/560

552 1. ALEPH. LESSED are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the. 2. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart. 3. They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.

The psalmist here shows that godly people are happy people: they are, and shall be, blessed indeed. Felicity is the thing we all pretend to aim at and pursue; he does not say here wherein it consists; it is enough for us to know what we must do and be, that we may attain to it, and that we are here told. All men would be happy, but few take the right way; God has here laid before us the right way, which we may be sure will end in happiness, though it be strait and narrow. Blessednesses are to the righteous; all manner of blessednesses.

Now observe the characters of the happy people. They are happy,

1. Who make the will of God the rule of all their actions, and govern themselves, in their whole conversation, by that rule; they walk in the law of the Lord, v. 1. God's word is a law to them, not only in this or that particular instance, but in the whole course of their conversation; they walk within the hedges of that law, which they dare not break through, by doing any thing it forbids; and they walk in the paths of that law, which they will not trifle in, but press forward in them toward the mark, taking every step by rule, and never walking at all adventures. This is walking in God's ways, (v. 3.) the ways which he has marked out to us, and has appointed us to walk in. It will not serve us to make religion the subject of our discourse, but we must make it the rule of our walk; we must walk in his ways, not in the way of the world, or of our own hearts, Job xxiii. 10, 11.—xxxi. 7.

2. Who are upright and honest in their religion; Undefiled in the way; not only who keep themselves pure from the pollutions of actual sin, unspotted from the world, but who are habitually sincere in their intentions; in whose spirit there is no guile; who are really as good as they seem to be, and row the same way as they look.

3. Who are true to the trust reposed in them, as God's professing people. It was the honour of the Jews, that to them were committed the oracles of God; and blessed are they who preserve pure and entire that sacred deposit; who keep his testimonies as a treasure of inestimable value, keep them as the apple of their eye, so keep them as to carry the comfort of them themselves to another world, and leave the knowledge and profession of them to those who shall come after them in this world. They who would walk in the law of the Lord must keep his testimonies, his truths: those will not long make conscience of good practices, who do not adhere to good principles. Or, his testimonies may denote his covenant; the ark of the covenant is called the ark of the testimony; those do not keep covenant with God who do not keep the commandments of God.

4. Who have a single eye to God as their chief Good and highest End in all they do in religion; (v. 2.) They seek him with their whole heart. They do not seek themselves and their own things, but God only; this is that which they aim at, that God may be glorified in their obedience, and that they may be happy in God's acceptance. He is, and will be, the Rewarder, the Reward, of all those who thus seek him diligently, seek him with the heart; for that is it that God looks at and requires; and with the whole heart; for if the heart be divided between him and the world, it is faulty.

5. Who carefully avoid all sin; (v. 3.) They do no iniquity; they do not allow themselves in any sin, they do not commit it as those do who are the servants of sin; they do not make a practice of it, do not make a trade of it; they are conscious to themselves of much iniquity that clogs them in the ways of God, but not of that iniquity which draws them out of those ways. Blessed and holy are they who thus exercise themselves to have always consciences void of offence.

4. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. 5. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes! 6. Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.

We are here taught,

1. To own ourselves under the highest obligations to walk in God's law. The tempter would possess men with an opinion that they are at their liberty whether they will make the word of God their rule or no, that though it may be good, yet it is not so necessary as they are made to believe it is. He taught our first parents to question the command; Hath God said, ye shall not eat? And therefore we are concerned to be well established in this; (v. 4.) Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts, to make religion our rule; and to keep them diligently, to make religion our business, and to mind it carefully and constantly. We are bound, and must obey at our peril. 2. To look up to God for wisdom and grace to do so; (v. 5.) Oh that my ways were directed accordingly; not only that all events concerning us may be so ordered and disposed by the providence of God, as not in any thing to be a hinderance to us, but a furtherance rather, in the service of God, but that our hearts may be so guided and influenced by the Spirit of God, that we may not in any thing transgress God's commandments: not only that our eyes may be directed to behold God's statutes, but our hearts directed to keep them. See how the desire and prayer of a good man exactly agree with the will and command of a good God; "Thou wouldest have me keep thy precepts, and, Lord, I fain would keep them." This is the will of God, even our sanctification; and it should be our will.

3. To encourage ourselves in the way of our duty, with a prospect of the comfort we shall find in it, v. 6. Note, (1.) It is the undoubted character of every good man, that he has a respect to all God's commandments. He has a respect to the command, eyes it as his copy, aims to conform to it, is sorry wherein he comes short; and what he does in religion, he does with a conscientious regard to the command, because it is his duty. He has respect to all the commandments, one as well as another, because they are all backed with the same authority, (Jam. ii. 10, 11.) and all levelled at the same end, the glorifying of God in our happiness. Those who have a sincere respect to any command will have a general respect to every command; to the commands of both testaments and both tables; to the prohibitions and the precepts; to those that concern both the inward and the outward man, both the head and the heart; to those that forbid the most pleasant and gainful sins, and to those that require the most difficult and hazardous duties. (2.) Those who have a sincere respect to all God's commandments, shall not be ashamed; not only they will thereby be kept from doing that which will turn to their shame, but they shall have confidence toward God, and boldness of access to the throne of his grace, 1 John iii. 21. They shall have credit before men, their honesty will be their honour; and they shall have clearness and courage in their own souls, they shall