DIRECTION THIRD. Hide the word in thy heart. This was David’s preservative. ‘Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,’ Ps. 119:11. It was not the Bible in his hand to read it; not the word on his tongue to speak of it; nor in his head to get a notional knowledge of it; but the hiding it in his heart, that he found effectual against sin. It is not meat in the dish, but [in the] stomach, that nourish¬eth; not physic in the glass, but taken into the body, that purgeth. Now ‘heart’ in Scripture, though it be used for all the faculties of the soul, yet, principally, it is put for the conscience, and the affections.
First. Heart in Scripture, is often put for the conscience. ‘For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things,’ I John 3:20. That is, if our conscience condemn us justly, to be sure our case is sad, because God knows by us more than we by ourselves, and can charge us with many sins that conscience is not privy to.
Now thus, Christian, labour to hide the word in thy heart—that is, in thy conscience; let it there have a throne, and it will keep thee in a holy awe.
1. Look upon the word as stamped with divine authority, the law which the great God gives thee his poor creature to walk by. This impressed on thy con¬science would make tremble at the thought of a sin, which is the traitor's dagger that strikes at God himself, by the contempt it casts upon his law. And if some assassins, intending to stab a prince, have been so overawed by a few beams of majesty shot from his mortal brow, that their hearts would not serve them to make the horrid attempt, how much more must the dread of the great God’s majesty, darted from his word into the creature's conscience, deter him from practicing any treason against his Maker? ‘Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word,’ Ps. 119:161. As if he had said, I had rather incur their wrath for my holiness, than make thy word my enemy by my sin.
2. Look upon the word of God as that law by which thou art to be judged at the great day. ‘God shall judge the secrets of men...according to my gospel,’ Rom. 2:16. Then the book of thy conscience shall be opened and compared with this, and accordingly will sentence of life or death be pronounced by Christ thy Judge. Thou mayest know beforehand how it will go with thee at that day. If now thou canst not stand before the word as opened by a poor minister, and applied to thy own conscience, what will you do when it is opened by Christ? Now thy conscience from the word condemns thee, but not finally; for by thy timely repentance and faith, the sentence of this private court may be reversed, and the word which even now bound thee over to death, will acquit and justify thee. But at that great day of assize there will be a final decision of thy cause. If then the judgement goes against thee, thou art a lost man for ever. No reversing the sentence, not so much as a reprieve to stay the execution. But as the word goeth out of the Judge’s mouth, the sinner’s face is covered to be immediately delivered into the tor¬mentor’s hands. And darest now thou, O man, bid any lust welcome, while thou seest the gibbet set up, and the everlasting chains prepared, in which the word of God dooms every sinner to hang? Canst thou read thy sentence, and yet like thy sin that brings it inevitably upon thy head?
No comments:
Post a Comment