Psalm 119:163
Veese 163. — I hate ayid ahhor lying; hut thy law do I lore.
In this ver.e, the man of God showeth his affection to the word, the hatred of those things which are contrary to the word. Obser e here, —
1. Aflection set against affection,
2, Object against object,
1st, Affection against affection, hatred against love. Love and hatred are natural affections which are good or evil according to the objects to which they are applied. Place love on the world, sin, vanity, and nothing worse; place hatred on God, religion, holiness, and it soon proveth a hellish thing. But now, set them upon their proper objects, and they express a gracious constitution of soul: let us hate the evil and love the good (Amos V. 15), and all is well. Man needeth affections of aVersation as well as choice and pursuit. Hatred hath its use as well as love. Love was made for God, and things that belong to God; and hatred for sin: it was put into us, that, at the first appearance, sense, or imagination of evil, we might retire ourselves, and fly from it. And is anything so evil as sin, so contrary to God, so baneful to the soul? The office of love is to adhere and cleave to God, and whatever will bring us to the enjoyment of him; and the office of hatred is, that we may truly and sincerely turn from all evil with detestation, according to the nature and degree of evil that is iii it. The emphasis of the text is notable, “I hate and abhor:” it must be a thorough hatred which David calleth a “perfect hatred” (Psalm exxxix. 22).
2ndly, Here is object set against object. As love is opposed to hatred, so the law to lying; for the word of God is truth, and requireth (ruth of all that submit to it; pure sincerity and simplicity. Some render the word more generally; the Septuagint, ‘A?iKiav tjilff/jaa k, t€Stli’^di.u]i’, I hate, and abominate iniquity: other translations render it not so; they expound it so, that one kind is put for all the rest; and fitly; for every sin is a falsehood, and often called in this psahn a false way, and a lie; and will fail and beguile all those who are delighted with it: and the purport
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and drift is, that, we should admit, omit, commit nothing, which is contrary to the word of God, which is the great object of a holy man’s love.
The points are three: —
Doctrine I. — They that love the word of God, must hate sin.
DociKiNE II. — That a slight hatred of a sinful course is not enough; but we must hate and abhor it.
Doctrine III. — That, among other sins, we must hate falsehood and lying, and all kinds of fraud and deceit.
For the first point, —
Doctrine I. — They that love the word of God, must hate sin.
This implieth four things: —
1. That our love must be demonstrated by such effects; otherwise, it is but pretended; if we do not avoid what it forbiddeth; for our love to God and his word is mostly seen in obedience and dutiful subjection to him and it; for God’s love is a love of bounty, our love is a love of duty. He is said to love us when he blesseth us, and bestoweth on us the effects of his s])ecial grace and favour; we are said to love him, when we obey him. These propositions are clear in Scripture, that our love to God is tried by our love to the word; and our love to the word, by our hatred of sin: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John xiv. 21); and, “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (verse 23). On the contrary, our enmity to God and his word is determined by our love to sin. Enmity to God: “Enemies in your mind by wicked works” (Col. i. 21); to his word: “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. viii. 7). Habitual sin argueth a malice, or hatred of God and his holy law; and actual sin, an actual hatred. It is Jiius opens, if not ojjeranfis. Whether a man thinketh so or no, it is the intent of the action; a rebellion, or an act of disloyalty against God. Yea, there is not only a virtual hatred in sin, but a formal hatred; not only implied, but expressed. They wish there were not a God to punish them and call them to an account; such a law to forbid such practices as they affect, or that such things were not sin. Well then, it is not some kind of pleasure in the study of the word will show our love to the word; but an impartial, entire, and unifonn obedience; strictly abstaining from such things as it forbiddeth, and carefully practising what it requireth at our hands.
2. That our hatred of sin must flow from such a principle. A man may hate sin upon foreign and accidental reasons; so that abstaining from sin is not a true hatred, but a casual dislike; as when we forbear some sins, but retain others that suit better with our condition, callings, employment, temper; or because of some difficulty in compassing, shame in practising, or repugnancy to our natural temper. No; it must be out of a principle of love to God: “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil” (Psalm xcvii. 10). So, “I hate vain thoughts; but thy law do I love” (Psalm cxix. 113). A hatred of sin arising from love to God and his word, is the only true hatred; that is hatred of sin as sin, as it is avonia, a “transgression of the law “’ (I John iii. 4); as it is ingratitude to God, contrary to our obligations to him, not only as destructive to ourselves; not principally thnorepcena, but amove virtutis. The word of God furnisheth us with divers reasons and arguments to move us to hate sin: they all have their place; but some are more noble and excellent than others; as when a man hateth sin because God hath forbidden it. True hatred cometh from a Ipve of the contrary: therefore he that hath a vehement love to the law, hateth all things which are contrary to it: “He will hate the one, and love the other” (Matt. vi. 24). There is no serving two masters: love to the one entbrceth hatred of the other. To love the good and hate the evil, are inseparable.
3. The more we hate sin, the more prepai-ed we are to love the law. A carnal heart hateth the law: “Every one that doeth evil, hateth the light”’ (John iii. 20)’; and, “The carnal mind, &c., is not subject to the law”’ (Rom. viii. 7). He that doth not hate sin, hateth the word of God. We cannot delight in it, till our aflections be ym’ifi-’d and sanclitied. Men’s evil practices and dispositions cause them to hate the light; it is a reproving light. Can sore eyes delight to look upon the sun, or an unsound heart delight in that which will so ransack and seai’ch the conscience?
4. According to the degree of love, so will the degree of our hatred be. They that have the highest love of the law, will have most hatred of sin; they hate every lesser contrariety, a vain thought (Psalm cxix. 113). They do not only hate open and scandalous sins, but sins carried on in a more close and cleanly manner; yea, they groan under the relics of corruption, and feel it a heavy burden: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.” And then, “Oh! wretched man that I am” (Rom. vii. 22 — 24). Next to the object of our affection, the principle or spring of it must be regarded; and, next to the spring and rise of it, the degree must be looked after, that we love the good and hate the evil proportionably; that is to say, that our hatred must be proportionable to the evil of the thing hated, and our love to the good of the thing loved. And indeed, where the one is, the other will be; where a great love, a great hatred; where a little love, a little hatred: “I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Psalm cxix. 127, 128).
Use. — Well then, if we would show our love to the word, we must truly, sincerely, and constantly turn from all known sin with detestation and abhorrence; for hatred of sin is an infallible evidence of love to the word. Now, hatred of sin, if it be right, —
1. It is universal, £(£ rd ykin], to the whole kind; as Haman thought scorn to lay hands upon Mordecai alone, but sought to destroy the whole race of the Jews (Esther iii. 6). One sin is as inconsistent with the love of God as another; there may be as much contempt of God’s authority in a sin of thought as in a sin of practice; in a small sin, as in a greater. There may be much crookedness in a small line, and in some cases the dye is more than the stufi’: “I hate every false way;” it is twice repeated in this psalm, in the 104th verse, and in verse 128. To hate what God hateth: “jThe fear of the Lord is to hate evil” (Prov. viii. 13).
2. It is implacable: it aimeth at the utter extirpation and expulsion of sin. They seek to remove the guilt, to weaken the inclination; they groan sorely under the very being of sin, that anything of sin is left: “Oh! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. vii. 24.)
3. It is still growing. At first, it is a dubious case: men that are convinced, have some mind to let sin go, or a wish that Christ would save them from it; but it is with such reserves, that they have rather a mind to keep it than let it go; as Pharaoh had no mind to dismiss Israel, and therefore stood hucking with God; or as David, when he sent out forces against Absalom, yet, ‘Be tender of the young man.’ Pleasing lusts, we have but a remiss will against them: our love to it is greater than our dislike of it; therefore so unstable (James i. 8). But, when the soul is converted, the soul is armed with a resolution (1 Peter iv. 1). Then the love of sin is weakened in their hearts, and the strength and vigour of it abated; the soul is armed with a serious purpose to give it up, and shake off this servitude, in the confidence of that grace which is purchased for them by Christ’s death; there is a godly inclination and bent of soul to live unto God. Again, as our communion with God and sense of his love is increased in us, so our hatred of sin groweth more keen and fierce. When God had told what he would do for Ephraim, “^^ hat have I to do any more with idols?” (Hos. xiv. 8.) I have had too much to do already: what! any more y In what proportion there is a sense of God’s love, in the same proportion a hatred of evil. Moses, when he had talked with God in the mount, at his return he is full of indignation, and broke the tables. So those that have had sweet communion with God, have a more severe displacency against their corruptions; and there is a more lively principle at work in their hearts for the expulsion of them. Every act of kindness on God’s part, layeth a new obligation, and their hatred is awakened by the holy use of the oi-dinances.
4. The constant discoveries of hatred against sin: they are watching and striving against it; they are ever careful that they may not offend God: “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward men” (Acts xxiv. 16); and keep striving, and making a serious resistance, even when they are foiled: “What I hate, that do I” (Rom. vii. 15). A Christian always hateth sin, though he doth not always prevail against it. In sins of daily infirmity, striving is conquering; but, in other sins, they prevail against them by degrees: sin doth not carry it fieely, nor reign in them: “For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. vi. 14).
DocTEiNE II. — That a slight hatred of a sinful course is not enough; but we must hate it and abhor it: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good” (Rom. xii. 9). Hate it as Hell, as the word signifieth. We do too coldly speak against evil, too slackly follow after that which is good. If our pursuit after God were more earnest, and our hatred of evil more serious and severe, we should be other manner of Christians than we are. There is a twofold hatred: 1. The hatred of off’ence and abomination; and, 2. The hatred of enmity and opposition. By the one, our hearts are turned from sin; by the other, turned against it. Now% both these are necessary for a Christian that would be safe. Hating and abhorring impUeth not only a naked abstinence, or a simple refusal, but an enmity; not a forbearing the act, but a mortifying the affection. We must not only leave off evil, but abhor it; and not only abhor it, but pursue it with a hostile hatred, purposing, watching, striving, praying against it; thwarting the flesh, and contradicting the motions thereof
Reasons: —
1, It is not else a hatred becoming sin, which is so great and evil; so opposite to God’s law, and derogatory to God’s glory, so mischievous to
US. There Is a great deal of evil sin, a great deal of after sin, that we can never hate it enough. It is the evil of evils, that brought other evils into the world; it is the violation of a righteous law (1 John iii. 4); aeontempt of God’s authority: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?’ (Exod- V. 2;) “Our lips are ova* own; who is Lord over us?” (Psalm xii. 4.) It is a defacing of his image, and a casting off the glory and honour of our creation: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Psalm xliv. 12); “Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not; he is like the beasts that perish” (Prov. iii. 23). A despising of his power by a silly worm, as if we could make good our party against him: “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?” (1 Cor. X. 22.) It separateth from communion with God; “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God” (Isa. lix. 2). It preferi-eth base satisfactions before the enjoyment of him: “Lovers of pleasiu’es more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. iii. 4); as if the base and brutish pleasures of the flesh were to be preferred before the love of God. This and much more may be said of sin; and is any hatred too great for it? “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside, it shall not cleave to me” (Psalm ci, 3).
2. No other hatred will serve the purposes of grace: a love that is cold, will soon fail; so also will a hatred. Where our zeal is not set against sin, we soon fall into a liking of it; therefore the soul is not sufficiently guarded by a slight hatred: if sin be not detestable, it will soon seem tolerable. There is a brabble between many and their lusts, and in all haste sin must be gone; but the quarrel is soon taken up, and sin stayeth for all that: where the enmity is not great, a man’s agreement with sin may be soon made. Therefore not only an offence, but a hostile hatred, is required, such hating and abhorring as will not admit of reconciliation. Like the hatred of Amnon to Tamar: “The hatred wherewith he hated her, was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her” (2 Sam. xiii, 15): he hated her with hatred greatly. Did we more strongly- dissent from sin, it would not so easily prevail over us. Sin dieth, when it dieth in our affections, when our hearts are set against it: “Get thee hence” (Isa. XXX. 22); get you gone, be there from henceforth an utter divorce between me and you. This is to hate and abhor.
Use. — 1. Is to show us the reason why so many are entangled again in the sins they seemed to renounce and forsake. They have frequently resolved to forsake their sins; but these resolutions have come to nothing: they have striven against them; but, as a great stone that hath been rolled uphill, it hath returned upon them with the more violence. Or as in rowing against the stream, when the tide hath been strong against them, and they have been di’iven the more back, and therefore are discouraged. Yea, they have prayed, and fomid little success, and therefore think it is vain to make any further trial. What shall we say, then, to these? If the premises were clear, yet the inference and conclusion is wrong and false; for we are not to measure our duty by the success, but God’s injunction. God may do what he pleas-eth; but we must do what he hath commanded. Abraham obeyed God, “not knowing whither he went” (Heb. xi. 8). Peter said unto Christ, “We have toiled all night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will letdown the net.” Though the first attempt succeed not, yet afterwards sin may be subdued and broken. In natural things, we do not sit down with one trial, or one endeavour; but, after many disappointments, pursue our designs till we complete them. A merchant will not leave off for one bad voyage, nor an ambitious man because his first essays were fruitless; and shall we give over our conflicts with worldly and fleshly lusts? That showeth our will is not fixedly bent against them, because we camiot presently subdue them. “They that will be rich,” &c. (I Tim. vi. 10.) If you had such a will to be holy and heavenly.
2. There is a fault in these purposes, in these strivings and prayers; they do not come from a heart thoroughly set against sin.
(1.) These purposes are not hearty and real, and then no wonder they do not prevail: there may be a slight purpose, and there is a full purpose (Acts xi. 23). If thy purposes were more full and strong, and thoroughly bent against sin, they would sooner succeed. Is it the fixed decree and determination of thy will? When you are firmly resolved, your affections will be sincere and steadfast, you will pursue this work close; not be off and on, hot and cold; unstable in all your ways. Your full purpose, or the habitual bent of your hearts, is known by your drift and scope. Or it may be this purpose may be extorted; not the effect of thy judgment and will, but only thy conscience awakened by some present fear. Many ai-e by some pangs and qualms of conscience, frighted into some religiousness; but this humour lasts not long: “And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues; for their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant” (Psalm lxxvii. 35 — 37). In their dangers, they remembered God; but their hearts were not right with him, Ahab, in his fears, had some relentings. So had Pharaoh. The Israelites turned to the Lord in their distress; but they turned as fast from him afterwards; resolves not of love, but fear. So are these resolutions wrested from you by some present terrors; which, when they cease, no wonder that they are where they were before. Violent things never hold long; they will hold only as long as the principle of their violence lasteth. Or, it may be, you rest in the strength of your own resolutions. Now, God will be owned as the author of all grace, who reneweth and quickeneth every affection in us; we must ever have a sense of our own insufficiency, and resolve more in the strength and power of God; and rely upon the grace of Jesus Christ; by his Spirit mortifying the deeds of the body, as knowing that without him you can do nothing; neither continue, nor perform our resolutions. Men fall again as often as they think to stand by their own power: there is much guile and falsehood in our own hearts, we cannot trust them: the saints still resolve, God assisting: “I will keep thy statutes; oh! forsake me not utterly” (Psalm cxix. 8); “I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart” (verse 32). They beg God to keep up their inclination and bent against sin: “Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to covetousness” (verse 36).
(2.) As to striving. Let us examine that a little; if it be so serious, so diligent, so circumspect, as it should be. Certainly that is no effectual striving, when you are disheartened with every difficulty; for difficulties do but inflame a resolved spirit, as stirring doth the fire. No question but it will be hard to enter in at the strait gate, or walk in the narrow way: God hath made the way to Heaven so narrow and strait, that we may the more strive to enter in thereat (Luke xiii. 24). Now, shall we sit down
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and complain, when ue succeed not upon every faint attempt? Who, then, can be saved? This is to cry out with the sluggai-d, “There is a lion in the way.” Should a mariner, as soon as the waves arise, and strong gusts of wind blow, give over all guiding of the ship? No; he is resolved upon his voyage. To give out upon every difficulty, is against all the experience and wont of mankind. Again, this striving and opposing is but slight, not accompanied with that watchfulness and resolution which are necessary. Many pretend to watch against sin, yet abstain not from all occasions of sin: if we play about the cockatrice’ hole, no wonder we are bitten. Never think to turn from thy sins, if thou dost not turn from the occasion of them: “Go not in the way of evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away” (Prov. iv. 15). This is a practice becoming the hatred of sin. Evil company is a snare: if thou hast not strength to avoid the occasion, which is less, how canst thbu avoid the sin, which is greater? He that resolveth not to be burnt in the fire, must not come near the flames. Job made a covenant with his eyes (Job xxxi. 1). Our Saviour taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation;” he doth not say, into sin; temptation openeth the gate to it: certainly it argueth a hankering of mind, when we dally with temptations. As the raven, when he is driven from the carrion, loveth to abide within the scent of it; so they have an inclination to sin, when they forbear the practice of it.
(3.) For praying. We oftener pray from our memories, than from our consciences; and from our consciences enlightened, than hearts renewed by grace. Prayer, as it is the fruit of memory and invention, is but a tew slight and formal words said of course; a body without a soul: as dictated by conscience, it may be retracted by the will, at noli modo. Austin, when he prayed against his youthful lusts, T’tmeham ne me excliuleret Deus, was afraid lest he should be heard too soon: at best but half desires, faint wishes; like Balaam’s wish, to die the death of the righteous. The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; God never made promise, that lazy wishes should be satisfied. If you pray against sin with your whole heart, he will hear you. The great fault is the want of this thorough hatred of sin.
Use. — Take heed of two things: —
1. A secret love to your sins.
2. A remiss hatred against them.
1. A secret love to sin. Job speaketh of some that hid sin as a sweet morsel under their tongues (Jobxx. 12), loth to let a lust go; and David, of regarding iniquity in our heart (Psalm lxvi. 18). First, there is a secret liking of sin, which in time will prove baneful to the soul; some lust is spared and continueth unmortified: it doth not remain so much as it is reserved, and there keepeth possession for Satan. This will, in time, eat out all our other virtues, and bring a stain upon those good yroperties wherewith God hath endowed us. Sin was never heartily cast out; therefore they are in time ensnared again, and drawn away by some sensitive lure.
2. A remiss hatred of sin. No; there must be a total and full aversion. Hatred and indignation is the soul’s expulsive faculty; it cannot be kept in good plight without it. It is the lively and active principle which sets the soul a work, in avoiding what is hurtful to the spiaitual life; it concerneth us to keep it up in strength and vigour. The reason why
YOL. III. 2 c even believers do so often sin through weakness is, because the will doth not so strongly dissent as it should. Though we do not deliberately give our assent, it should more potently awaken our displeasure; but certainly, the reason of wilful sin is want of a strong hatred; though convinced of evil, yet we go on like “a fool to the correction of the stocks” (Prov. vii. 22).
Doctrine III. — That, among other sins, we must hate falsehood and lying, and all kinds of fraud and deceit.
1. I shall open the particular notion of lying in the text.
2. Show j’ou the reasons against it.
I st, To open the particular notion of lying.
1. In the vulgar acceptation and sense of it, we take it to be speaking an untruth, or that which is false, with an intention to deceive. Now, this is a sin contrary to the new nature: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put oft” the old man with his deeds” (Col. iii. 9), It is not only contrary to that natural order which God hath appointed between the mind and the tongue, but to that sincerity and true holiness which is our great qualification, and the fruit of regeneration. Therefore God saith, “Surely they are my people, children that will not lie’’ (Isa. lxiii. 8). God presumeth that his people will not deal falsely, but speak as they think, and think of what they’ speak, as it really is; and that Christians will not deceive and circumvent others, since they are members of the same mystical body, and should seek one another’s welfare as much as they do their own: “Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we are members one of anotlier”’ (Eph. iv. 25). No; it is more unseemly in a Christian, more inconsistent with grace. In short, no sin maketh a man more like the Devil: “Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John viii. 44).
2, Concealing the truth, which should be confessed. God would not have his people hide themselves in necessary truths: he would have them believe with the heart, and confess with the mouth (Rom. x. 9, 10); and Christianity is called a profession (Heb. iii. 1); and all Christians are saved either as martyrs or as confessors.
But how far we are to confess lesser truth, is a great case of conscience. Certainly we must do nothing against a truth, not appear in the garb of a contraiy party; nor must we lie hid, when God in his providence crieth out, Who is on my side, who? We read of some who believed in Christ, yet “they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John xii. 42, 43). Faith is in a very weak condition, when confession is not joined with it; when men will not own Christ in troublous times, and appear in their own shape. Men that have much to lose, have many worldly considerations; they think these lose more than they gain, and lose by the praise of God rather than the praise of men. Now, the sincere Christian saith in these cases, “I hate and abhor lying.”
3. It is contrary to that obedience to God which we do profess. There is a practical lie, as well as a virtual lie, when our practices do not correspond with our profession; there is a lie acted, as well as a lie told: so Ephraim is said to compass God about with lies (Hos. xi. 12). To say
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we have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness, is a lie (1 John i. 6); a lie that tendeth to the disgrace of religion, in opprobium C7in’.s(i: “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John ii. 4); so he that speaketh much of the Spirit, and walketh after the tiesh. Reasons: —
1. God is a God of truth: God cannot, and will not lie; and his people must he like him.
2. His M’ord is the word of truth: his law requireth truth; and all falsehoods and deceits are contrary to that justice and charity which it estahlisheth. His Gospel is a gospel of truth: “After that ye heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation” (Eph. i. 13).
3. He requireth and worketh truth in the reins and inward parts: “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inwai-d parts” (Psalm li. 6).
Use. — Oh! then, hate and abhor lying! you cannot be accepted of God else: “O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?” (Jer. v. 3.) You cannot have grace in your own hearts: “Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world” (2 Cor. i. 12); nor long continue undiscovered before men: “His wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation” (Prov. xxvi. 26). Let us not lie to God, in our promises we make to him: “When he slew them, then they sought him; and they returned and inquired early after God; and they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues” (Psalm lxxviii. 34 — 36). In your worship, do not compass him about with lies, complain of burdens which you feel not, express desires which you have not. In your profession, do not make it a veil and cover for your lusts. A wicked or cai-nal design is inconsistent with uprightness of heart: as to men, abhor all false and deceitful practices and speeches. When the Apostle biddeth us abhor that which is evil, he first saith, “Let love be without dissimulation” (Rom. xii. 9). You are not to live by interest, but by conscience. Therefore abhor all hypocrisy, falsehood, treachery, which are unworthy an ingenuous man, much more a Christian.