The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

Vers. 117. Stay thou me, and I shall be safe, and I will delight continually in thy statutes.

This agreeth with that in the verse going before, stablish me according to thy promise. Hadst thou need David to be stayed? didst thou waver? oh how need we to be stayed, and to pray against our wavering? he meaneth here thus much: although I am well minded, and delight in thy law, yet I am so brittle and so slippery, that if thou stay me not, I shall shall, I am gone. Oh man of God, feeling his own wants and infirmities! I shall be safe, that is, If I be not stayed by thine hand I shall be at the last cast. Psal. 30. 6 he said, he should never be removed: here is another spirit, where he saith, he should be safe. But here woeful experience taught him, that he durst not be stayed on himself: whereby he declareth, that as without Gods word, he could not be safe: so come what come would, befall what danger could befall, in the Lords word he was stayed sufficiently. Then we are to learn, that the promises of God must engender in us a care and fear of our selves; for if we begin once to be quiet with our selves, when we begin to be secure and presumptuous, let us assure our selves, that we are not far from sin. But if we fear that we are staggering and reeling persons, and that we are very slippery, is there not cause of humbling, that this humbleness should breed carefulness; carefulness should cause watchfulness; watchfulness should use the means; and the means should be sanctified by prayer? Then come hell, come the devil, come the world, come the flesh, if the Lord stay us, we shall live and not die, we shall surely not miscarry. And I will delight continually in thy statutes. We see here that there is no free will, for he prayeth likewise Port. 5. 1. Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes. Neither did he promise of himself before, but did hope in the Lord. Such brittleness is in the world, such sleights in the flesh, such slyness in Satan, such corrupt examples in the world, that unless the Lord stay us, we are so far off from delight in good, that we are ready to fall into great sins. Every man therefore is to search his own heart, and by the cause we may come to the effects, and by the tree may conjecture of the fruit: so by the effects we may judge of the cause, and by the fruit we may judge of the tree. Where is now this delight, when we hear the word, we hear it with such coldness?