ngry when we break His laws, is, that His laws
are the Eternal Laws of God, wherein alone is life for all rational
beings; and to break them is to injure our fellow-creatures, and to ruin
ourselves, and perish from that right way, to bring us back to which He
condescended, of His boundless love, to die on the Cross for all mankind.

SERMON XI. GOD THE TEACHER.

PSALM CXIX. 33, 34.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto
the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy Law; yea, I
shall observe it with my whole heart.

This 119th Psalm has been valued for many centuries, by the wisest and
most devout Christians, as one of the most instructive in the Bible; as
the experimental psalm. And it is that, and more. It is specially a
psalm about education. That is on the face of the text. Teach me, O
Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. These are the
words of a man who wishes to be taught, and therefore to learn; and to
learn not mere book-learning and instruction, but to acquire a practical
education, which he can keep to the end, and carry out in his whole life.

But it is more. It is, to my mind, as much a theological psalm as it is
an experimental psalm; and it is just as valuable for what it tells us
concerning the changeless and serene essence of God, as for what it tells
us concerning the changing and struggling soul of man.

Let us think a little this morning--and, please God, hereafter also--of
the Psalm, and what it says. For it is just as true now as ever it was,
and just as precious to those who long to educate themselves with the
true education, which makes a man perfect, even as his Father in heaven
is perfect.

The Psalm is a prayer, or collection of short prayers, written by some
one who had two thoughts in his mind, and who was so full of those two
thoughts that he repeated them over and over again, in many different
forms, like one who, having an air of music in his head, repeats it in
different keys, with variation after variation; yet keeps true always to
the original air, and returns to it always at the last.

Now what two thoughts were in the Psalmist's mind?

First: that there was something in the world which he must learn, and
would learn; for everything in this life and the next depended on his
learning it. And this thing which he wants to learn he calls God's
statutes, God's law, God's testimonies, God's commandments,