God's
everlasting judgments. That is what he feels he must learn, or else come
to utter grief, both body and soul.

Secondly: that if he is to learn them, God Himself must teach them to
him. I beg you not to overlook this side of the Psalm. That is what
makes it not only a psalm, but a prayer also. The man wants to know
something. But beside that, he prays God to teach it to him.

He was not like too many now-a-days, who look on prayer, and on
inspiration, as old-fashioned superstitions; who believe that a man can
find out all he needs to know by his own unassisted intellect, and then
do it by his own unassisted will. Where they get their proofs of that
theory, I know not; certainly not from the history of mankind, and
certainly not from their own experience, unless it be very different from
mine. Be that as it may, this old Psalmist would not have agreed with
them; for he held an utterly opposite belief. He held that a man could
see nothing, unless God shewed it to him. He held that a man could learn
nothing unless God taught him; and taught him, moreover, in two ways.
First taught him what he ought to do, and then taught him how to do it.

Surely this man was, at least, a reasonable and prudent man, and shewed
his common-sense. I say--common-sense.

For suppose that you were set adrift in a ship at sea, to shift for
yourself, would it not be mere common-sense to try and learn how to
manage that ship, that you might keep her afloat and get her safe to
land? You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, and
testimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your own
ignorance you should sink her, and be drowned. You would try to learn
the laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfilling
which vessels swim, and by breaking which vessels sink.

You would try to learn the commandments about her. They would be any
books which you could find of rules of navigation, and instruction in
seamanship.

You would try to learn the testimonies about the ship. And what would
they be? The witness, of course, which the ship bore to herself. The
experience which you or others got, from seeing how she behaved--as they
say--at sea.

And from whom would you try to learn all this? from yourself? Out of
your own brain and fancy? Would you invent theories of navigation and
shipbuilding for yourself, without practice or experience? I trust not.
You would go to the shipbuilder and t