flesh, and drink the blood of goats?” And in another Psalm some one answers, “Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldest not.  Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God.  Thy law is within my heart.”  This is that true and eternal law of which Solomon speaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace.

This is that law, of which the Prophet says—­that God will put it into men’s hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people, and He will be their God.  This is that law, which the inspired Philosopher—­for a philosopher he was indeed—­who wrote the 119th Psalm, continually prayed and strove to learn, intreating the Lord to teach him His law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments.  This is that law, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law was His Father’s law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectly comprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with His whole heart—­I delight to do Thy will, O God.

The will of God.  For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, and by keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God’s Will.  God’s Will about us.  What God has willed and chosen we should be.  What God has willed and chosen we should do.  The greatest philosopher of the 18th century said that every rational being had to answer four questions—­Where am I?  What can I know?  What must I do?  Whither am I going?  And he knew well that—­as the Bible tells us throughout—­the only way to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is—­To delight in the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get some understanding of God’s will; of God’s will about ourselves and about the world; and so be blessed indeed.

But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the first verse of the Psalm gives us—­“Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.”  For it is plain that a man will never learn God’s will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for God’s will, and do not believe that God’s will governs the world.  Neither must he, as the Psalm says, ’stand in the way of sinners’—­of profligate and dishonest men who break God’s law.  For if he follows their ways, and breaks God’s law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or nothing about God’s law, save in the way of bitter punishment.  For let him but break God’s law a little too long, and then—­as the 2nd Psalm says—­’God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’  But there is even more hope for him—­for he may repent and amend—­than if he sits in the seat of the scorners.  The scorners; the sneering, the