With my whole heart have I sought Thee: O let me not wander from Thy commandments.
Man’s distinguishing capacity and fearful liability
I. Man’s distinguishing capacity. What is that? Power to wander from the Divine law. He can bound from his orbit, he has done so, is doing so. Sublimely awful power this, the power that makes us men and links us to moral government.
II. Man’s fearful liability. The possession of this power is a dignity of our natures, the wrong use of this power is our crime and our ruin, and to the wrong use, alas, we are all fearfully liable. If I wander from God’s commandment I wander from the right into the wrong, from light into darkness, from liberty to thraldom, from happiness to misery. (Homilist.)
The grandest pursuit and the greatest peril
I. The grandest pursuit of man.
1. The object of pursuit--God. Not merely His works, but Himself. Not a mere knowledge of Him, but the possession of Him. To obtain God as the Father of the soul is the grandest end of being.
2. The mode of pursuit. Unless it is done with the whole heart, the concentration of the soul, it is never done.
II. The greatest peril of man. To wander from God’s commandments is to wander from light into darkness, from order into confusion, from plenty into pauperism, from happiness into misery, from life into death. (Homilist.)
Keeping to the path
Old Humphrey has a good paper against wandering from the path of duty, suggested by a notice at the entrance of a park:--“Take notice. In walking through these grounds, you are requested to keep the foot-path.” Bunyan has supplied the same theme for solemn warning, in the pilgrim straying into Bye-path meadow. (Bowes.)