The Statutes of the Lord Rejoice the Heart

The statutes of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:8). The Psalmist does not merely celebrate the eternal fitness of the Divine statutes in abstract terms; he recommends them by an argument closer to human feeling and interest. Because of their inherent rectitude, God's precepts tend to rejoice the heart. The word "statutes" encompasses the whole system of Divine precepts contained in Scripture.

God's goodness and condescension connect our duty not only to general happiness but to present pleasure. Two things produce true rational joy: objects suited to human faculties, and faculties properly disposed to receive impressions from them. The Holy Scriptures, containing Divine law, accomplish both. The perceptive part of God's revealed will has particular tendency to rejoice the heart of the sincerely pious—in theory, in practice, and on reflection.

The excellence of Divine statutes appears in their producing pure, unmixed joy. Religious joy arising from virtuous practice increases the sublime pleasure springing up when a good man contemplates his relation to Yahweh and his Saviour.

Old books perish. National libraries become cemeteries of dead volumes. Yet one ancient book survives. It grew under theocracy and monarchy, withstood inquisitorial fires, flourished under prophets' mantles and apostles' coats. Rome, Ephesus, Jerusalem, and Patmos issued tyrannical edicts against it. Infidelity silenced tongues; papacy and Mohammedanism hurled anathemas. Still the Bible lived, crossing the British Channel to Wycliffe and James I, crossing the Atlantic to Plymouth Rock.