ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 9. 267 fore it is called the knowledge of the truth which is after godliness, Tit. i. 1. " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and a good understanding have all they that do his commandments," Psa. cxi. 10. Keep his judgments and do them, for this is your wisdom and understanding, Deut. iv. 6. there- fore, besides the bare knowledge of the truth, there is required wisdom, and spiritual understanding to direct that knowledge unto those holy uses and saving ends for which it was intended. The doubling of the sentence, it is the augmenting of the sense, to note, that it is the supreme and most excellent act of wisdom and prudence so to know the word and ways of God, as with a practical judgment to ponder them in order to salvation. By the ways of the Lord we are to understand : 1. The ways of his judgments, and of his wonderful providence towards men: which however to the proud and contentious spirit of the wicked they may seem perverse and inordinate, and are to the eye of all men unsearchable ; are yet by spiritual wisdom ac- knowledged to be most righteous and holy, to have no crookedness or disorder in them, but to be carried on in aneven and straight way unto the ends whereunto his holy counsel cloth direct them. " His works are perfect, and all his ways are judgment," Deut. xxxii. 4. When Jeremiah had a mind to plead with the Lord concerning his judgments, yet he promiseth this as a matter unquestionable, that God was righteous in them all, Jer. xii. 1. 2. The ways of his will, word, and worship ; so the word is often taken in scripture to signify the doctrine which men teach, as Matt. xxii. 16. Acts xiii. 10. xviii. 25. xxii. 4. and damnable heresies are called pernicious ways, in opposition to the way of z2
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