In these two verses we are invited and encouraged to live in the fear
of God by the advantages which attend a religious life. The fear of the
Lord is here put for all gracious principles, producing gracious
practices. 1. Where this reigns it produces a holy security and
serenity of mind. There is in it a strong confidence; it enables a man
still to hold fast both his purity and his peace, whatever happens, and
gives him boldness before God and the world. I know that I shall be
justified--None of these things move me; such is the language of this
confidence. 2. It entails a blessing upon posterity. The children of
those that by faith make God their confidence shall be encouraged by
the promise that God will be a God to believers and to their seed to
flee to him as their refuge, and they shall find shelter in him. The
children of religious parents often do the better for their parents'
instructions and example and fare the better for their faith and
prayers. "Our fathers trusted in thee, therefore we will." 3. It is an
over-flowing ever-flowing spring of comfort and joy; it is a fountain
of life, yielding constant pleasure and satisfaction to the soul, joys
that are pure and fresh, are life to the soul, and quench its thirst,
and can never be drawn dry; it is a well of living water, that is
springing up to, and is the earnest of, eternal life. 4. It is a
sovereign antidote against sin and temptation. Those that have a true
relish of the pleasures of serious godliness will not be allured by the
baits of sin to swallow its hook; they know where to obtain better
things than any it can pretend to offer, and therefore it is easy to
them to depart from the snares of death and to keep their foot from
being taken in them.