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I. THE INSTRUCTIVE VIEW GIVEN OF RELIGION.

1. It is an ancient path. The Gospel is coeval with the Fall. All the Mosaic rites and ceremonies were typical of the blessings of the Gospel dispensation, and taught the faithful worshipper to look forward to the Saviour.

2. It is a good way.

(1) This is the way which God Himself, of His infinite wisdom and goodness, hath marked out for us.

(2) Those who walk in it may expect all necessary guidance and direction.

(3) In wisdom's way we have the best of company.

(4) It will afford the purest pleasure, as we advance in it, and will infallibly conduct us to perfect and endless happiness and glory.

II. THE DUTY ENJOINED.

1. We are to use every endeavour to become acquainted with the ways of religion.

(1) If we are accountable beings, what shall we think of those who seem to have formed a resolution to banish serious reflection from their minds; who plunge themselves into vice, dissipate themselves in pleasure, in vanity, and in every trifle that strikes their imagination; and devote themselves to those things, body and soul, without ever stopping to consider what they are doing, whither they are going, and what the consequences must be of their madness and folly!

(2) To self-reflection we add reflection on the Word of God.

(a)  The way therein marked out is a way of holiness and purity.

(b)  The superior excellence of the Scriptures, as a rule of life, will be still further evident if we consider their high authority.

2. Our knowledge must be reduced to practice; when we have found the good way, we must walk in it.

(1) We should immediately enter upon a religious course, after due information concerning it.

(2) We should proceed in a religious course with the greatest care and circumspection.

(3) We should endeavour to make continual progress in a religious course.

3. It is our duty to persevere in a religious course, it will not answer a traveller's purpose, who has a necessary journey before him, to proceed a little way in it, and then give over, or take a different path that leads a contrary way. So, in the ways of religion, he, and he only, who holds out to the end shall be saved.

III. THE IMPORT OF THE GRACIOUS PROMISE, BY WHICH THE DUTY HERE ENJOINED IS RECOMMENDED AND ENFORCED. The rest here promised consists —

1. In our being delivered from those uneasy doubts and anxieties of mind which arise from an uncertainty as to the way in which we ought to go.

2. Those who walk in the good way of religion find rest to their souls, as they are thereby delivered from the great cause of inward uneasiness — the sense of unpardoned guilt; or, in other words, from the terrors of an accusing conscience.

3. They who walk in the ways of religion find rest to their souls, as they are thereby delivered from those sources of disquietude which spring from sinful and unruly passions.

4. This good way infallibly conducts those who walk in it to uninterrupted and everlasting happiness in the world to come.

(James Ross, D. D.)

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KJV: Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

WEB: Thus says Yahweh, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 'Where is the good way?' and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'