Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 116:8

My feet from falling. Whether means he, into penal misery and mischief, or into sin? There is a lapsus moralis, as 1Co 10:12. Err I? or would David here be understood of sinning? So Ps 73:2: "My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped." And if I be not deceived, the text leans to that meaning, rising still from the less to the greater. First. It is more bounty to be kept from grief than from death, for there is a greater enlargement from misery. It is not more bounty to be kept from the sense of affliction than to be kept from death, which is the greatest of temporal evils; but it is more bounty in a gracious eye to be kept from sin than from death. Secondly. How his eyes from tears? If not kept from sin? That had surely cost him many a tear, as Peter (Mt 26:75). But understand it de lapsu morali, so the gradation still riseth to enlarge God's bounty: yea, which I count the greatest blessing, in these afflictions he kept me steady in my course of piety, and suffered not afflictions to sway my heart from him. Still, in a gracious eye, the benefit seems greater to be delivered from sinning than from the greatest outward affliction. This is the reason Paul (Ro 8:37) triumphs over all afflictions. 2Co 11:22-33 and 2Co 12:1-10. He counts them his glory, his crown; but speaking of the prevailing of corruption in particular, he bemoans himself as the most miserable man alive. Ro 7:24. William Slater.