Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 32:8

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. No other than God himself can undertake so much as is promised in the text. For here is faith, a rectifying of the understanding, I will instruct thee, and in the original there is somewhat more than our translation reaches to; it is there, Intelligere faciam te, I will make thee understand. Man can instruct, God only can make us understand. And then it is Faciam te, I will make thee, thee understand; the work is the Lord's, the understanding is the man's: for God does not work in man as the devil did in idols and in pythonissis, and in ventriloquis, in possessed persons, who had no voluntary concurrence with the action of the devil, but were merely passive; God works so in man as that he makes man work too, faciam te, I will make thee understand; that that shall be done by me, but in thee; the power that rectifies the act is God's, the act is man's; Faciam te, says God, I will make thee, thee, every particular person (for that arises out of this singular and distributive word, thee, which threatens no exception, no exclusion), I will make every person to whom I present instruction, capable of that instruction; and if he receive it not, it is only his, and not my fault. And so this first part is an instruction de credendis, of such things, as by God's rectifying of our understanding we are bound to believe. And then, in a second part, there follows a more particular instructing, Docebo, "I will teach thee, "and that in via, "in the way; "it is not only de via, to teach thee which is the way, that thou mayest find it, but in via, how to keep the way when thou art in it; he will teach thee, not only ut gradiaris, that you may walk in it and not sleep, but quomodo gradieris, that you may walk in it and not stray; and so this second part is an institution de agendis, of those things which, thine understanding being formerly rectified, and deduced into a belief, thou art bound to do. And then in the last words of the text, I will guide thee with mine eye, there is a third part, and establishment, a confirmation by an incessant watchfulness in God; he will consider, consult upon us (for so much the original word imports), he will not leave us to contingencies, to fortune; no, nor to his own general providence, by which all creatures are universally in his protection and administration, but he will ponder us, consider us, study us; and that with his eye, which is the sharpest and most sensible organ and instrument, soonest feels if anything be amiss, and so inclines him quickly to rectify us; and so this third part is an instruction de sperandis, it hath evermore a relation to the future, to the constancy and perseverance of God's goodness towards us; to the end, and in the end he will guide us with his eye: except the eye of God can be put out we cannot be put out of his sight and his care. So that, both our freight which we are to take in, that is, what we are to believe concerning God; and the voyage which we are to make, how we are to steer and govern our course, that is, our behaviour and conversation in the household of the faithful; and then the haven to which we must go, that is, our assurance of arriving at the heavenly Jerusalem, are expressed in this chart, in this map, in this instruction, in this text. John Donne.