tion. Impenitent rebels must feel the weight of his arm, and none can accuse the justice of their punishment; but in all other cases, he is "mighty only to save," Isa. Ixiii. 1. This holiness of his proceedings, this due temperament of justice with mercy, the redeemed are exhorted to acknowledge and to proclaim, falling down before the throne, and uttering the angelical trisagion, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."

“6. Moses and Aaron among his priests, or, chief rulers, and Samuel among them that call upon his name: they called upon the LORD, and he answered them. 7. He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar: they kept his testimonies, and the ordinances that he gave them."

To encourage the faithful in the worship of God, the examples of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, are adduced, men of like infirmities with ourselves, whose prayers were heard both for themselves and others, and answers were returned to them from the mystic cloud, that symbol of the Divine presence, which, for awhile, was intinerant with the camp in the wilderness, and then became fixed in the tabernacle at Shiloh, till its last removal to mount Sion. These men were heard through the intercession of the great Mediator, whom they represented. Through that same intercession, our prayers also are heard, if we "keep his testimonies, and the ordinances that he hath given us."

"8. Thou answerest them, O LORD our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions."

The construction of the verse seems to be this: "O Lord our God, thou didst hear or answer them," that is, the aforementioned typical mediators, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel; "thou becamest a forbearing God for them," or, at their intercession: and that, even when punishing, or, when thou hadst begun to punish the wicked deeds of them, that is, not of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, but of the people who had transgressed, and for whom they interceded. This was the case, when Moses interceded for the idolaters, Exod. xxxii. 32.; Aaron for the schismatics, Numb. xvi. 47.; and Samuel for the whole nation, 1 Sam. vii. 9. "Pray one for another," saith an apostle to Christians, "that ye may be healed: the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," James v. 16.

9. Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy hill: for the LORD our God is holy."

The Psalmist repeats his exhortation, enforced by the preceding examples of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, and again invites all people to worship a holy God in a holy place, and to adore the consummate rectitude of all his proceedings, singing, with the spirits above," Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints," Rev. xv. 3.

PSALM C.

ARGUMENT.

The Psalmist invites all the world to join with the Israelites in the service of him who was kind and gracious to them beyond expression. Accordingly, we Christians now properly use this Psalm in acknowledgment of God's wonderful love to us in Christ; by whom we offer up continually spiritual sacrifices, for redeeming us by the sacrifice which he made of himself; for making the world anew, and creating us again unto good works; according to his faithful promises, which we may depend upon for ever.-PATRICK.

"1. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. 2. Serve the LORD with gladness; come before his presence with singing."

The prophet addresseth himself to "all lands," or to "all the earth;" to Gentiles as well as Jews. He exhorteth them to "make a joyful noise, a noise" like that of the trumpets at the time of jubilee, a sound of universal

triumph and exultation, in honour of Jehovah, now become their Lord and Saviour. The service of this our Master is perfect freedom; it is a service of love, and freedom from Pharaoh and the task-masters, from Satan and our own imperious lusts; it is a redemption from the most cruel bondage, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Let us thererefore do as we are commanded; let us "serve the Lord with gladness;" and when we come "before his presence" in the temple, let it be with singing to the praise and glory of our Redeemer. Thus he is served in heaven, and thus he delighteth to be served on earth.

"3. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves: we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture: or, he hath made us, and we are his, his people, and the sheep of his pasture."

The motives here urged for serving and praising Jehovah, are the same with those above, in Psalm xcv. 6, 7. namely, that he is "our God," engaged by covenant on our behalf; that his hands created us, and have since new created us; that we stand in the peculiar relation of "his people," whom he hath chosen to himself, and over whom he presideth as King; that we are "the sheep of his pasture," for whom the good Shepherd laid down his life, and whom he nourisheth by the word and sacraments unto eternal life. These are points which every Christian ought to know and believe, unto his soul's health. And whoever doth know them aright, will ever be ready with heart and voice to obey the injunction which followeth in the next verse.

"4. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."

The Christian church is a temple, whose "gates" stand continually open for the admission of the nations, from all the four quarters of the world, Rev. xxi. 13. 25. Into the "courts" of this temple, which are now truly "courts of the Gentiles," all men are invited to come, and offer their evangelical sacrifices of "confession and praise ;" to express their gratitude to their Saviour, and "bless" his gracious and hallowed "name." How glorious will be that day which shall behold the everlasting gates of heaven lifting up their heads, and disclosing to view those courts above, into which the children of the resurrection are to enter, there with angels and archangels to dwell and sing for evermore!

"5. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."

"Jehovah is good;" he is the source of all beauty and perfection in the creature; how altogether lovely must he needs be in himself! "His mercy is everlasting," extending through time into eternity; "and his truth," or fidelity, in accomplishing his promises, " endureth to all generations," evidenced to the whole race of mankind from Adam to his last born The Psalms, which celebrate these attributes, will never, therefore, be out of date, but each successive generation will chant them with fresh propriety, and fresh delight, until by saints and angels they are sung new in the kingdom of God.

son.

PSALM CI.

ARGUMENT.

In the person of David, advanced to the throne of Israel, we hear King Messiah declaring how he intended to walk, and to govern his household the church, and also describing the qualifications which he should require in his ministers and servants.

“I am persuaded that the Masoretical correction ¡ (and we are his) is right: the construction and parallelism both favour it."-Bishop Lowth. A correspondent suggests-Might not the clause be rendered interrogatively-" Are not we his people, and the sheep of his pasture?"

"1. I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing." David, having determined to sing unto Jehovah, chooseth for his theme "mercy and judgment:" either that mercy which God had shown to him, and that judgment which had been inflicted on his enemies; or else, that upright administration of mercy and judgment, with which he himself intended to bless his people. The righteous administration of mercy and judgment in the kingdom of Messiah, is a topic on which his subjects always expatiate with pleasure and profit. His mercy encourageth the greatest of sinners to hope; his judgments forbid the best of men to pre

sume.

"2. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart."

In return for the favours of Heaven, we hear the Israelitish monarch declaring his resolution to set his court and kingdom an example of true wisdom, and unshaken integrity; at the same time, sighing for that visitation of divine grace, which alone could enable him to put his resolution in practice "O when will thou come unto me?" This was ever the voice of the church, longing for the presence of God in human nature, "O when wilt thou come unto me?" And this must ever be the wish of a Christian, who knoweth that though in himself he be nothing, yet that he can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth him by his Spirit in the inner man. Messiah was the only King of Israel whose life held forth to his subjects a perfect pattern of wisdom and righteousness, and whose death procured them grace, in their different measures and degrees, to follow it. "3. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave unto me.

"I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes ;" that is, I will not propose to myself, or think of carrying into execution, any iniquitous scheme of politics, however advantageous and tempting it may appear; I will turn away my eyes and my attention, and reject it at once: "I hate the work of them that turn aside;" of them who, in their counsels and their actions, deviate from the Divine law, to serve their own interest: "it shall not cleave unto me;" no such corrupt principle shall adhere to my soul, or find a place in my affections. How noble a resolution for a king to make; but how difficult a one for a king to keep? Thou only, O King of Righteousness, didst never set any wicked thing before thine eyes; thou only hadst a perfect aversion to the ways of transgressors.

"4. A froward heart shall depart from me; I will not know a wicked person."

As is the king, so will be the court; as is the master of the house, such will be those of his household. David, having resolved to "walk within his house with a perfect," a sincere and upright "heart," determines at the same time to expel from thence all whose hearts were perverted and depraved; as he would "set no wicked thing before his eyes," so neither would he form any connexions with "wicked persons;" they should not be of his acquaintance, much less should they be his favourites. In the same manner speaketh our heavenly King, with regard to the appointment of his ministers and servants-"I know you not, whence you are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity," Luke xiii. 27.

"5. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look, and a proud, or, extended, and therefore insatiable heart, will not I suffer."

Detraction, ambition, and avarice, are three weeds which spring and flourish in the rich soil of a court. The Psalmist declareth his resolution to undertake the difficult task of eradicating them, for the benefit of his people, that Israelites might not be harassed by informers, or oppressed by insolent and rapacious ministers. Shall we imagine these vices less odious in the eyes of that King, whose character was composed of humility and charity:

or will Christ admit those tempers into the court of heaven, which David determined to exclude from his court upon earth?

"6. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me.'

The "eyes" of princes cannot be better employed, than in looking around them, in order to choose from among their own subjects, fit and able men to transact the public business; men of inviolable "fidelity" and unshaken integrity; men who know how to think aright, and how to speak what they think; men likewise who "walk in the perfect way" of holiness, who do not disgrace their politics by their lives, or prejudice their master's cause by their sins, more than they can ever advance it by their abilities. Bishops may be called the eyes of Christ; they are to overlook his people, and we pray him at the seasons of ordination, "so to guide and govern their minds, that they may faithfully and wisely make choice of fit persons to serve in the sacred ministry of the church."

7. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight."

To purge a court of "deceit and falsehood," was a resolution worthy king David, worthy the representative of him who styleth himself THE TRUTH, from whose heavenly palace and city will be for ever excluded, as St. John informeth us, "whosoever loveth and maketh a lie," Rev. xxii. 15.

"8. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the LORD."

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Every earthly prince should consider himself as raised to a throne, and invested with power, "for the punishment of wickedness and vice, and the maintenance of God's true religion and virtue." Early," therefore, in the "morning" of his reign, he should set about the work of reformation, that so the blessings of heaven may descend upon himself and his people, according to the infallible promises of the Most High. And let each individual, in like manner, and for the same reason, be zealous and diligent to reform his own heart and ways, ever mindful of that future most awful morning, when the King of Righteousness shall cut off, with the sword of eternal judgment, all wicked doers from that city of Jehovah, the new and heavenly Jerusalem.

TWENTIETH DAY.-MORNING PRAYER.

PSALM CII.

ARGUMENT.

This Psalm is entitled, "A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord." It seems to have been written during the captivity, by one of the prophets, who, like Daniel in parellel circumstances, 1, 2. maketh supplication before his God; 3-11. setteth forth, in the most affecting strains, his wretched and sorrowful estate, or rather, perhaps, that of Jerusalem, which he personates; 12. he comforteth himself, by reflecting on the eternity and immutability of Jehovah; 13-24. he predicteth and describeth the restoration of Sion, with her enlargement by the accession of the Gentiles, when Messiah shall have visited and redeemed her; 23, 24. he returneth again to his lamentations; but, 25-28. again reposeth his confidence on him who created all things, and who would not fail to make good his word and promise, if not to the generation then present, yet to their posterity. This is the fifth of those styled Penitential Psalms; and St. Paul, Heb. i. 10. hath asserted, that it is addressed to the eternal Son of God, and Saviour of the world.

"1. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee. 2. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily."

Sin and sorrow force prayers and cries from the sons of Adam. The first petition here preferred is, that these prayers and cries may be heard" in heaven. The day of human life is a "day of trouble," a day of darkness and gloominess, which nothing can brighten but the light of God's countenance; nothing can render comfortable but a "speedy answer" of mercy and peace from above.

"3. For my days are consumed like, or, in, smoke, and my bones are burnt as an hearth, or, a fire-brand."

The effects of extreme grief on the human frame are compared to those which fire produceth upon fuel. It exhausts the radical moisture, and, by so doing, soon consumes the substance. A man's time and his strength evaporate in melancholy, and his bones, those pillars and supports of his body, become like wood, on which the fire hath done its work, and left it without sap, and without cohesion. A single penitent, or a whole church, bewailing their respective transgressions, when under the rod of God, may use these words, and will understand the force of them.

"4. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread."

The metaphor is continued, and the heart itself, out of which flow the streams of life, is represented as suffering that from grief, which the grass of the field suffers from the burning heat of the sun: it is "smitten and withered." And when grief hath thus dejected the spirits, the man has no appetite for that food which is to recruit and elevate them. Ahab, smitten with one kind of grief, David with another, Daniel with a third, all "forgot" or refused" to eat their bread," 1 Kings xxi. 4. 2 Sam. xii. 16. Dan. x. 3. Such natural companions are mourning and fasting.

5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin."

Extremity of sorrow causeth the flesh to waste, and the bones to press upon the skin, through which they are ready to force their way. Sickness is the chastisement of Heaven, inflicted often upon us to supply the want of that discipline which we should exercise upon ourselves. "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world," 1 Cor. xi. 31.

"6. I am like the pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl, or, bittern, of the desert, or, of waste ruinous places. 7. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top."

The sorrowful man is naturally desirous of retiring from the world, to vent his complaints in solitude, and to pass the nights in watchfulness and prayer. In such a situation the true penitent placeth himself, worthily to bewail his sins, and deprecate the judgments of his God. And in such a situation did captivity place the daughter of Zion, that she might do likewise. The use which Daniel made of it for this purpose may be seen in the ninth chapter of his book.

"8. Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me."

The scoffs and reproaches of men are generally added to the chastisements of God; or rather, perhaps, are a part, and sometimes the bitterest part of them. How the enemies of Jerusalem behaved in the day of her calamity is well known. How carnal and ungodly men behave to a penitent, when mourning for his sins under the afflicting hand of Heaven, is as well known.

9. For, or, therefore, I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping. 10. Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down."