11. For they intended evil against thee; they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.

Vengeance came upon the Jews to the uttermost, because of their intended malice against Christ. They, like Joseph's brethren, thought evil against him;' but they were not able to perform it;' for God meant it unto good, to bring it to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive:' Gen. i. 20. So let all the designs of ungodly men against thy church, O Lord, through thy power of bringing good out of evil, turn to her advantage: and let all men be convinced, that no weapon formed against thee can prosper.

12. Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back, or, thou shalt set them as a butt, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

The judgments of God are called his arrows,' being, sharp, swift, sure, and deadly. What a dreadful situation, to be set as a mark, and ' butt,' at which these arrows are directed! View Jerusalem encompassed by the Roman armies without, and torn to pieces by the animosity of desperate and bloody factions within. No further commentary is requisite upon this verse. Tremble, and repent,' is the inference to be drawn by every Christian community under heaven, in which appear the symptoms of degeneracy and apostacy.

13. Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength; so will we sing, and praise thy power.

The church concludes with a joyful acclamation to her Redeemer, wishing for his exaltation in his

own strength,' as God, who was to be abased in much weakness, as man. We still continue to wish and pray for his exaltation over sin, in the hearts of his people by grace, and finally over death, in their bodies, by his glorious power at the resurrection. The triumph over sin we sing in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, upon earth; that over death, we shall praise with everlasting hallelujahs, in heaven.

Fourth Day.-Evening Prayer.

PSALM XXII.

ARGUMENT.-This Psalm, which the church hath appointed to be used on Good Friday, as our Lord uttered the first verse of it when hanging on the cross, consisteth of two parts. The former, 1-21. treateth of the passion; the latter, 22-31. celebrateth the resurrection of Jesus, with its effects. 1, 2. He complaineth of being forsaken; 3-6 acknowledgeth the holiness of the Father, and pleadeth the former deliverances of the church; 6-8. describeth his humiliation, with the taunts and reproaches of the Jews; 9-11. expresseth his faith, and prayeth for help; 12-18. particularizeth his sufferings; 19-21. repeateth his supplications; 22–25. declareth his resolution to praise the Father for his deliverance, and exhorteth his church to do the same; 26-31. prophesieth the conversion of the Gentile world to the faith and worship of the true God.

1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, when hanging on the cross, complained in these words, that he was deprived, for a time, of the divine pre

sence and comforting influence, while he suffered for our sins. If the master thus underwent the trial of a spiritual desertion, why doth the disciple think it strange, unless the light of heaven shine continually upon his tabernacle ? Let us comfort ourselves, in such circumstances, with the thought, that we are thereby conformed to the image of our dying Lord, that sun which set in a cloud, to arise without one.

2. O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

Even our Lord himself, as man, prayed,' that if it were possible, the cup might pass from him;' but God had ordained otherwise, for his own glory, and for man's salvation. Day and night,' in prosperity and adversity, living and dying, let us not be silent,' but cry for deliverance; always remembering to add, as Christ did,' Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.' Nor let any man be impatient for the return of his prayers, since every petition preferred even by the Son of God himself was not granted.

3. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.'

Whatever befalleth the members of the church, the head thereof here teacheth them to confess the justice and holiness of God in all his proceedings; and to acknowledge, that whether he exalteth or humbleth his people, he is to be praised and glorified by them.

'Or, perhaps, as Bishop Lowth renders it, Thou, that inhabitest, the irradiations, the glory of Israel.' See Merrick's Annotations on the Psalms, p. 43.

4. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

'Trust' in God is the way to deliverance,' and the former instances of the divine favour are so many arguments why we should hope for the same; but it may not always be vouchsafed, when we expect it. The patriarchs and Israelites of old were often saved from their enemies: the holy Jesus is left to languish and expire under the malice of bis. God knows what is proper for him to do, and for us to suffer; we know neither. This consideration is an anchor for the afflicted soul, sure and steadfast.

5. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

No argument is of more force with God, than that which is founded upon an appeal to his darling attribute of mercy, and to the manifestation of it formerly made to persons in distress; for which reason it is here repeated, and dwelt upon. They who would obtain grace to help, in time of need, must cry' as well as 'trust.' The prayer of faith' is mighty with God, and (if we may use the expression) overcometh the Omnipotent.

6. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

He who spareth all other men, spared not his own Son; he spared not him, that he might spare them. The Redeemer of the world scrupled not to compare himself, in his state of humiliation, to the lowest reptile which his own hand had formed, a worm, humble, silent, innocent, overlooked, oppressed, and trodden under foot. Let the sight of this reptile teach us humility.

7, 8. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying He trusted on the Lord, that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

This was literally fulfilled, when Messiah hung upon the cross, and the priests and elders used the very words that had been put into their mouths, by the spirit of prophecy, so long before. Matt. xxvii. 41-43. The chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him.' O the wisdom and foreknowledge of God! the infatuation and blindness of man! The same are too often the sentiments of those who live in times when the church and her righteous cause, with their advocates, are under the cloud of persecution, and seem to sink beneath the displeasure of the powers of the world. But such do not believe, or do not consider, that, in the Christian economy, death is followed by a resurrection, when it will appear, that God forsaketh not them that are his, but they are preserved for ever.

9, 10. But thou art he that took me out of the womb thou didst make me hope, when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb thou art my God from my mother's belly.

This was eminently the case of Christ, who was the Son of God in a sense in which no other man ever was. But in him we are all children of God by adoption; we are all in the hands of a gracious Providence from the womb; and into those hands must we commend ourselves, when about to depart hence. To whom else, then, should we have re