Psalms 130
Butler1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications. 3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with thee, That thou mayest be feared.
5. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, And in his word do I hope. 6 My soul looketh for the Lord, More than watchmen look for the morning; Yea, more than watchmen for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with him is plenteous redemption. 8 And he shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities.
THIS is the sixth of the seven Penitential Psalms, as they are called. It is a cry to God for the forgiveness of sin. The Psalmist pleads that he has long waited upon God, trusting in His Word. Out of his own experience he exhorts all Israel in like manner to hope and wait and look for God’s mercy and redemption, which will assuredly be vouchsafed. P.
The passionate earnestness of the Psalm is enhanced by the repetition eight times in it of the Divine Name. Bib. Com.—This Psalm, perhaps more than any other, is marked by its mountains: Depth; prayer; conviction; light; hope; waiting; watching; longing; confidence; assurance; universal happiness and joy. J. Vaughan.
Being asked on one occasion which were the best Psalms, Luther replied: “The Pauline Psalms” (Psalmi Paulini), and being pressed to say which they were, he answered: “The thirty-second, the fifty-first, the one hundred and thirtieth, and the one hundred and forty-third; for they teach us that the forgiveness of sins is vouchsafed to them that believe, without the law and without works; therefore are they Pauline Psalms; and when David sings, ‘With Thee is forgiveness, that Thou mayest be feared,’ so Paul likewise saith, ‘God hath concluded all under sin, that He may have mercy on all.’ Therefore none can boast of his own righteousness; but the words, ‘That Thou mayest be feared,’ thrust away all self-merit and teach us to confess that it is all forgiveness and no merit.” D.
If the Psalm be a penitential Psalm, surely penitence is seldom so bright and hopeful as it is here; and if it be a Pauline, or theological Psalm, surely there never was a theology more generous and informal. Oh, that all our penitence were as quick with life and hope! Oh, that all our theology were set to a music as sweet and gracious! Cox.
1. The depths are the deep outward and inward distress in which the poet is sunk as in watery depths. Out of these depths he cries unto the God of salvation, and urgently beseeches from Him, that rules everything and is able to accomplish everything, a ready audience. D.—The Psalm has but two figures in it, or, rather, two allusions to one and the same figure, and these are made in the simplest and least dramatic way. Evidently, the Psalmist has in his mind the figure of a wrecked mariner crying to God “out of the depths” (v. 1), and watching, with yearning desire, for the break of day (v. 6). But he does not dwell on the figure. Cox.
The singer calls out of the depths, as if he were on some angry sea where waves and billows were breaking over him. The figure is strong, but not extravagant, for the evil complained of is not that of ignorance, or weakness, or sorrow, but of sin. The sufferer was before insensible to the number and character and aggravations of his sins, thought them few and slight and easily got over, and was therefore in peace. But now he sees what they are; how he has offended God, broken His law, trifled with His name, failed in reverence, in worship, in thankfulness, and in affection. To Him, therefore, to Jehovah he addresses himself. He prays earnestly and perseveringly. Chambers.
Depths of earnestness are stirred by depths of tribulation. Prayer de profundis gives to God gloria in excelsis. The more distressed we are, the more excellent is the faith which trusts bravely in the Lord, and therefore appeals to Him and to Him alone. Good men may be in the depths of temporal and spiritual trouble; but good men in such cases look only to their God, and they stir themselves up to be more instant and earnest in prayer than at other times. The depth of their distress moves the depths of their being; and from the bottom of their hearts an exceeding great and bitter cry rises unto the one living and true God. S.—It is not too much to say that we do not know what prayer may be till we have “cried.” And we seldom rise till we have gone very deep. “I die! I perish! I am lost! Help, Lord! Help me! Save me now! Do it now, Lord, or I am lost. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for Thine own sake, O my God!” J. Vaughan.
Through humiliation to exaltation—this is the indispensable way for all, who not merely wish to do something, but really to be something in the spiritual kingdom of God. This is the blessed path for all God’s children; they learn here in a manner which they can do nowhere else, to seek and to find God and understand what God is for them, and are grateful to Him, not merely in spite of their trials, but because in faithfulness He has afflicted them. Van O.
2. Mourning after an absent God is an evidence of love as strong as rejoicing in a present one.** F. W. R.—A Christian is always on the perch, or on the wing; he is always reposing in God, or in flight after Him; and the latter is as good an evidence of religion as the former; for delight is not only a part of complacency and affection, but also fear, complaint, desire—fear of losing the object; complaint of our enjoying so little of it; desire to attain and feel more. H.
3. Here he owns that he cannot stand before the great King in his own righteousness, and he is so struck with a sense of the holiness of God and the rectitude of the law that he is convinced that no man of mortal race can answer for himself before a Judge so perfect, concerning a law so Divine. Well does he cry, “O Lord, who shall stand?” S.**
4. There is forgiveness with Thee.** It is our unspeakable comfort, in all our approaches to God, that there is forgiveness with Him, for that is what we need. He has put Himself into a capacity to pardon sin, He has declared Himself gracious and merciful and ready to forgive (Ex. 34 : 6, 7). He has promised to forgive the sins of those that do repent. Never any that dealt with Him found Him implacable, but easy to be entreated and swift to show mercy. With us there is iniquity, and therefore it is well for us that with Him there is forgiveness. There is a propitiation with Thee, so some read it. Jesus Christ is the great Propitiation, the Ransom which God has found; He is ever with Him as Advocate for us, and through Him we hope to obtain forgiveness. H. The glory of the Gospel is that it maintains and honors both justice and mercy. This fact and the reason of it are fully set forth in the New Testament, but are only intimated and hinted at in the Old. Here we have simply the assurance of forgiveness. It is with God, and partakes of His boundless perfection. Unlike human pardon, which often amounts to impurity and leads to recklessness, Divine forgiveness leads to the true fear of God; i.e., reverence for His name and will. The pardoned sinner renders grateful service to the God of his salvation. Chambers.
How is this forgiveness to be obtained consistently with the integrity of these laws? How are the attributes of the eternal to be reconciled in the dispensation of mercy and the just guardianship of Divine commandments? How is the law-breaker to be dealt with as a law-keeper, the transgressor to be treated as just? By the great law of substitution, by the mediation of another, who says, “Behold Me, then; Me for Him—life for life I offer.” This is the Scripture teaching. Loraine.
To make the death of Christ a mere refuge-house for pardons is to degrade it to the most selfish end, and to receive the grace of God in vain. The Lord whom we acknowledge laid down His life to blot out all the sinful past; but He rose again that, in His Spirit of purity and love, He might be our Leader in the war with sin in every form and degree. He consecrates us as His soldiers, clothes us with the whole armor of God, and sends us out to do battle with evil, first of all in the heart which is its stronghold. If the death and life of Christ are to have any practical meaning in our daily walk, it must be this, the death of the false and impure in us, and the springing up of a new and Divine life in their room. Ker.
The Father pardons, the Son propitiates, the Spirit purifies. The first of these three propositions involves the other two. Because it is the Father’s purpose to remit sin, He sends His Son to redeem and His Spirit to regenerate. The first has two seemingly insurmountable obstacles to encounter. How can God, being just, forgive sin; and how can man, being evil, return to God? The former is overcome by the atonement, in which the Son of God becoming man obeys the law and dies the death, that the sinner who trusts in Him with penitent heart may escape death and enter into life. The latter is overcome by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, who by the Gospel makes the sinner aware of the mercy of the Father and the mediation of the Son, and willing to lean on the Saviour and return to the Fountain of mercy. These three fundamental articles of faith manifestly involve two others of co-ordinate importance, the trinity of persons in the Godhead and the incarnation of the Eternal Word. These may be called the five cardinal points of revelation. M.
What was the chief thing that moved the prodigal son to return home to his father? He remembered that he had a loving father. That maketh him to resolve with an humble confession to go home. Even so is it with the sinner; it is not terrors and threatenings that chiefly will move him to come to God, but the consideration of His manifold and great mercies. Rollock.
There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. These were good words to me, for it was thus made out to me that the great God did set so high an esteem upon the love of His poor creatures that rather than He would go without their love He would pardon their transgressions. Bunyan.—One would think that punishment should procure fear, and forgiveness love; but no man more truly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend Him. “Thy mercy reacheth to the heavens, and Thy faithfulness to the clouds;” that is, above all sublimities. God is glorious in all His works, but most glorious in His works of mercy. Lord, who can know Thee and not love Thee, know Thee and not fear Thee? We fear Thee for thy justice, and love Thee for Thy mercy; yea, fear Thee for Thy mercy, and love Thee for Thy justice; for Thou art infinitely good in both. T. Adams.
If there were no mercy, there would be little fear. Men would grow reckless, desperate. All experience, the experience of all ages and countries, has shown this. Where mercy is never shown, crimes multiply; men grow bolder, take their chance more recklessly, and meet their fate more doggedly, than when there is an occasional pardon and reprieve. If God were extreme to mark what is done amiss, there would be no hope for any of us. But He has a prerogative of mercy, which He exercises in favor of those whom He deems worthy of it.
Because, therefore, He holds the prerogative of mercy, let us fear Him—fear lest we should render ourselves unworthy of it; fear lest we should compel Him to withhold it; fear lest we should miss it. F. E. Paget.
In that Thou shuttest all under free mercy, and leavest nothing to the merits and works of men, therefore thou art feared. But if all things were not placed in Thy mercy, and we could take away our sins by our own strength, no man would fear Thee, but the whole world would proudly contemn Thee. For daily experience shows that where there is not this knowledge of God’s mercy, there men walk in a presumption of their own merits. The true fear of God, the worship, the true reverence; yea, the true knowledge of God resteth on nothing but mercy, that through Christ we assuredly trust that God is reconciled unto us. Christian doctrine doth not deny or condemn good works, but it teacheth that God willeth not to mark iniquities, but willeth that we believe; that is, trust His mercy. For with Him is forgiveness, that He may be feared, and continue to be our God. So these two lines set forth to us the sum and substance of all Christian doctrine, and that sun which giveth light to the Church. Luther.
God was pleased to provide a sacrifice in nature so pure, in value so precious, as might be perfectly satisfactory for our offences; in regard to which obedience God has become reconciled, and opens His arms of grace to mankind; in respect to which sacrifice He tenders remission to all men that, upon His terms (most equal and easy terms), are willing to embrace it. Barrow.—Christ hath not only satisfied for the punishment, but He hath procured favor for us; wherein He differeth from an ordinary and common surety. Christ does not only free us from bonds, but also hath brought us into grace and favor with the Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge. Manton.—Though there are many mercies that lay an obligation upon men to be holy, yet he that shall want the obligation that is begotten by the faith of redeeming mercy wanteth the main principle of true holiness; nor will any other be found sufficiently to sanctify the heart to the causing of it to produce such a life; nor can such holiness be accepted, because it comes not forth in the name of Christ. That which constrained the Psalmist was forgiving and redeeming mercy, and that which constrained Paul was the love that Christ showed to him in dying for his sins and in rising from the dead. Bunyan.
Thus it is that the sinner’s chain is broken, and he is set free to serve God. First liberty, then service; the service of men set free from condemnation and from bondage. It is in accepting the Divine Substitute that the sinner is set free to serve the living God. The liberty flowing from forgiveness, thus received, is the true beginning of a holy life. If, then, I am to live a holy life, I must begin with the Substitute. I must deal with Him for pardon and deliverance. Thus being by Him “delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.” If I am to serve God, and if I am to possess anything of “true religion,” I must begin with the Substitute. For religion begins with pardon; and without pardon religion is a poor and irksome profession. “There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared.” This is the Divine watchword. Not first the fear of God, and then forgiveness; but first forgiveness, and then the fear of God. H. Bonar.
When both sides of God’s character and government are revealed together, every point is gained. God can be revered and felt to be worthy of reverence, can be loved and be felt to be worthy of love. The righteous can feel safe under His shelter, and the wicked can dread His displeasure. The trembling sinner can look with hope toward the light which beams from His mingled justice and holiness. Man, in all the forms of society, can feel that God’s known character and will is the cement which binds the family, the State, the nations of mankind together by a twisted cord of justice and goodwill. Man can now be educated for the offices of the world and for eternal life, for all time and all places on one plan, because the policy of the family and of the State is seen to be the policy of heaven and of the universe. Law reigns and pardon is offered to sinners without weakening the authority or venerableness of the lawgiver. “There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared.” Sinners are recovered and reclaimed first by a sense of sin, and then by a perception of Divine love, and without the latter they would not think of their sins, or grow into that filial fear, that holy worship which the Psalmist intends. Only under this twofold aspect of God is true religion, the religion of the soul, possible. T. D. W.
Where faith makes a discovery of forgiveness, great love, fear, and reverence of God are its attendants. Mary Magdalene loved much, because much was forgiven. Great love will spring out of great forgiveness. “There is forgiveness with Thee (saith the Psalmist), that Thou mayest be feared.” No unbeliever doth truly and experimentally know the truth of this inference. But so it is, when men “fear the Lord and His goodness.” Where pardoning mercy is truly apprehended, where faith makes a discovery of it to the soul, it is endeared to God, and possessed of the great springs of love, delight, fear, and reverence. Owen.
5. He hopes in Jehovah, his soul hopes; hoping in, waiting for God is the mood of his inmost and whole being. He waits for God’s Word, the Word of His salvation, which, when it penetrates into the soul, calms all unrest, and by the appropriated consolation of forgiveness transforms and enlightens everything within and without it. D.
“Waiting” expresses a state or habit which is the result of a combination of desire, expectation, and patient submission. “Waiting on God” is thus the patient expectation of results which God has promised to secure, results which are in themselves desirable, and which God has given us reason to believe will be realized. It implies the exercise of self-control, a meek acquiescence in the Divine arrangements, a confident assurance that God will do what He has promised and show Himself in full accordance with all that He has revealed Himself to be. W. L. A.—Waiting is a great part of life’s discipline, and therefore God often exercises the grace of waiting. Waiting practises the patience of faith. It gives time for preparation for the coming gift. It makes the blessing the sweeter when it arrives. And it shows the sovereignty of God—to give just when and just as He pleases. J. Vaughan.—Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God. A. M.
I wait . . . I hope. Waiting and hoping ever attend the same thing. No man will wait for that which he hath no hope of, and he who hath hope gives not over waiting till he gives over hoping. The object of hope is some future good, but the act of hoping is at present good, and that is present pay to bear our charges in waiting. The word implies both a patient waiting and a hopeful trusting. Caryl.—This waiting, hoping attitude is the attitude of a true heart, of one not easily discouraged, of one that says, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” P.
Knowing the boundless compassion of Jehovah, the believer waits for Him, for the manifestation of His favor. This is not a formal act, but one in which all his powers are engaged—“My soul doth wait.” He knows the value of the blessing, and seeks it accordingly where alone it is to be obtained, even in Jehovah. Nor is this a vague and uncertain dependence, but one with a solid basis—“In His Word do I hope.” The promise of God gives a sure warrant; and having this the soul is able to wait the Lord’s time, for His Word is the Word of One who never speaks in vain. Chambers.
Hope without patience would be life kindling into over-intensity, and burning itself out in fruitless longings. Patience without hope would be the decay of life’s flame for want of nourishment, till it would sink into the quietude of death. Whenever hope rises into impatience, it is the will of God that quiet waiting should lay its hand upon it, and bid it “rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, and not fret,” for there is purpose in his delay, and occupation meanwhile for us. When patient waiting, on its side, becomes indifferent or torpid, it is not less the will of God that hope should come and wake it up, as the cry did the slumbering virgins, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet Him.” On either side we may fall into sin, and the fully approved state is to have the eye looking forward, while the heart is at rest; to combine these two, as they are found so often in the Bible: By the Psalmist, “I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope.” Ker.
And in His word do I hope. This is the source, strength, and sweetness of waiting. Those who do not hope cannot wait; but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. God’s Word is a true Word, but at times it tarries; if ours is true faith it will wait the Lord’s time. Waiting, we study the Word, believe the Word, hope in the Word, and live on the Word; and all because it is “His Word,” the Word of Him who never speaks in vain. Jehovah’s Word is a firm ground for a waiting soul to rest upon. S.
6. My soul (looketh) for; literally, “My soul is unto the Lord,” as the eyes of watchers through the long and weary night look eagerly for the first streaks of the coming day. P.—Watching for the morning, watching for the morning. There is something beautiful and touching in this simple repetition. The comparison suggested is between the impatience of nocturnal watchers for the break of day and that of sufferers for relief, or of convicted sinners for forgiveness. A.—The night-watch of the temple, or sentinels watching a city or an encampment might also be included in the term, and indeed all who, from whatever cause, are obliged to keep awake. No figure could more beautifully express the longing of the soul for the breaking of the day of God’s loving mercy. P.
Hoping in this Word, which has been his constant stay while tossing on the waves and sinking in the depths, he now gathers up all the energies of his soul and bends them toward the living and compassionate Ruler of men. Will He not come? will He not come? and come, bringing with Him a new day of mercy? For the breaking of that happy day the Psalmist longs and yearns more than the watcher on the wreck for the dawning light, which may show him that he is not solitary, or may even reveal some haven of refuge or some approaching deliverance. Cox.
8. Literally, “O Israel, hope thou in the Lord;” the ground of inspiring hope being that with Him pardoning mercy is much, great, plenteous; it comes not in scanty measure, but in measure abundant; not from reluctant hand and heart, but from a full hand and overflowing heart! C.—Whatever is in store for you, if you go trustfully and prayerfully forward into that future, you will find many sweet mercies there awaiting you, many blessings at this moment unsurmised; and you will find that in that future God awaits you, as powerful and as kind as He has been in the most favored past. So, summon up courage and go cheerfully forward. “Hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy.” And whatever else you limit, set no limits to the loving-kindness of the Lord, nor to the largeness of those petitions by which the needy suppliant honors the liberal Giver. Hamilton.
Let Israel hope in the Lord. There is nothing which isolates a man so awfully as a consciousness of sin and of his relation to God; but there is nothing that so knits him to all his fellows and brings him into such wide-reaching bonds of amity and benevolence as the sense of God’s forgiving mercy for his own soul. So the call bursts from the lips of the pardoned man, inviting all to taste the experience and exercise the trust which have made him glad. A. M.
Worldly hopes are not living, but dying hopes; they die often before us, and we live to bury them and see our own folly and infelicity in trusting to them; but at the utmost they die with us when we die, and can accompany us no further. But the living hope, which is the Christian’s portion, answers expectation to the full and much beyond it, and deceives no way but in that happy way of far exceeding it. Leighton.
Plenteous redemption; or, more literally, “redemption plenteously.” He calls it plenteous, as Luther says, because such is the straitness of our heart, the slenderness of our hopes, the weakness of our faith, that it far exceeds all our capacity, all our petitions and all our desires. P.—Though you are unworthy, yet Christ is worthy. Though you have no merit, yet God has mercy. Though there is no salvation for you by the law, yet there is “plenteous redemption” in the Gospel. T. Brooks.
Temptations may harass and even defile, the world may come in like a spring-flood, inbred sin may reassert its sway, clouds of error may overshadow, despondency may impair the comforts of believing; but amidst all, and through all, God carries on the good work and “will perform it unto the day of redemption.” Faith at length gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ. J. W. A.—It will often happen in the experience of a much tried and tempted disciple that, even in the depths of his distress, praise to his God will be the readiest and surest road out of those depths and up to the heights of spiritual joy and exaltation. If he dwells in prayer only on his needs and sins and sorrows, he will miss one of the supreme delights of communion with God. On the other hand, if he turns his thoughts to the unnumbered evidences of the Father’s love and care for him, to the saving power of the outstretched arm, to the promises of succor and sustenance, and for all these pours out his heart in gratitude, he will suddenly find himself out of the depths into which he allowed himself to fall, and his only prayer need be for a continuance of the very blessings which have evoked his heartfelt praise. The God we praise is the God from whom all blessings flow, and we cannot praise Him too often or too much for His wondrous love in making us partakers of the richness and fulness of His blessing. Interior.
8. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. The pronoun is emphatic; only trust him for redemption, and He will Himself redeem thee. As the first clause shows by whom Israel is to be redeemed—by God alone; so the second shows from what—from sin, as the cause of His sufferings. A.—He will redeem. He emphatic, He alone, for none other can. From his iniquities. Not only from the punishment. The redemption includes the forgiveness of sins, the breaking of the power and dominion of sin, and the setting free from all the consequences of sin. P.
What a graceful and appropriate conclusion of this comprehensive and instructive Psalm! Like the sun, it dawns veiled in cloud, it sets bathed in splendor; it opens with soul-depth, it closes with soul height. Redemption from all iniquity! It baffles the most descriptive language, and distances the highest measurement. The most vivid imagination faints in conceiving it, the most glowing image fails in portraying it. O. Winslow.
Did the Lord come to this patient, hopeful watcher, and the day break on him? Yes, he had the desire of his heart. He was forgiven, succored, blessed. His hope did not make him ashamed. For it is out of the depths of his own happy experience of the Divine compassion that, in the closing verses of the Psalm, he bids Israel hope. The sinful nation, like the sinful man, will find that with Jehovah there is the very “loving-kindness” it needs, and a redemption so plenteous and bountiful as that it will save them from “all their iniquities” (vs. 7, 8). This is the spiritual experience half-veiled and half-disclosed in this penitential Psalm; the experience of one who endured the keenest sorrow for sin with a patient, resolute, and hopeful heart, and was at last cleansed by the Divine forgiveness and comforted with the Divine love. Cox.
This exquisite Psalm was a great favorite with Luther, whose versification of it still holds its place in the sacred songs of Germany. It was especially dear to him, as it taught the forgiveness of sins to them that believe apart from the law and without works. It was this Psalm sung in St. Paul’s, May, 1738, and heard by John Wesley with deep emotion, that prepared him for the truth of justification by faith which he embraced shortly afterward, through reading Luther on the Galatians. Chambers.
The one hundred and thirtieth Psalm, the “De Profundis,” whose undertone is like the sound of the sea, reveals the two great roots of Christian theology—sin and forgiveness. What a light is thrown upon the human heart by the words, “If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” What a glimpse into the redemptive work of God is opened by the succeeding verse, “There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared.” What a testimony is borne throughout the Psalm, by the union of personal experience with dogma, that a true theology is bound up with experience and elaborated in living. V.
The great doctrine, the ruling doctrine of this
Psalm, as of the Gospel, is “the forgiveness of sins.” This is plainly and repeatedly affirmed. “Forgiveness,” “mercy,” “plenteous redemption,” are expressly attributed to God; and the sacred poet thus lingers on the Divine compassion, and places it before us in various forms that we may learn from him to put this dogma and Gospel first in our Creed, that He may leave us without excuse if we despair of being redeemed by Him who waits to redeem all men from all their iniquities. There is no truth of which we so profoundly need to be assured as of the unlimited compassion of Him against whom we have sinned. To know that He does not watch for our iniquities in order that He may condemn us, but in order that He may redeem us—this is life and peace. And therefore our Psalm is so valuable and precious. Its very iterations and reiterations make it beautiful and dear to us. We love it all the more because it sounds but one note, because it affirms and affirms again the very truth we most need to know. Cor.
We all feel—at least, if our life amounts to anything that deserves to be called an experience—that we are not what we ought to be; that we are terribly otherwise. Let us not try to get around the fact. These hearts, our own hearts, have taken in other guests than purity and honor, devotion and disinterested love. These lips, have they never displaced the honest words of charity and prayer for bitterness and mockery? These hands have been about other than the Father’s business. Every day afresh we are selfish, and petulant, and censorious, and proud, and not quite sincere; our purity is not white; some duplicity creeps into our conversation; some bodily sacrilege profanes God’s temple. The law is holy, just, and good. Our lives are not holy, nor just, nor good. It is nowhere written that we may partly keep that law and partly break it, and yet go acquitted. But we break it still. Suppose the past score settled by our repentance; even if the integrity of the Divine government were left unimpaired, we have no reason to think we shall be perfect men or blameless women in the future. We are painfully and shamefully certain that, after all our endeavors, we shall sin again and again. What, then, were our life without a Mediator reconciling it? What if Christ, coming in from above its broken strength, did not touch it with His inspiration, renew it by His grace, sanctify it by His love? What if He, who alone is competent, uniting both the estranged elements in His own redeeming person, did not come and take this fallen life, and quicken it by the breathing of His Spirit, and revive its torpor by His truth, and warm its frost in His bosom, and restore its deadness by His intercession—and thus hide it again, with Himself, in God? What would it be except it were thus animated by His indwelling power, were forgiven by the pardon which no other voice on earth but His ever promised, and no other seal but His death could ever accredit? Past offences are then blotted out. The penitent passes into the disciple. Memories of transgression torment no more. So that thenceforth, Christ being formed within him, the believer might say, “This life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who gave Himself for me.” F. D. H.
Thou hast nothing to boast of, and much to be humbled and also to be thankful for. Thy holy desires are too weak; but they are holy. Thy love has been too cold; but it is the most holy God whom thou hast loved. Thy prayers have been too dull and interrupted; but thou hast prayed for holiness and heaven. Thy labors have been too slothful; but thou hast labored for God and Christ, and the good of mankind. Though thy motion was too weak and slow, it has been Godward, and therefore it is from God. Oh, bless the Lord for frequently and remarkably fulfilling His promises in the answer of thy prayers, and in great deliverance of thyself and of many others; and that He has been preparing thee for the light of glory! And wilt thou yet doubt and fear, against all this evidence, experience, and foretaste?” Baxter.
We have the mind and heart and will of God revealed to us for the light, the love, the obedience of our will and heart and mind; and we should try, moment by moment, in all the bustle and stir of our daily life, to have our whole being consciously directed to and engaged with, fertilized, and calmed by contact with the perfect and infinite nature of our Father in heaven. Before all else, and in the midst of all else, we should think of that Divine mind that in the heavens is waiting to illumine our darkness; we should feel the glow of that uncreated and perfect love, which, in the midst of change and treachery, of coldness and of “greetings where no kindness is,” in the midst of masterful authority and unloving command, is ready to fill our hearts with tenderness and tranquillity; we should bow before that will which is absolute and supreme indeed, but neither arbitrary nor harsh, which is “the eternal purpose that He hath purposed in Himself” indeed, but is also “the good pleasure
of His goodness and the counsel of His grace." And with such a God near to us ever in our faithful thoughts, in our thankful love, in our lowly obedience, with such a mind revealing itself to us, and such a heart opening its hidden storehouses for us as we approach, and such a
will sovereign above all, energizing, even through opposition, and making obedience a delight, what room would there be in our lives for agitations, and distractions, and regrets, and cares, and fears; what room for earthly hopes or for sad remembrances? A. M.