Psalms 17

Every image which denotes the purest joy is introduced into the apostle’s description of the ultimate blessedness of the redeemed. They are clad in white, the wedding garments of a great festivity. Music is the natural utterance of their delight. Nor is this a strained and artificial expression. It is full-toned chorus; it is hearty praise; it is jubilant adoration. There is waving of incense from golden censers. There is the lifting up of triumphant palms. There is the casting of golden crowns at the feet of the enthroned. There is “the voice of harpers harping with their harps.” And the song of multitudes, whom no man can number, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and as that doxology of the Redeemer waxes louder and fuller, the very pillars and arches of heaven are tremulous with joy. Divested of all that is tropical and symbolical in form, the one idea conveyed to us is that the climacteric of redemption is full, irrepressible, eternal joy. A religion which falls short of positive and unfailing pleasure, as the ultimate law of life, cannot meet the necessities of humanity. Redemption is an advance on creation. It more than regains what was lost, more than restores what was original. The burden of that heavenly song is salvation, blessing, and thanksgiving. The second Paradise is better than Eden. The joy of man redeemed, restored, and perfected is greater than that of man in the glory of his innocence. W. Adams.

The immortal welfare of the soul, supreme and consummate, will never have been realized till it is reconciled with its Maker through faith in Christ and repentance from sin; till in it has been developed and cultivated a godlike character, such as was revealed, present and personal, through the incarnation of Christ and through His subsequent work and suffering; till there have been unfolded in it those grandest faculties, not as yet fully revealed, in which the condition and the basis are shown of a glory that we cannot yet comprehend; till we have thus become prepared for the largest operation, the grandest offices, which even immortality shall open to us. All this is implied in God’s amazing constitution of our being. And as the fruit of all these comes the last element essential to the perfect well-being of the soul—a constant, sweet, and immortal felicity in the presence of God, in sympathy with Him and with the seraphim and saints who are gathered about Him; a felicity that shall flow like a river in the soul, deep and bright, filling it with its rich experience; a felicity that shall be as a shining atmosphere around that soul, beneath whose radiance all spiritual graces shall start forth and flourish; in whose inspiration each voice shall be one of constant song, and every thought of joy and praise! And that well-being shall be as eternal as the being of God Himself! R. S. S.

1. HEAR the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry; Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. 2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; Let thine eyes look upon equity. 3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; Thou hast tried me, and findest nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. 4 As for the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the ways of the violent.

5. My steps have held fast to thy paths, My feet have not slipped. 6 I have called upon thee, for thou wilt answer me, O God: Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. 7 Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest them which put their trust in thee From those that rise up against them, by thy right hand. 8 Keep me as the apple of the eye, Hide me under the shadow of thy wings, 9 From the wicked that spoil me,

My deadly enemies, that compass me about. 10 They are inclosed in their own fat : With their mouth they speak proudly. 11 They have now compassed us in our steps : They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth. 12 He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, And as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. 13 Arise, O LORD, Confront him, cast him down :

In this Psalm a servant of God, conscious of his own uprightness, and surrounded by enemies, prays to be kept from the evil world, and from evil men who persecute him; and then from the dark present looks forward with joy to the bright future. Every tried and tempted servant of God may find in it the touchstone whereby to prove himself; the sure refuge whither to betake himself; the hope which is the anchor of the soul, and which entereth within the veil. The Psalm may be, as the inscription states, a Psalm of David; and if so, we may probably attribute its composition to the time of Saul’s persecution. It may be divided into three strophes:

I. The Psalmist’s confidence in his appeal to God (vs. 1-5). This is based upon the righteousness of his cause, and the absence of all hypocrisy in his prayer (vs. 1, 2). The consciousness of this integrity further declared, and that even on the closest scrutiny. Both heart (v. 3) and life (vs. 4, 5) are free from reproach, notwithstanding the evil by which he is surrounded.

II. Prayer to be kept in the evil world (vs. 6-12). The appeal to God’s marvellous loving-kindness and tender affection, that he may be protected against his enemies. The description of their bitterness (v. 9), their pride (v. 10), and their relentless persecution (vs. 11, 12) is then given.

III. Prayer that the sword of Jehovah may overtake his enemies (v. 13). And then the broad contrast, not without its consolation; their portion, at the best, is for this life, and then perishes; mine is in the presence and the vision of God, and, therefore, cannot be taken from me (vs. 14, 15). P.

Psalm 17 is placed immediately after Psalm 16 because it likewise concludes with the hope of a blessed and soul-satisfying vision of God. In other respects also the two Psalms have much in common. D.

Deliver my soul from the wicked by thy sword;

14. From men, by thy hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life, And whose belly thou fillest with thy treasure: They are satisfied with children, And leave the rest of their substance to their babes. 15 As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

This Psalm is called “a prayer;” how appropriately we have but to glance through it to see. It is full of petition—of strong, clear pleading, intense and passionate, such as rises only from scenes of danger, such as comes only out of a sufferer’s heart. It is called a prayer of David. Who, indeed, except David, had such experiences of “suffering” and “danger,” and such susceptibilities to be touched and wrung by them, as have expression in this Psalm? We owe our whole salvation to the suffering of Christ; but, in a secondary sense, how much also do we receive from or through the sufferings of men! The world will never know, until its whole history is reviewed and all its mysteries explained, how much instruction, comfort, incitement have flowed from the trials and sufferings of this one man. In this respect David [and Job] and Paul have done more for the race than perhaps any men who ever lived. Raleigh.

1. The right, righteousness or justice in the abstract, here put for a just cause, or perhaps for one who is in the right, who has justice on his side. The prayer that God will hear the right implies that no appeal is made to partiality or privilege, but merely to the merits of the case. The righteousness claimed is not merely that of the cause, but that of the person, not inherent but derived from the imputed righteousness of faith according to the doctrine of the Old as well as the New Testament. The quality alleged is not that of sinless perfection, but that of sincere conformity to the Divine will. A.

1-3. Assertions of innocence in the Psalms. We find in the Psalms many assertions of uprightness, of innocence, of freedom from transgression, which almost startle us. Such expressions have sometimes given offence, as if they savored of a self-righteous spirit. But a little reflection will show how mistaken such a notion is. We have but to turn to the passages in which they occur, to see at once that the words are not the words of a proud boaster, ignorant alike of his own heart and of the law of God. Take, for instance, such passages as this: “Thou hast proved my heart; Thou hast visited (me) by night; Thou hast tried (me) and findest no evil thought in me; neither does my heart transgress” (v. 3). The words are bold words, no doubt. Such an assertion of innocence is one which we might tremble to make. But it is not self-righteous. It is made solemnly in the presence of God, with a direct appeal to Him as knowing the heart: “From Thy presence let my judgment go forth; Thine eyes behold uprightness” (v. 2). It is fully explained by other language immediately preceding: “Give ear to my prayer which (is uttered) by no deceitful lips” (v. 1). These last words show us the sense in which such a passage is to be taken. The Psalmist is not asserting his freedom from sin, but the uprightness and guilelessness of his heart toward God. He is no hypocrite, no dissembler; he is not consciously doing wrong. P.

He knows himself to be righteous not only in his relation to men, but also in his relation to God. In all such assertions of the pious self-consciousness, what is meant is a righteousness of life that has its ground in a righteousness by faith. The self-righteousness is only in appearance; for the righteousness to which the Psalmists appeal is not the merit of works, not a sum of good deeds, that are recounted to God with a claim for reward, but a bending of the will and a shaping of the life that is in accordance with the mind of God, that has its roots in the emptying of self and in the surrendering of one’s self to Him, and that looks upon itself as the result of His justifying, sanctifying, preserving and guiding grace. The Old Testament looks at this matter more after the manner of James than after that of Paul; but even the Old Testament righteousness of life is rooted in the grace of God the Redeemer toward sinful man, who in himself is devoid of righteousness before God. There is, therefore, no self-righteousness in David’s praying that the righteousness, which in his person is persecuted and cries for help, may be heard. D.

3. This verse expresses the consciousness not of sinlessness, but of sincerity; the Psalmist needs, and invites, the fiery process of testing and refining, but with a certainty that it will result in a recognition of his integrity. Cook.—It is not absolute innocence which the Psalmist here asserts; he is appealing to God as knowing his uprightness of heart and honesty of purpose. The latter part of this verse might be rendered, with Delitzsch:

“Thou hast tried me, and findest nothing: Have I cherished an evil thought?—it shall not pass my mouth.”

Hast proved, hast tried. Both words used of the testing of metals, and especially the latter, which means properly to melt in the fire, so as to separate the dross from the ore. By night, as the season of quiet thought and self-examination. P.

It is night that lets us measure ourselves. We cannot know self by day. We are mixed with the busy, distracting world, dispersed and confused in action and enjoyment. The night comes to let the thoughts concentrate and fall back on their real strength, to make them feel what basis they have within: “Thou hast proved my heart, Thou hast visited me in the night.” It is night that lets us measure the real universe. By day it is shut. We see only this earth and earthly sun. By night God withdraws the veil, reveals eternity with its far-off shores of sparkling worlds, and fills the soul with infinite longings, which make it conscious it has a universe within greater than the universe without, and which can be satisfied only with God. Ker.—Viewed in its relations to the life of man, the night is pre-eminently an interruption. It breaks in upon and suspends human occupations, of whatever kind; it writes on the face of the heavens the veto of God on uninterrupted work. This enforced suspension of activity suggests not merely the limited stock of strength at our disposal, but it also reminds us that we have a higher life than that which is represented and made the most of by the activity of this life, which will last when all that belongs to this life shall have passed away, a life for the nutriment and development of which God thus makes provision, and invites us to make provision, lest we should be swept without thought, without purpose, down the stream of time into the vast eternity that awaits us. H. P. L.

4. By the word of Thy lips. The Word is called, “The sword of the Spirit.” In spiritual conflicts there is none like to that. The more ready the Scripture is with us, the greater advantage in our conflicts and temptations. When the devil came to assault Christ, He had Scripture ready for him, whereby He overcame the tempter. It is a great advantage when we have the word not only by us but in us, engrafted in the heart; when it is present with us we are more able to resist the assaults of Satan. Either a man forgets the Word, or hath lost his affection to it, before he can be drawn to sin. Manton.—What the Scripture forbids, avoid; what it affirms, believe; what it commands, do; what it reproves, amend. As many as walk by this rule, peace on them, and on the Israel of God. T. Adams.

I have kept me from the ways. They whom Christ saves are they who at once attempt to save themselves, yet despair of saving themselves; who aim to do all, and confess they do naught; who are all love and all fear; who ever seek to please Him, yet feel they never can. All this seems a contradiction to the natural man; but those whom Christ enlightens understand that it is possible to work out their own salvation, yet to have it wrought out for them. Newman.

To keep the even tenor of one’s way in sunshine and storm, through evil as well as through good report, amid afflictions and reproaches as well as smiles and benedictions, is a proof of integrity which he is thrice blessed who can appropriate to himself. To be always the same, at all times, in all places, in all conditions, in all companies; to stand firmly by our principles at every sacrifice of interest or of fame; to consent to be misunderstood and maligned rather than let go our integrity; to count nothing a good but duty, nothing ill but wrong—this is a perfection of character which, while it is incumbent upon all to pursue, such is the melancholy weakness of human nature that it has never been realized but once. Our efforts are at best but faint approximations. We press forward; we have not already attained, but the prize is in view. We have but one rule to go by. The law of the Lord must be in our hearts, must be the controlling law of our wills, if we would keep us from the ways of the violent. Thornwell.

6-12. The prayer to be kept in the evil world. The earnest, affectionate cleaving to God, the prayer to be hidden in the shadow of His wings, is proof enough that the former part of the Psalm is no merely self-righteous boast. P.

6,7. It is only now, when he has laid bare his very heart and his walk before Jehovah, that he resumes the petition which he has thus justified and grounded, and unfolds it in detail. Being such an one as he has described himself to be according to the testimony of his conscience, he may call upon God, for God hears such and will therefore also hear him. D.

7. This verse is remarkable for its compact brevity. What the Hebrew gives in six words the common version takes twenty-six to convey. Chambers.—“Show Thy marvellous loving-kindness” is, more precisely, show Thy loving-kindness to be marvellous—make the manifestations of it to be glorious in the case of Thy servant. Beautiful indeed is the form of this address to the Hearer of prayer—“O Thou that savest by Thy right hand all who trust in Thee from their uprising foes.” C.—Thy marvellous lovingkindness. Marvellous in its distinguishing character, its faithfulness, its immutability, and above all, marvellous in the wonders which it works. That marvellous grace which has redeemed us with the precious blood of God’s only begotten is here invoked to come to the rescue. S.

8. Both the images in this verse, alike expressive of the affection of the Psalmist and of his deep sense of God’s tender care and love to him, are borrowed from the beautiful passage in Deut. 32: 10, 11. For the former, see also Zech. 2: 8. The latter occurs frequently. In the New Testament our Lord uses the still more tender image of the hen gathering her brood under her wings. P.

The pupil or apple of the eye is a proverbial type of that which is most precious and most easily injured, and which therefore has a double claim to sedulous protection. A.—Both God’s care in the construction of the eye, and the instinct of man under a consciousness of its priceless value, conspire to the keeping of the eye above all other keeping, thus making it an admirable illustration of the care with which we fitly pray God to keep us from all sin and harm. C.

Shadow of thy wings. In his great hymn (Deut. 32) Moses already speaks of God’s wings; but the double figure of the shadow of God’s wings (here and 36: 8; 57: 2; 63: 8) was coined by David. “God’s wings” are the spreadings out, i.e., the manifestations, of His love, which takes the creature under the protection of its intimate fellowship, and the “shadow” of these wings is the refreshing rest and security which the fellowship of this love affords to those who hide themselves in it from the heat of outward and inward conflict. D.

10. “Their fat have they shut up.” This may refer both to the outward condition and the state of heart. These men led a luxurious and selfish life (as is further said, v. 14), in consequence of which they had become proud and unfeeling. Others render, “they have closed their heart,” i.e., they have no feeling of compassion. P.

12,13. The foe springs upon David like a lion; may Jehovah—so he implores—in his defence stand in the way of this lion and cast him down. D.

14. The simplest construction is that given in the Prayer-Book version, which takes the preposition in the same sense before both nouns—“from the men, and from the evil world.” World is then simply a collective equivalent to the plural men. The men of the world are represented as having their largest wishes gratified not only in the number, but the prosperous condition of their children. See Psalms 127: 3; 128: 3, 4; Job 21: 111. The whole is only a description of things as they seem to man, before God’s judgments interpose to change them. A.

14. Men of the world.** The word here used for “world” (cheled) denotes the transitory nature of the world as a thing of time. Men of the world are those who have made it their home, and who, together with the world and the lust thereof, are passing away. Being thus worldly-minded, they have their portion in life, i.e., in the brief years of their existence upon earth. Then this love of the world is opposed to the love of the Father, not the present to the future so much as the temporal to the eternal, the world to God. The contrast to “their portion in this life” is to be found in v. 15. On the one side, the outward, the transitory, the unreal; on the other, the inward, the abiding, the true. We have here a view of the world and of life very remarkable for the Old Testament—a kind of anticipation of the contrast between the flesh and the spirit which Paul gives us, or the love of the world and of God of which John speaks. P.—The contrast is not so much between this life and the life to come, as between the world (life) and God. Here we see right into the very heart of Old Testament faith. For Old Testament faith all the blessedness and glory of the future life, which the New Testament discloses, is bound up in Jehovah. Jehovah is its highest good, in the possession of whom it is raised above heaven and earth, life and death; to yield itself to Him blindly, without any explicit knowledge of a future blessed life, to find its satisfaction in Him, to rest in Him, to hide itself in Him when face to face with death, is the characteristic feature of Old Testament faith. D.

Whose portion is in this life. Time and this lower world bound all their hopes and fears. They have no serious believing apprehensions of anything beyond this present life; therefore have nothing to withhold them from the most injurious violence, if thou withhold them not; men that believe not another world are the ready actors of any imaginable mischiefs and tragedies in this. Howe.—Self-denial is the grand law of all holy living. It is living with reference to the future. Self-indulgence lives for the present, and the immediate present, and utterly disregards a future that is often by no means very remote. Accordingly the Bible represents it—as a damning sin to be content, as are “men of the world,” to “have their portion in this life.” Dives is charged with neither immorality nor inhumanity, but simply with having by his own choice, in his “lifetime, received his good things!” Pierson.

15. Worldly men have their satisfaction in this life, in treasures, in children; David hopes to be satisfied with the likeness of God. P.—The Hebrew makes the antithesis between the writer and his rich and powerful enemies very strong: I, for my part, have a far different lot from theirs. My treasures are not of the earth, consist not in being satisfied with children and with wealth enough to enjoy with them while I live and to leave for them at my death; but it shall suffice for me to behold Thy face in purity and integrity so as to ensure Thy favor; it shall be enough for me to have the blissful satisfaction of awaking from the sleep of death in Thine own blessed image! I prefer the construction which refers this passage to the future life. In support of it I urge, (1) that the words themselves not only admit but with considerable force demand this construction. “Beholding the face of God” will not have its legitimate meaning filled out until we reach heaven. “Awaking” is painfully meagre and inept if applied to rising from one’s nightly sleep, but is not only pertinent but sublimely glorious when said of the resurrection from the grave. “With Thy likeness” a Hebrew word which legitimately means form, image, as of what is shaped, fashioned, has no proper sense if applied to each morning’s rising from sleep, but is pregnant with grand significance as spoken of the resurrection body clothed upon with immortality. I also urge, (2) that the context—the relation of thought in this antithesis between David and his wicked persecutors—demands the reference of his words to the future life. They are “men of this world,” he of another; “they have their portion in this life,” he in the next; they are satisfied with children, he with his final awaking in the Divine image; they make out a sort of immortality by leaving their wealth to their sons and to their sons’ sons after them; but David’s immortality is simply that of the just—the glorious inheritance laid up for God’s children. These two comprehensive considerations constitute in my view the legitimate arguments by which the main question must be determined. C.

The language is quite free from obscurity. I, says David, as before (v. 6) emphatically—I, such as I am, poor, persecuted, but innocent, and God’s friend, shall behold Thy countenance in righteousness. So far there is no substantial difference between commentators. David set against the prosperity of his enemies the single fact that he is sure of a vindication of his righteousness in God’s own presence. But the next clause goes much farther. “When I awake”—what can that mean? Not from sleep, David had no thought of sleeping; not from the present danger, that had no connection with repose; what could it be but from death? His enemies are satisfied in this life with the hid treasures of Providence; when David awakes out of the sleep, which will be the end of all happiness to them, he will be satisfied with God’s likeness. The word likeness does not mean the “likeness and image” of Gen. 1, but the Form of God Himself, called in the New Testament morphee and idos, of which all we know is that it is inconceivable, but of which we believe that it will be beheld and realized in the Person of the Son. David believed, if we may trust these words, that when life was gone, and the sleep of death terminated, all his longings would be satisfied by the manifestation of that Form. Cook.

I cannot doubt that the reference is to “the waking from the sleep of death,” and therefore to a resurrection. In opposition to this interpretation, it is commonly asserted that the truth of a resurrection had not yet been revealed, and that, consequently, if we find the doctrine here, the Psalm must be of later date—after the Exile. But this is mere assertion. First, as regards the use of the figure. “Waking” from death occurs in 2 Kings 4 : 31. Death is spoken of as a sleep from which there is no awaking [Job 14 : 12 ; Jer. 51 : 39]. Next, “Awake—ye that sleep in the dust” (Isa. 26 : 19), plainly refers to the resurrection. (Hence critics who think this truth could not be known before the Exile are obliged to suppose that this chapter was written after that time.) Again, why should not David have attained, in some degree, to the knowledge of a truth which in later times was so clearly revealed as it was to Ezekiel (who makes use of it as the image of the resurrection of Israel, 37 : 1-14) and to Daniel (12 :

2)? Is it astonishing that a truth should first appear somewhat dimly expressed, and afterward shine with a greater brightness? In all times there are men whom God takes into a nearer communion with Himself, and who attain to an insight and an utterance beyond that of the dull, unripe world. P.

Religion has its commencement in the knowledge of what are termed the natural attributes of God, which in fact are subservient only to higher perfections; it receives its next considerable enhancement from a knowledge or spiritual perception of His attributes of Holiness and Goodness; it reaches its consummation in an immediate perception or open vision of His unchanging and unsullied Blessedness. This absolute felicity of God is the ultimate point of theology; and the eras of eternity shall be occupied in learning all that it comprises. Of these three stages of knowledge, the first is acquired chiefly by the deductions and inferences of reason. The second, by the testimony of Scripture, along with that inward communication, or “teaching of the Spirit,” by which the heart is quickened. The third must wait for the immediate or real and direct knowledge of its object in the future world. I. T.

Everlasting life and salvation in heaven is not a truth revealed only by the Gospel, but was well known and firmly believed by the saints of old. They had assurance of this, that they should live with God forever in glory. “When I awake with Thy likeness.” “Thou wilt receive me to glory” (Psalm 73 : 24). “In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16 : 11). They looked for another country, whereof Canaan was but a type and shadow, as the apostle shows in the Epistle to the Hebrews (11 : 16). They did believe this in those days. Samuel Mather.

“When I awake.” How apt and obvious is the analogy between our awaking out of natural sleep, and the holy soul’s rising up out of the darkness and torpor of its present state into the enlivening light of God’s presence! It is truly said so to awake at its first quitting these darksome regions, when it lays aside its cumbersome night-veil. It doth so more perfectly in the joyful morning of the resurrection-day, when mortality is swallowed up in life, and all the yet hovering shadows of it are vanished and fled away. Nor doth this interpretation less fitly accord to the other contents of this verse; for to what state do the sight of God’s face, and satisfaction with His likeness, so fully agree, as to that of future blessedness in the other world? The contexture of discourse in this and the foregoing verse together seems plainly to determine us to this sense; for what can be more conspicuous in them than a purposed comparison, an opposition of two states of felicity mutually to each other? That of the wicked, whom he calls men of time, and whose portion, he tells us, is in this life; and the righteous man’s, his own, which he expected not to be till he should awake—that is, not till after this life. Howe.

The soul is but finite, but God is infinite. Though God be a good that satisfies, yet He does not surfeit. Fresh joys spring continually from His face; and He is as much to be desired after millions of years by glorified souls as at the first moment. There is a fulness in God that satisfies, and yet so much sweetness that the soul still desires. If there be so much delight in God, when we see Him only by faith (1 Pet. 1:8), what will the joy of vision be when we shall see Him face to face! T. Watson.—The nature of the satisfaction. “Thy likeness.” Like the body of Jesus we are to believe our new resurrection body will be. Only it will have passed through a great change: no longer carnal, but spiritual; not dull, but glorious; not a hinderer, but a helper, of the soul; framed and moulded in exquisite adaptation, first to hold a perfected spirit, and then to be as wings to execute all the pure and unlimited desires of the soul for the glory of God. And so with the spiritual nature of man. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” J. V.

When we live again it will not be by any external transfer to us of the benefit of our Saviour’s resurrection, any more than our being forgiven our sins will be by any external transfer of the benefits of our Saviour’s suffering. Both are inward participations, living gifts, gained by faith, growing up under a living law—the law of the Spirit of life. “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” Straight out of the redemption, like the flower from the broken seed, springs our future as our only present peace and purity. Heaven is a place of white garments, and nothing makes them white but the precious blood. Jesus died to set us free from the bondage of a hard, compulsory, unsatisfying, unloving sort of obedience, to lead us out into the liberty of a free and loving service where faith and thankfulness are the ever fresh incentives. And so the Christian’s resurrection life will be the perfection of that liberty, the unclouded sunshine of the presence of the Lord. It will be “likeness”—likeness in the resurrection because likeness in the death; likeness wrought by believing, and loving, and serving; and when the trustful and affectionate servant, having passed from death unto life, awakes up in it, he will be “satisfied.” F. D. H.

The truth which David felt when he said, “I shall be satisfied when I awake,” is that the spirit, because emancipated from the body, shall spring into greater intensity of action, shall put forth powers that have been held down here, and shall come into contact with an order of things which here it has but indirectly known. To our true selves and to God we shall wake. Here we are like men asleep in some chamber that looks toward the eastern sky. Morning by morning comes the sunrise, with the tender glory of its rosy light and blushing heavens, and the heavy eyes are closed to it all. Here and there some lighter sleeper, with thinner eyelids or face turned to the sun, is half conscious of a vague brightness, and feels the light, though he sees not the colors of the sky nor the forms of the flimsy clouds. Such souls are our saints and prophets, but most of us sleep on unconscious. To us all the moment comes when we shall wake, and see for ourselves the bright and terrible world which we have so often forgotten, and so often been tempted to think was itself a dream. A. M.

The spirits of just men are made perfect in heaven. The soul is the glory of man, and grace is the glory of the soul, and both are then in their exaltation. All the faculties of the soul are raised to the highest degrees of natural and Divine perfection. In this life grace renews the faculties, but does not elevate them to their highest pitch. It does not make a mean understanding pregnant, nor a frail memory strong, nor a slow tongue eloquent, but sanctifies them as they are. But when the soul is released from this dark body of earth, the understanding is clear and quick, the memory firm, the will and affections ardent and vigorous. And they are enriched with Divine light and love and power, that makes them fit for the most noble and heavenly operations. The lineaments of God’s image on the soul are first drawn here, but then it receives His last hand. All the celestial colors are added, to give the utmost life and lustre to it. Here we are advancing, but by death we arrive at perfection. Bates.

To say of a man that he is just, justified in Christ, is the beginning of glory. But to say the just made perfect is to reach a point where angels and principalities and powers will never be wearied with gazing; where all that they have beheld in the past eternity of God’s wonders of wisdom, power, and love, will leave them still astonished and enraptured, with a new surpassing rapture, at this before inconceivable revelation of the glory of God in the Saviour seen through His saints. This is that glorification together with Christ to which the Apostle Paul refers, when he speaks of the glory which shall be revealed in us; the glory of those who are glorified together with Christ, being that of those who are without fault before the throne of God. Well may the earnest expectation of the creature wait for and long after such a manifestation of the Sons of God. G. B. C.

What is heaven? Likeness to God! Love, purity, fellowship with Him; the condition of the spirit and the relation of the soul to Him. The noblest truth about the future world flows from the words of our Master—“This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Not, “this brings;” not, “this will lead up to;” not, “this will draw after it;” but “this is;” and whosoever possesses that eternal life hath already in him the germ of all the glories that are round the throne, and the blessedness that fills the hearts of perfected spirits. If so, if already eternal life in the bud standeth in the knowledge of God in Christ, what makes its fruitage and completeness? Surely, not physical changes or the circumstances of heaven, at least not these primarily, however much such changes and circumstances may subserve our blessedness there, and the anticipation of them may help our sense-bound hopes here. But the completion of heaven is the completion of our knowledge of God and Christ, with all the perfecting of spirit which that implies and produces. The faith, and love, and happy obedience, and consecration which is calm, that partially occupied and ruled the soul here are to be thought of as enlarged, perfected, delivered from the interruption of opposing thoughts, of sensuous desires, of selfish purposes, of earthly and sinful occupations. And that perfect knowledge and perfect union and perfect likeness are perfect bliss. And that bliss is heaven. And if, while heaven is a place, the heaven of heaven be a state, then no more words are needed to show that, then, heaven can be no dead level, nor can all stand at the same stage of attainments, though all be perfect; but that in that solemn company of the blessed, “the spirits of just men made perfect,” there are indefinitely numerous degrees of approximation to the unattainable perfection, which stretches above them all, and draws them all to itself. A. M.

The source of heaven’s blessedness and power is the likeness of the soul to Christ. He is the image of the unseen Father, who has taken the copy from the Divine side and transferred it to the human for our example. He has removed by His life and death all the guilt which barred our way to God, and He has secured all the Spirit’s power to make that image ours. Slowly we are drawn to His image here by the cords of love, as they strengthen their hold on us; but the image at best remains incomplete and dim. When He shall appear “we shall see His face, and His name shall be on our foreheads.” It shall be deeper—in our souls; and all of God’s truth and grace that can be communicated to a creature shall enter into the depth of the spiritual nature through Christ. If the active soul finds scope for work in God’s material universe, the Mary-like spirit which delights to sit at the feet of Christ and hear His word shall have unrebuked leisure in the heavenly home. We may trust that in some way the sisters, Service and Meditation, will interchange gifts, and be perfectly at one when they reach His higher presence. Ker.

Now we see God as by a dim reflection, but then face to face; now we know Him in part, but then even as we are known; then this imperfect vision of faith will be changed into a Divine and beatific manifestation of God. All that majesty which now overawes us will then be revealed to our prepared spirits; the Divine beauty will then fill all the powers and irradiate all the recesses of the mind. And to those who have here delighted to trace God in His works, His providence, and more especially in His word and grace, how delightful will be this intimate knowledge of the Father of spirits! R. Hall.—Here we meet with checks and hindrances to development manward and Godward—in absorption in the world’s business—in the multiplicity of its cares—in the weariness of the body, rendering torpid the susceptibilities of the soul—in the isolations, the coldness, the discords of life—in the rareness of noble examples showing what hearts may be—in the dimness, the contradictions, the divisions, the sectarianisms of earth—in the faint apprehensions of God, of Christ, of eternity; in all these we find sad clogs to the growth of the heart’s higher life. But in heaven all these will be gone. There will be found all that can give elevation, expansion, depth, power to the affections, clearness of insight into spiritual realities, the overshadowing presence and inflowing glories of God, the purest society of congenial spirits, all whose ways and all whose attractions will be on high, noble examples of the affections in lovely embodiment, sweet amenities, open souls all about us with prompt hospitalities and fellowship—everything to inspire us to flow out in confidence and love—no repressions or repulsions, all inviting to perpetual outgushings of heart—God the Father over us and all good souls about us. These will be the incitements, the nourishment of our affections; and in this Divine atmosphere they will have a growth, exhibit a luxuriance, effloresce in a beauty now inconceivable to us. The heart that has ever been really quickened to a Divine life, that has ever been put beside the beating heart of God and felt its Divine pulsations however faintly, such a heart shall live forever. J. Drummond.

The place of our future life is obscure. How there can be relation to place without a body we do not know, and even when the body is restored, we cannot tell the locality of the resurrection-world. Nothing in reason and nothing certain in revelation connects it with any one spot in God’s universe. The outward manner of our final existence is also uncertain. That it will be blessed and glorious, freed from all that can hurt or annoy, we may well believe. That it will be proportioned to the future material frame, we may reasonably infer. We may calculate that, in the degree in which the incorruptible and immortal body shall excel the body of sin and death, our final home, with its scenes of beauty and grandeur, its landscapes and skies, shall surpass our dwelling-place on this earth. There is a measure in the works of God on which we can reckon, both in the patterns of things in the heavens, and in the heavenly things themselves. Many of the modes of thought and feeling, in that life to come, perplex us. The great laws of mind and spirit must remain the same, because in them we are formed after the image of God. In these we are His offspring, and draw not simply from His will, but from His nature. Truth must forever continue truth, and goodness eternally commend itself to the soul, else our training for the future life would be valueless, and our confidence in the reality of things shaken. We can never admit that the perceptions of the spiritual world will be reversed or essentially altered. But there may be large modifications, through the extension and elevation of our thoughts. There are three things promised us which are all connected with each other: Christ’s manifestation

—“He shall appear.” A full vision on our part—“We shall see Him as He is.” And complete assimilation as the result—“We shall be like Him.” Ker.

That future life gives us two elements, an infinite God and an indefinitely expansible human spirit: an infinite God to fill, and a soul to be filled, the measure and the capacity of which has no limit set to it that we can see. What will be the consequence of the contact of these two? Why this, for the first thing, that always, at every moment of that blessed life, there shall be a perpetual fruition, a perpetual satisfaction, a deep and full fountain filling the whole soul with the refreshment of its waves and the music of its flow. And yet, and yet—though at every moment in heaven we shall be satisfied, filled full of God, full to overflowing in all our powers—yet the very fact that the God who dwells in us, and fills our whole natures with unsullied and perfect blessedness, is an infinite God; and that we in whom the infinite Father dwells are men with souls that can grow, and can grow forever, will result in this, that at every moment our capacities will expand; that at every moment, therefore, the desire will grow and spring afresh; that at every moment God will be seen unveiling undreamed-of beauties, and revealing hitherto unknown heights of blessedness before us; and that the sight of that transcendent, unapproached, unapproachable, and yet attracting and transforming glory, will draw us onward as by an impulse from above, and the possession of some portion of it will bear us upward as by a power from within; and so, nearer, nearer, ever nearer to the throne of light, the centre of blessedness, the growing, and glorifying, and greatening souls of the perfectly and increasingly blessed shall mount up with wings as eagles. Heaven is endless longing, accompanied with an endless fruition—a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is life!

Seeing God we shall be satisfied. With all lesser joys the eye is not satisfied with seeing, but to look on Him will be enough. Enough for mind and heart, wearied and perplexed with partial knowledge and imperfect love; enough for eager desires, which thirst, after all draughts from other streams; enough for will, chafing against lower lords and yet longing for authoritative control; enough for all my being—to see God. Here we can rest after all wanderings, and say, “I travel no further; here will I dwell forever—I shall be satisfied.” And as we reckon up the rich treasure of our immortal hopes, our faith grows bold, and pauses not

even at the lofty certainty of God without us, known directly and adequately, but climbs to the higher assurance of God within us, flooding

our darkness with His great light, and chang- ing us into the perfect copies of His express Image, His only-begotten Son. A. M.

27. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits’ end. 28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, And he bringeth them out of their distresses. 29 He maketh the storm a calm, So that the waves thereof are still. 30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; So he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be. 31 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 32 Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people, And praise him in the seat of the elders. 33 He turneth rivers into a wilderness, And watersprings into a thirsty ground; 34 A fruitful land into a salt desert, For the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

35. He turneth a wilderness into a pool of water, And a dry land into watersprings. 36 And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, That they may prepare a city of habitation; 37 And sow fields, and plant vineyards, And get them fruits of increase. 38 He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; And he suffereth not their cattle to decrease. 39 Again, they are minished and bowed down Through oppression, trouble, and sorrow. 40 He poureth contempt upon princes, And cause h them to wander in the waste, where there is no way. 41 Yet setteth he the needy on high from affliction, And maketh him families like a flock. 42 The upright shall see it, and be glad; And all iniquity shall stop her mouth. 43 Whoso is wise shall give heed to these things, And they shall consider the mercies of the LORD.

WE have now arrived at the last collection of Psalms, which includes some older Psalms along with a few composed in or after the captivity of seventy years. This is a Psalm of providence, celebrating the kindness of the Lord to those wandering in the wilderness, in nine verses; to those sitting in darkness and captivity, in seven verses; to those in affliction and sickness, in six verses; to those in a storm at sea, in ten verses, and to those who turn with penitence to the Lord under any corrective visitation, in eleven verses. Four parts are cases of difficulty or trouble in which men are wont to cry unto the Lord, and being delivered are exhorted to give thanks. The crying and the exhortation recur in each of these parts. The wanderer and the prisoner form a contrast; the latter has no liberty, the former no resting-place. The bedridden and the tempest-tossed present a similar contrast. The four are the most striking forms of the perils of life. M.

This Psalm describes various incidents of human life; it tells of the perils which befall men and the goodness of God in delivering them, and calls upon all who have experienced His care and protection gratefully to acknowledge them; and it is perfectly general in its character. The four or five groups, or pictures, are so many samples taken from the broad and varied record of human experience. There can be no doubt as to the great lesson which the Psalm inculcates. It teaches us not only that God’s providence watches over men, but that His ear is open to their prayers. It teaches us that prayer may be put up for temporal deliverance, and that such prayer is answered. It teaches us that it is right to acknowledge with thanksgiving such answers to our petitions. This was the simple faith of the Hebrew poet. It is needless to say how readily such a faith is shaken now. First, there is the old and obvious objection that all such prayers, even when offered by men of devout mind, are not answered. To this it may be replied, that answers to prayer are not all of one kind; and that God as really answers His children’s supplication when He gives them strength and resignation in prison or in sickness, as when He “breaks in pieces the bars of iron,” or “sends His Word and heals them;” when He suffers them to sink beneath the raging waters, with heaven open to their eyes, as when He “brings them to their desired haven.” Closely akin to this there arises another question. Does God ever answer prayer by direct action upon the material world? It may be replied that it is not for the most part by immediate action in the material world that God grants our petitions. Even if we were forced to concede that now, since the age of miracles is past, God never so acts, still, this should not trouble us, seeing how wide the region is in which indirectly our prayers even for temporal blessing may be answered. How often we speak of happy inspirations, little knowing what we