Psalms 73

THE REVISED TEXT; WITH COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST ILLUMINATING AND HELPFUL THOUGHT OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES, TAKEN FROM EIGHT HUNDRED DEVOUT SCHOLARS.

“What the heart is in man, that the Psalter is in the Bible.” Arndt.—“The Psalms may well be the heart, they are so full of sweet affections and passions. In other Scriptures God speaks to us, but in the Psalms men speak to God and to their own hearts.” Gibbes.—“We cannot pray the Psalms without having our hearts opened, our affections enlarged, our thoughts drawn heavenward. He who can pray them best is nearest to God, knows most of the Spirit of Christ, is ripest for heaven."—Bishop Perowne.

| Psalm | LXXIII., | PAGE | | — | — | — | | “ | LXXIV., | 5 | | “ | LXXV., | 19 | | “ | LXXVI., | 25 | | “ | LXXVII., | 28 | | “ | LXXVIII., | 32 | | “ | LXXIX., | 40 | | “ | LXXX., | 47 | | “ | LXXX., | 50 | | “ | LXXXI., | 53 | | “ | LXXXII., | 59 | | “ | LXXXIII., | 63 | | “ | LXXXIV., | 66 | | “ | LXXXV., | 74 | | “ | LXXXVI., | 79 | | “ | LXXXVII., | 85 | | “ | LXXXVIII., | 91 | | “ | LXXXIX., | 93 |

| Psalm | XC., | 103 | | — | — | — | | “ | XCI., | 118 | | “ | XCH., | 125 | | “ | XCHI., | 131 | | “ | XCIV., | 134 | | “ | XCV., | 140 | | “ | XCVI., | 148 | | “ | XCVII., | 154 | | “ | XCVIII., | 160 | | “ | XCIX., | 162 | | “ | C., | 167 | | “ | CI., | 169 | | “ | CII., | 173 | | “ | CIII., | 179 | | “ | CIV., | 189 | | “ | CV., | 205 | | “ | CVI., | 210 |

| Psalm | CVII., | 215 | | — | — | — | | “ | CVIII., | 224 | | “ | CIX., | 225 | | “ | CX., | 231 | iv

| | | PAGE | | — | — | — | | Psalm | CXI., | 242 | | “ | CXII., | 248 | | “ | CXIII., | 255 | | “ | CXIV., | 257 | | “ | CXV., | 259 | | “ | CXVI., | 263 | | “ | CXVII., | 276 | | “ | CXVIII., | 277 | | “ | CXIX., 1-16, | 284 | | “ | “ 17-32, | 294 | | “ | “ 33-48, | 301 | | “ | “ 49-64, | 309 | | “ | “ 65-80, | 315 | | “ | “ 81-96, | 322 | | “ | “ 97-112, | 329 | | “ | “ 113-128, | 336 | | “ | “ 129-144, | 341 | | “ | “ 145-160, | 349 | | “ | “ 161-176. | 352 | | “ | CXX., | 360 | | “ | CXXI., | 363 | | “ | CXXII., | 368 | | “ | CXXIII., | 372 | | “ | CXXIV., | 374 | | “ | CXXV., | 377 | | “ | CXXVI., | 380 | | “ | CXXVII., | 386 | | “ | CXXVIII., | 391 | | “ | CXXIX., | 396 | | “ | CXXX., | 399 | | “ | CXXXI., | 406 | | “ | CXXXII., | 410 | | “ | CXXXIII., | 415 | | “ | CXXXIV., | 420 | | “ | CXXXV., | 422 | | “ | CXXXVI., | 425 | | “ | CXXXVII., | 430 | | “ | CXXXVIII., | 435 | | “ | CXXXIX., | 440 | | “ | CXL., | 453 | | “ | CXLI., | 454 | | “ | CXLII., | 459 | | “ | CXLIII., | 461 | | “ | CXLIV., | 467 | | “ | CXLV., | 470 | | “ | CXLVI., | 479 | | “ | CXLVII., | 484 | | “ | CXLVIII., | 491 | | “ | CXLIX., | 496 | | “ | CL., | 500 |

NOTE.—A few changes have been made in the Revised Text, mainly in accordance with the rendering preferred by the American Committee; and some variant readings have been added in parenthesis. B.

1. SURELY God is good to Israel, Even to such as are pure in heart.

2. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; My steps had well nigh slipped.

3. For I was envious at the arrogant, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4. For there are no bands [pangs] in their death: But their strength is firm.

5. They are not in trouble as other men; Neither are they plagued like other men.

6. Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck; Violence covereth them as a garment.

7. Their eyes stand out with fatness: They have more than heart could wish.

8. They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression: They speak loftily.

9. They have set their mouth in the heavens, And their tongue walketh through the earth.

10. Therefore his people return hither: And waters of a full cup are wrung out by them.

11. And they say, How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?

12. Behold, these are the wicked; And, being alway at ease, they increase in riches.

13. Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart, And washed my hands in innocency;

14. For all the day long have I been plagued And chastened every morning.

15. If I had said, I will speak thus;

Behold, I had dealt treacherously with the generation of thy children.

16. When I thought how I might know this, It was too painful for me;

17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, And considered their latter end.

18. Surely thou settest them in slippery places: Thou castest them down to destruction.

19. How are they become a desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors.

20. As a dream when one awaketh; So, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.

21. For my heart was grieved, And I was pricked in my reins:

22. So brutish was I, and ignorant; I was as a beast before thee.

23. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: Thou hast holden my right hand.

24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory.

25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

26. My flesh and my heart faileth: But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

27. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.

28. But it is good for me to draw near unto God:

I have made the Lord God my refuge, That I may tell of all thy works.

THE Psalms in the Third Book differ in some important points from the preceding. Eleven are attributed to Asaph, four to the sons of Korah, one to Ethan, and one only to David. Their character is for the most part didactic, grave, solemn, and sententious. They are pervaded by a deep feeling of melancholy, relieved, however, by flashes of spiritual hope; containing at once the most harrowing descriptions of national calamities, and the clearest anticipations of a futurity of blessedness. It is observable that from the forty-second to the eighty-fourth Psalms the name Elohim is used almost exclusively. This is conclusive against the assumption that such an usage indicates an early date, for these Psalms, with very few exceptions, belong to the post-Davidic period, and are even assigned in part by some critics to a far later age.

Psalm 73. This Psalm may have been composed by Asaph, the contemporary of David, but the name appears to have been borne by some of his descendants. The indications of date are uncertain. The progress or triumph of ungodliness is a feature common to every age, nor are the complaints stronger than those found in the Psalms of David. The apostasy of which the Psalmist speaks is rather moral than ceremonial; the unbelief rather of practical atheism than of heathenish superstition. The sanctuary is still standing (v. 17), the Psalmist goes there for instruction and comfort. The belief in a future retribution is definite (v. 24), not like that of Job, a strong aspiration, or even subjective conviction, but based on the Divine promise. The language is archaic, and the style somewhat obscure, resembling to some extent the Book of Job, with which the author was evidently familiar. Upon the whole it appears most probable that we have here a product of the Solomonian age, written at a season when a turbulent and corrupt nobility had the upper hand, and vicious habits were taking deep root in the nation. A few years before the death of Solomon, or the period immediately following the accession of his son, would supply abundant materials for such reflections. Cook.

The same problems that are discussed in Psalms 37, 49, and in the Book of Job, are treated here, and with similar solution. But the vindication of God’s ways by Asaph is more satisfactory, and the confidence and joy in God are more explicit than we find in Job. Indeed the veil that conceals the heavenly world was lifted before him. Everything seemed bright and clear for the future to one who could say, “Thou wilt guide me by Thy counsel, and thereafter receive me into glory.” De Witt.

Perhaps no man ever looked thoughtfully on the world as it is, without seeing much that was hard to reconcile with a belief in the love and wisdom of God. One form of this moral difficulty pressed heavily upon the pious Jew under the old dispensation. It was this: Why should good men suffer, and bad men prosper? The law told him that God was a righteous Judge, meting out to men in this world the due recompense of their deeds. The course of the world, where those who had cast off the fear of God were rich and powerful, made him ready to question this truth, and was a serious stumbling-block to his faith. This is the perplexity which appears in this Psalm, as it does in the thirty-seventh, and also in the Book of Job. Substantially it is the same problem; but it is met differently. In the thirty-seventh Psalm the advice given is to wait, to trust in Jehovah, and to rest assured that in the end the seeming disorder will be set right even in this world. The wicked will perish, the enemies of Jehovah be cut off, and the righteous will be preserved from evil, and inherit the land. Thus God suffers wickedness for a time, only the more signally to manifest His righteousness in overthrowing it. That is the first, the simplest, the most obvious solution of the difficulty. In this Psalm the conclusion is in part the same as that in Psalm 37, in part it is far higher. The Psalmist here is not content merely with visible retribution in this world. He sees it, indeed, in the case of the ungodly. When he was tempted to envy their lot, when he had all but yielded to the sophistry of those who would have persuaded him to be even as they, the temptation was subdued by the reflection that such prosperity came to an end as sudden as it was terrible. But he does not place over against this, on the other side, an earthly portion of honor and happiness for the just. Their portion is in God. He is the stay and the satisfaction of their hearts now. He will take them to Himself and to glory hereafter. This conviction it is which finally chases away the shadows of doubt, and brings light and peace into his soul. And this conviction is the more remarkable, because it is reached in spite of the distinct promise made of temporal recompense to piety, and in the absence of a full and definite revelation with regard to the life to come. In the clear light of another world and its certain recompenses, such perplexities either vanish or lose much of their sharpness. When we confess that God’s righteousness has a larger theatre for its display than this world and the years of man, we need not draw hasty conclusions from “the slight whisper” of His ways which reaches us here. P.

Psalm 73 might have been written at any point from David to Ezra. The writer had seen the wicked prosper apparently more than the righteous, and he was sorely troubled. He sets before us their ungodly pride; their unaccountable prosperity; and his own perplexity and distress over this strange problem, until he went into God’s sanctuary and there saw their fearful end portrayed. This relieves his mind of its difficulty, and suggests the far different end of the righteous—amid the glories of which his song closes. The difficulty which troubled Asaph has troubled other minds in every age. The facts which he saw in the open world before him may be seen anywhere, in every age. It is, however, only the first or surface view of things which makes the trouble. Asaph at first tacitly assumed not only that retribution from God for the sins of men ought to be finished and made perfect in this present life, laying over nothing to be evened up in the world to come, but also that it ought to be kept good and perfect all along, step by step, day by day, so that an observer, dropping his eyes upon God’s ways toward men at any point would see justice meted out promptly with no delay and with unvarying perfection. But this assumption is without foundation. Such retribution, immediate and perfect, is not God’s way. His ways take time for their complete unfolding. Manifestly He proposes to bear long with the wicked in order to make full proof of the power of forbearance and love upon human hearts to bring them to repentance. And if, as we see here, this system of forbearance and delay of retribution involves some moral trial to the righteous as well as to the wicked, God does not for that reason reject it, but finds use for it in a system wisely constructed for the largest discipline of moral probation. In this line lie the moral lessons of the Psalm before us. C.

The seventy-third Psalm is a very striking record of the mental struggle which an eminently pious Jew underwent, when he contemplated the respective conditions of the righteous and the wicked. Fresh from the conflict, he somewhat abruptly opens the Psalm with the confident enunciation of the truth of which victory over doubt had now made him more and more intelligently sure than ever, that “God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.” And then he relates the most fatal shock which his faith had received, when he contrasted the prosperity of the wicked, who, though they proudly condemned God and man, prospered in the world and increased in riches, with his own lot, who, though he had cleansed his heart and washed his hands in innocency, had been “plagued all the day long and chastened every morning.” The place where his doubts were removed and his tottering faith re-established, was “the sanctuary of God.” God Himself was the Teacher. The true estimate at which he afterward arrived is found in vs. 18-20. T. T. Perowne.

For awhile the Psalmist’s faith is staggered, is almost overthrown; but in the house of God, having acquired that clear sight and serene gaze usual when a soul in its sorrow betakes itself to trustful and submissive communion with God, he obtains a glimpse of God’s higher and grander purposes. He sees that the great possession of the righteous, and the high reward bestowed on them, is the favor of God and communion with Him—an inheritance reaching up to a future life, and there only unfolding the fulness of its treasures. At length, therefore, peace returns to him, and he looks hopefully forward to that glorious, eternal future. B. and F. Evangelical Review.

1. Remarkably the Psalm opens by affirming the conclusion which he reaches at the end. It is as if he would say: Though, as I am about to show you, my mind has labored long and most painfully over this perplexing problem, yet I have come at last most fully to this conclusion, God is surely good to His true Israel. He would have us remember that by “Israel” He means only the pure in heart. C.

4. No bands in their death. We must remember that the Psalmist is describing here not the fact, but what seemed to him to be the fact, in a state of mind which he confesses to have been unhealthy. No fetters are, so to speak, laid upon their limbs, so that they should be delivered over bound to their great enemy. They are not beset with sorrows, sufferings, miseries, which by impairing health and strength bring them to death. P.—They are of those who die in their full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. Nay, they are not bound by the terrors of conscience in their dying moments, they are not frightened either with remembrance of their sins or the prospect of their misery, but die securely. We cannot judge of men’s state on the other side death, either by the manner of their death, or the frame of their spirits in dying. H.

The notion is still prevalent that a quiet death means a happy hereafter. The Psalmist had observed that the very reverse is true. Careless persons become hardened, and continue presumptuously secure even to the last. S.

—Moral character, and not the uncertain and perhaps involuntary experience in dying, is the one factor that decides our state and destiny in the coming world. Character is the resultant of living, not the upshot of a dying hour. Faith, repentance, consecration, service, discipline, love, and prayer, enter largely into it, and mould and give it expression and vital force. Death simply completes life’s work, and puts upon our matured character, be it good or evil, the impress of eternity. What we sow in time, and that only, we shall reap in eternity. Sherwood.

5. Not in trouble as other men.

These men seem exempt not only from the frailties and infirmities of men, but even from the common lot of men. P.—The prosperous wicked escape the killing toils which afflict the mass of mankind; their bread comes to them without care, their wine without stint. Ordinary domestic and personal troubles do not appear to molest them. While many saints are both poor and afflicted, the prosperous sinner is neither. He is worse than other men, and yet he is better off. S.

6. Pride ties on their chain, or necklace. It is no harm to wear a chain or necklace; but when pride ties it on, when it is worn to gratify a vain mind, it ceases to be an ornament. It is not so much what the dress or apparel is, as what principle ties it on and with what spirit it is worn. H.

7. In the last clause the marginal version, “They pass the thoughts of the heart,” comes nearer to the true sense. The imaginations of their heart, in the sense of their wicked devices, overflow from their very abundance. The original words seem to demand this construction. C.—There is no felicity in what the world adores; that wherein God Himself is happy, and the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy, that dare I call happiness; whatsoever the world terms happiness is to me an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name. Browne.

10. Therefore He brings back His people hither, and waters of fulness are wrung out to them (or drained by them). This obscure verse admits of several interpretations, the most natural of which understands the sense to be, that God still suffers or requires His people to survey the painful spectacle and drain the bitter draught presented by the undisturbed prosperity of wicked men. A.—Though beloved of God, they have to drain the bitter cup; their sorrows are as full as the wicked man’s prosperity. It grieves them greatly to see the enemies of God so high and themselves so low, yet the Lord does not alter His dispensations, but continues still to chasten His children and indulge His foes. The medicine cup is not for rebels, but for those whom Jehovah Rophi loves. S.

11. This must express the misgivings of God’s people, with respect to the providential inequalities in question. When still brought back to the sight of these, they are constrained to ask how they can possibly be reconciled with the hypothesis of God’s omniscience. Nothing can be more appropriate in the mouth of a perplexed and tempted believer than the question, How can God know this and yet suffer it?

12. Lo, these are wicked (men), and (yet they are) secure forever, they increase strength (or substance). These are still the words of the perplexed believer, expressing his surprise at the prosperity of sinners. A.—Here is the standing enigma! The stumbling-block of faith? Here are the unjust rewarded and indulged, and that not for a day or an hour, but in perpetuity. Money runs to money, gold pieces fly in flocks; the rich grow richer, the proud grow prouder. Lord, how is this? Thy poor servants, who become yet poorer, and groan under their burdens, are made to wonder at Thy mysterious ways. S.

13. Only (in) vain have I cleansed my heart, and in innocence have washed my hands. These may be taken either indefinitely as the words of any person in the painful situation just described, or more specifically as the words of the Psalmist, by whom the whole class was in fact represented. They contain the inference which would be naturally drawn in such a situation, even by a true believer, but one tempted to repine and doubt by the sight of providential enigmas. “Since the wicked enjoy God’s favor, all my endeavors to avoid sin are fruitless.”

14. The Psalmist here contrasts his own afflictions with the undisturbed enjoyments of his wicked neighbors. “While they, though wicked, still increase in wealth and seem secure forever, I, who have faithfully endeavored to avoid sin and to do the will of God, am subjected, every day and all day, to privation and distress.” A.—That I have made my heart pure and washed my hands morally clean is altogether in vain, bringing me no adequate reward. For I have been vexed and scourged all the day long and chastened every morning. I see no such hard lot befalling the wicked. His heart-troubles and perplexities have reached their maximum. C.—His afflictions were great, he was chastened and plagued; the returns of them were constant, every morning with the morning, and they continued without intermission all the day long. This he thought was very hard, that when those who blasphemed God were in prosperity, he that worshipped God was under such great affliction. He spake feelingly when he spake of his own troubles; there is no disputing against sense, except by faith.

15-20. We have seen what a strong temptation the Psalmist was in to envy prospering profaneness; now here we are told how he kept his footing and got the victory. H.

15. Speak thus. Thus declare, i.e., publicly express my doubts and sceptical misgivings. This, as it has been well observed, the true believer never does until he is able to announce his conflict and his victory together. The generation of Thy sons, the contemporary race of true believers, called the sons of God, not only as the objects of His love, but as partakers of His nature. Treated perfidiously, proved false to them, by weakening the foundation of their hope, instead of strengthening their faith and allaying their misgivings. A.—I do God’s Church a great deal of injury, which hath always been under afflictions, if I think or say that all her piety hath been without hope, or her hope without effect. Diodati.

15-17. God does not judge men in the hasty way in which we judge them. His counsel takes in other ends than merely to make the righteous happy and the unrighteous unhappy. He has a purpose in His forbearance with the guilty. He endures with much long-suffering and does them good continually that He may bring them to Himself. He has a purpose in the painful discipline He often appoints the godly; to make them purer, holier, stronger men. A. Mackennal.

Asaph was embarrassed by the difficulties which the prosperity of the ungodly presents at first sight to every earnest student of the laws of the Divine government of the world. The phenomenon had almost driven him into scepticism: “My feet had almost swerved,” he says, “my treadings had well-nigh slipped” (v. 2). Thus for a time it seemed to the Psalmist, who had been “punished” through the long day of life, and chastened morning by morning, that “he had cleansed his heart in vain, and washed his hands in innocency” (v.

13). Yet to speak thus, he felt, was to offend against the generation of God’s children. It was to abandon their cause to the despair of unbelief. This conviction held him in suspense till he “went into the sanctuary of God, and thought on the latter end of the ungodly.” H. P. L.

16. And I meditated to know this; a trouble (was) it in my eyes. Although he abstained from openly expressing what he thought, he still did think, he pondered the whole matter, with a view to understand it, to discover some solution of the mystery, which not only puzzled but distressed him. The apparent inequality of God’s providential dealings was a toil, a trouble, an unhappiness, in his esteem. A.—A trouble or a weariness, as of a great burden laid upon me. Thought could not solve the problem. The brain grew wearier and the heart heavier. Light and peace come to us, not by thinking, but by faith. “In Thy light we shall see light.” God Himself was the teacher. P.

17. Then understood I their end. This does not exactly mean the termination of their life, but as the word literally signifies, their after destiny, their ultimate portion. Up to the end of their life, as he points out in the first place (v. 4), they are supposed to be prosperous. (Compare Prov. 23: 17, 18.) The retribution must therefore be after death, or not at all. In the three following verses five points are enumerated, in which the Psalmist finds a proof of Divine judgment. Cook.

He was sorely troubled until he went into God’s sanctuary and studied their latter end in the light of the revelations of God made there. It is implied (not expressed) that he then found relief. If the question be asked, By what means did the Psalmist obtain at the sanctuary such light respecting the final doom of the wicked? the answer is: From the public reading of the written Word of God there and from the rehearsal of inspired songs in the worship of the sanctuary. The Pentateuch, certainly in their hands then, was full of demonstrations of the sudden and fearful end of the wicked. C.

18. The conclusion is remarkable. That which dispels the Psalmist’s doubts and restores his faith is the end of the ungodly in this world—their sudden reverses, their terrible overthrow in the very bosom of their prosperity. Hitherto he has not taken notice of this fact as he ought; he has been so dazzled with the prosperity of the wicked, that he has forgotten by what appalling judgments God vindicates His righteousness. He does not follow them into the next world. His eye cannot see beyond the grave. P.—We must judge of persons and things as they appear by the light of Divine revelation, and then we shall judge righteous judgment; particularly we must judge by the end; all is well that ends well, everlastingly well; but nothing well that ends ill, everlastingly ill. The righteous man’s afflictions end in peace, and therefore he is happy; the wicked man’s enjoyments end in destruction, and therefore he is miserable. H.

18,19. The word for “surely” has usually the somewhat stronger sense of only. Only in slippery places, never on any solid foundation, Thou hast set and evermore wilt set them. Thou hast hurled them down into destruction. Suddenly, as in the twinkling of an eye, are they in desolation! C.—The prosperity of the wicked is short and uncertain; the high places in which Providence sets them are slippery places, where they cannot long keep footing; but when they offer to climb higher, that very attempt will be the occasion of their sliding and falling. Their prosperity has no firm ground, it is not built upon God’s favor or His promise; and they have not the satisfaction of feeling that it rests on firm ground. Their destruction is sudden and very great. They flourish for a time, but are undone forever. Their ruin is sure and inevitable; he speaks of it as a thing done. They are cast down; for their destruction is as certain as if it were already accomplished. He speaks of it as God’s doing, and therefore it cannot be resisted. Thou castest them down. It is destruction from the Almighty, from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1: 9).

20. What their prosperity now is; it is but an image, a vain show, a fashion of the world that passes away: it is not real, but imaginary, and it is only a corrupt imagination that makes it a happiness; it is not substance, but a mere shadow; it is not what it seems to be, nor will it prove what we promise ourselves from it; it is as a dream which may please us a little while we are asleep, yet even then it disturbs our repose; but how pleasing soever it is, it is all but a cheat, all false; when we awake we find it so. A hungry man dreams that he eats, but he wakes, and his soul is empty (Isa. 29: 8). H.

Their image. A fine expression, denoting the unsubstantial character of that outward show which had disturbed the Psalmist; the word is especially applied to idols, and probably means a shadowy form. Strictly speaking, all these points describe simply the destruction, death and ruin of the guilty; but they involve the thought that there is an absolute difference between their fate and that of the righteous; and inasmuch as that difference cannot consist merely in the termination of existence, however sudden and terrible, since it is but the common fate of all, and in evil times most frequently that of the patriot and martyr, it must needs refer to the state after death. Cook.

Thou awakest. The metaphor is not infrequent in the Old Testament, and, like many others applying to the Divine nature, is saved from any possibility of misapprehension by the very boldness of its materialism. It has a well-marked and uniform meaning. God “awakes” when He ends an epoch of probation and long-suffering mercy by an act or period of judgment. So far, then, as the mere expression is concerned, there may be nothing more meant here than the termination by a judicial act in this life, of the transient “prosperity of the wicked.” But the emphatic context seems to require that they should be referred to that final crash which irrevocably separates him who has “his portion in this life,” from all which he calls his “goods.” If so, then the whole period of earthly existence is regarded as the time of God’s gracious forbearance and mercy; and the time of death is set forth as the instant when sterner elements of the Divine dealings start into greater prominence. A. M.

21. For.** This explains the whole of the previous struggle. I was tempted to think thus, for I brooded over these difficulties till I became no better than the dumb cattle. So it ever is. Man does not show wisdom when he wearies himself to no purpose with the moral and speculative problems which beset him. His highest wisdom is to stay himself upon God. P.

23,24. The state of the righteous in its contrast. He is with God continually, and therefore in no real danger; God holds him up, so that he cannot slip; through life he is guided and then received into glory. This last expression involves far more than temporal prosperity, which it is scarcely probable that the Psalmist expected, and which certainly would be no adequate compensation for undeserved affliction; the glory must be the manifestation of that abiding Presence, which even here sustains, preserves, and guides the faithful. Cook.

It is the future only that can give him complete relief from the perplexities of the present; he escapes from time into the thought of eternity. God has thus “laid hold on his right hand;” God had saved him from the abyss of doubt: God would still guide His servant with

His counsel, and after that receive him to glory. H. P. L.

The words that follow, in their exquisite beauty, need not comment or interpretation, but a heart in unison with them. They lift us up above the world, above doubts, and fears, and perplexities, into a higher and holier atmos- phere; we breathe the air of heaven.

The great difference, though with essential points of contact, between the hope of the life to come, as portrayed even in such a passage as this, and what we read in the New Testa- ment, will best be understood by comparing the language here with Paul’s language in the fourth and fifth chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and the first chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians (vs. 21-23). P.

23. And (yet) I (am) still with Thee; Thou has held (me) by my right hand. Notwithstand- ing his ungrateful and irrational conduct in God’s presence, he had not been driven from it, as he justly might have been. The word trans- lated still properly means always, and denotes that there had been no change or interruption in the previous relation of the parties. In the last clause he seems to return to the metaphor with which he set out. As the fatal error which he had escaped is in v. 2 represented as a fall, so here his preservation from it is ascribed to God’s having held him up by his right hand. A.

“Though God has chastened me, He has not cast me off; notwithstanding all the crosses of my life I have been continually with Thee, I have had Thy presence with me and Thou hast been nigh unto me in all that which I have called upon Thee for; and therefore though perplexed yet not in despair. Though God has sometimes written bitter things against me, yet He has still holden me by my right hand, both to keep me that I should not desert Him or fly off from Him, and to prevent my sinking and faint- ing under my burdens, or losing my way in the wildernesses through which I have walked.” H.

24. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel. Nothing is so emphatic as Scrip- ture in setting forth the eternal hope and rich promise which attaches to man, and the pecul- iar and high place which he holds in the eye of God. This Bible centres in him. It is made for him with its wealth of instruction and prom- ise and consolation. There is an eye from heaven ever directed upon him; a hand stretched forth from heaven to guide and to uphold him. God takes upon Himself the conduct of His child’s life. He leaves to no one inferior to

Himself the regulation of his ways. V.— Those who commit themselves to God shall be guided with His counsel, with the counsel both of His Word and of His Spirit, the best Coun- sellors. Those who are guided and led by the counsel of God in this world, shall be received to His glory in another world. If we make God’s glory in us the end we aim at, He will make our glory with Him the end we shall for- ever be happy in. Upon this consideration let us never envy sinners, but rather bless our- selves in our own blessedness. If God direct us in the way of our duty and prevent our turn- ing aside out of it, He will afterward, when our state of trial and preparation is over, re- ceive us to His kingdom and glory, the believ- ing hopes and prospects of which will reconcile us to all the dark providences that now puzzle and perplex us, and ease us of the pain we have been put into by some threatening tempta- tions. H.

He says, “He is continually with me; He holds me; He will guide me; He will receive me.” The man saw, and felt, and rejoiced in his own personal interest in God’s care and love. And he did this (mark), in the very midst of affliction, with “flesh and heart failing;” and in spite, too, of many wrong, and opposite, and sinful feelings, that had just passed away; un- der a conviction of his own sinfulness and folly, and, as he calls it, even “brutishness.” It is a blessed thing to have a faith like this. C. Brad- ley.

Afterward. After all our toil in labor and duty, after all our crosses and afflictions, after all our doubts and fears that we should never receive it; after all the hidings of His face, and clouds and darkness that have passed over us; and after all our battles and fightings for it, oh, then how seasonably will the reception of this reward come in: “Afterward receive me to glory.” Oh blessed afterward; when all your work is done, when all your doubts and fears are over, and when all your battles are fought; then, oh, then, ye shall receive the reward. John Spalding.

There is no long slumber between the race and the crown. The passage is short. To be dismissed from earth, from temptation, from passion, from the body, and from sin, is to be admitted into that greater but invisible world, upon the verge of which we are continually living. It is to emerge from time into eternity. It is to close the outward eye as needless, to lose sight of all its objects, and to open the inward eye upon the world of spirits. It is to say fare- well to a group of weeping friends, and bid welcome to the multitude of ransomed souls. It is to leave all care, and pain, and uncertainty, and sin forever behind us. It is also a passing into glory. God is there! He who is everywhere present, unseen, is there present to the lively apprehension of the redeemed. Christ is there! And the longing soul finds itself in His embrace. J. W. A.

What a contrast that is—the conscious blessedness rushing in close upon the heels of the momentary darkness of death. The spirit released from all its sin and its sore agony, struggling up at once into such strange Divine enlargement, a new star swimming into the firmament of heaven, a new face before the throne of God, another sinner redeemed from earth! The conscious, immediate blessedness of the departed—be he what he may, be his life whatsoever it may have been—who at last, standing with one foot on the verge of eternity, and poising himself for the flight, flings himself into the arms of Christ—the everlasting blessedness, the Christ-presence and the Christ-gladness. The flaming cherubim, and the sword that turneth every way, are gone, and the broad road into the city, the Paradise of God, with all its beauties and all its peaceful joy—a better Paradise, “a statelier Eden,” than that which we have lost, is flung open to us forever. A. M.

25. The heaven of blessedness and of glory is indeed nothing apart from God; but he who in love can call God his has heaven upon earth; and he who cannot call God his would have hell even in the midst of heaven. In this sense the Psalmist says, Whom have I in heaven? i.e., Who there without Thee would be the object of my desire, the stilling of my longing? without Thee heaven, with all its glory, is a great waste and void; and with Thee to call Thee mine infinitely surpasses every possession and every desire of earth. D.—It pleases all the saints more that God is their salvation, whether temporal or eternal, than that He saves them. The saints look more at God than at all that is God’s. They say, We desire not Thine, but Thee, or nothing of Thine like Thee. Caryl.

Heaven may be beautiful, but there is no beauty there like that of God; nay more, comparatively speaking, no beauty there save what is in God. Heaven may be social, full of created beings of lofty powers and most genial nature; but what are they all compared with God! This is the spontaneous utterance of all true love to God. The blessedness of His favor and friendship surpasses all other joy immeasurably. Nothing else should be once named or thought of in the comparison.

“Were I in heaven without my God,

So also, earth, with its utmost attractions, affords nothing to be loved and enjoyed compared with God. C.

All the blessings of that future life are of a spiritual character. It is not the golden harps, not the cessation from work, not the still composure and changeless indwelling, not the society even, that makes the Heaven of heaven. All these are but the embodiments and rendering visible of the inward thing, a soul at peace with God in the depths of its being, an eye which gazes upon the Father, and a heart which wraps itself in His arms. Heaven is no heaven except in so far as it is the possession of God. That saying of the Psalmist is not an exaggeration, nor even a forgetting of the other elements of future blessedness, but it is a simple statement of the literal fact of the case, “I have none in Heaven but Thee!” God is the heritage of His people. To dwell in His love, and to be filled with His light, and to walk forever in the glory of His sunlit face, to do His will, and to bear His character stamped upon our foreheads—that is the glory and the perfectness to which we are aspiring. A. M.

The New Testament idea of heaven is not that of a jewelled world far away, but of a kingdom of God in the heart of every Christian—a joy and glory now begun, which are the morning twilight of the eternal day. Yes, heaven is not far off; it glows and shines and blooms around us whenever we are in true sympathy and communion with Him who is its Light and its Lord. Interior.—It is given us to own even Jesus Himself; to say, “O Christ Thou art mine,” “My Lord and my God,” “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Having Thee, I can easily renounce, or lose, all things beside. I would not care to possess, even if I could, Thy stars. Enough that I shall possess the internal contents and the bosom furniture of Thy Divine excellence; all Thy goodness and beauty, all Thy plans and dispositions; and shall I not be so established forever—let me humbly dare to speak it—in the dear blessed ownership of Christ and His kingdom? Bushnell.

26. Spent is my flesh and my heart; the rock of my heart and my portion (is) God to eternity. Flesh and heart, body and soul, the whole man, or the whole life, outward and inward, bodily and mental. The rock of my heart, the support of my life, that on which it rests as on a solid basis. The idea is not simply that of strength, but of a strong foundation. My portion, the source of my subsistence and my happiness. A.—“My flesh and my heart”—body and soul—languish, lose their vital force, sink under the pressure of weakness and the strain of toil; but God is the rock of my heart and my everlasting portion. Oh how true to the experience of the child of God! And how full of blessedness is this truth! All enduring life, all abiding joy, are in God alone. C.

This verse contains a strong assertion of personal immortality; given the destruction of the flesh, even of the heart, the body with all its powers, the heart with all its faculties and endowments, yet the destruction is but seeming, at the most temporary, for God will preserve or restore that nature in which personality and perpetuity of consciousness consist, and He will be the portion of the believer forever. All after-revelations could but confirm and justify this clear anticipation. Annihilation of consciousness was a thought inconceivable to him who held it. Cook.

My portion forever. My portion containeth Him whom the heavens, and heaven of heavens, can never contain. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion “forever;” not for a year, or an age, or a million of ages, but for eternity. Without alteration, this God will be my God forever and ever, my guide and aid unto death; nay, death, which dissolveth so many bonds, and untieth such close knots, shall never part me and my portion, but give me a perfect and everlasting possession of it. Swinnock.—The contrast is too perfect to be evaded. On one side is the perishing body that will presently be laid in the grave; on the other, the undying soul triumphantly realizing its full sense of immortality, as it clings in love and thankfulness to the unchangeable God. To be thus one with the Eternal Being was already to have a certain pledge of endless life. And it is the vision of this endless future—“my portion forever”—thus presented to the eye of the Psalmist in his retreat within the sanctuary, that completes the removal of his original difficulty with respect to the ways of God. Had this world been all, that difficulty must have proved insuperable. It melts away altogether beneath the rays of light which stream from one cardinal truth; it is solved by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul of man. H. P. L.

Union with the Lord—what else is the ground of hope for immortality and eternal life under the new economy? “Because I live,” said the Master, “ye shall live also” (John 14:9). Union with the Lord Himself, that is also the final ground of hope for life and happiness beyond the grave under the old economy. E. C. B.

Nothing in life has any meaning, except as it draws us farther into God, and presses us more closely to Him. The world is no better than a complication of awkward riddles, or a gloomy storehouse of disquieting mysteries, unless we look at it by the light of this simple truth, that the eternal God is blessedly the last and only end of every soul of man. Faber.—It needs not only a living but an Infinite Person to enchain in everlasting love and exercise with ever-varying delight all the heart and strength and mind and soul of man. In the living God alone can the creature find its all sufficiency. In the Creator discovered and reconciled, in Jehovah enthroned as a Sovereign and accepted as a portion, the problem of highest happiness is solved. The intellect expands, the soul is glad, and the life rises to its most blissful level from the happy day that you enter into a personal relation to the all-sufficient Jehovah, and realize in its full significance “God is Love.” Hamilton.

Love desires to please God, and therefore to be freed from all that is displeasing to Him. It desires all suitable nearness, acquaintance, union, and communion. It is weary of distance and alienation. It takes advantage of every notice of God, to renew and exercise these desires. Every message and mercy from God is fuel for love, and while we are short of perfection, stirs up our desires after more of God. The soul is where it loves. God and Christ, heaven and holiness, dwell in the heart which loves them fervently. And if heaven dwell in my heart, shall I not desire to dwell in heaven? When love becomes our fixed nature, we shall be no more weary of loving than the sun of shining. God Himself will be the full and everlasting object of love. Perfect, joyful complacency in God is the heaven which I desire and hope for. He has all in Himself that I need or can desire. There is nothing for love to cleave to, either above Him, beyond Him, or without Him. Baxter.

When flesh and heart fail, His strength is near. Yes, we have seen the dying visage lighted up with the angelic smile of triumph, and have heard the song of rejoicing from lips already cold. A preternatural glimpse of worlds beyond has been granted even here. Hear the eminent theologian, Andrew Rivet, just before his departure: “I shall shortly no more know the difference between day and night. I am come to the eve of that great and eternal day, and am going to that place where the sun shall no more give light. The sense of

Divine favor increaseth in me every moment. My pains are tolerable, and my joys inestimable!” Hear the dying Halyburton: “For those fourteen or fifteen years I have been studying the promises; but I have seen more of the book of God this night than in all that time.” Hear good President Finley: “I am full of triumph—I triumph through Christ.” J. W. A.

Bunsen’s last words: “‘In spite of all my failings and my imperfections, I have desired, I have sought, what is noble here below. But my richest experience is the having known Jesus Christ. Oh, how good it is to contemplate life from this elevation! Now we see how obscure a thing our existence on earth has been. Up, up—it does not become darker, but ever brighter, brighter! I am now in the kingdom of God. Hitherto it has only been a presentiment. O my God, how beautiful are Thy tabernacles!’

“As his attention was directed to a brilliant sunset, ‘Yes,’ said he, in English, ’that is beautiful, the love of God is in everything.’ ‘God is life and love, the love that wills, the will that loves.’ There is no death in God. I see Christ, and I see God through Christ. Christ sees us, He creates us, He must become all in all. Those who live in Christ, who live loving Him, they are His. Those who do not live His life do not belong to Him, whatever may be the name by which they are called, or the confession of faith which they sign. I see clearly that we are all sinners. We have only Christ in God. We exist only in proportion as we are in God; we are all sinners, but we live in God and we have eternal life. We have lived this eternal life in proportion as we have lived in God. All the rest is nothing. Christ is the Son of God, and we are His children only when the spirit of love that was in Christ is in us.”

27. All that depart from God are doomed to chase shadows; to wander on in vain agitation and desire, without any real advance toward the object in view; like a person in a dream, that imagines himself always going forward, though he never moves. The Divine Being will abandon the creature that forsakes Himself to barrenness, disappointment, and remorse; He will darken the heaven above him, and seal up the springs of life and peace from his taste: “All that are far from Thee shall perish.” R. Hall.

The union between God and His people being often represented by the figure of a conjugal relation, their violation of the covenant is spoken of as spiritual whoredom or adultery.

In the same sense our Saviour calls the unfaithful Israel of His day a wicked and adulterous generation. The persons threatened with destruction here are not merely sinners in general, but the wicked members of the ancient Church or chosen people in particular. A.

28. It is good for me to draw near to God.** When he saith ’tis good, his meaning is ’tis best. This positive is superlative. It is more than good for us to draw nigh to God at all times, it is best for us to do so, and it is at our utmost peril not to do so; “For, lo,” said the Psalmist, “they that are far from Thee shall perish!” Caryl.

Religion commences with the commencement of direct personal relations with God, and continues so long as those personal relations continue. Prayer and communion are as much a part of religion as converse and communion are a part of friendship. Our very love to God will needs draw all sorts of hearty address to Him and spiritual fellowship with Him in its wake. And Scripture is loaded with multiplied affirmations and diversified implications of this. Its pages are saturated with the spirit of devoutness. Prayer and communion, all that combine to compose spirituality of life, are involved by statement or by inference in almost every chapter. Parkhurst.

Devout meditation and fervent prayer include the fundamental elements and duties of spiritual life; meditation, the opening of the heart to and the appropriation by the heart of heavenly truth and promise, so that the kindled flame of devout feeling is kept aglow, and prayer, the heart’s expression to God under the force of this stirred feeling, expression in whatever form the heart’s quickened desires and sense of need may prompt. Out of this twofold action of the heart, out of devout thought and prayerful expression are born, by this continued action are maintained in healthful vigor, all the spiritual forces and experiences of the soul’s Divine life, all the forces that give energy for duty and strength for trial, all the experiences that give vitality to hope and happiness. Therefore affirms the Psalmist, “It is good for me to draw near to God!” B.

He that knows how to pray has the secret of safety in prosperity and of support in trouble. He has the art of overruling every enemy, and of turning every loss into a gain. He has the power of soothing every care, of subduing every passion, and of adding a relish to every enjoyment. Many things are good for me, but none so good as to draw nigh to God. Jay.—In the very moment when thou prayest, a treasure is laid up for thee in heaven. No Christian’s prayer falls back from the closed gates of heaven; each enters there like a messenger-dove; some bring back immediate visible answers; but all enrich our store of blessings there, and all return to the heart with the fragrance of peace on them, from the holy place where they have been. The Christian, even when he is walking for recreation, in his converse with others, in silence, in reading, in all rational pursuits, finds opportunity for prayer. And although he is only thinking on God in the little chamber of his soul, and calling on his Father with silent aspiration, God is near him, and with him, for He is still speaking to him. Gregory.

He walks in the presence of God that converses with Him in frequent prayer and communion; that runs to Him with all his necessities; that asks counsel of Him in all his doublings; that opens all his wants to Him; that weeps before Him for all his sins; and that asks remedy and support for his weakness; that fears Him as a Judge, reverences Him as a Lord, and obeys him as a Father. Jeremy Taylor.

Be alone with God, that your soul may be free to speak to Him, and to hear Him. But be alone in your inmost hearts, shutting out busy, anxious thoughts, that they throng not in with the prayers, and cloud not the sight and thought of God. Practise in life whatever thou prayest for, and God will give it thee more abundantly. Pusey.—If you long to bring forth all the fruit of the Spirit, strike your roots deep and wide in private prayer. That faith and support, that strength and grace, which you seek of God in secret, that they may be exercised in the hour of need God will in that hour give you before men. Anon.

Christ being more completely formed within, the believer’s seasons of communion with the Father spread themselves more widely through his days and nights. He passes very frequently, almost unconsciously, and by imperceptible gradations of feeling, from his ordinary existence among the things of this world into direct converse with that Friend who is ever nearest, while also most high and most mighty. The current of adoring thought flows on in joyous, satisfying concord with the Eternal Will. We do not stop, perhaps, to shape every aspiration into articulate speech but we yield to the Divine breath, and move whithersoever the Spirit that maketh intercession moves. A larger and larger share of devotion will consist in thanksgiving and praise—a sure mark of spiritual growth. Some new blessing—a victory of faith, a fresh beam of light falling from heaven on the path—will as often stir the soul to its heavenly conversation as a trial, loss, or throb of pain. There will be no anxious concern about answers, for the felt blessedness of the act is itself an answer. There is no doubt that God will hear, because it is known that He listened before His child called. May not something like this be the meaning of the prayer that is “without ceasing?” F. D. H.

We cannot too keenly feel, each one for himself, that a still and secret life with God must energize all holy duty, as vigor in every fibre of the body must come from the strong, calm, faithful beat of the heart. To one who is conscious of defect in his own piety, respecting the friendship of the soul with God, there will be great aptness and beauty in the appeal of a foreign preacher: “Why fleest thou from solitude? Why dost thou shun the lonely hour? Why is it, that to many of you there cometh not, through the whole course of the week, a single hour for self-meditation? You go through life like dreaming men. Ever among mankind, and never with yourselves. You have torn down the cloister, but why have you not erected it within your own hearts? Lo, my brother, if thou wouldst seek out the still hour, only a single one every day, and if thou wouldst meditate on the love which called thee into being, which hath overshadowed thee all the days of thy life with blessing, or else by mournful experiences hath admonished and corrected thee; this would be to draw near to thy God! Thus wouldst thou take Him by the hand. But whenever, in ceaseless dissipation of heart, thou goest astray, the sea of the Divine blessing shall surround thee on all sides, and yet thy soul shall be athirst. Wilt thou draw near to God? Then seek the still hour.” (Tholuck.) Phelps.

In the still hour of personal communion with God the soul is best and most prepared for all its duties to man and God. Then and there the best knowledge, the deepest conviction, of duty is gotten, or more clearly, deeply impressed. There the judgment and conscience receive most light upon questions of practical difficulty. There the will is most effectually disciplined against wilfulness, trained for practice in self-denial, for the putting forth of energy in the true work of life. There also, through the present working of Divine grace, the repulsive propensities to evil of flesh and spirit are more and more brought into subjection, the adorning graces of simplicity, meekness, truthfulness, and purity are maintained and augmented in their power. There the heart is made peaceful and happy in its toil, by the daily deepening of its responsive trust and love. From habitual solitary communion with God, too, we get all needful preparation for trials, light or grievous, preparation for the emergencies of temptation or affliction, emergencies belonging to almost every day. And through the faithful use of the still hour, the Christian makes the most of himself and of his life in this world. He makes the most of himself and for himself. In the wrestle of that hour, he gets through Divine power that evenness of temper which keeps down alike rash judgments and excited passions. In the triumphant testing of God’s truth and promise by a wrestling spirit, he receives such conviction of their reality as brings his soul more and more under their actuating power. All his spiritual energies are kept aroused and active. His faith is made more vital, active, fruitful. He develops in breadth and symmetry of character, grows daily unto the stature of a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. And making most of himself, he makes most for himself here. It may not be in perishable treasure or enviously acknowledged fame. It is in something better far, in that peace of the soul that leans always and closely upon Jesus the Christ, in the calmness of hope, the assurance of expectant joy that looks all round the forward horizon and up into a cloudless heaven as he songfully journeys on. Thus, too, he makes the most of his life here, the most of what can be achieved for others. Christ’s most eminent because successful toilers, in every age, have been those who have lived in the closest communion with Him. Holy men and women in every age, coming from the mount of the Divine dwelling have come burning as well as shining lights, clothed with His power in their heartfelt utterances. As their fellowship was with God, as they abode and walked in His light, so they ever brought God with them and kept His Spirit in their hearts, and thus were their toils directed, their words inspired, their yearning desires satisfied. B.

The characteristic of the wicked is separation from God, which can have but one result, absolute destruction; that of the faithful is union with Him, which secures all good in time and eternity; imposing one permanent duty, that of declaring His works. The sum-total amounts to this: the prosperity of the wicked may, or may not, last till death, but it is a mere phantom, ending here in nothingness, and followed by everlasting shame; the life of the righteous is a journey under sure guidance, lighted by God’s presence, and issuing in glory, with an entire fruition of blessedness forever. Cook.

As is plain from this Psalm, doubt may spring from the very depth and earnestness of a man’s faith. In the case of the Psalmist, as in the case of Job, that which lay at the bottom of the doubt, that which made it a thing so full of anguish, was the deep-rooted conviction of the righteousness of God. Unbelief does not doubt, faith doubts. And God permits the doubt in His truest and noblest servants, as our Lord did in the case of Thomas, that he may thereby plant their feet the more firmly on the rock of His own everlasting truth. There is perhaps no Psalm in which faith asserts itself so triumphantly, cleaves to God with such words of lofty hope and affection, and that precisely because in no other instance has the fire been so searching, the test of faith so severe. It may be well to remember this when we see a noble soul compassed about with darkness, yet struggling to the light, lest we “vex one whom God has smitten, and tell of the pain of His wounded ones.” P.

Doubts are in many cases the birth-pangs of clearer light. They are means by which we grow in knowledge, even in knowledge of heavenly things. Better far, no doubt, to grow in knowledge by quiet, steady increase of light, without these intervals of darkness and difficulty. But that is not granted to all. Many men have to grow by often doubting and by having their doubts cleared up. In that way only is the chaff separated from the grain, and the pure truth at last presented to their minds. In that way are prejudices, false notions, frivolities shaken off from the substantial truth, and they are blessed with the fulness of the knowledge of God. These doubts are often the fiery trial which burns up any wood, hay, or stubble which we may have erected in our souls, and leaves space for us to build gold, silver, precious stones. They are, in fact, as much the messengers of God’s providence as any other voices that reach us. They may distress us, but they cannot destroy us, for we are in the hands of God. They may hide God’s face from us, but they cannot stop the flow of His love; for He is our Father, and Christ hath redeemed us. To trust is in your power. To resign yourself lovingly to God in the full confidence that His love will do all that you can need, and that out of darkness He will be sure to bring light; to walk to the uttermost of your power by the light that you already have; to hold fast by God’s hand, and to trust the promises that He whispers in your conscience; that you can do, and that you ought to do. Bishop Temple.

We pronounce too soon upon the apparent inequalities of fame and recompense around us; while we fail to take in the future as well as the present, and attempt to solve the mysteries of time without including in the field of our survey the retributions of that eternity which forms the selvage and hem of all the webs of earth. And we pronounce not only too soon but very superficially upon the inequalities of happiness in the lot of those who fear and those who scorn God; while we look mainly or merely to the outward circumstances of home and station and bodily well-being, but take no note of the inner and more enduring elements of felicity supplied to the sufferer for Christ by the blended powers of conscience and of hope—the one of them purified and pacified by the blood of the great Sacrifice on Calvary; the other of them steadily and cheerfully soaring to the glories and rest of the Mount Zion above. Faithful, in His cage, bearing the gibes and flouts of the rabble who thirsted for His blood, was one of the happiest men in all Vanity Fair, even ere the hour when His spirit mounted the fiery chariot that hurried Him to His celestial home. W. R. Williams.

In that world of light I shall better understand God’s works of providence. The wisdom and goodness of them is little understood in small parcels. It is the union and harmony of all the parts which displays the beauty of them. And no one can see the whole together but God, and they that see it in the light of His celestial glory. Then I shall clearly know why God prospered the wicked and so much afflicted the righteous; why He set up the ungodly and put the humble under their feet; why he permitted so much ignorance, pride, lust, oppression, persecution, falsehood, and other sins in the world; why the faithful are so few; and why so many kingdoms of the world are left in heathenism, Mohammedanism, and infidelity. I shall know why I suffered what I did, and how many great deliverances I had, and how they were accomplished. All our misinterpretations of God’s works and permissions will then be rectified, and all our controversies about them be at an end. Baxter.

Faith in Christ is the beginning of the heavenly experience, the beginning of that perfect and transforming love to God which is the sovereign thing in the better country. Seeking the indwelling of God’s Spirit in the heart here on earth is the means by which we prepare ourselves for a perfect and boundless experience of life in that world to come. By noble service, consecrated and self-sacrificing, we prepare ourselves for the leisure and the rest, for the knowledge and power, for the holiness and the song, which are on high. How much do you desire heaven? Enough simply to take it as if the gates of pearl were opened at yonder doorway and you were permitted to walk in, or enough to work for it by the diligent use of every power offered to you in the Gospel? by faith in the Son of God, by service to Him, by prayer for the power of the Holy Ghost, by vigorous self-discipline, trying with the help of prayer, and with the Holy Spirit which comes in answer to prayer, to lift yourself into sympathy with God? That controlling and supreme desire which belongs to the faithful soul is a desire strong enough not merely to lead us to the present use of the means for its attainment, but strong enough to control all our future life. It must be a desire controlling and supreme in its energy, regulating and inspiring life, governing action, quickening to the use of every power for its accomplishment. And it must be a desire, associated with unselfish and benevolent affection, which seeks to raise others to the same experience which it hopes and longs for for itself. R. S. S.

Learn the means of growth in all Christian excellencies. Not by lamentations over our own deficiencies—though we need the humblest consciousness of these. Not by painful efforts after working ourselves into a happy consciousness of sonship, or after a purer life. But by forgetting all about ourselves, and occupying ourselves wholly with Jesus Christ, our Brother and our Sanctifier. The nearer we get to Him, the holier we become. The closer we press to Him, the liker Him we grow. The more we meditate on our Brother and our Lord, the more shall we be conscious that we, too, are sons of God and brethren of the Lord. The more firmly we clasp His hand, the more abundantly will healing and energy flow from His touch into our sick impotence. Since we claim to be called holy brethren, let us never forget Him who makes us so. If we would deserve the name, let us turn away our thoughts from all else, and keep our spirits fixed upon Him. Then a great peacefulness shall rest upon our hearts, and we shall be holy as He is holy.

Peace with God, in Christ, is definite assurance of glory. The devout believer of the Old Dispensation looked beyond the earthly horizons, and discerned a better country, even a heavenly. To us life and immortality are brought to light in the Gospel of the risen Christ. Without this hope well assured no man’s cup of blessing is completely full. The craving for immortality, which is found in all healthy minds, demands assurance of answering reality. This is an element of blessedness to the rational soul. Nothing could be more satisfactory than the way the Book meets this craving, as the great truth breaks forth, and grows, and orbs itself at length in mid-heaven, a sun without a setting—a day without a night. The race has a mission. History has a culmination. Fragmentary knowledge completes itself. Unrequited wrong is brought to the bar of judgment. Virtue is rewarded. Sin is doomed. Death is swallowed up in victory! Haydn.

The vehemence with which Francis Newman rejects Christianity, as a religion supernaturally inspired, only adds emphasis to words like the following: “The great doctrine on which all practical religion depends—the doctrine which nursed the infancy and youth of human nature—is, ’the sympathy of God with the perfection of individual man.’ Among pagans this was so marred by the imperfect character ascribed to the gods, and the dishonorable fables told concerning them, that the philosophers who undertook to prune religion too generally cut away the root, by alleging that God was mere intellect, and wholly destitute of affection. But, happily, among the Hebrews, the purity of God’s character was vindicated: and with the growth of conscience in the highest minds of the nation the ideal image of God shone brighter and brighter. The doctrine of His sympathy was never lost, and from the Jews it passed into the Christian Church. This doctrine, applied to that part of man which is Divine, is the well-spring of repentance and humility, of thankfulness, love, and joy. It reproves and it comforts; it stimulates and animates. This it is which led the Psalmist to cry, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee? there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.’ This has satisfied prophets, apostles, and martyrs, with God as their portion. This has been passed from heart to heart for full three thousand years, and has produced bands of countless saints.” R. S. S.

How marvellous is the adaptation of Scripture for the race for whom it was revealed! In its pages every conceivable condition of human experience is reflected as in a mirror. In its words every struggle of the heart can find appropriate and forceful expression. It is absolutely inexhaustible in its resources for the conveyance of the deepest feeling of the soul. It can translate the doubt of the perplexed; it can articulate the cry of the contrite; it fills the tongue of the joyous with carols of thankful gladness. Swinnock.

If a Christian man does not really and intelligently hold that his system of faith has a firmer basis, a nobler end, a more puissant energy, that it solves more problems, and is adapted to man’s nature in a fuller sense than any other system, that it is the highest reason as well as the fullest redemption, and the highest reason because the only redemption, he virtually confesses that a greater than Christ is here. We rob faith of one of its strongest persuasions if we do not claim that it is perfectly rational. H. B. Smith.