Psalms 17

Psalms 17:1

Prayer is called meditation; because our requests ought to be seriously considered before we present them to God. It is called a lifting up of our souls, and pouring out of our hearts; because our requests must be the earnest desires of our soul. It is called supplication, seeking, knocking, inquiring, to denote the humility and earnestness of our petitions. It is represented as a crying, sighing, groaning, and breathing, to signify our great pressures and necessities, and the great earnestness of our desires after relief. It is represented as a looking to, talking with, and taking hold of God, to denote the humble familiarity, importunate earnestness, and patient resignation, necessary therein. From the gestures used in it, it is represented as a bowing, kneeling, falling down, or standing before God: and, from its acceptableness to God, it is represented as odours, or incense

REFLECTIONS UPON PSALM XVII.—Happy are they who, when traduced by men, have the testimony of a good conscience to their uprightness before God: his providence will manifest injured innocence at last. And happy are they who in all their trials improve God’s word as their preservative from evil; and who, assisted by his gracious influence, watch over their heart, their tongue, their feet, cleaving to that which is good, and abhorring that which is evil! But not the strongest saint hath a fund of grace to support himself, without constant supplies from Jesus Christ, our living fountain. And a deep sense of our own weakness and insufficiency is the surest way to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Every saint walks in a slippery path, where many watch for his halting. He ought therefore always to watch, and pray that he faint not. Our whole salvation is of God, and is of infinite love from first to last. In gain Satan rages against those whom God so tenderly, closely, and kindly, keeps. No luxurious, proud, active, crafty, or cruel, devourers shall ever pluck them out of his hand. They are but God’s sword and hand, by which he corrects his people, or manages, in his providence as he pleases. And how wretched are they amidst all their affluence and wealth, as it is their portion, ripening them for everlasting misery! But happy are they who through their much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God! Happy they, whose transient views of God, and imperfect likeness to him, issue at last in endless and immediate vision of him, and in perfect conformity to his image! 6 0