Psalms 39

REFLECTIONS UPON PSALM XXXIX.—Great watchfulness and circumspection are necessary to our walking aright in this wicked and ensnaring world. For careless hearts will make crooked ways; and, next to the heart, nothing is harder to guide than the tongue: but, the stronger the temptation is, the stronger ought to be our resolution against it. We are very apt to run from one extreme to another. If we restrain our lips from evil, we are ready to neglect that speech which is with grace seasoned with salt. And when our mind, long in silence, ruminates upon sorrows, and the instrumental causes of them, it galls its sores, and aggravates its discontent. But there is great need to consider what death is, and how near it is; and that it is continually working in us: for vain and transient are men, with all their joys and honours, their griefs and fears, their toils and cares. And, the more we see death and vanity stamped upon all things here, the more we ought to be weaned from them in our affections, and the more solicitous should we be in securing the ever-living, the substantial, and eternal, good. The more our lying refuges are swept away, the more reason we have to trust in and call on God, who never disappoints any. With holy resignation to his strokes, we must earnestly beg the forgiveness of the cause, and the removal of the rod. We cannot impeach the equity of his judgments, nor withstand their force. But, if they set us a weeping and praying, and render us weaned from this world, God, our friend and companion, will quickly give 6 T us relief. And by his grace he will ripen us for heaven before he give the mortal stroke