My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.

I became also a reproach unto them when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.

Help me, O LORD my God: O save me according to thy mercy:

That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, LORD, hast done it.

Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.

Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude. For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.

CERTAIN hypocrites of monks are accustomed to use this Psalm, (generally known by the name of 'The God of praise,') as a sort of incantation: and they say that, to a certainty, against what person soever they babble and sing out the terrible words of this Psalm; that man is at once death-struck, and never lives a year afterwards.

This Psalm, however, is most certainly full of the complaints, tears, and groans of the godly against these very hypocrites themselves. It may be very properly considered as used in the person of Christ, deeply complaining against his betrayers the Jews, and against the cruelty of the Jews, which was not satisfied, even after the shedding of his innocent blood.

Like unto Judas Iscariot, and unto all the Jews, are pharisaical saints and hypocrites, of all nations

and ages; of whom Christ doth not say in vain, that they are guilty of all the blood that has been shed from Abel downwards. For so great and bitter is the terribleness and fury of their virulent and Satanic hatred, that they cannot rest satisfied with the shedding of the blood of Abel and all the saints from the beginning of the world, but must hang Christ himself on the cross; and that is not all, they must (as the Psalmist saith, ver. 22.) wag their heads at him, and insult and mock his sufferings; "If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross."

Concerning these wretches, David says, (ver. 2.) "They have opened their blaspheming mouth against me: " for the raving fury of such hypocrites is incredible. And again he says, "For my love they are my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love." And again, "They fight against me without a cause."

These are the true and real colours of these hypocrites who pretend to be in the truth. We have here pourtrayed not only the Cainish countenances of these Iscariots, but their pharisaic and virulent hearts themselves; which are now become organs and instruments of the devil. And we have also here depicted their thoughts, their furious purposes of injuring and harming, by which the minds of such are incessantly actuated. For these embittered wretches knowingly and purposely, and against the light of their own consciences, fight against and deny the known truth; and, as Stephen says, cease not to resist the Holy Ghost. And although they are convinced by natural reason, by the Scriptures, and by their natural understanding, they still reject and fight against God and Christ,

and harden themselves in the denial of the truth. And finally, "They delight not in blessing;" but refuse and cast from them God and his Christ.

In addition to all this, they “render evil for good." The ingratitude of these hypocrites and of the world surely is enough, in not returning any thing for all that good which is offered to them by God himself, and by the saints in his name: but they rest not here; they render, for all this good, hatred and cursing, and a purpose to injure and to destroy: which is manifestly not human, but Satanic cruelty.

But we, the people of God, are hereby admonished throughout all times and ages of the church that, whenever God is pleased to reveal his word, and Christ is preached, so surely will the church have her Judases: that is, so surely will she have her enemies and her hypocrites; who, though they boast of the name of being the church of God, will prove themselves" vipers."

To set forth, therefore, the terrible judgments that shall fall on those, who thus, with cruelty and without mercy, rage against the people of God, the Psalmist shows (ver. 16.) that God will, to recompense their iniquity, direct his fury also against them, who thus mercilessly oppress "his poor," and will pour out all his wrath upon them: and that, as these hypocrites so confidently despised God and his saints; and as, though covered with the shed blood, and bathed with the tears of so many saints, they still laughed at their calamities, as if they really sought cursing and not blessing; so, that cursing shall flow in upon them like a river.

And again (saith David) they have cast away the word of God from them, and have rejected and despised the offered salvation, therefore all consolation

and salvation shall depart from them, and no more be brought near unto them, neither now nor to all eternity. On the other hand, as they loved cursing, they shall be clothed with it as with a girdle; it shall enter like water into their bowels, and like oil into their bones: and they shall bear about with them, like Cain, everlasting fears and terrors, and shall be tormented unceasingly with the stings of their wickedness and sin; and they shall moreover be exiles, deserted outcasts, vagabonds, and held in contempt of all, as the Jews now are, exhibiting an awful fulfilment of the judgments herein denounced.

PSALM CX.

The kingdom, the priesthood, the conquest, and the passion of Christ. A Psalm of David.

THE LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

The LORD at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.

He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the

places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.

He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

THIS is a peculiar and glorious prophecy concerning the kingdom of Christ. This Psalm is cited by Christ himself, Matt. xxii. and he applies it to his own kingdom and priesthood. It speaks gloriously of Christ sitting at the right hand of the Majesty in the heaven, and as being the son and the seed of David, according to the flesh, and also David's Lord and God, the Creator and the Maker of all things, all power being given unto him in heaven and in earth: as the apostle also saith, "Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness." Rom. i. 3.

Christ cites this Psalm, (which, as we have said, is a very glorious one) to confound the Pharisees. Indeed there is not a Psalm like it in the whole scripture; and it ought to be very dear unto the church; seeing that it confirms that great article of faith Christ's sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. For Christ is here declared to be a King and Priest; sitting at God's right hand, not only as truly man, but also as properly God; the Propitiator and Mediator between God and men; the Omnipotent and the Eternal!

Christ is no where, throughout all the books of the prophets, and of the whole scripture, so plainly and clearly declared to be "a Priest," and so "a Priest for ever," who alone did, and alone could abrogate the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood; and who is, and ever will be an eternal propitiation and reconci