death; they then began to think the covenant made void,' and the promises at an end. We trusted,' said they,' that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel!' Luke, xxiv. 21. And although Christ be long since risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, yet the prevalence of iniquity and the oppression of the church have been, and in the last days will be such, as to put the faith and hope of his servants to a sore trial, while they wait for his second, as the ancient Jews did for his first advent. 46. How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire? 47. Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain? Or, as Ainsworth translates the verse, Remember how transitory I am, unto what vanity thou hast created all the sons of Adam. 48. What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul, or, animal frame, from the hand of the grave? 49. Lord, where are thy former loving kindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth. : This is the humble and dutiful expostulation of the church with God in all her distresses upon the earth. By asking, 'How long, Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever?' she tacitly pleadeth his promise not to be so she urgeth the shortness of man's life here below, the universality of the fatal sentence, the impossibility of avoiding death, and, if nothing further was to happen, the frustration of the divine counsels concerning man. From thence she entreateth God to remember the loving kindnesses' once promised by him with an oath to David, as related in the former part of the Psalm. These 'loving kindness' are called, in Isaiah lv. 3, 'the sure mercies of David;' which 'sure mercies of David' are affirmed by St. Paul, Acts, xiii. 34, to have been then confirmed on Israel, when, in the person of Jesus, God raised our nature from the grave. To a resurrection, therefore, believers have ever aspired; thither have they directed their wishes; and on that event have they fixed their hopes, as the end of temporal sorrows, and the beginning of eternal joys. 50. Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants ; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people; 51. Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O Lord; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed. The last argument urged by the church, in her expostulation with God for a speedy redemption, is, the continual reproach to which she was subject, on account of the promise being delayed. The 'mighty people,' or heathen nations, who held her in captivity, and were witnesses of her wretched and forlorn estate, ridiculed her pretensions to perpetuity of empire in the house of David; they blasphemed the God who was said to have made such promises; and 'reproached the footsteps,' or mocked at the tardy advent of his Messiah,' who was to establish in Israel his everlasting throne. All these cruel taunts and insults she was obliged to bear in her bosom,' and there to suppress them Exprobraverunt vestigia Christi tui :' tarditatem vestigiorum Christi tui. Chald.-Irridebant nos quòd non adveniret expectatus ille Liberator, sive Cyrus, sive potius Christus de semine Davidis, regno ejus instaurando, et in æternum firmando. Bossuet. VOL. III. C in silence, having nothing to answer in the day of her calamity and seeming destitution. St. Peter gives us a like account of the state of the Christian church in the latter days; he exhorts us to be 'mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of the apostles of the Lord and Saviour, because there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?' 2 Pet. iii. 4. 52. Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen and Amen. But whatever be at any time our distress, either as a community or as individuals, still are we to believe, still to hope, still to bless and praise Jehovah, whose word is true, whose works are faithful, whose chastisements are mercies, and all whose promises are, in Christ Jesus, yea, and amen, for ever more. Eighteenth Day.-Morning Prayer. PSALM XC. ARGUMENT.-This Psalm is called, in its title, 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God,' By him it is imagined to have been composed when God shortened the days of the murmuring Israelites in the wilderness. See Numb. xiv. It is, however, a Psalm of general use, and is made, by the church, a part of her funeral service. It containeth, 1, 2. an address to the eternal and unchangeable God, the Saviour and Preserver of his people; 3-10. a most affecting description of man's mortal and transitory state on earth since the fall; 11. a complaint, that few meditate in such a manner upon death, as to prepare themselves for it; 12. a prayer for grace so to do; 13-17. and for the mercies of redemption. 1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. 2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. The Psalmist, about to describe man's fleeting and transitory state, first directs us to contemplate the unchangeable nature and attributes of God, who hath always been a 'dwelling-place,' or place of defence and refuge, affording protection and comfort to his people in the world, as he promised to be before the world began, and will, in a more glorious manner, continue to be after its dissolution. See, for a parallel, Ps. cii. 25, &c. with St. Paul's application, Heb. i. 10. 3. Thou turnest man to destruction: and sayest, Return, ye children of men. Death was the penalty inflicted on man for sin. The latter part of the verse alludes to the fatal sentence, Gen. iii. 19. Dust thou art, and unto How apt are we to forget dust shalt thou return.' 4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. The connexion between the verse preceding and the verse now before us, seems to be this: God sentenced man to death. It is true, the execution of the sentence was at first deferred, and the term of human life suffered to extend to near a thousand years. But what was even that, what is any period of time, or time itself, if compared with the duration of the Eternal? All time is equal, when it is past; a thousand years, when gone, are forgotten as yesterday; and the longest life of man, to a person who looks back upon it, may appear only as three hours, or one quarter of the night. : 5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep in the morning they are like grass which groweth up; or, as grass that changeth. 6. In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. The shortness of life, and the suddenness of our departure hence, are illustrated by three similitudes. The first is that of a flood,' or torrent pouring unexpectedly and impetuously from the mountains, and sweeping all before it in an instant. The second is that of sleep,' from which when a man awaketh he thinketh the time passed in it to have been nothing. In the third similitude, man is compared to the grass' of the field. In the morning of youth fair and beautiful, he groweth up and flourisheth; in the evening of old age (and how often before that evening!) he is cut down by the stroke of death; all his juices, to the circulation of which he stood indebted for life, health, and strength, are dried up; he withereth, and turneth again to his earth. Surely all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field! Isa. xl. 6. Of this truth, the word of God, the voice of nature, and daily experience, join to assure us: yet who ordereth his life and conversation as if he believed it? 7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee: our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. |