compassed about with innumerable evils. He sees danger on every side. His sins, either in his conviction of them, or punishment for them, have found him out. They have laid hold of him like so many ministers of justice, and have him under arrest. Moroever, they seem to him more numerous than the hairs of his head. O, when God's Spirit, quickening memory and conscience, recalls our sins to our minds, how numerous and appalling they are made to appear! Whose heart, at such times, has not, like David's, failed him? And how often does it happen with us, as it did here with David, that the most vivid sense of our sinfulness springs up in our hearts along with the clearest perceptions of Christ as the only, and yet all-sufficient Saviour of sinners! It is mercy indeed, that the Divine Spirit thus connects the two-that while he makes us so painfully conscious of our danger, he suggests the refuge; that while he makes us so conscious of our disease, he reminds us also of the only Physician. A sight of our sins, without a sight of the Saviour, would drive us to despair.

VERSE 13. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me.

This cry for help is very like an emphatic "Lord, save! I perish!" When a sense of our sins lays hold of us, as David's laid hold of him, we feel that deliverance cannot come too soon; as if delay would be perdition; and the prayer, "O Lord, make haste to help me," seems the only appropriate one to be offered up. But while we thus pray God to make haste to help us, we should not be impatient, or despair, if he should not vouchsafe an answer at once. If he answered us at once, he might make

too great haste for our good. He might grant us the pardon of our sins before we had sufficiently felt the burthen and intolerableness of them, and consequently before we had sufficiently realized the preciousness of Christ as our Deliverer.

VERSES 14, 15. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha!

The verbs in these verses being translated in the imperative mood, appear to contain a prayer-appear as if David really desired the destruction of his enemies. It is an unfortunate translation. The verbs should have been translated in the future tense, and thus made to contain merely a prediction of what would, in the orderings of the Divine providence, inevitably befall David's enemies; and, indeed, all persecutors of the people of God. David expects, but can hardly be said to desire-and certainly not from any personal feeling in the matter-that his enemies would be put to shame, confounded, and made desolate. And he was justified in the expectation, for both the word and providence of God taught him that such would be the case. A precious thought it is, too, to the troubled believer, that God will, in his own good time, put to shame all enemies of his peace and safety, whether visible or invisible, human or infernal. It is a joy to him to know that there is a place where the "wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest; a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness only." 2 Pet. iii. 13. VERSE 16. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.

Here again the several verbs of the verse should have been translated in the future, so as to read, "All they that seek thee shall rejoice and be glad in thee; those that love thy salvation shall say continually, The Lord be magnified." So read, the words do not express a desire, but declare a fact—namely, that God causes all those who seek him to rejoice and be glad in him; and those who love his salvation, to say continually, "the Lord be magnified." There is thought to be an emphasis in the words, thy salvation. They are thought to refer back to Messiah's words, "Lo, I come," uttered by him after he had declared the utter insufficiency of all animal sacrifices to atone for human guilt. If this be the meaning of the words, the salvation here intended, the salvation purchased for us by Christ, is indeed a fountain of joy and gladness in the hearts of all those who love and embrace it. They know by happy experience, that his blood is, indeed,

"Of sin the double cure,

Saves from wrath and makes us pure."

And this experimental knowledge of God's great salvation constrains them continually to say, "the Lord be magnified"-let the greatness of his mercy be unceasingly proclaimed, till all men shall experience its saving power.

VERSE 17. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my Help and my Deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

"I am poor and needy." Poor and needy indeed we all are by nature; sin has emptied the soul of moral good, and filled it with moral evil. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think a good thought; the holy of holies once existing in the soul has been

polluted; and the Divine light once shining there extinguished. Nor are we at a stand-still in this our deplorable moral degradation by nature. Till a Divine power arrests our descent, we are at every moment sinking still deeper in the mire of our corruptions. What have we? what element of goodness and happiness do we not want? Yet, poor and needy as we are, the Lord thinketh upon us. And this psalm shows us how much his thoughts were upon us. We here learn how he brought us up out of the horrible pit of miry clay into which our sins had sunk us; brought us up by giving his own Son to die for us. We learn, too, that the Son was as ready to die as the Father was to give him up to die for our redemption. Was it the will of the Father that the Son should die for us men and for our salvation? The Son answers, "Lo, I come: I delight to do thy will, O my God." O what tender light do these things shed over the words, "yet the Lord thinketh upon me"? Did he ever think upon any other of his creatures with thoughts of such tenderness and love? Never. When angels sinned, he cast them down at once, and reserved them in everlasting chains under darkness. Not one of that once bright angelic host has been permitted to say to him, "thou art my Help and my Deliverer." This has been permitted to none of his sinning creatures except to man. Why the Lord should have thought upon man with such distinguishing tenderness, we cannot tell. We should none the less receive the peculiar mercy with peculiar gratitude; and pray God without ceasing, if he has not already done so, to lift us out of the pit, set our feet upon the Rock of Ages, establish our goings, and carry us on in triumph to the end of our course.

Poor and needy though we be, the Lord thinketh upon us, and will, for the sake of Him who came to redeem us from death, by dying himself, hear our prayers, whether for regenerating or sanctifying grace; and, in so doing, make no undue tarrying.

LECTURE ON PSALM XLI.

THIS psalm is thought, not without reason, to have been composed by David when he was old and stricken in years, and about to go the way of all the earth. It was his lot to have had two rebellions during his reign, each headed by a son; the first, by Absalom; the second by Adonijah. The account of Adonijah's rebellion is recorded in the first chapter of the first book of Kings. Adonijah was older than Solomon, and presuming, no doubt on the right of primogeniture, regarded the throne of Israel as his birth-right, ignoring the will of his father in the matter, and the fact that Solomon had been divinely designated to the place. Absalom, in his rebellion, succeeded in gaining over to his side, Ahithophel, David's prime minister and chief counsellor of state; Adonijah, in his rebellion, in gaining over Joab, the captain of the hosts of Israel, and also Abiathar, the high-priest. Tidings of these things came to David confined to his bed with age and sickness. In the midst of such high-handed and impious treachery, he knew not whom to trust, nor which way to turn himself, except to the Lord. And turning to him, he cannot but hope that the Lord will show him in his