ON THE WORK OF IVIY LEARNED FRIEND DOCTOR SIBBES.
J'ooL that 1 was ! to think my easy pen
Had strength enough to glorify the fame
Of this known author, this rare man of men,
Or give the least advantage to his name.
Who think by praise to make his name more bright, Shew the sun's glory by dull candle-light.*
Blest saint ! thy hallow'd pages do require No slight preferment from our slender lays ; We stand amazed at what we most admire : Ah, what are saints the better for our praise ! He that commends this volume does no more Than warm the fire or gild the massy ore.*
Let me stand silent, then. 0 may that Spirit Which led thine hand direct mine eye, my breast. That I may read and do, and so inherit (What thou enjoy'st and taught'st) eternal rest ! Fool that I was ! to think my lines could give Life to that work, by which they hope to live.
Fra[NCIS] QuA[RLES].t
* Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Restituta, annotates here. — ' This is much in unison with Shakespeare's thought : —
" To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." ' Aristotle might haply here have been introduced by the Commentators, e. g., ' They who demonstrate plain things, light a candle to see the sun,' iii. p. 499.
t Francis Quarles. There is no doubt that this was the quaint poet of the Em- blems,' and many other volumes not so well known as they deserve to be. It was common to contract names thus, formerly. The ' Garden of Spiritual Flowers,' (1622) is worded on title-page, ' A Garden of Spirituall Flowers, planted by Ei. Ro., Will. Per., Ri. Gree., M. M., and Geo. Web.,' designating severally, Richard Rogers, William Perkins, Richard Greene, &c., &c., and so in many other instances. G
VOL. I.
THE SOUL'S CONFLICT WITH ITSELF.
Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and tvhy art thou disquieted within me ? hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. — Psalm XLII. 11.
The Psalms are, as it were, the anatomy of a holy man, which lay the inside of a truly devout man outward to the view of others. If the Scrip- tures be compared to a body, the Psalms may well be the heart, they are so full of sweet affections and passions. For in other portions of Scripture God speaks to us ; but in the Psalms holy men speak to God and their own hearts, as
In this Psalm we have the passionate passages of a broken and troubled spirit.
At this time David was a banished man, banished from his own house, from his friends, and, which troubled him most, from the house of God, upon occasion of Saul's persecution, who hunted him as a partridge upon the mountains. See how this works upon him.
1. He lays open his desire springing from his love; love being the prime and leading affection of the soul, from whence grief springs, from being crossed in that we love. For the settuig out of which his affection to the full, he borroweth an expression from the hart. No hart, being chased by the hunters, panteth more after the waters than my heart doth after thee, 0 God, ver. 1. Though he found God present with him in exile, yet there is a sweeter presence of him in his ordinances, which now he wanted and took to heart. Places and conditions are happy or miserable as God vouch- safeth his gracious presence more or less ; and, therefore, * When, 0 when shall it be that I appear before God?' ver. 2.
2. Then, after his strong desire, he lays out his grief, which he could not contain, but must needs give a vent to it in tears ; and he had such a spring of grief in him as fed his tears day and night, ver. 3. All the ease he found was to dissolve this cloud of grief into the shower of tears.
Quest. But why gives he this way to his grief?
Ans. Because, together with his exiling from God's house, he was up- braided by his enemies with his religion, ' Where is now thy God ?' ver. 3. Grievances come not alone, but, as Job's messengers, Job i., follow oae another. These bitter taunts, together with the remembrance of his former happiness in communion with God in his house, made deep impressions in
THE soul's conflict. 131
his soul, when he ' rememberecl how he went with the multitude into the house of God,' ver. 4, and led a goodly train with him, being mlling, as a good magistrate and master of a family, not to go to the house of God alone, nor to heaven alone, but to carry as many as he could with him. Oh ! the remembrance of this made him pour forth, not his words or his tears only, but his veiy soul. Former favours and happiness make the soul more sensible of all impressions to the contrary. Hereupon, finding his soul over sensible, he expostulates with himself, * Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within me ? ' &c.