I might farther observe, from both these things together, that among the people of God alone is the residence of his glorious pre- sence. This song is held out from Zion. " In his temple cloth every one speak of his glory/' Ps. xxix. 9. " Bless ye God in the con- gregations, the Loed, from the fountain of Israel," Ps. lxviii. 26. " Praise waiteth for thee, 0 God, in Sion," Ps. lxv. 1. As a lame leg, and as a thorn in the hand, ungraceful, painful, " so is a parable in the mouth of fools," Pro v. xxvi. 7, 9. It is the saints who are bid to be joyful in the Lord; and the high praises of God must be in their mouths, Ps. cxlix. 5, 6. They are high things that beseem only those whom God doth magnify. If the Lord give us matter of praise, pray know from whom it will be acceptable, — whose praises they are he delighteth to inhabit. If you have some defiling lust, the sunshine of mercies will exhale nothing but the offensive steam of carnal affec- tions. The sacrifices of wicked hearts are an abomination to the Lord. If your fleshly affections work this day, without the beatings of a pure heart, and the language of a pure lip, the Lord will reject your obla- tions. Would you have your praise as sweet to the Lord as a mercy is to you? — be assured that in Christ you are the Israel of God, and your prayers shall prevail, your praise shall be accepted.
2. The second particular, as I observed, is a special narration of the works of God, for which the whole is intended, verses 3, 5, 6. And therein you have these two things: — (1.) The place where these acts were wrought and are remembered, " There," verse 3 ; (2.) The acts themselves related ; which refer, — [1.] To God the worker, verse 3, "He brake;" [2.] To the persons on whom they were wrought, verses 5, 6.
(1.) The place where these things were acted and the monuments of them erected, — that is, " There ; " there, in Salem and Zion, Judah and Israel ; there, not so much in those places, as with reference unto them.
Observation. All the mighty actings of God regard his church ; and there are the monuments and trophies of his victories against his
202 HUMAN POWER DEFEATED.
enemies erected. To the first part of this I spake before. A word for the latter: — God decketh and maketh Zion glorious with the spoils of his adversaries. There the glory of Pharaoh and all Lis host, drowned in the Red sea, is dedicated, Exod. xv. ; there are the shields of all the mighty men in the host of Sennacherib, slain by an angel, hung up, Isa. xxxvii. 35, 36; there is the honour, the robes, the crown, and the reason of Nebuchadnezzar laid up, for the glory of Zion, Dan. iv. 33, 34, himself being changed into a beast ; there is all the pomp and glory of Herod deposited, Acts xii. 23, when, as a reward of his pride and persecution, he was devoured of worms ; there is the glory of all persecutors, with the blood of Julian in a special manner, who threw it into the air, and cried, " Vicisti Gali- laee ; " there Haman is visibly exalted upon the gallows by himself erected for the ruin of a prince of the people, Esth. vii. 10; there the peace and the joy of the church, their choice frame under the bloody massacres of the inhabitants of Zion, is set to show, for the glory of it ; there all the rochets of popish prelates, the crowns, and glory, and thrones of the kings of the earth, — all set apart as monu- ments and trophies of God's victories in Zion; there is a place reserved for the man of sin, and all the kings of the earth who have committed fornication with the mother of harlots, whose destruction sleepeth not. God will at length certainly glorify Salem with the arrow of the bow, the shield, the sword, and all spoils of its oppressors.
(2.) There is what he did describe, both immediately in the actions themselves, verse 3, and with reference to the persons towards whom he so acted, verse 5. Now, because the former is fully contained in the latter, I shall not handle it apart, but descend immediately to the consideration of the words of my text, being a declaration of what the Lord hath done for his people in the day of their distress, with particular reference to the cause of that distress.
And here we shall look a little, — 1. To the reading of the words; and, 2. To their explication : —
1. To the reading: The " stout-hearted;" or, the "strong in heart," the " mighty in heart," (so in the original;) — men of stout, stubborn, unpersuadable hearts and courage, whose epithet is, that they are "far from righteousness," Isa. xlvi. 12. The Septuagint have rendered it, affuvsroi rfj xaphia^ — "the foolish in heart." Stubborn-hearted men are
1 So in the text (the Hebrew being 2^ ",t"?!*); as if the LXX. had read it, by mistake, sh "~=s — " who have lost their heart." In the parallel from Isaiah, they