THE believer's DISPOSITIONS TOWARDS GOD.
Ps. lxiii. 1 — 7. 0 God, thou art my God; early iv'ill I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee ; my Jlesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanc- tuary.' Because thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee ivhile I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee ivith joyful lips, luhen I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings li'ill I rejoice.
IT is justly said of God, that *' he giveth song-s in the night:" and never was there a more striking evidence of it than in the psalm before us. David is supposed to have w^ritten it when he was in the wil- derness of Ziph, fleeing from Saul who was seeking to destroy him''. But we can scarcely conceive that he would call himself " the king," as he does in the 1 ith verse, in the life-time of Saul: for though he believed that God would ultimately raise him to the throne, it would have been treason against his legitimate prince to arrogate to himself the title of " king;" nor can we conceive that under his perilous circumstances he would have given Saul so just a ground of accusation against him. For these reasons we are inclined to think it was written at the time that he fled into the wilderness from Absalom, when he, and the people that were with him, were in the greatest distress for every necessary of life ". But what are the contents of this psalm? Nothing but joy and triumph: the things of time and sense were as nothing in his eyes ; but God was " all in all."
From that portion of the psalm which we have read, we shall take occasion to shew you the desires, the purposes, and the expectations of a renewed soul.
I. The desires —
As soon as the soul has obtained an interest in
Christ,
* 1 Sam. xxiii, 15. ^2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29.