them insurmountable : but if we would habituate ourselves more to look at the power of God, we should proceed with confidence and courage. " Let the weak then say, I am strong." Let them " know in whom they have believed, that He is able to keep that which they have committed to him"."]
»2Tim. i. 12.
Ps. Ixix. 1 — 4. Save me, 0 God! for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no stand- ing : I am come into deep waters, luhere the floods overflow me, I am weary of my crying ; my throat is dried : mine eyes fail, ivhile I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy yne, being mine enemies wrongjully, are mighty.. Then I restored that which I took not aivay.
SACRED is the retirement of a penitent, and hal- lowed is the sanctuary where he is pouring out his soul before God : nor could the most obdurate sinner overhear his confessions and supplications, his cries and tears, hisimportunate pleadings and heart-rending groans, without being filled with awe and reverence. Let us draw nigh then with holy awe to the recesses of that chamber, where, not a sinful creature like our- selves, but our incarnate God, the Saviour of the world, is pouring out his soul under a load of sins imputed to him, and of sorrows the punishment of sin''. He it is that in the psalm before us is saying, " Save me, O God ! for the waters are come in unto my soul." Pavid, it is true, v/as the writer of the psalm ; a,nd in parts of it may be considered as speaking chiefly, if not entirely, of himself: but in other parts he speaks so entirely in the person of the Messiah whom he typified, that we can scarcely apply the words to any other. Nor whilst we assert this are we in any danger of erring; because our blessed Lord himself, and the Evangelists who wrote his life, and St. Paul also, all concur in putting this very
constnic-
" Heb. V. 7-
236 PSALMS, Lxix. 1 — 4. [382.
construction upon the psalm, and in citing various parts of it as actually accomplished in Christ. ** The zeal of thine house hath eaten me upV' is applied to Christ on one occasion; and on another, " They hated me without a cause ^" His general deportment is said to have been predicted in those words, " The re- proaches of them that reproached thee, fell on me ^." At his crucifixion was fulfilled that remarkable pro- phecy, " They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink ^" Even to Judas who betrayed him is one portion of it applied, " Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein '^." After such authorities as these, we do not hesitate to interpret our text as referring to the sufferings of Christ, and as describing,
I. Their overwhelming nature —
If David, as a type, had many things to suffer, much more had that Saviour whom he typified. We will not however speak of his sufferings during the whole period of his sojourning on earth, but of those only which he endured in the closing scenes of his life, and which seem more particularly referred to in the psalm before us. That we may have a more distinct view of them, we will notice,
1. Those which were previous to his apprehen- sion—
[" He had indeed a fearful prospect before him,^* a bloody *^ baptism to be baptized with ; and how was he straitened till it should be accomplished ^ !" When the time for its accomplish- ment drew nighj his ^' soul was so troubled, that he knew not what to say." As a 7nan, he felt disposed to deprecate his suf- ferings, and to be saved from that hour that was fast approach- ing : but, as our Mediator, he would not recede, because he had come into the world for the express purpose of suffering all that was due to our sins''. In the garden of Gethsemane his sorrows came yet more heavily upon him, so that he cried, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death '." On this occasion he cried repeatedly, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me'' !" And such was the agony of his soul, that