Ps. xcv. 6 — 11. 0 come, let us worship and bow down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God ; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To- day y if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the pro- vocation, and as in the day of temptation in the luilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long ivas I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways : unto ivhom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter info my rest.
IN the former part of this psahn, the Jewish peo- ple, for whom it was composed, mutually exhorted each other : in the latter part, God himself is the speaker : and the manner in which this latter part is cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews, shews, that the whole psalm is as proper for the use of the Christian, as it was of the Jewish, Church. The peculiar cir- cumstance of its consisting of a mutual exhortation is there expressly noticed ; and noticed with parti- cular approbation : " Exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day''." This hint the Compilers of our Liturgy attended to, when they appointed this psalm to-be read constantly in the Morning Service, as in- troductory to the other psalms that should come in rotation : and, as being so appointed, it deserves from us a more than ordinary attention.
In discoursing upon it, we shall notice_,
I. The exhortation —
[The proper object of our worship is here described. As addressed to the Jews, the terms here used would fix their atten- tion on Jehovah, as contra-distinguished from all false gods : but, as addressed to Christians, they lead our minds to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is " God with us," even " God over all, bles^sed far evermore." He is our Maker', for " by him were all things created, both which are in heaven and in earth **." He is "the good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep," and who
watches over them, and preserves them day and night'"
Him then we must worship with all humility of mind, *' bowing
down,
'■"■ Heb. i;i. 13. '' John i. 3.
' John X. II. Heb. xiii. 20. Ezek. \xxiv. 11 —10.