become occasions of the bitterest pains. If then we have been kept for any time in a good measure of peaceful serenity, we may well account it a rich blessing, for which we are bound to adore and magnify our God, It is not from the dust that either our trials or our comforts spring : and, if God have dealt to us an abundance of earthly comfort, whilst so many thousands of our fellow-creatures are racked with pain, or bowed down with sor- rows, we ought to acknowledge him as the author and giver of these distinguished privileges.]
3. His feet from falling —
[On more than one occasion, David's " feet had well nigh slipped." When urged to kill Saul, and when hastening to avenge himself on Nabal, he was on the brink of a dangerous precipice, from whence however it pleased God to deliver him. And what a miracle of mercy is it, if our feet are kept ! Con- sider with what innumerable snares and temptations we are beset on every side, and what corruptions reign in our own hearts, ready to precipitate us into any evil : consider the deceitfulness of sin too, what pleasing and even innocent forms it will assume : consider also the malice and subtlety of our great adversary, who is going about continually as a roaring lion seeking to devour us : consider more particularly how many persons of eminence in the religious world have fallen ; a David, a Solomon, a Peter ; O have not we reason to adore our God> if our feet have been kept from falling ; more especially when we reflect, how near we have been to many grievous falls, when nothing but God's infinite mercy, has held us up !
Let us look back then on these mercies vouchsafed unto us, and, from the review, let us follow David in,]
ll. His determination arising from it —
By ** the land of the living" we understand this present world', where alone there is any opportunity of making suitable returns to God. " The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day," says Hezekiah''. As long as he should live, David determined, with God's help, to walk before God,
1 . In a constant attendance on his ordinances — ■ [This is particularly intended in the words of our text : twice is the idea expressly stated in the fallowing verses'. And where should a person go to make his acknowledgments to God, but to his house, where the free-v/ill offerings and timnk- offerings of old were wont to be brought ? A grateful heart will pant
after
' Ps. xxvii. 13. Isai. liii. 8. '' ib. ver. \Q.
' ver. 12, 14, 17, IS, 19-
382 . PSALMS, cxvi. 8, 9. [415.
after these public opportunities of glorifying God, even as the hart panteth after the water-brooks"' ; and to be deprived of ac- cess to them will be a source of pain and grief". David envied the very swallows their liberty of access to the House of God, when he was kept at a distance from it °. Let 11s shew our gra- titude in the same way. And let not our attendance on his courts, after a recovery from sickness, be a mere prelude to our return to all the gaieties and follies of the world ; but let our de- light be in the worship of our God on earth, as an earnest and foretaste of our enjoyment of him in a better world.]
2. Under an abiding sense of his presence —
[To " set the Lord always before us" is the sure way to honour him. Whether we think of him or not, " he is always about our bed and about our paths, and spieth out all our ways." Wherever we are, therefore, there should be that inscription, which Hagar saw, " Thou God seest me." O how circumspect would then our conduct be ! How continually would that ques- tion occur to our minds, " What will my God ap])rove ?" That this is the frame of mind which every Child of God will culti- vate, is beautifully represented by St. Paul in his address to Ser- vants : he tells them how the servant of God does act towards his heavenly Master, and proposes it as a pattern for them towards their eaa-thly masters^^ Let us "not be mere eye- servants, as men-pleasers," but exert ourselves at all times to please our God, as servants do under the immediate eye of their master.]