[Examine, I beseech you, the returns which you have made : do they not " fill you with shame and confusion of face ?" Are ye not perfectly astonished at your own ingratitude ? Oh ! see what need there is to walk humbly before God. But yet, do not despond. Your " God is able to make all grace abound towards you:" and, if you call upon him, " he will give you more grace," even grace sufficient for you, so that you shall be able to " render to him, in some measure at least, according to the benefits he has conferred upon you. You see how he wrought in David, and in his holy Apostles : and is his arm shortened, that it cannot reach to you? Arise, and bless your God; walk joyfully before him ; " let your hearts be lifted up in his ways:" come, and take the cup of salvation ; and, as one great family, hand it round, each, as it were, to the other, that all of you may be encouraged, and all be comforted, and all be strengthened. '* Now" even 7iow, take the blessed cup into your hands ; and drink of it *' in the presence of all his people;" yea, drink, and live for ever. And inquire with yourselves, inquire of each other, yea, inquire of God himself, what you can do for him j and let your capacity for his service be the only measure of your exertion.]
Ps. cxvii. O praise the Lord, all ye nations : praise Mm, all ye people: for his merciful kindness is great towards us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.
THIS is the shortest of all the Psalms: but it is by no means the least interesting : the energy with which it is expressed abundantly marks the impor- tance of the truths contained in it, and the feelings with which it should be read by us. The same sentiments are doubtless contained in many other psalms : but to a mind that is rightly disposed, they are ever new : they need no embellishment to adorn them, no eloquence to set them forth : if any man can hear or reflect upon them without emotion, the fault is in himself alone. Let us consider the psalm,
I. In a general view — •
Here is a call to the whole world to praise and adore their God. Those perfections which they are more especially called to celebrate, are,
l.The
390 PSALMS, cxvii. [417.
1 . The greatness of his mercy —
[Reflect on his sparing mercy. Consider the state of the whole M'orld, which has so cast off their allegiance to God,
that " he is not in all their thoughts" Consider the
inconceivable mass of iniquity that has been accumulating now
nearly six thousand years and yet we are spared ! Once
indeed God destroyed the world ; but only once. On some few occasions God has marked his indignation against sin ; but on very few : an Achati, an Uzzah, an Ananias have been set up as witnesses for God, that he hateth iniquity : but these only serve the more strikingly to illustrate the astonishing forbearance of our God Let every one of us look back upon his own per- sonal transgressions, and then say, whether he himself is not an astonishing monument of God's forbearance.
But if we so admire the sparing mercy of our God, what shall we say of his redeeming mercy? What words can we ever find sufficient to express the wonders of God's love, in substituting his own Son, his co-equal, co-eternal Son, in our place, and lay- ing the inicjuities of a ruined world on him? Here we are alto- gether lost in wonder. The idea of Redemption is so vast, that we cannot grasp it. We assent to it; we believe it; we trust in it : but it so far exceeds all our comprehension, that it appears rather like '' a cunningly devised fable," than a reality. We see a little of the suitableness and sufficiency of this salvation ; but it is only " as in a glass darkly;" it is only aenigmatically ** that we view it at all; spelling it out, as it were, from a few scattered hints, and guessing at what we cannot comprehend. The Jree- ness with which it is offered also, no less surpasses knowledge. By the way in which God himself follows us with offers, and in- treaties, it should seem almost as if his happiness, rather than ours, depended on our acceptance of it. The conti7ruance of these offers, made as they are from year to year to people who only pour contempt upon them, and trample on that adorable Saviour who shed his blood for them, — O ! what an emphasis does this give to that expression in our text, " His merciful kindness is great towards us !"