Ps. cxxi. 1 — 8. I will lift 2ip mine eyes unto the hills, from whejice cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to he m,oved : he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper : the Lord is thy shade iipon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : he shall preserve thy sold. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore.
A LIFE of faith is generally acknowledged to be that which becomes the Christian : but how much is implied in a life of faith is very little considered. The Divine government is too often supposed to extend to great things only : and the idea of referring to God all the little occurrences of every day, is thought by many to be derogatory to his supreme Majesty. But God is to be seen as much in the fall of a sparrow, as in the fall of the greatest empire : and our dependence upon him should extend to every thing without exception. Should we attempt to draw a line between the events to which his atten- tion may be supposed to be directed, and those which may be left, as the expression is, to chance, we should find ourselves utterly at a loss, and, in fact, should soon prove ourselves to be downright Atheists. The Scriptures admit of no such distinc- tion : they ascribe every thing to God : even the events which in some respect owe their origin to Satan, in other points of view are traced up to God himself as their author'': and one very important use of the Psalms is, to shew us, how much the habit of referring every thing to God characterizes, composes, and elevates the Christian mind.
In the psalm before us we see this truth exempli- fied in the experience of David : in illustrating which, we shall notice,
i.The
• 1 Chron. xxi, 1. with 2 Sam. xxiv. 1.