Ps. xviii. 1 — 3. I to ill love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer ; my God, my strength, in tvhom I will trust ; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is ivorthy to he praised : so shall 7 be saved froyn mine enemies.
FROM the persecutions of God's saints in former ages, we derive this most important benefit : we see what was the power of divine grace in them for their support, and what its efficacy was to purify and exalt their souls. Had David never been oppressed by Saul, and never been driven from his throne by Ab- salom, what loss should we have sustained, in those devout compositions which were written in the midst of his trials, and which have brought down to us all the workings of his mind under them ! In truth, no one can understand the Psalms of David, so as to enter into the spirit of them, unless he have been called, in some considerable degree, to suffer for righteousness' sake. The psalm before us was penned by David as an acknowledgment of the deliverances that had been vouchsafed to him from the hands of Saul, and of all his other enemies. And a subhmer composition can scarcely be found, in all the records of antiquity.
In the words which we have just read, we see,
I. An ebullition of his gratitude —
His mind was evidently full of his subject. He had been contemplating the wonderful goodness of God to him : and he bursts forth into this devout rapture : " I will love thee, O Lord, my strength ! " Commentators have observed, that the word which is here used, expresses all that is tender and affectionate, and implies in it the strongest emotion of the soul. And this was justly called forth by his view of the divine perfections, and by his sense of God's un- bounded kindness towards him.