who amongst us values God's ordinances as David did, and accounts the loss of them the most bitter ingredient even in the bitterest cup which he has to drink? And, in attending upon them, what coldness and formality do we too often feel! As for " our joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ," how faint is it, when compared with that which he expressed in the psalm before us, even in the midst of his heavy and accumu- lated afflictions! Dear Brethren, I blush for you, and for myself also: and I would propose to you to adopt, for our future imitation, that resolved purpose of the Psalmist, " O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed : I will sing and give praise. Awake up my glory, awake psaltery and harp : I my- self will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people ; I vdll sing unto thee among the nations : for thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens : let thy glory be above all the earth '." Happy shall we be if we attain to such a frame ; for it is an anticipation and foretaste of heaven itself.]
* Ps. Ivii. 7—11.
Ps. xliii. 5. Why art thou cast doivn, 0 my soiil ? and ivhy art thou disquieted within me ? Hope in God ; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
IT has pleased God to suflfer many of his most eminent servants to be in trouble, and to record their experience for our benefit, that we, when in similar circumstances, may know, that we are not walking in an untrodden path, and that we may see how to demean ourselves aright. The Psalmist was con- versant with afflictions of every kind. In the preced- ing psalm, which seems to have been penned during his flight from Absalom, he gives us a very melan- choly picture of his state : tears were his meat day and night, while his enemies gloried over him, and said continually. Where is now thy God""?" " His soul was cast down within him :" for while " the waves and billows threatened to overwhelm him, the water-spouts threatened to burst upon him : so that
a Ps. xlii. 3, 10.