° Jer. i. 19.
P Lam. iii. 25, 26. Add to this, Lam. iii. 27, 28, 29.
1 Ps. xxvii. 13, 14. r Ps. xlii. 11.
Ps. Ixiii. 1 — 7. 0 God, thou art my God: early will I seek thee ; my soul thirsteth for thee ; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land ivhere no water is; to see thy poiver a7id thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus zvill I bless thee while I live ; I will lift up my hayids in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joy- ful lips, when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-xoatches. Because thou hast been my help^ therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
G g2
IT is justly said of God, that "he giveth songs in the night :" and never was there a more striking evidence of it than in the psalm before us. David is supposed to have written it when he was in the wil- derness of Ziph, fleeing from Saul who was seeking to destroy him"". But we can scarcely conceive that he would call himself " the king," as he does in the 11th verse, in the life-time of Saul: for though he believed that God would ultimately raise him to the throne, it would have been treason against his legitimate prince to arrogate to himself the title of ** king ;" nor can we conceive that under his perilous circumstances he would have given Saul so just a ground of accusation against him. For these reasons we are inclined to think it was written at the time that he fled into the wilderness from Absalom, when he, and the people that were with him, were in the greatest distress for every necessary of life*". But what are the contents of this psalm ? Nothing but joy and triumph : the things of time and sense were as nothing in his eyes ; but God was " all in all."
From that portion of the psalm which we have read, we shall take occasion to shew you the desires^ the jmrposes, and the expectations of a renewed soul.
I. The desires —
As soon as the soul has obtained an interest in Christ, and reconciliation with God through him, it is privileged to claim God as its own peculiar por- tion : it is entitled to say of Christ, '' My Beloved is mine, and I am his :" " He has loved me, and given himself for meT And to the Father himself also, as now reconciled to him, he can say, *' O God, thou art MY God." It is no wonder then, that from hence- forth God becomes the one object of his desire.
The soul now finds no satisfaction in earthly things —
[The whole world appears to it as "a land where no water is." The whole creation seems to be but " a broken cistern," which, whilst it promises refreshment to the weary and heavy- laden, is never able to impart it.
a 1 Sam. xxiii. 16. ^ 2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29.
600.] THE believer's DISPOSITIONS TOWARDS GOD. 4s53
If it be objected, that, though David, under his pecuUar trials, found the vvorid so barren of all good, we may find it a source of comfort to us ; we answer, That there is nothing in this world that is suited to satisfy the desires of an immortal soul ; and that, the more we have of this world, the more fully shall we be convinced, that it is altogether an empty bubble, a cheat, a lie ; and that "vanity and vexation of spirit" is written by the finger of God himself upon all that it contains. The carnal mind cannot credit this : but the renewed soul needs no argument to convince it of this truth.]