david's boasting explained and vindicated.
Ps. cxix. 97 — 100. 0 how love I thy Laiv ! It is my medita- tion all the day. Thou, through thy commandments, hast made me iviser than mine enemies : for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
NOTHING is more hateful than boasting. To boast of our superiority to others, as the Pharisees did, saying, " I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as other men," is to betray an entire want of Christian humility, and an utter ignorance of our own state. But of all boasting, that which arises from a conceit of our own wisdom is perhaps the most odious and the most contemptible. " Be not wise in your own conceit3," is a caution repeatedly given us in the Holy Scriptures ; and an inattention to it will assuredly expose us to God's heavy displeasure13. Yet there are occasions whereon we may, in appearance, trans- gress this duty, and yet be blameless. St. Paul was on some occasions necessitated to assert his claim to public authority, and his right to dictate to the Church of God : and though he apologised for his conduct in this respect, and called himself " a fool " for giving way to it, he yet felt it his duty, on the whole, to maintain the truth against those who opposed it, and to demand from others that deference which his Apostolic character authorised him to expect0. In the passage before us, I must confess, David had no such call to exalt himself above others. But he wrote for the benefit of the Church of God in all ages : and therefore, whilst conveying general truths, " he trans- ferred them to himself," in order that he might speak to better effect d. His object was to shew, that every one who took the word of God for his guide would be so elevated by it above the most exalted of merely human characters, that he might justly arrogate to himself a wisdom superior to them all ; since an
a Prov. iii. 7. Rom. xii. 16. b Isai. v. 21.
c 2 Cor. x. 7—11. and xi. 16— IS. and xii. 11. d See 1 Cor. iv. 6.