Ps. cxxxii. 13 — 16. The Lord hath chosen Zion ; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever : here will I dwell ; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision : I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall sliout aloud for joy.
THE efficacy of fervent prayer is strongly marked in the Holy Scriptures : there is scarcely a saint, respecting whom any information is given us, who may not be adduced as an example of God's readi- ness to answer prayer. Solomon, if, as some sup- pose, he was the author of this Psalm, records the answer which God vouchsafed to the supplications he had offered at the dedication of his temple : and it is worthy of observation, that the very language of his petition was made the vehicle of God's promise a.
In considering these words we shall notice,
I. God's love to his Church —
Mount Zion must be numbered among the most distinguished types, not only because its very name is given to the Church of Christ, but because God's love to his Church was represented to the world by the favours conferred on that chosen hill. As formerly on Mount Zion, so now in the Christian Church, God,
1. Dispenses his ordinances —
[The Jews were not suffered to present their offerings in any other place : there alone were the sacrifices to be slain ; and there alone were the means of reconciliation with God to be exhibited before their eyes. Thus in the Church of Christ, and in that only, have we the way of life and salvation fully opened. Among the heathen world we behold no traces of that path marked out for us in the Gospel : but wherever God has called a people to the knowledge of his Son, and appointed over them a faithful shepherd, there his word is preached with power; there the atoning blood of Jesus flows ; the administration of the sacraments is not there an empty ceremony, but a lively and impressive exhibition of the doctrines of grace.]
a Compare ver. 8 — 10. and 2 Chron. vi. 41, 42. with the text and the verse following it.