k Rom. vi. 17. The Greek. l Rev. xiv. G.
unworthy of us; and, whilst we are earnestly praying to God that he would send forth his light and his truth to every quarter of the globe, let us, by every possible means, endeavour to promote this glorious and blessed object. Let us first seek to have " the word of Christ dwelling richly in all wisdom" in our own souls, and then labour that " it may have free course, and be glorified" throughout the earth.]
Ps. cxxxviii. 3. In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.
THE blessed word of God abounds with promises, with promises of all that we can need, grace, mercy, peace, strength, victory. But will these promises be so performed, that a poor sinful man like ourselves shall be conscious of the performance of them to his own soul ? Here is the peculiar excellency of the Book of Psalms ; in which we have a record of David's own experience. We see in this book a faithful delineation of a man's intercourse with his Maker ; and, in the words which I have read, a tes- timony that God had fulfilled his word, yea, and " magnified it above all his name."
Let us consider,
I. David's testimony to the compassion of his God —
David was in the habit of spreading all his wants before God —
[Exceedingly had he been tried from his youth up. With such unrelenting malignity was he persecuted by Saul, that nothing but a direct interposition of the Deity could preserve
him But he committed his cause to God in prayer
And when no hope, according to human appearances,
remained to him, "he encouraged himself in the LordhisGod3. "
And from God he received many signal answers to prayer —
[Of this he testifies with much joy and gratitude b
In my text, he particularly declares that God's answers to his prayers had been both speedy and effectual. " In the very day that he cried, God had answered him," when he was shut up
a 1 Sam. xxx. 6. b Ps. xviii. 4 — 6. and xxxiv. 3 — 6.