against hope." Then, notwithstanding your desert, you shall not perish, but have in yourselves an experience of that truth which God has revealed for the comfort and support of all his people, " that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin."]
TEMPORAL MERCIES A GROUND OF PRAISE a.
Ps. cxlvii. 12 — 14. Praise the Lord, 0 Jerusalem ; praise thy God, O Zion : for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates ; he hath blessed thy childre7i within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, andjilleth thee with the finest of the wheat.
THE common habit of mankind is, to rest in the gift, and forget the Giver. But we should make the gifts of God a ladder, as it were, whereby to ascend to him ; and take occasion from every blessing he communicates, to magnify and adore that bounty from which it proceeds. Nor should we be so engrossed with our personal mercies, as to overlook those which are national. The pious Jews thought they could never sufficiently praise their God for his mercies vouchsafed to Israel. The theme that beyond all delighted them was, to recount the wonders of love and mercy which their nation had experienced from their first coming out of Egypt even to the day wherein they lived. Who was the author of this psalm we do not know : but it seems evidently to have been written after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish Captivity, and most probably in the times of Nehemiah, who rebuilt the wall of Jeru- salem, and dedicated it to God with sacrifices and songs of praise b. Certainly God's interpositions for that people exceeded all that ever he did for any other nation : but next to Tsrael, methinks, we of this country may adopt the language at the close of
a Thanksgiving Sermon for Peace, written January 18, 181G. It is not to be supposed that the same circumstances will ever occur again ; and therefore the first intention of the author was to omit them altogether. But he conceives that the statement of them may serve to shew, how any other existing circumstances may be, not un- profitably, stated, when the occasion shall call for it.
» Neh. xii. 27, 43.