Ver. 33.-Man's purpose, and God's help. In multiplied forms the difficulty of reconciling God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, God's help and man's energy, is presented to us in Scripture. But the difficulty is always intellectual only. It is one that the heart solves with perfect ease. It knows well how the inspiration of unseen ones does ennoble o.nd strengthen our human activity; and its apprehension of God mELkes him to be nearer and dearer than any unseen friend of human fellowship. Ask the mind to explain how we ce.n be "working out our own salvation" and God can be" working in us," and it is baflled into silence. Ask the heart if this twofolu- ness of the religious life is ever actually realized, and it will say," It is truo, I know it to be true in the experience of my life." He who said, "I live, yet not I, Christ livcth in me,'' wns e.t the very heart of the deepest truth. 'l'he psalmist, in his owu way, arrives at the same conviction. Let the Lord teach him his will, and he will set all effort upon keeping it. Let God give understanding, ond obedience shall be maintained. "I can do all things in him who strengtbeneth me." I. MAN MUST CHERISH RIGDT PURPOSES. God puts no forco on any man; he over- rides no man; he does nothing for any man that the man ce.n and ought to do for himself. Unless we resolve to live the godly life; unless we set ourselves upon seeking first God's kingdom and righteousness, nothing can be done for us. God never comes with help until he is wanted. II. MAN MUST WANT DIVINE HELP IN 0ARRYING THEM OUT. 'l'his sense of need is often a later experience, into which a man comes only on the failure of his self-effort in carrying out his resolves and purposes. Dut it must come before godly living can take OD its higher and more hopeful forms. 'l'he earnest man comes at last to say," 0 Lord, I nm oppressed ; undertake thou for me." III. MAN ODTAINB DIVINE HRLP WHEN IT IS MADE EVIDENT THAT HE WANTS IT, Jt would be wasted on him befO'T'e; it is fully effective on him then. It is true that God "helps those who help themselves," but the point to dwell on is, the.t he who tries to help himself in Divine things is the man who most feels his need of God's help.-R. T.
Ver. 35.-A patl1 for ou't' goings. "Me.ke me to go in the pe.th of thy command- ments." To go is to keep moving, to keep advancing. 'l'be earnest man wants to progress in the Divine life, '!'he Christian stamp i& put on this truth by the apostle, 150 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PS. (;.l.lX. 1-170
when he says, " I count not myself to have apprehended; n "I press toward the mark." The good man wants- I. PROGRESS IN ·rm,: APPREHENSION OF Goo's COMMANDMENTS. All the command- ments of God cannot be made clear even to the understanding of a child or of a young Christian. They concern spheres and things which are known only throuuh the experience of life, and cannot be made plain to the child or the young Christian~ And it is a deeper thought that only the formality and externality of Divine Law .can ever come to any man at first; be must grow into the spirituality of it. Contrast the spheres for which the young Christian needs Divine rules, with the spheres for which tile advanced and experienced Christian needs the guidance of the Divine eye, and the progression will at once be manifest. II. PROGRESS IN FIXING THE RELATION OF THE COMMANDMENTS TO LIFE. At first the commands seem outside us, and are interestiug studies. As we "go in the path " of them we gradually recognize their personal relations; they directly concern us; they fit to unfolding circumstances and conditions. Getting God's will applied to cherished moods of mind, to fixed habits of conduct, to unfolding relations and responsibilities, to unexpected times of strain, comes to be the most real work of the religious life. Life is the path which God's revealed will marks out for us, and it is our work to keep the path. III. PROGRESS IN THE CHARACTER .AND SPIRIT OF THE OBEDIENCE OFFERED. At first the service of God, and obedience to his holy Law, is a strain. Perhaps not absolutely at first, because the waves of early impulse bear young souls for a while into an easy: obedience. Just after the first a rebound comes, a time of dulness, and then obedience is the strain of constant effort. The will battles with the feeling. But we go in the path, and gradually the strain passes, the love dominates the will, and bears it to an obedience that says, "I delight to do thy will, 0 God."-R. T.
Ver. 36.-God's work in men's hearts. "Incline my heart;" "Quicken me in thy ways." There is marked difference between " being made" to go in the way of righteonsness, and "waating" to go in the way of righteousness. And creating and sustaining the want is precisely what is here called the "inclining" and "quickening" work of God's Spirit in men's hearts. He puts the laws into our hearts, and in our minds be writes them. When a child wants to obey, be ceases to need any formal law-be is a "law unto himself." With the indined heart the life of obedience becomes easy, becomes even a delight. I. THE CONDITION OF llUN's HEART IN WHICH Goo WOBKB. By the heart here is meant the scat of motives and impulses by which the will is moved, aml action inspired and directed. The heart is regarded as subject to outside influences, and as actually in tile sway of influences both bad and good. It can be moved by the self-spirit to things that are eviL It can be moved by the Divine Spirit to things that are good. lt can be inclined. If a thing i8 moving, the least deviation from the straight line involves an ever-widening departure. In man there is always a sort of centrifugal tendency to fly away, and the constant need of a untripetal tendency to restrain it, and keep it in the right line. "Covetousness" is named as the representative of all the alien inclinations, because the very essence of covetousness is "getting for 1,elf." And that is a perpetual enticement to the natural man, which only the grace m God can enable him to overcome. The point of this prayer is that the good man, in the experience of life, will be sure to find the old evil inclinations return upon him as temptalions, especially when anything appeals to covetousness. So he finds that he always needs the preventive, and the readjusting, inclinings of God. II. THE KIND OF WORK WHICH Goo DOES IN lll'EN'B HEARTS. 'l'bis is often represented as quickening, the renewing of vitality, strength, righ~ purpose, energ:y: Wha_t is h~re set forth is a more predse, aad more unusually recognized, form of D1v1ne dealing with men. The Spirit is the in ward power that sways decisions, inclines to good judgments, by putting force iuto the good motives, reasons, and consi,leratioas. Or, to express it iu the mode of the psalmist, he inclines to righteousness by making God's testimonie1 rnure attractive and perimasive than our own covetousness.-U. 'l'.