Ver. 1.-Man's hope in prayer lies in what God is. Righteousness is, from one point of view, that side of Divine justice which is turned towards good men; hence it comes to mean "beneficence." There is some good reason for associating this psalm with the experiences of David in the time of Absalom's rebellion. Delitzsch says, " The psalms of this time of persecution are distinguished from those of the persecution by Saul, by the deep melancholy into which the mourning of the dethroned king was turned by blending with the penitential sorrowfulness of one conscious of hie own guilt." "It is to God's own character that the appeal is made. It is thero first, and not in his own misery, that the sinner finds the great argument why his prayer should be answered." "Faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John i. 9). 'l'he relation between the two terms "faithfulness" and "righteousness" may be thus indicated: Faitbfolness is God's strict keeping of all those covenant terms to which he has pledged himself. Righteousness is his vindication of the oppressed, as is witnessed both by history and by experience. I. MAN'S HOPE BASED ON WHAT GoD HAS DONE 0ANNOT SUFFICE. Because man must take into account all that God has done, and then he is sure to be bewildered. If a man takes out all the manifestly mighty and apparently kind things that God has done, and attempts to base his hope in prayer on them, he is always in danger of having his fonndations destroyed by some one who will remind him of things God has clone which seem strange and cannot be explained. It is not that God is ever other than himself. It is that man cannot safely read the meaning of all God does; and some of his doings excite in some men doubt and mi~trust rather than confidence. II. MAN'S HOPE BASED ON WHAT Goo JS WILL ALWAYS SUFFICE. lt is true that we can only know what God is by what he says and what he does. But everything depends on our willingness to let these things teach us God himself-teach us what he is. The point may be illustrated by our relations with our fellow-men. In whom is our confidence fully placed? In those of whom we only know what they have clone? Nay, it is reserved for those whom we know personally, whose characters have made a profound impression on UB. We trust God fully only when we lcnow him worthily. -R.T. Ver. 2.-Prayer cannot be based on man's riglits. The prayer of a ~eing who had kept his rights can be. We are able to conceive that the prayers ?f the ~orcl Jesus Christ were acceptable to God when presented on the ground of his own nght to be l,eard. He never prayed in any other name than bis own. I. MAN HAS, IN A BENSE, LOST HJS BIGHTS. It is necessary to deal with this point carefully. 'l'hingij are virtually lost. when they arc undervalued, ~ut aside, and 1;muscd. They remain, but are as treasures left in the lumber-room, while the houso 1s filled with other interests. Man has rights in Go,!, rights of prayer, by virtue of hie very being and primnry rclati0ns with God. And these ho can never absolutely Jose. 'l'hcy are part of J,im-part of his necessary being. But he may undervalue them, and put them out of consideration, so that they may be virtually lost. He has, there- fore, as a practical fact, no rights to plead in prayer. Ho cannot ple..d bis creation; for Le Las come to neglect or defy his Creator. He cannot plead his sonshir; for he is not PB. OXLIII, 1-12.J 'l'HE BOOK OF PSALMS. 359
offering the obedience of a eon. He cannot plead the Divine promises; for he is not meeting the conditions on which the promises depend. II. MAN HAS, IN FACT, PUT BIB WRONGS IN PLACE OF HIS RIGHTS. And man'e wrong is his wilfulness. The dependent being has tried to force himself into inde- pendence. The son has become a self-willed prodigal. And now, if man wants to pray, he cannot do it without carrying his wrong into the presence of God; and, whether he knows it or not, that wrong is the plea which alone God can hear. The thoughtful man feels this; it is the fact for every man. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." God would hear a man's prayers if the man had his rights. He cannot hear when a man only brings his wrongs. III. MAN MUST, IN ORDER TO PRAY ACCEPTABLY, HAVE ms RIGHTS RESTORED TO HIM. That is, restored to active power and use. It is an important and suggestive aspect of the redemptive work of Christ, that it is the mastery of man's self-willed wrong, and the recovery, into active power, of man's natural rights. Christ is making men what God meant them to be, and what he is; and =h men may base prayer on their rights.-Il. T. Ver. 4.-0ur worst trials are in the sphere of feeling. "Is desolate;" or, is full of amazement; astonies itself; seeks to comprehend the mystery of its sufferings, and is ever beaten back upon itself in its perplexity; is dispirited. " How poor a judg- ment can be formed of a man's state from the considerations of comfort only I" '£here are trials which are wholly kept in the physical sphere. There are aches and pains of body, and disabilities of bodily organs, which have no direct connection with sin, and so no bitterness through witnessing conscience; and which arouse no feeling save the simple feeling of enduring. There are trio.ls which have no relation to the outer world ,of circumstances; they belong wholly to the inner world of feeling. I. 'l'BIALB THAT KEEP IN THE BODILY SPHERES HA VE MANY RELIEFS. Especially may be notice<l those that come by sympathy. Others can understand and estimate these trials. '£he comfortings they present are kin with the trials. There is no secrecy about these trials; they who suffer under them need not be lonely. And of God it can bo said, "He knoweth our fro.me," and can be in closest sympathy with us. A grief that we can t,ll to another is not our worst grief. I£. TRIALS THAT GET INTO THE SPHERE OF FEELING HAVE FEW BELIEFS. So mysterious is human nature; so complex are the relations of body and min<l; so strangely possible is it for a m!ln to live an interior life distinct from bodily conditions nnd relations,-tho.t it is possible for a man to have trinls wholly in the sphere of feeling. And these are the worst trials, because for them we can got little or no human sym- pathy. '!'hey put us apart from our fellow-men in loneliness. Our Lord suffere,I bodily on the cross; but the sufferings in feeling wore his real sufferings. Yet even in these worst triR!s we are not sopnro.ted from God. lndeeu, o.s these bclon,; lo the spirit-region, they belong more especially to the sphere in which God works most freely. When the" heart" is desoh1te, I-here is the moro need for its filling and com- forting with thnt sense of God which may be so fully reo.liz.ed.-R. 'l'.