shalt do right; thou shalt not do wrong." This voice may be dulled and silenced by the practice of sin (" conscience seared," 1 Tim. iv. 2), or perverted by false philosophy or false religious belief, But it is God's witness, for all that. Note that praise and blame imply one another. If God had no holy wrath against wrong, he could have no delight in and approval of goodness. II. Goo's CIIABACTER PROVES THIS, The more benevolent any one is, the more odious cruelty is to him; the more truthful, the more he hates and despises lying lips; lhe more generous, the more he scorns meauness; the more just, the more indignant he ia at injustice. So, summing up every morally good quality under "holiness," every immoral quality under "sin," tho more we think of God as perfectly holy, the more we must infer his hatred of sin. It is" that abominable thing" (Jer. xliv. 4). ill. Goo's LOVE PROVES IT. (See on Ps. v. 4, 5.) Suppose a mother sees her chil<l. ill used, tortured, murdered; a son hears his parents foully slandered; a loyal soldier sees insult offered to his sovereign; a true patriot finds his country unjustly assailed;- just proportionate to the warmth of love is the flame of righteous indignation. We do but maim and caricature Divine love if we deny God's righteous anger against sin. IV. Goo's DEALINGS PROVE IT. In point of fact, every day brings new examples- new proof is needless-that "it is a righteous thing with God" (2 Thess. i. 6) to punish sin. In some cases the connection is obvious (e.g. disease from intemperance, gluttony, licentiousness), the road to ruin short and open; in others, it is slow and hidden (as the destruction of trust and respect by lying, of all that is noble and joyful in life by covetousness). \Ve are all so bound up that the pure and innocent suffer through the vicious and unprincipled. But the main lessons of providence are plain. "Righteousness exalteth a nation;" "The wages of sin is death." V. THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION FROM SIN PROVES IT. The transcendent sufferings of the Son of God admit no ratioual explanation but that given in Scripture: "He bare our sins;" gave "his life a ransom" (1 Pet. ii. 24; Matt. xx. 28; comp. Rom. iii. 25; 2 Cor. v. 21). Apart from this reason, the death of Jesus would be the darkest enigma in God's pro,idence; the most inexplicable, discouraging, and melancholy event in human history. Never forget that in not sparing his Son (Rom. viii. 32) the Father was, in truth, taking the burden of our sin on himself. CONCLUSION. 'l'o treat sin lightly is to set our judgment up against God's; to show ourselves out of sympathy witli him nnd unlike Lim, and therefore incapable of communion with him here or of happiness in his presence hereafter.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-17.-The slandered saint appealing to his God. 1 There is nothing like tho trials of life to constrain to prayer; and no prayers are so full of deep meaning as those forced out by such trials. '!'here is no reason for doubting the Davidic authorship of this psalm. It well accords with some known episodes .in his experience, nnd is just such an appeal to the great Judge of all the earth as he might be expected to mnko when unjustly accused; specially when accused of evil in the very direction in which he had most strikingly restrained himself therefrom. But what a mercy that the true believer has such a God to whom he can flee, and that he can feel assured that, however unjust man may be, there is ever ono tribunal high above all the people, at which absolute justice will be done I No believer can possibly find out all that God is to him till he hns thus to flee to his throne for refuge from the storm. Let wronged and slandered Christians study tho method and words of nn Old Testament psalmbt under circumstances to which their own are somewhat analogous. l. THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THIS PSALM WAS WRITTEN ABE CLEARLY IND!• OATED.2 Four features mark them. 1. .L1. fierce enemy is raging against the writer, One fierce as the wild beasts against which, as a shepherd, he had had to defend his flock (ver. 2). 2. Charges of evil-doing are made against him. The tone of the third 1 For gentral rondere, the notes of the R.T.S. edition of the• Book of PsnllilS' will be helpful with regard to the titles of the psalms. • Dr. Cheyne so.ye," A nBtional pso.lm it is, beyond doubt;" we would rather say, "It■ !orrus of expression show it to be II personal ps~lm, beyond doubt." 46 THE BOOK Ol!, PSALMS, [PS, VU, 1-17,