The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 2 — Section 189

yet the Law is fulfilled a.sit never was or could be before,and is magnified in infinitely higher way than if in vindication of God's broken Law the whole human race had been for ever condemned (cf. Rom. viii. 4). A.II this was shadowed forth by the tables of the Law being placed within the ark of the covenant, on which rusted the mercy-seat, and whereon was sprinkled the atoning blood (1 John ii. 2). 'l'hus in God those attributes which seemed to be and were hostile to us, and those which alone seemed our friends met together, were reconciled, and, as it were, kissed each other. ' I~ .. IN_ MAN. Probably this was the thought of the psalmist. He is exulting in the antic1pat1on of the regenerated moral hfe of God's people when his salvation should come to them; cruelty and inhumanity should give way to mercy, and t.ruth betwee11 man and man should replace their too common falsehood and lies; righteousness justice, fair dealing, should prevail instead of fraud and wickedness, and peace should ba.nish wa.r. "Earth should be carpeted with truth as with fair flowers, and be canopied over by righteousness as with the beautiful sky, or as by night with the glorious stars." Men should "serve God in holiness and righteousness without fear all the davs of their life." 0 ' III. IN CHRIST. The text may be taken, has been so, as descriptive of the holy and beautiful life of our Lord-of him "who did no sin, neither was ~uile found in his mouth." In him, as in no other, those contrasted qualities of our humanity, which in us are generally so ill balanced, found perfect equipoise and harmony. The Divine symmetry and fair proportious of the holy life, "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" (Eph. iii. 18), were seen in all their bea.uty. He was "the perfeet Man, Christ Jesus," tile lovely Image on which the saints gazed with perpetual, adorin"' rapture, and grew towards whilst they gazed, and so became the saints, the holy ones: they were. Yes, in him our text was indeed fulfilled. And- , IV. IN GRACE. (See 1 Cor. i. 30.) What is the true Christian but one who has known in his own experience the power of the perfect Christ? Some believe in a Christ whom they have fashioned to themselves, as all fondness and compassion and pity, who will not be stern with any one. Others conceive of him only as an awful Judge, launching out the thunder-bolts of his wrath against wretched, sinful men. But the grace which saves is that told of Titus (ii. 11-14). Grace includes mercy and truth, righteousness and peace.-S. C. Ver. 1.-Recognition of national mercies. Thie psalm belongs to the "sons of Korab," and we can hardly be wrong in associating it with the early years of the restoration from the Babylonish captivity. "The psalm shows that union of thank- fulness for restoration, of sense of present distress and weakness, and of bright Messianic hope, which is especially char:i.cteristic of the writings of this period." "It opens with an acknowledgment of God's goodness and mercy in the national restoration, in terms which could hardly apply to any other event." Plumptre connects the psalm with the Assyrian distress in the time of Hezekiah. Other writers, among whom may be named Spurgeon, insist on the Davidic authors_hip, and connect it with distress from the Philititines. There is one grave peril attending the separation of Christianity into small sections. The national relations of God are likely to be under- estimated, and the merely local relations of God to individual experience, and to the experience of small communities, over-estimated. While fully recognizing that God bears close and saving relations to the individual, it may yet be properly urged that he bears relation to each nation, is at the heart of its calamities and of its triumphs, working for the nation now as truly as for the nation of Israel in the olden time. God iA in history. But this means that God is in history while the history is in the making. And God should be discerned in political struggles, in social movements, in philanthropic enterprises, in national deliverances. To many persons the national thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from imperilling illness, was a delightful proof of the readiness of the English people to respond when God's hand in the bestowment of national mercies is pointed out to them. Two things may be illustrated and impressed. L REOOGNIZING NATIONAL DBCIES IS A NATIONAL DUTY. Apply to ordinary mercies, such as are illustrated by the yearly harvest. Then the national heart turns to God; and a national voice of thanksgiving is uplifted to him. Apply to special rA. LXXXV. 1-13.) THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 209