import, more therein, that the sad case had already happened in
David's days. I see, therefore, that this if, our only hope in
the text, is likely to prove with Job's friends, but a miserable
comforter. Well, it is good to know the worst of things, that we may
provide ourselves accordingly; and therefore let us behold this
doleful case, not as doubtful, but as done; not as feared, but felt;
not as suspected, but at this time really come to pass. Thomas
Fuller.
Verse 3. "If the foundations," etc. My text is an
answer to a tacit objection which some may raise; namely, that the
righteous are wanting to themselves, and by their own easiness and
inactivity (not daring and doing so much as they might and ought),
betray themselves to that bad condition. In whose defence David
shows, that if God in his wise will and pleasure seeth it fitting,
for reasons best known to himself, to suffer religion to be reduced
to terms of extremity, it is not placed in the power of the best man
alive to remedy and redress the same. "If the foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do?" My text is hung about with
mourning, as for a funeral sermon, and contains: First, a sad
case supposed, "If the foundations be destroyed." Secondly, a
sad question propounded, "What can the righteous do?" Thirdly,
a sad answer implied, namely, that they can do just nothing, as to
that point of re-establishing the destroyed foundation. Thomas
Fuller.
Verse 3. "If the foundations be destroyed," etc. The
civil foundation of a nation or people, is their laws and
constitutions. The order and power that's among them, that's the
foundation of a people; and when once this foundation is destroyed,
"What can the righteous do?" What can the best, the wisest in
the world, do in such a case? What can any man do, if there be not a
foundation of government left among men? There is no help nor answer
in such a case but that which follows in the fourth verse of the
Psalm, "The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in
heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men;"
as if he had said, in the midst of these confusions, when as it is
said (Psalm 82:5), "All the foundations of the earth are out of
course;" yet God keeps his course still, he is where he was and as he
was, without variableness or shadow of turning. Joseph
Caryl.
Verse 3. "The righteous." The righteous indefinitely,
equivalent to the righteous universally; not only the righteous as a
single arrow, but in the whole sheaf; not only the righteous in their
personal, but in their diffusive capacity. Were they all collected
into one body, were all the righteous living in the same age wherein
the foundations are destroyed, summoned up and modelled into
one corporation, all their joint endeavours would prove ineffectual
to the re-establishing of the fallen foundations, as not being
man's work, but only God's work to perform. Thomas Fuller.
Verse 3. "The foundations." Positions, the
things formerly fixed, placed, and settled. It is not said, if the
roof be ruinous, or if the side walls be shattered, but if the
foundations.
Verse 3. "Foundations be destroyed." In the plural.
Here I will not warrant my skill in architecture, but conceive this
may pass for an undoubted truth: it is possible that a building
settled on several entire foundations (suppose them
pillars ) close one to another, if one of them fall, yet the
structure may still stand, or rather hang (at the least for a short
time) by virtue of the complicative , which it receiveth from
such foundations which still stand secure. But in case there be a
total rout, and an utter ruin of all the foundations,, none
can fancy to themselves a possibility of that building's subsistence.
Thomas Fuller.
Verse 3. "What CAN the righteous?" The
can of the righteous is a limited can, confined to the
rule of God's word; they can do nothing but what they
can lawfully do. 2 Corinthians 13:8. "For we can do
nothing against the truth, but for the truth:" Illud possumus,
quod jure possumus. Wicked men can do anything; their conscience,
which is so wide that it is none at all, will bear them out to act
anything how unlawful soever, to stab, poison, massacre, by any
means, at any time, in any place, whosoever standeth betwixt them and
the effecting of their desires. Not so the righteous; they have a
rule whereby to walk, which they will not, they must not, they dare
not, cross. If therefore a righteous man were assured, that by the
breach of one of God's commandments he might restore decayed
religion, and re-settle it statu quo prius, his hands, head,
and heart are tied up, he can do nothing, because their
damnation is just who say (Romans 3:8), "Let us do evil that
good may come thereof."
Verse 3. "Do." It is not said, What can they
think? It is a great blessing which God hath allowed injured
people, that though otherwise oppressed and straitened, they may
freely enlarge themselves in their thoughts. Thomas Fuller.
Verse 3. Sinning times have ever been the saints' praying
times: this sent Ezra with a heavy heart to confess the sin of his
people, and to bewail their abominations before the Lord. Ezra 9. And
Jeremiah tells the wicked of his degenerate age, that "his soul
should weep in secret places for their pride." Jeremiah 13:17.
Indeed, sometimes sin comes to such a height, that this is almost all
the godly can do, to get into a corner, and bewail the general
pollutions of the age. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can
the righteous do?" Such dismal days of national confusion our
eyes have seen, when foundations of government were destroyed, and
all hurled into military confusion. When it is thus with a people,
"What can the righteous do?" Yes, this they may, and should
do, "fast and pray." There is yet a God in heaven to be sought to,
when a people's deliverance is thrown beyond the help of human policy
or power. Now is the fit time to make their appeal to God, as the
words following hint: "The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's
throne is in heaven;" in which words God is presented sitting in
heaven as a temple, for their encouragement, I conceive, in such a
desperate state of affairs, to direct their prayers thither for
deliverance. And certainly this hath been the engine that hath been
instrumental, above any, to restore this poor nation again, and set
it upon the foundation of that lawful government from which it had so
dangerously departed. William Gurnall.
Verse 4. The infinite understanding of God doth exactly know
the sins of men; he knows so as to consider. He doth not only know
them, but intently behold them: "His eyelids try the children of
men," a metaphor taken from men, that contract the eyelids when
they would wistly and accurately behold a thing: it is not a
transient and careless look. Stephen Charnock.
Verse 4. "His eyes behold," etc. God searcheth not as
man searcheth, by enquiring into that which before was hid from him;
his searching is no more but his beholding; he seeth the heart, he
beholdeth the reins; God's very sight is searching. Hebrews 4:13.
"All things are naked, and opened unto his eyes," tetrachlidmena,
dissected or anatomised . He hath at once as exact a view of
the most hidden things, the very entrails of the soul, as if they had
been with never so great curiosity anatomised before him. Richard
Alleine, 1611-1681.
Verse 4. "His eyes behold," etc. Consider that God not
only sees into all you do, but he sees it to that very end that he
may examine and search into it. He doth not only behold you with a
common and indifferent look, but with a searching, watchful, and
inquisitive eye: he pries into the reasons, the motives, the ends of
all your actions. "The Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes
behold, his eyelids try, the children of men." Revelation 1:14,
where Christ is described, it is said, his eyes are as a flame of
fire: you know the property of fire is to search and make trial
of those things which are exposed unto it, and to separate the dross
from the pure metal: so, God's eye is like fire, to try and examine
the actions of men: he knows and discerns how much your very purest
duties have in them of mixture, and base ends of formality,
hypocrisy, distractedness, and deadness: he sees through all your
specious pretenses, that which you cast as a mist before the eyes of
men when yet thou art but a juggler in religion: all your tricks and
sleights of outward profession, all those things that you use to
cozen and delude men withal, cannot possibly impose upon him: he is a
God that can look through all those fig-leaves of outward profession,
and discern the nakedness of your duties through them. Ezekiel
Hopkins, D.D.
Verse 4. "His eyes behold," etc. Take God into thy
counsel. Heaven overlooks hell. God at any time can tell thee what
plots are hatching there against thee. William Gurnall.
Verse 4. "His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of
men." When an offender, or one accused for any offence, is
brought before a judge, and stands at the bar to be arraigned, the
judge looks upon him, eyes him, sets his eye upon him, and he bids
the offender look up in his face: "Look upon me," saith the judge,
"and speak up:" guiltiness usually clouds the forehead and clothes
the brow; the weight of guilt holds down the head! the evil doer
hath an ill look, or dares not look up; how glad is he if the
judge looks off him. We have such an expression here, speaking of the
Lord, the great Judge of heaven and earth: "His eyelids try the
children of men," as a judge tries a guilty person with his eye,
and reads the characters of his wickedness printed in his face. Hence
we have a common speech in our language, such a one looks
suspiciously, or, he hath a guilty look. At that great
gaol-delivery described in Revelation 6:16, All the prisoners cry out
to be hid from the face of him that sat upon the throne. They
could not look upon Christ, and they could not endure Christ should
look upon them; the eyelids of Christ try the children of men. . . .
Wickedness cannot endure to be under the observation of any eye much
less of the eye of justice. Hence the actors of it say, " Who seeth
us?" It is very hard not to show the guilt of the heart in the
face, and it is as hard to have it seen there. Joseph
Caryl.
Verse 5. "The Lord trieth the righteous." Except our
sins, there is not such plenty of anything in all the world as there
is of troubles which come from sin, as one heavy messenger came to
Job after another. Since we are not in paradise, but in the
wilderness, we must look for one trouble after another. As a bear
came to David after a lion, and a giant after a bear, and a king
after a giant, and Philistines after a king, so, when believers have
fought with poverty. they shall fight with envy; when they have
fought with envy, they shall fight with infamy; when the have fought
with infamy, they shall fight with sickness; they shall be like a
labourer who is never out of work. Henry Smith.