life, so as comprehending this, it is some- plead guilty, and this not that it may more times put for the whole of repentance, 1 John freely punish, but more liberally forgive. He i. 9, If we confess our sins, he is faithful requires that we should condemn ourselves, and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse that so he may absolve us. us from all unrighteousness. And so in the psalm before us, VER. 5. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. THIS is the joyful message, this is the great doctrine of the gospel, which opens the TRUE and genuine repentance hath eyes first door of hope to sinners; that God is as it were on both sides, a xi ori capable of being appeased, yea that he is acβλεπει ; it looks back on sins already tually appeased; that he freely offers peace committed, to lament them; it looks for- and favour to those who have deserted him, ward, and humbly resolves no more to com- when they return to his obedience; that he mit what it has lamented; and each of these runs forth to meet them, and to receive them is expressed by each of the words by which with a most affectionate embrace; and havrepentance is signified, saps and using so importunately intreated our return, τάνοια, which words are therefore used pro- will not despise those who are treading back miscuously, both by the sacred writers and by with prayers and tears the fatal path which others. So that the received difference be- their folly had chosen. This is what we so tween them seems to me to have little foun- frequently read in scripture, that the Lord is dation; for Phavorinus interprets the word gracious and very merciful, slow to anger μετάνοια, an anguish of soul, under a con- and ready to pardon. If he were not such, sciousness of having acted a foolish and who could dare to approach him? But seeing absurd part, and the Latin has the same sig- he is such a God, who should refuse or delay nification, if we will admit the judgment of his return? Surely every rational and pious Gellius, who seems to have been a very ac- mind will without delay invoke so gentle curate critic in affairs of that nature. He and mild a Lord; will pray to him while observes, "We are said to repent of things, he is exorable, or as the Hebrew expresses whether our own actions, or those of others, it, in a time of finding; for he who promises which have been performed by our advice or pardon, does not promise to-morrow. There instigation, which do afterwards displease are the tempora fandi, certain times in which us; so that we change our judgment concern- he may he spoken with, and a certain ap. ing them."* But we will waive all further pointed day of pardon and grace, which if concern about words; the thing itself de- a man by stupid perverseness despise, or by mands our greatest attention. I entirely sloth neglect, surely he is justly overwhelmed agree with him who said, "I had rather feel with eternal night and misery, and must nethe inward working of repentance, than know cessarily perish by the deluge of divine the most accurate description and definition wrath-since he has contemned and derided of it."+ Yet how averse sinners are to this that ark of salvation which was prepared, and free though useful and salutary confession of in which, whoever enters into it shall be sin, abundantly appears from this example safe, while the world is perishing. Though of so great a man as the Psalmist, when all be one unbounded sea-a sea without taken in this unhappy snare; for he confess-shore; yet, as it is here said, the greatest es that he lay long as senseless and stupid inundation, the floods of deep waters shall in that quagmire into which he was fallen, and that it was with difficulty that he was as it were racked into a confession, by such exquisite tortures both of body and mind. On the other hand, the gracious readiness of the Father of mercies to grant pardon, is so Verse 7. Thou art my hiding-place, much the more evident, as on the first word thou hast been, and wilt ever be so. Thou hast of confession that he uttered, or rather surrounded, and thou wilt surround me with the first purpose that he formed in his songs of deliverance, even me who was so mind, immediately the pardon, the full surrounded with clamours of sin. Where and free pardon, came down signed, as in the court of heaven-I said, I will confess, and thou forgavest. O admirable clemency! It requires nothing but that the offender should *Pœnitere tum dicere solemus, cum quæ ipsi ferimus, aut quæ de nostra voluntate nostroque consilio facta sunt, ea nobis post incipiunt displicere, sententiamque in lis nostram demutamus. not come nigh unto him. This the Psalmist exhorts those that have experienced it to teach, and determines himself so to retain it with deep attention, and firm faith in his own mind, as in the following verse. he further intimates, that songs of praise are perpetually to be offered to God our deliverer. And, that these faithful admonitions and counsels may meet with greater attention and regard, he offers himself to us as a most benevolent teacher and leader. Verse 8-11. I will instruct thee, and +Malo sentire compunctionem, quam scire ejus de teach thee in the way in which thou shalt finitionem. Thom. á Kempis, L. í. C. i. go, &c.] See to it, only that thou be tract able, and do not with a brutal obstinacy and fierceness repel this friendly and wise counsel, as only capable of being governed by violence, like a mule or unbroken horse, which must be held in by bit and bridle. Such indeed are the greatest part of men, whom the philosophers, with great severity indeed, but with too much justice, called Bouyen avdgoTwen, "wild bulls with human faces." thing farther to wish for myself or you, than that we may heartily believe these things, for then it will be impossible that we should not with open arms embrace true religion, and clasp it to our hearts; since nature teaches every one to desire happiness, and to fly from misery. So that Epicurus himself would teach us to lay hold on joy and pleasure, as the ro rewry one, or first and proper good. This, therefore, let us lay down as a certain principle, and ever adhere to it, that we may But it is added, as the sum of all admonition, and the great axiom most worthy of regard, that many sorrows shall be to the wick-not, like brute beasts, remain in subjection ed; the Septuagint renders it, many are the scourges of the sinner; but Mercy shall embrace those that hope in the Lord. And the Psalm concludes with this as the burden of it-Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. Truly, my dear friends,+ I have no* Πολλαι μαστιγες ἁμαρτωλού. The word Juvenes, or my dear youths, occurs here and in several other places, as these lectures were delivered to a society of young theological students; to the flesh-that safety, and joy, and all happiness, is the property of him who is possessed of virtue, and that all virtue is comprehended in true piety; and let us remember what the Prophet adds, (according to the Greek translators,") as the necessary consequence of this principle, that to the wicked there can be no joy. but it did not seem necessary to make the translation so exactly literal. * Ουκ εστι χαίρειν τοις ασεβέσιο 2 T MEDITATIONS ON PSALM cxxx. VER. 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, IT is undoubtedly both an useful and pleasant employment, to observe the motions of great and heroic minds, in great and arduous affairs; but that mind only is truly great, and superior to the whole world, which does in the most placid manner subject itself to God, securely casting all its burdens and cares upon him; in all the uncertain alterations of human affairs, looking at his hand, and fixing its regard upon that alone. Such the royal prophet David declares himself every where to have been, and no where more evidently than in this Psalm, which seems to have been composed by him. He lifts up his head amidst surrounding waves, and, directing his face and his voice to heaven, he says, Out of the depths, O Lord, do I cry unto thee. For so I would render it, as he does not seem to express a past fact, but, as the Hebrew idiom imports, a prayer which he was now actually presenting. in this respect boldly to plead the cause of God. "God (says the Roman sage) loves his own people truly, but he loves them severely; as the manner in which fathers express their love to their children, is generally very different from that of mothers; they order them to be called up early to their studies, and suffer them not to be idle in those days when their usual business is interrupted; but sometimes put them on labouring till the sweat flows down, and sometimes by their discipline excite their tears; while the mother fondles them in her bosom, keeps them in the shade, and knows not how to consent that they should weep or grieve or labour. God bears the heart of a Father to good men, and there is strength rather than tenderness in his love; they are therefore exercised with labours, sorrows, and losses, that they may grow robust: whereas, were they to be fattened by luxurious fare, and indulged in indolence, they would not only sink under fatigues, but be burdened with Out of the depths.] Being as it were im- their own unwieldy bulk." Presently after mersed and overwhelmed in an abyss of he quotes a remarkable saying of Demetrius misery and calamities. It is indeed the the Cynic,+ to this purpose, "He seems native lot of man, to be born to trouble, as to be the unhappiest of mankind, who has the spark (the children of the coal, as the never been exercised with adversity, as he original expression signifies) to fly upward. cannot have had an opportunity of trying the Life and grief are congenial; but men who strength of his own mind." To wish to are born again, seem, in a redoubled propor- pass life without it, is to be ignorant of one tion, to be twice born to trouble; with so part of nature, so that I may pronounce many and so great evils are they as it were thee to be miserable, if thou hast never been laden, beyond all other men, and that to miserable. such a degree, that they may seem as it were sometimes to be oppressed with them. And if any think this is strange, surely, as the Apostle expresses it, he cannot see afar off, μrazu, at best, he only looks at the surfaces of things, and cannot penetrate far into those depths. For even the philosophers themselves, untaught by divine revelation, investigated admirable reasons for such dispensations of providence, and undertook * Ως αρα συγγενής έστι λύπη και βιος. If thou hast passed through life without ever struggling with an enemy, • Vere suos amat et severe Deus. Multo aliter patres, aliter matres indulgent; illi liberos ad studia obeunda mature excitari jubent, feriatis quoque diebus non patiuntur otiosos, et sæpe sudorem illis, et interdum lachrymas excutiunt: at matres fovere in sinu, in umbra continere volunt; nunquam flere, nunquam tristari, nunquam laborare. Patrium habet Deus et operibus, doloribus, ac damnis exagitantur, ut adversus bonos viros animum, et illos fortius amat: verum colligant robur. Languent per inertiam saginati? nec labore tantum, sed et mole, et ipso sui onere deficiunt. SEN. Nihil mihi videtur infelicius eo, cui nihil unquam evenerit adversi: non licuit illi se experiri. born soul should be broke under the yoke of this pernicious flesh, the root of so many passions. Lastly, we see how much vigour and vehemence affliction adds to prayer for the divine Psalmist, the deeper he sinks, cries to God in so much the louder accents, out of the deeps have I cried. no one, not even thou thyself, canst know hope, for this false, polluted, and deadly joy ; whether thou art able to make any resistance; and lest, dissolved in pleasure, the heavenwhereas, in afflictions, we experience, not so much what our own strength is, as what is the strength of God in us: and what the aid of divine grace is, which often bears us up under them to a surprising degree, and makes us joyful by a happy exit; so that we shall be able to say, My God, my strength, and my deliverer. Thus the church be- This prayer contains those precious virtues, comes conspicuous in the midst of the flames, which, in a grateful temperature, render like the burning bush, through the good every prayer acceptable to God-faith, fervour, will of him that dwelt in it, and when it and humility. Faith, in that he prays out seems to be overwhelmed with waters, God of the deeps: fervour, in that he cries; and brings it out of them, cleansed and beauti- both again expressed in the next wor, faith, fied; mergas profundo, pulchrior exilit-heas in the midst of surrounding calamities he plunges it in the deep, and it rises fairer than does not despair of redress, fervour, as he before. urges it with repeated importunity, and the We will not here maintain that paradox same word uttered again and again. And, of the Stoics, That evils which happen to to complete all, humility expresses itself in good men, are not to be called evils at all; what follows, where he speaks as one that which, however, is capable of a very good felt himself sinking, as one who was plunged sense, since religion teaches us, that the great- in a sea of iniquities, as well as calamities, est evils are changed, and work together for and acknowledges he was so overwhelmed good; which comes almost to the same with them, as to be unable to stand, unless thing, and perhaps was the true meaning of supported by pure mercy and grace. If thou, the Stoics. Banishment and poverty are Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who shall indeed evils in one sense, i. e. they have stand? Thus here again, faith manifests something hard and grievous in them but itself more clearly, together with its kindred when they fall on a good and brave man, affections of hope and charity, which, like they seem to lay aside the malignity of their three graces, join their hands, and by an innature, and become tame and gentle. The separable union support each other. You very sharpness of them excites and exercises have faith in the 4th verse, there is forgivevirtue by exciting, they increase it, so that ness with thee; hope in the 5th, I wait for the root of faith shoots the stronger, and the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in thy fixes the deeper, and thereby adds new word do I hope; charity in the 7th and strength to fortitude and patience; and as 8th, where he does in a most benevolent we see in this example before us, affliction manner invite all Israel to a communion of does, by a happy kind of necessity, drive the the same faith and hope; and in order to soul to confess its sin, to fly as it were to confirm them more abundantly, does in a seek its refuge under the wing of the Divine most animated manner proclaim the riches goodness, and to fix its hope upon God; of the Divine benignity. Such is the comand this is certainly one great advantage position of this excellent prayer, which, thus which the pious soul gains by adversity, that compounded, like a pillar of aromatic smoke it calls away the affections from earth and from myrrh, frankincense, and every other earthly things, or rather tears them away, most fragrant perfume, ascends grateful to the when obstinately adhering to them. It is throne of God. And this you may take innecessary that they suffer such hardships as stead of the analysis of the remaining verses, these, as one expresses it, lest they should which to handle by a more minute dissection love this inconvenient stable, in which they of words, and to clothe in the trite phrases of are now obliged to lodge, as if it were their the schools, to speak freely, would be as barown house. It is necessary that they should ren and useless as it is easy and puerile. perceive that they are strangers and foreign- And, indeed, I cannot but form the same ers upon earth, that they may more fre- judgment of the common way of catching at quently, and with more ardent desire, groan a multitude of observations from any scripafter that better country, and often repeat it, ture, and of pressing it with violence, as if eixos Çiños, oixos agirros,-dear home! most remarks were to be estimated by number desirable home! The children and heirs rather than weight, propriety, and use. But of the kingdom, must be weaned by worm- here let every one follow his own genius and wood, lest they should be so enchanted by taste; for we are willing to give the liberty we the allurements of the flesh, and the poisonous take, Veniam damus petimusque vicissim. sweetness of secular enjoyments, as to barter away the true and pure joy of their blessed Expedit omnino ut hic dura experiantur, ne stabulum ament pro domo sua. Out of the depths.] O! the immortal power of divine faith, which lives and breathes in the midst of the waves, in which * Σαρξ αλόη, παθέων ρίζα πολυσχιδέων it may be plunged, but cannot be sunk send me out this last word with the last under any of the hugest billows; but raises breath, and with my departing soul," Deitself, and the soul in which it resides, and stroy not, O Lord, one that trusteth in thee." emerges and swims above all, sλλos is aban- Nor is this confidence of a pious soul, an TITOS, (like cork which will still be above opinion fluctuating among the waves, or a water,) having this in common with that light conjecture that it shall raise its head divine love, of which Solomon speaks in above them; but a certain, firm, and infalhis Song, that many waters cannot quench lible assurance. That is a vulgar and weak it. Whatever great things the Stoics may word of comfort, "To-morrow may be better speak of their wise men, and whatever all than to-day." But the language of divine philosophy may say of fortitude, it is divine faith is stronger and firmer, even when deep faith that truly and heartily performs all, by calls unto deep, and most certainly deterwhich the good man, though stript of every mines that it will not be in vain and, therehelp and comfort, wraps himself up as it fore, in the 42d Psalm, not dubious and were, aot in his own virtue and strength, trembling, but with a steady voice, he silences but in that of God; and hence it is that he all the noisy tumults of an agitated mind, cannot be conquered by any tyranny, by any and says, Repose thyself on God, for I threatenings, by any calamities of life, by shall still praise him; or, as it may be renany fear of death; for he leans upon Omni- dered, I am going to praise him; q. d. potence. The Lord, says he, is my light" Amidst all those tempests which rage about and my salvation, whom shall I fear? me, I am thinking of that hymn of praise The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Let war arise, let the enemy measure out his tents against me, I, says faith, am secure under the shadow of the Most High, and, embracing him, I will fear nothing. which I shall pay to him for my deliverance, and for the happy exit out of all my sorrows." Though at present we have nothing in sight but darkness, and whirlwinds, and rocks, and the raging, foaming sea, let the skill and power of the great Pilot be opposed to You have here the Psalmist crying with all these. And what the Psalmist says elseconfidence out of the deeps. Behold also where of sailors, may evidently be applied the prophet Jonah indeed, and, as we say, to those that go down into this sea: they literally, in the depths, and in a circumstance gain this by their dangers, that they see the which might have greater efficacy to shake works of this great Pilot in the abyss, and his faith, than the sea itself, than the bowels contemplate these wonders in the deep. of the fish, or any other depth into which he And he who gives himself up to His care, might be cast, as he was not entirely free and fixes his eye and hope wholly on him, from blame, but with the intermingling though he be, or rather seem to be, shipguilt of his own perverseness; yet among all wrecked, and lose all his goods, yet if he these discouragements, his faith is not swal- does not make shipwreck of faith, he loses lowed up: I have cried unto thee in my nothing that is properly his own. Nay, when distress, and from the very belly of hell. he is swallowed up in the abyss of death, he Thou hast cast me into the deep, and all does not perish, but swims through it, to the thy waves were going over me. So that I further shore of eternity, where he finds a might truly say, I am cast out from thy banquet, a palace prepared for him, and a sight, yet at the same time I said, I will kingdom that cannot be moved, but remains look again toward the temple of thy holiness. to endless ages. I went down to the root and cavern of the I cried.] Prayer is the natural and genuine mountains; the abyss surrounded me; yet voice of the children of God; and as the when my soul was thus overwhelmed within Latin word oratio properly signifies articume, I remembered the Lord. You have, late speech, as it distinguishes man from among others, an excellent example of faith other animals, so in this other signification in David, 1 Sam. xxx., when the invading it expresses that by which the godly are disenemy had burnt Ziklag, had carried the tinguished from the rest of mankind. It is women captive, and the people, in the mad- the proper idiom of the citizens of heaven : ness of their rage and grief, spake of stoning others may recite some words of prayer, but David himself; yet besieged with all these they do not pray. As parrots and other miseries, he strengthens himself in the Lord birds, by the industry of their teacher, may his God. Nor can any thing have greater learn to imitate human voices, yet they do depth and strength than that expression of not speak; there is something wanting in Job, Though he slay me, yet will I trust all their most skilful chattering, which is the in him; not only when fainting and dying, very thing that is also wanting in the lanbut while expiring, as it were, of the wound guage of most that are said to pray, and which I had received from the hand of God that is mind and meaning, affections correhimself, yet will I hope for life and salva- spondent to the words, or rather to which tion, from that very hand which has given the words may conform, as to their original me death; and in the jaws of death, would i * Ταχ αυριον ισσετ' αμείνον. |