So far is God from being a stranger to the actions, that he is privy to the first" thoughts" of men, from whence those actions flow; he is acquainted with all their counsels against his church, and knoweth them to be as vain as the imagination that he is ignorant of them. The wicked can no more escape the hand, than they can elude the eye, of Heaven.

12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, or, instructest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law: 13. That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

Since, therefore, the schemes of the adversary are vain, and the counsel of Jehovah shall infallibly stand, happy is the man who, having learned, from the Scriptures of truth, the lessons of faith and patience, enjoys tranquillity of mind in time of trouble, while destruction is preparing for the impenitent. Then, when "the days of adversity" are over, shall pain and sorrow take a final leave of the righteous to go and dwell with the wicked, to eternal ages. The former shall enter into the rest and joy of their Lord; the latter, into the fire prepared originally for the devil and his angels.

14. For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. 15. But judgement shall return unto righteousness; and all the upright in heart shall follow it.

The faith and patience of the saints are built upon the foundation of God's promise not to "cast off and forsake," however he may chasten and correct, people and inheritance." At a fit time,

his

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"judgement shall return to righteousness," which it might seem to have forsaken: iniquitous oppressors shall meet with the punishment they have deserved, and the faithful shall experience the promised redemption. For thus Dr. Hammond renders and expounds the last clause of the two verses under consideration" and after this," i. e. after "judgement" shall have "returned to righteousness, all the upright " in heart;" i. e. it shall be their time; they shall succeed and flourish. Such were those halcyon days enjoyed by the Jews, after the fall of Babylon, and their return to their own land; such those times of refreshment to the church Christian, when the Pagan persecutions were at an end, and the Roman empire became Christian. Far more transcendent is the felicity of a soul when it exchanges the miseries of the world for the delights of paradise, there to wait, with its sister spirits, until the bodies of saints shall pass from the dishonours of the grave to the glories of immortality.

16. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or, who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? 17. Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

But in the mean season, while "evil-doers” are permitted to prosper, and "the workers of iniquity" carry on their designs, the Prophet asks, in the person of the church, who is there that will or can protect, defend, and deliver? The answer is, God only can do it: "Unless the Lord had been my "help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence," or, I had almost been in the state of death. How often

have our spiritual enemies arisen against us, threatening to bring us into a state of eternal death, but the Lord Jesus was our help and our salvation!

18. When I said my foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.

When the child of God, walking in the slippery paths of life, findeth himself falling into temptation, if he confesseth his inability to stand his ground, and crieth out, like Peter on the water, to his heavenly Father, "Lord, save me, I perish;" a merciful, gracious, and powerful hand will immediately be stretched out, to support his steps, and establish his goings.

19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.

The excellent Norris, in a masterly sermon on this verse, has given us the following elegant and affecting paraphrase of it :-" When my mind sallies "out into a multitude of thoughts, and those

thoughts make me sad and heavy, anxious and "solicitous, as presenting to my view my own "weakness and infirmity, and the universal vanity of "all those seeming props and stays, upon which my "deluded soul was apt to lean; the many great "calamities of life, and the much greater terrors of "death; the known miseries of the present state, "and the darkness and uncertainty of the future; "still urging me with fresh arguments of sorrow, "and opening new and new scenes of melancholy, "till my soul begins to faint and sink under the "burthen she has laid upon herself: when I am "thus thoughtful, and thus sorrowful, then it is, O

my God, that I feel the relief of thy divine re"freshments; I find myself supported and borne up by the strong tide of thy consolations, which raise

my drooping head, strike a light into my soul, "and make me not only dismiss, but even forget, "that sorrow and melancholy, which my thought"fulness had brought upon me." Who that reads this will not thankfully take and follow the advice offered in another part of the same discourse? "Whenever, therefore, thoughts arise in thy heart, " and troubles from those thoughts; when thy mind " is dark and cloudy, and all the regions of the soul are overcast; then betake thyself to thy oratory, " either to thy closet, or the church, and there en"tertain thy soul with the pleasures of religion, and "the satisfaction of a clear conscience." See Nor

ris's Practical Discourses, vol. iii. ser. 4.

20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

One consideration which affordeth comfort to the faithful under persecution and affliction, is this, that God can never be on the side of oppression and injustice, though, to answer wise and salutary purposes, he may, for a time, suffer them to have the dominion, and to establish inquity by law. A distinction there certainly must be between right and wrong; and the former must as certainly triumph at the last day.

21. They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

Righteousness and innocence are most atrocious

crimes, in the eyes of wickedness and guilt. For these crimes Cain slew his brother Abel, the Jews crucified Christ, the Pagans tortured and murdered his disciples, and bad men in all ages have persecuted the good. "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world

"hate you.

1 John iii. 13.

22. But the LORD is my defence: and my God is the rock of my refuge. 23. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.

Jehovah is our "defence;" we fear not the fiery darts of the enemy: He is "the rock of our "refuge;" we bid defiance to the rage and malice of earth and hell. Armed with the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, we rise superior to every effort of diabolical malice and secular power; waiting, in patience and hope, for the coming of that day, when He who hateth unrighteousness, and with whom the throne of iniquity can have no fellowship, shall visit the wickedness of the wicked upon them; when the world of the ungodly shall share the fate of apostate Jerusalem, and the righteous shall be glorified with their Lord and Saviour.

NINETEENTH DAY-MORNING PRAYER.

PSALM XCV.

ARGUMENT.

This Psalm hath been long used in the Christian church, as a proper introduction to her holy ser