Another of the same. THIS Psalm is allowed to contain a sublime description of the promulgation and success of the everlasting gospel in the world; and also an express prediction of Messiah's coming to judge his people Israel, that would not have him to reign over them, but revolted from his yoke. As that coming, and the vengeance then inflicted, were a figure and pledge of his solemn appearance to the general judgment, and of the punishment to be then inflicted on the ungodly; formal Christians should apply to themselves what is here addressed to their unbelieving Jewish brethren, 1 THE mighty God, the LORD, hath spoke, Ev'n from the rising of the sun Unto his going down. 2 From out of Sion, his own hill, Of beauty is, from thence the LORD Hath shined gloriously. ་་་་་་་་་་ Notes on Psalm L. Verse 1. The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, &c. God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, Heb. i. 1. In what is added-and called the earth from the rising of the sun, unto the going down thereof, we see more than a simple declaration, that the gospel shall maintain its progress from the east to the west, till the nations shall thus have received a call, one time or other, to repent and believe. The title, The mighty God, is also given Messiah, Isa. ix. 6. The term earth in such texts intends mankind unrenewed by grace; the call is to prove ffectual, whence they shall be the called, or the obedient to the call; and the language evidently imports the universality of the effect. As the na ural sun is a figure of Christ, whose rising took place in the first gospel promise, and his setting only when he shall present his mediatory kingdem complete and perfect to his Father, at the close of the Restitution of all things; so the language of the Psalmist more than intimates, that all that exist under his government, from first to last, shall be brought to obey his call, not only the community called the kingdom of heaven, but also the rest of mankind under the appellation earth. Thus the many shall be called, though the elect among them be comparatively few. The progress of the gospel, like that of the natural light, is from east to west. Verse 2. Out of Sion, &c. The law preceeded from Sinai, the gospel from mount Zion, called here, the perfection of beauty. But the period may be fute when Messiah, the God of Israel, thall shine out of 3 Our God shall come, and shall no more Before him fire shall waste, great storms 4 He to the heavens from above, And to the earth below, Shall call that he his judgments may Before his people show. 5 Let all my saints together be Those that by sacrifice with me A covenant have made. -6 And then the heavens shall declare His righteousness abroad: Amen! Sion, like his emblem the sun, to the ends of the earth, and call mankind, as in the first verse. In the millennium will this be realized, but especially in the new earth state. Lord Jesus come quickly. Verse 3. Our God shall come and not keep silence: &c. Asaph having foretold Messiah's coming in the dispensation of the gospel, here predicts his advent to execute deserved and threatened vengance on the unbelieving Jews, and also to judge the world; of both which his descent on mount Sinai at the giving of the law, was a pledge and figure. But may there not be here a prediction of his coming previous to his millenial reign, to the idolatrous and rebellious nations. The punishment of the apostate Jews, and of their church, compared by our Lord to a carcase, is a pattern and pledge of the punishment of apostate Christians. Verse 4. He shall call to the heavens from above &c. As the heavens, or heavenly hosts, and the earth, or Roman empire, were witnesses of God's righteous judgments on his ancient people, and the latter the instruments of inflicting it; so will the heavens of the churches, and the mystical earth be summoned to attend the procedure of his justice on those who have departed from the simplicity of truth, and the purity of Christian worship; and that earth, like the ancient one, may have an active hand in the infliction of these judgments. Verse 5. Gather my saints together unto me; &c. God the great Judge is here introduced as the speaker. See something parallel, Mat. xxiv. 3I. As this was fulfilled in Christians, when the LORD came to Judge Jerusalem of old, so shall it be realized in all the faithful at the period when he cometh to shake terribly the earth and the heavens. As the prophecy is to be understood in the evangelical sense, those who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, intend all true believers, who rely on the atonement made by Messiah's death. Verse 6. And the heavens shall declarc his righteousness; &c. The Because the LORD himself doth come; 7 Hear, O my people, and I'll speak; Against thee I will testify; Nor for burnt-off'rings to have been, 9 I'll take no bullock nor he-goats 10 For beasts of forests, cattle all On thousand hills, are mine. ་་་་་་་་་་་་ ་་་་་་ heavens here, as above, may intend faithful churches, that declare the righteousness of his admistration, and the nature and result of that justice according to which he shall judge his people. As Messiah alone is official Judge, John v. 22, 27. and also executes justice; and as we are here told that God is judge himself, thus we have an irrefragable proof of his proper Deity; and indeed, who is fit to judge the world but God?— The judgments of his providence will prepare the nations, and apostate Jews and Christians, to give up their infidelity on this head, before he establish his millennial kingdom in the earth. Verse 7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak; &c. Here he claims the Jews as his people, even those against whom he testifies in this and the following verses; and does not the same hold of the nations that are given him as his inheritance, Psal. ii.? He can never lose his right to his people, who are to be made willing to submit to him in a day of his power. What is added, I am God, even thy God, secures this issue: for he would be ashamed to be called their God for whom he intends no endless happiness. Is he not expressly called the God of the spirits of all flesh, or of all mankind, viewed even in their unrenewed state? The inference is plain and unavoidable, they must therefore be finally holy and happy, as he is the God, not of the dead, but of the living, and as all are to live to him; whence even in their dead state they are alive in his purpose. Verses 8-13. In these verses God remonstrates with the Jews, in respect of the inefficacy of their legal sacrifices, in which they were so apt to trust. Their observance of these, with neglect of which they are not charged, could not save them, when they rejected him who is the great end of the law for righteousness. Of these sacrifices and offerings, the last clause read without the supplement, says, they were continually before The same applies to the formal lifeless services of Christians. me. 11 The fowls are all to me well known 12 If I were hungry, I would not For earth, and all its fulness, doth 13 That I to eat the flesh of bulls 14 Nay, rather unto me, thy God. Thanksgiving offer thou: What is said of the beasts of the forest, and of the cattle upon a thou19and hills, all which Messiah claims as his property, ought to be chiefly understood in the mystical sense. The forest is the Heathen world, its beasts sinners of the Gentiles, and these hills the kingdoms of the nations. Our Lord teaches us that the field given him to cultivate, is the world at large; (Mat. xiii. 38.) and of this he says-The beasts of the feld are mine. He also adds, The world is mine, and the fulness thereof. ver. 12. The claim understood in this unlimited sense, is calculated to destroy the fond hopes the Jews entertained of their peculiar election; but restricted to the literal sense, and it conveys no such lesson. The margin reads it,―The wild beasts of the field are with me; but in what sense can they be said to be with him, unless we understand human beings as intended, who are with him in his purpose, and also in prospect, upon the doctrine of the final restitution of all things? The other part of the claim, -I know all the fowls of the mountains, leads to a similar conclusion, for the fowls of the mountains were not offered in sacrifice, Knowlege as applied to God, is allowed to import approbation and complacency in its object. In this sense, an apostle tells us, that known to God are all his works from the beginning, probably referring to his approbation of them in their creation state, Acts xv. 18. See Ps. cxliv. 3. and viii. 4. In our Lord's exposition of the parable of the sower, he teaches us to view the fowls of heaven, as the mystical emblem of the fallen angels; whence we have a very plain intimation of their final recovery to a state in which God can find pleasure. Exclude this evangelical sense, and we divest the passage of its true gospel import. At the recovery of the Jews as a people, such are some of the lessons to be taught them, to the truth of which they will cordially assent; and Christians have much need to learn the same. Verses 14, 15. Offer unto God thanksgiving, &c. These are the services which God injoins to such Jews as would become Christians, and To the most High perform thy word, I will deliver thee, and thou My name shalt glorify. 16 But God unto the wicked saith, Why should'st thou mention make And sith thou cast'st behind thy back, 18 When thou a thief didst see, then straight And with the vile adulterers Thou hast partaker been. 19 Thy mouth to evil thou didst give, Thy tongue deceit doth frame. 20 Thou sitt'st and 'gainst thy brother speak'st, Thy mothers son to shame. to all professed Christians that would worship God, as the true seed of Abraham, in spirit and in truth. The injunction at the same time amounts to a repeal of the old law respecting brutal sacrifices. Verses 16-23. But unto the wicked God saith, &c. In these verses God expostulates with a Jew who boasted of his observance of the letter of the law, while he rejected Jesus Christ, and the grace of the gospel. He calls him wicked, a character which applies to the whole nation in their unbelieving state, who are here addressed. He rebukes them for taking his covenant in their mouth, or boasting that they were his covenanted people. What follows, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, &c.? applies to all, whether Jews or Christians, who hate instruction, and cast his word behind them, though primarily addressed to the tribe of Levi. No characters are more detestable in God's sight, or more obnoxious to his wrath, than corrupt, time-serving Clergymen, who possess not the fear of God, or the love of his word. Paul's expostulation, Rom. ii. 17, &c. is an exact parallel to that of the Psalmist in this passage. Those are |