12 I will thee praife, O Lord, my God,
With all my foul and might,
And fing thy glorious name aloud,
With moft intense delight:

13 For great's thy mercy towards me;
Thou haft delivered

And from the loweft hell fet free
My foul, by thee made glad.

14 The fons of vi'lence, O my God,
The proud and lofty men,
In their affembly closely plod.
To fill my foul with pain.
But thou, O God, art full of love,
Compaffions in thee dwell;
Thou wilt their infolence reprove,
And their affaults repel.

15

160 turn to me, and mercy have,
According to thy word;

Thy Servant ftrengthen thou, and fave
Thine handmaid's Son, O Lord.
17 Shew me thy token for my good,
Thy promis'd pledge of love,
And rescue from this multitude
Thy holy Turtle-dove:

That they may be afham'd who see,
When thou, O Lord, fhalt fave
Thine own Meffiah, glorioufly
Triumphing o'er the grave.

PSALM LXXXVII.

COMMEMORATIVE and defcriptive of the glory of the Meffiah's kingdom, (fpoken in the perfon of the Meffiah parallel in the beginning to Pfalm alviii. and in the latter part to the conclufion of Pfal. xxii. as appears by the margin), fully afcer

tains its own moft evident. meaning in general, as here narrated. As to that particular paffage in ver. 2. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more

than all the dwellings of Jacob,' which hath, upon occafions, been moft grievously abufed, it is explained by its parallel, Pfal.. lxxviii. 67. Moreover, he refufed the tabernacle of Joseph, and chofe not the tribe of Ephraim; but chofe the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved?

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Come, lift aloud the voice of joy!
Let praife and love be our employ!
Let heav'n unto the earth rebound,
And echo round the joyful found!
The Lord of Glory's Lord of all:
The fons unhorn fhall hear his call,
And, hearing, they fhall all obey,
And round him dance, and fing, and play!

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Song of fongs to God, my King, My voice fhall chant, my heart fhall fing: Upon the hills of truth and grace, His fure foundations he shall place. 2 The Lord delights in Zion's gates, Where Judah's praife for him awaits, Where all the tribes upon him call, More than in Jacob's dwellings all. 3 What glorious things are faid of thee, And ever fhall be faid by me,

O city of the living God,

Where God himfelf fhall make abode!

4 To them who know me I'll record, And fing with joy before the Lord, Of Egypt and of Babylon;

For thefe with Zion fhall be one:

Behold, Philiftia too, and Tyre,
To God fhall fmite the founding lyre;
And Ethiopia I will join

With them in union all divine:

And

:

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And when I read my rolls of birth,
I'll mention this with joy and mirth,
This man, and that man born was there,
South, north, east, weft, and ev'ry-where.
I'll fpread my church o'er ev'ry hill,
And all the world with glory fill;
For I, the Lord, am ev'ry where;
And where I am my Zion's there:
And it of Zion fhall be fung,

This man and that of her was fprung;
The Lord himself shall stablish her,
And build her palaces fo fair.

When God the people counts, he'll write,
This man, and that man, his delight,
Was born therein-and there, there bet
Ten thousand thousand fuch with thee:
7 There be that fing, and fweetly play,
With high triumphant joyful lay:
They play and fing, Ọ God, to thee,
In whom alone my well-fprings be."

PSALM LXXXVIII.

How grievously have the authors of the Westminster Confeffion of Faith and Catechifins (which, by the way, all the minifters and probationens of the Kirk of Scotland have fworn to and fubfcribed, as the confeffion of their faith, as well as the Seceders and Relief-people, with the writer of this illustration among the rest, before he knew better, while he continued to call the kirk his mother) mistaken the Author and Finither of the one divine apoftolic faith of all God's elect, when they have ventured to advance this Pfalm throughout, as they word it, together with Pfal. xxii. lxxvii. and others equally foreign to their purpofe, as proofs, that one who doubteth of his being in Chrift, may have true intereft in Chrift, though he be not yet affured

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thereof!

thereof! They commonly fay, that the Son of God himself died under a cloud; and that, in fo dying, he was a pattern to his followers in all ages. They have faid, that, if the Son of God. expreffed two acts of faith in crying, My God, my God,' he alfo expreffed one act of doubting and unbelief in adding, Why haft thou forfaken • me?'-And many more fuch things with them there be. My foul, come not thou into their counsel! mine honour, with theirs be not united! -Now, to forbear a little, and to allow them all they defire with regard to this famous Pfalm: fuppofe that, indeed, Heman the Ezrahite, giving inftruction, was, as they allow, by the Holy Ghot infpired to defcribe his own perfonal experiences, and not thole of the Meffiab); and moreover, that thofe faid experiences of Heman were meant as patterns to all other faints in time coming, and good proofs, that perious might have true interest in Chrift, though not yet affured thereof, &c. fuppofe, I fay, all this, and whatever more you please in the fame ftrain-can you allo fuppofe, that the Holy Ghoft fhould infpire a man to cry out at a venture without affurance, without certainty, as in the first words of this Pfalm, O Lord

God of my falvation,' &c.—or that these words were a proof, that he might poffibly have an intereft in God's falvation, and yet at the fame time have no affurance thereof?-O enemy! enemy! how halt thou deceived the nations!See the parallels. Confider the New Teftament, and give God, O believer, the praife of all his glory, as it fines in the face of Jefus.I fay no more.

This fong of mourning Jefus fang
In day of his extreme diftrefs,
When war and trumpet's dreadful clang
Alarm'd his foul with fearfulness:

Thy fuff'ring Lord, believer, fee,
And praise the heart that bled for thee!

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The horrors of his hell-touch'd foul,

From wounds of death have made thee whole!

LORD GOD, my Saviour, day and night

Before thee I have cried ftill,
20 let my pray'r come with delight
Before thee in thine holy hill:
3 Incline thine ear unto my cry;

My foul is full of trouble fore;
Unto the grave my life draws nigh;

Ev'n now death's billows o'er me roar.

4 I'm counted with them that go down
Into the pit-I'm as a man
Whofe ftrength is to a fhadow flown,
Whofe body is a carcafe wan.

5 I'm a companion with the dead,

Like thofe who flain in grave do lie;
On whom the heedlefs foot fhall tread,
Of ev'ry trav❜ller paffing by:

Me thou rememb'reft now no more,
According to my prefent lot,
Than those who liv'd the flood before,
Who finn'd and perifh'd on the fpot.
6 Me thou haft laid in loweft pit,

In darkness, in the deeps, in hell:
7 On me thy wrath lies hard, and it
'Makes all thy waves against me fwell.
8 From me thou haft put far away

My friends, and mine acquaintance all; And only thofe around me ftay Who wish to fee me fink and fall: Me thou haft made a fpectacle, An horror and a deadly fear,

To all who ever wifh'd me well;

To me they dare not venture near.

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