salvation no longer visits those who always hated and rejected it. 20. Man, that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish. The sum of the whole matter is, that it can profit a man nothing to gain the whole world; to become possessed of all its wealth, and all its power; if, after all, he lose his own soul, and be cast away, for want of that holy and heavenly wisdom which distinguishes him from the brutes, and sets him above them, in his life, and at his death. Tenth Day.-Morning Prayer. PSALM L. ARGUMENT.-This Psalm presents us with a magnificent description, 1, 2. of the promulgation of the gospel, followed, 3, 4. by a prediction of the terrible manner of God's coming to judge his apostate people, Israel; 5, 6. of the assembly to 1 Such is the general idea entertained of this Psalm, by the best Christian expositors, cited in Poole's Synopsis, where we are likewise informed, that the Jewish rabbies affirm the subject of it to be, "that judgment which will be executed in the days of Messiah"-ignorant, alas! that they themselves, and their people, are now become the unhappy objects of that judgment. Psalmi quinquagesimi argumentum est ex genere di'dactico ad moralem theologiam pertinens, grave imprimis et fructuosum: Deo nimirum non placere sacrificia et externos ritus religionis, sed sinceram potius pietatem, laudesque ex grato animo profluentes; neque vero has ipsas pietatis significationes, sine justitia cæterisque virtutibus. Ita duas habet partes; primo arguitur cultor pius quidem, sed ignarus et superstitioni obnoxius; deinde improbus pietatis simulator. Si totum hujusce odæ apparatum et quasi scenam contemplamur, nihil facile potest esse magnificentius. Deus universum genus humanum be present, and his appeal to men and angels; 7-13. the rejection of the legal, and 14, 15. the establishment of the Christian worship and services; 16-20. the impenitent Jews are arraigned, and 21. threatened; and, 22. exhorted to consider, to repent; and, 23. to embrace the evangelical, or spiritual religion. It is to be observed, that in this Psalm, as in our Lord's discourse on the same subject, the particular judgment of Jerusalem is a figure and specimen of the last general judgment. Hypocritical and wicked Christians are, therefore, to apply to themselves what is primarily addressed to their elder brethren, the unbelieving and rebellious sons of faithful and obedient Abraham. 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. 'God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son.' Heb. i. 1. The everlasting gospel hath made its glorious progress from the eastern to the western world; and the nations have been thereby called to repentance. 2. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. The law which was given by Moses, proceeded from Sinai, the mount of fear and horror; but the word of grace and truth, which came by Jesus Christ, issued forth from Sion, the chosen moun solenni edicto convocat, ut de populo suo judicium publice exerceat; ponitur in Sione augustum tribunal: depingitur Dei advenientis majestas imaginibus a descensu in montem Sinam petitis: cœlum et terra invocantur divinæ justitiæ testes: tum demum inducitur Dei ipsius sententiam dicentis augustissima persona, per reliquam oden continuata; unde cum cæteris ejus partibus admirabilis illa exordii majestas et splendor communicatur." Lowth, Prælect. xxvii. ad init. tain of beauty and excellency, in Jerusalem. There that glory first arose and shone, which, like the light of heaven, soon diffused itself abroad over the face of the whole earth. 3. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence : a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. The prophet, having described the first advent of Christ, and the promulgation of the gospel, now foretelleth his coming to take vengeance on the hypocritical Jews, as also, his advent to judge the world prefigured thereby. Upon both those occasions, his coming was to be with sounds and sights of terror, with all the marks and tokens of wrath and fiery indignation, like those displayed on Sinai. 4. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Heaven and earth, men and angels, were to be witnesses of the righteous judgments of God, executed upon his apostate people; as all the celestial armies, and all the generations of the sons of Adam, are to be present at the general judgment of the last day. 5. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. These are the words of God, summoning mankind to attend the trial, calling to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.' Thus it is said of the Son of man, Matt. xxiv. 31. 'He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for God is judge himself. Th' applauding heav'ns the changeless doom, In full memorial shall record, And own the justice of their Lord.-Merrick. 7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. This is the voice of the omniscient Judge, impleading his ancient people, who are commanded to attend to the words of him, their God and covenanted Saviour, thus constrained to clear his justice before the world, and to show that they had destroyed themselves. Nominal and wicked Christians will be addressed in the same manner at the last day. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, to have been, or, they were continually before me. This judicial process was not commenced against Israel for their having neglected to offer the sacrifices of the law; their oblations were on the altar, morning and evening, continually, insomuch that God, by the prophet Isaiah, declares himself 'weary of them,' as not having been accompanied with faith and holiness in the offerer. Many pharisaical Christians will be condemned for the same reason, notwithstanding their strict and scrupulous attendance upon the ordinances of the new law, if it shall appear that they left religion in the church behind them, instead of carrying it with them into their lives and conversations. 9. I will take no bullock out of thine house, nor he-goat out of thy folds. 10. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the fields are mine. 12. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. The Jewish folly of doting on the legal offerings, as things in themselves acceptable to God, and conferring justification on man, is reproved in these verses, from the consideration, that the various animals slain in sacrifice, were long before, even from the creation of the world, the sole right and property of Jehovah; which, therefore, he needed not to have required at the hands of his people; nor would he have done so, but for some further end and intent, signified and represented by such oblations. What that end and intent was, Christians know; and Jews formerly did know. Learn we hence, not to dream of any merit in our works and services; since God hath a double claim, founded on creation and redemption, to all we have, and all we are. 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Another argument of the Jews' blindness is, the gross absurdity of imagining, that a spiritual and holy being could possibly be satisfied and pleased with the taste and smell of burnt-offerings, (which God often declareth himself to have been,) any |