otherwise than as they were symbolical of some other sacrifice, spiritual and holy, and therefore really propitiatory and acceptable in his sight. That man judaizeth, who thinketh to please God by an external, without an internal service; or by any service, without Christ.

14. Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High: 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

The carnal and bloody sacrifices of the law being abolished by the coming of Messiah, the spiritual and unbloody oblations of the gospel succeed in their stead. These are, the eucharistic sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the mercies of redemption; that hearty repentance, that faith unfeigned, and that obedience evangelical, promised and vowed in baptism: that perfect trust in God, and resignation to his will, which our Lord expressed in his prayer, during his sufferings, and which we ought to express in our prayers, when called to suffer with him, if we desire to glorify God for our deliverance through him, in the day of visitation. These are the services enjoined to such Jews as would become Christians, and to such Christians as would be Christians in deed and in truth.

16. But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth: 17. Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee?

From hence, to the end of the Psalm, we have an expostulation of God with the unbelieving Jew,

who boasted his relation to Abraham, without a spark of Abraham's faith in his heart; and gloried in a law, which condemned him as a breaker of its precepts in every instance. St. Paul's expostulation with the same person, Rom. ii. 17, &c. is so exact a parallel to this before us, that one will be the best comment upon the other: Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law. Thou, therefore, that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law, dishonourest thou God?' Every minister of God should try and examine himself by these passages in our Psalm and St. Paul, on the former of which the famous Origen is once said to have preached, making application to his own case, not without many tears. And, indeed, 'if thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, who,' among us all, shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee.' Ps. cxxx. 3, 4.

18. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adul

terers.

St. Paul proceeds in the very same manner :Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacri

lege?' All Christians, the clergy especially, should beware not only of committing evil themselves, but of consenting' to, or 'partaking' of, the evil committed by others.

19. Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. 20. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother: thou slanderest thine own mother's

son.

Had St. Paul thought proper to have gone on to this instance, he might have said, Thou that teachest a man should not bear false witness, dost thou bear false witness? For certainly never men brake that commandment in a more flagrant manner than the Jews: never men 'gave' their 'mouth' more 'to evil,' or 'framed' more ' deceit,' than they, when they sat and spake against their brethren,' and 'slandered their own mother's children,' for believing in Jesus Christ. Let us look at this picture of slander, and we shall never fall in love with so detestable a vice.

21. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

The forbearance of God only tempted the Jews still to think him on their side, till at length he made the Roman armies his instruments of conviction; who, by crucifying multitudes of their countymen in sight of the besieged, did in a wonderful manner 'reprove them, and set before them the things which they had done.' The day of judgment will do this to all sinners, if temporal chastisements effect it not, before that day shall come.

22. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.

The stupendous desolation of Jerusalem, for rejecting so kind an admonition of her Saviour, and suffering him to weep over her in vain, should, in a most powerful manner, enforce that admonition on the inhabitants of Christendom, to prevent its falling, after the same example of unbelief.

23. Whoso offereth me praise, glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of God.

This verse resumes and repeats the conclusion intended by the whole Psalm, concerning the Jewish and the Christian worship; and St. Paul, in the place above cited, affords us a complete comment upon it: 'He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; nor is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.'

PSALM LI.

ARGUMENT.-In this Psalm, composed upon a sad occasion, but too well known, we have a perfect model of penitential devotion. The royal supplicant, robed in sackcloth, and crowned with ashes, entreats for mercy, 1, 2. from a consideration of his own misery, and of the divine goodness; 3. from that of his confession; 4. of God's sole right to judge him; 5. laments the corruption of his nature; but, 6. without pleading it as an excuse; 7. prays for Gospel remission, in legal terms; 8. for spiritual joy and comfort; 9, 10. for pardoning and cleansing grace; 11, 12. for strength and perseverance, that he may, 13. instruct and convert others; 14,

15. deprecates the vengeance due to blood; 16, 17. beseeches God to accept an evangelical sacrifice; and 18, 19. concludes with a prayer for the church.

1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

The penitent's first ground for hope of pardon is his own misery, and the divine mercy, which rejoiceth to relieve that misery. The riches, the power, and the glory of a kingdom, can neither prevent nor remove the torment of sin, which puts the monarch and the beggar upon a level. Every transgression leaves behind it a guilt, and a stain ; the account between God and the sinner is crossed by the blood of the great propitiatory sacrifice, which removes the former; and the soul is cleansed by the Holy Spirit, which takes out the latter.

2. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

The soul that is sensible of her pollution, fears she can never be sufficiently purified from it; and therefore prays, yet again and again, continually, for more abundant grace, to make and to keep her holy.

3. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

The penitent's second plea for mercy is, that he doth not deny, excuse, or palliate his fault, but confesses it openly and honestly, with all its aggravations, truly alleging, that it haunts him night and day, causing his conscience incessantly to reproach him with his base ingratitude to a good and gracious Father.