For had no light and life been fhown, No fin nor guilt they would have known In fhedding of my righteous blood, Had I not done the works of God:. But fince I came and fpoke to them, They have no cloak to hide their blame: Give them no portion in my blood, Who have thy righteoufnefs withstood. 28 Let them be blotted from thy book, Who have the living God forfook; Nor let thou them enrolled be With those who do believe on me. But I am poor and full of grief; Let thy falvation send relief, And fet me up, O God, on high: Behold, I with my blood draw nigh. 29 30 I'll praise thy name, O God, and fing, And touch my most melodious ftring; I'll magnify my God and Lord, And all his mercies will record.. 31 This too fhall please the Lord my God, More than the flesh, or flowing blood Of bullock, bull, or horned ox, Or lamb, or kid, among the flocks. 32 When THIS the humble ones fhall fee, 34 Let heav'n, and earth, and seas him praise; For God will Zion fave anon, And Judah's cities build each one: Jehovah's Jehovah's people are his heirs, 35 Meffiah's feed with him fhall dwell, THE fame as Pfal. xl. being only a repetition of the five last verses thereof. In form of God although he was, Into a fervile humbled down, Behold th' eternal peerless Son: To claim, he thought it robb'ry none; Come, praise him, praise him, ev'ry one. MAKE hafte, make hafte, O God, to me, Make haste and fave my helpless foul; All helpless, helpless but for thee, My God, on whom.myself I roll. 2 Sham'd and confounded be my foes, Who thus my dove-like foul pursue, As vultures, when the trumpet blows, With blood and carnage in their view: Let them be backward turn'd with fhame; O Lord my God, put them to flight,: Who with confufion to my name; Their own confufion on them light. 3 Let them, condemned by thy law, For a reward of this their flame, $ 3 Who Who fay infultingly, Aha, Be giv'n to feed the fiery flame! 4 Lord, let all those on thee who stay, Let fuch as love Emmanuel, fay, 5 But I am poor and needy, Lord; THIS glorious Pfalm lies fo deep-buried in the rubbish which the commentators, from generation to generation; have been heaping upon it, that, at the first view, one may be ready to fuppofe it, like the first temple, abfolutely loft in its ruins, and may, with the dying mother, when told of the ark's departure, cry out, Ichabod! Where is the glory? It was but lately that one of your most renowned divinity doctors, before his affembled admirers, openly and avowedly, as if he had been recovering a loft ftandard from the hand of an enemy, gloried and triumphed, with no little pulpit-pride, in wrefting this Pfalm from the mouth of David's Lord and Son, that he might put it into the mouth of David's felf, as the more becoming of the two for fuch a Pfalm! -So judged he. But let the reader judge for himself, and read the Pfalm in its own light, and the light of its parallels, and the whole in the light of the New Teftament, which is the light and glory of God fhining in the face of Jefus; and then let him fay, who is the fpeaker and memorialist of his own particular perfonal experiences therein; David, or his Lord? Who is the peaker in Pfalm xxv. 2, 3.? The fame here, ver. 1. Who in Pfalm xxxi. 1, 2.? The fame here, ver. by? Who in Pfalm xxii. 9, 10.? The fame here, here, ver. 6.? Who in Pfalm xxxv. 4, 26. Pfalm xl. 14, &c.? The fame precifely here, ver. 13, and fo forth.-But the grand objection, which they think fufficient to ftem all this ftream of fcripture-argument, they draw from a childish view of ver. 9, and 18. of the Pfalm, which there is a neceffity of confidering fomewhat more particularly., Soberly weigh ver. 9. in its context, • Caft me not off in the time of old age.'-In the foregoing words, the fpeaker praifeth God by afcribing to him his birth, and all the scenes of his progreffive life till now; then, in the cited words, he prays to be preferved by the fame fovereign, fpecial, and peculiar care of his Father, God, in the laft flage, or finishing period of his life, which, in the language of men, (and what language but that pray would you have had the man Jefus to ufe in fpeaking of his human ftate?) is called old age: but the ftyle is manifeftly figurative, and the meaning is explained in the next words, Forfake me not when my ftrength faileth-If you ask what is meant by his ftrength failing, confider the fcene referred to in the next words, For mine ⚫ enemies fpeak against me, and they that lay wait for my foul (or life) take counsel together, faying,' &c-What, pray, would a man in the flower of his age make of that fame flower of his age, and prime of strength, more than an old man of his old age, if God were to leave him? -But we pafs to ver. 17. O God, thou haft taught me from my youth: and hitherto I ⚫ have declared thy wondrous works. Now alfo, ⚫ when I am old and gray-headed, O God, for ⚫ fake me not, until I have fhowed thy strength to this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. The margin has another reading, which is according to the Hebrew, Unto old age, and gray hairs, O God, forfake me not'—or, abandon me not-Now, where is there any thing dark here, but the prepoffefled judgments of the commentators?How amazing is the power of prejudice! prejudice! When we hear of a man who has lived faft, and wafted his ftrength in riot and debauchery, it is reckoned even elegant, as it is indeed most expreffive language, to fay, that fuch a one is an old man, or an extreme old man, (meaning in conftitution), although he has not attained to what, in another fituation, would be called the flower of his age.-but when THE SON OF DAVID, a man of forrows, and acquainted with griefs; who, when he was feen, had no form nor comelinefs, why he fhould be defired; whofe vifage was more marred than the fons of men; who himself bare our infirmities and pains, and became like a bottle in the fmoke, confumed with the zeal of his Father's houfe; who wafted himself in watchings, faftings, and prayers, by night and by day, doing the work which he came to finish in his blood:when he, I fay, defcribes his perfonal sufferings, and the real vifible effects thereof upon his body, rendering him, when but about thirty years of age, apparently feeble and weak like an old man; infomuch (which even the commentators allow, and make their own use of upon occafions) that his countrymen when ridiculing him for fay ing, Before Abraham was, I am,' cry out, Thou art not yet FIFTY years old, and haft thou feen Abraham?If his countenance had not borne the traces of near fifty years, they would furely have taken nearer marks of his age, to have infulted him the more.—But yet he cannot be allowed the common ufe of common language, to defcribe one of the plainest things in all the now revealed mystery of godlinefs!But Satan and his minifters could not fo effectually hide the gospel from the minds of men, nor have the honour of marching fo popularly and cordially, upon the head of their thousands and ten thousands, to hell, were it not for their artful blinds, and deceitful manoeuverings about the Pfalms. May the fovereign Lord of all, whose words they have grievously and fatally wrefted, pluck the blind leaders and the blind led, as |
