I am fometimes afraid, yet put I my trust in thee. I In the next verse, his hope and trust arise still higher: I will praise God, because of his word. have put my trust in God, and will not fear what flefb can do unto me. But in the following verses his fears again preponderate. Mine enemies daily mistake my words. All they imagine is to do me evil. gether, and keep themselves clofe. Steps, and lay wait for my foul. They hold alto They mark my In the feventh verfe, he looks up again to heaven, and hopes that God would protect his innocence, and baffle the defigns of his enemies. At One devout thought introduces another. the ninth verse, he feels confcious that God has heard his petitions: Whenfoever I call upon thee, mine enemies shall be put to flight. This I know, for God is on my fide. This raises in him a joyful hope: In God's word will I rejoice: his word will comfort me. Roused by these holy fentiments, he banishes at length all his fears-trufts fully in God; and in this holy hope he ends the pfalm. In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do 1 do unto me. Unto thee, O God, will I pay my vows: unto thee will I give thanks. Thou haft delivered my foul from death, and I will walk before thee in the light of the living. A good man may make many pleasing reflections on the various feelings of this pfalm, which might be pointed out in a difcourfe. IN these paffages, and in others of the fame kind, there is a variation in the accounts given us of the refurrection of Christ. In some paffages, he is represented as raised by God; in others, as raising himself. We reconcile this variation, as we do others, in which there is the appearance of the fame contradiction, by confidering the divine Emanuel, as he is always reprefented in Scripture, under the two natures of divine and human. When God is faid to raise him, his human nature is confidered, and his divine nature when he is represented as raifing himself. BY Y the poor are not meant thofe merely in indigent circumstances ; but fuch as bear indigence with religious refignation. To them the Gospel (for David's remark is purely evangelical) thus speaks: "Though, ye patient sufferers, ye appear to be thus forfaken, depend upon it, your gracious Father has you in his eye. He afflicts you no farther than is neceffary. Envy not those whom you fee, in appearance, happier than yourselves. Be refigned, and receive with piety all the difpenfations of your heavenly Father, and your time of alleviation will certainly come. |