taken up in God, is rich and content in him, it stands not much to the courtesy of any: let them take the rest, it suffers with joy the spoiling of goods, having in heaven a more enduring substance. And for the utmost, killing them, they look on it as the highest favour. It is to them but the making a hole for them in the prison wall to get out at. Therefore I say there is nothing doth so fit for all encounters, as to be much instructed in that which is the substance of Christianity, hearts purified, and lives holily and spiritually regulated. In a word, much study of Christ and much study of thyself, for ought I know, are the wisest and strongest preparatives for all possible sufferings.

How sweetly can the soul retire into him and repose in him, in the greatest storms! I know nothing that can much dismay him who can believe and pray. That, you see, is added

Continuing instant in prayer. If afraid of fainting, yea, if at the point of fainting, this revives the soul, draws in no less than the strength of God to support it: and what then can surcharge it?

Thy access to him, all the enemies in the world cannot hinder. The closest prison shuts not out thy God; yea, rather it shuts out other things and companies that thou mayest have the more leisure for him, and the sweeter converse with him. O acquaint yourselves with this exercise of prayer, and by it with God, that if days of trouble come, you may know whither to go, and what way; and you know this way, whatever befalls you, you are not

if

much to be bemoaned.

PSALM IV.

TITLE. To the chief Musician on Neginoth, a Psalm of David.

MANY of the calamities of good men look like miseries, which yet on the whole appear to have conduced greatly to their happiness; witness the many prayers which they poured out in those calamities, the many seasonable and shining deliverances which succeeded them, and the many hymns of praise they sang to God their Deliverer: so

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that they seem to have been cast into the fire on purpose that the odour of their graces might diffuse itself all abroad.

The seventy Greek interpreters seem to have read the word which we render to the chief musician, something different from the reading of our present Hebrew copy, that is Lemenetz, instead of Lemenetzoth; and therefore they render it ɛs réλos, as the Latin copy does, in finem, to the end. From whence the Greek and Latin fathers imagined that all the psalms which bear this inscription refer to the Messiah, the great End and the accomplishment of all things; a sentiment which was rather pious than judicious, and led them often to wrest several passages in the psalms by violent and unnatural glosses. Yet I would not morosely reject all interpretations of this kind, seeing the apostles themselves apply to Christ many passages out of the psalms and other books of the Old Testament, which, if we had not been assured of it by their authority, we should hardly have imagined to have had any reference to him. Nor is it probable that they enumerated all the predictions of the Messiah which are to be found in the prophetic writings, but only a very small part of them, while they often assure us that all the sacred writers principally centre in him. And it is certain the passage out of this psalm, which Austin and some others suppose to refer to Christ, may be applied to him without any force upon the expression: O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? And what follows they explain with the same reference: Know that the Lord has in a wonderful manner separated his Holy One unto himself.

Others however render the title in a different mannerVictori, to the conqueror. Moderns translate it præcentori or præfecto musica, to the chief musician, or him who presided over the band of musicians; which after all seems the most natural interpretation. The word Neginoth, which is sometimes rendered stringed instruments, did no doubt signify instruments of music which were struck to give their sound, as Nehiloth in the title of Psalm v. seems, though not without some little irregularity in the etymology, to signify instruments of wind music. The psalm was written by David, as a summary

of the prayer he had poured out before God, when some exceeding great affliction seem to besiege him on every side, whether it was the persecution of Saul or the conspiracy of Absalom, his son.

Ver. 1. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me and hear my prayer.

Hear me. Behold the sanctuary, to which this good man betook himself in all the afflictions of his life: a sanctuary which therefore he sets off, by accumulating a variety of expressive titles, all to the same purpose, in Psal. xviii. 2. My rock, my fortress, my strength, my deliverer, my buckler, the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. He is indeed a place of refuge to his children; and therefore, as Solomon expresses it in the fear of the Lord is a strong confidence. There seems something of an enigma in that expression-confidence in fear; yet the thing itself is most true. And again. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. And they who know not this refuge are miserable; and when any danger arises, they run hither and thither, as Antoninus beautifully expresses it, "They fly and flutter they know not whither." The life of man upon earth is a warfare; and it is much better in the midst of enemies and dangers to be acquainted with one fortress, than with many inns. He that knows how to pray, may be pressed, but cannot be overwhelmed.

Hear me, O Lord, hear my prayer. He did not think it enough to have said this once; but he redoubled it. He who prays indeed is seriously engaged in the matter; and not only seriously but vehemently too, and urges the address, because he himself is urged by the necessities and difficulties, and the ardent motion of his own desire and affection. And let it be observed that these are the only prayers that mount on high, and offer a kind of grateful violence to heaven. Nor does the divine goodness grant any thing with greater readiness and delight, than the blessings which seem, if I may be allowed the expression, to be forced out. and extorted by the most fervent prayer. So that Tertullian used to say, that,

"when we pray eagerly, we do as it were combine in a resolute band, and lay siege to God himself." These are the perpetual sacrifices in the temple of God, rational victims-prayers and intermingled vows, flowing from an upright and pure heart. But he who presents his petitions coldly seems to bespeak a denial; for is it to be wondered at that we do not prevail on God to hear our prayers, when we hardly hear them ourselves while we offer them? How can we suppose that such devotions should penetrate heaven, or ascend up to it? How should they ascend when they do not so much as go forth from our own bosoms, but, like wretched abortions, die in the very birth? But why do I say that they do not go out from the inward recesses of our bosoms? Alas! they are only formed on the surface of our lips, and they expire. there, quite different from what Homer ascribes to his wise and eloquent Ulysses, when he says,

"Forth from his breast he poured a mighty cry."

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Thou God of my righteousness; thou, O God, who art righteous thyself, and art the patron of my righteousness, of my righteous cause and of my righteous life. For it is necessary that both should concur, if we desire to address our prayers to God with any confidence: not that, depending upon this righteousness, we should seek the divine aid and favour, as a matter of just debt; for then, as the apostle argues, it were no more of grace. prophet is certainly very far from boasting of his merits; for here he so mentions his righteousness, as at the same time to cast himself upon the divine mercy: Have mercy upon me; exercise thy propitious clemency towards me. And this is indeed the genuine temper of one who truly prays with sincerity and humility. For polluted hands are an abomination to the Lord, and he hates the heart that is puffed up. He beholds the proud afar off, as the celebrated parable of the Pharisee and publican is, you know, intended to teach us. Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. But the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, and his countenance beholds the upright. Whereas the words of the wicked, when he prays, are but as a fan or as bellows to blow up the divine displeasure into a flame; for how can he appease God, who

does not at all please him; or how can he who utterly disregards his pure laws, and that holiness which is so dear to him?

Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. I have often experienced both the riches of thy bounty, and the power of thy hand; and I derive confidence from thence, because thou art immutable, and canst never be wearied by rescuing thy servants from the dangers that surround them. The examples we have heard of divine aid granted to others in their distress, should animate us; as David recollected, Psalm xxii. 4; Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them. But our own personal experiences are later and nearer, and he who treasures them up in his memory, not only thereby expresses his gratitude to God, but wisely consults his own interest; for he enjoys all those benefits of the divine favour twice, or rather as often as he needs and pleases to renew the enjoyment of them; and he not only supports his faith in new dangers, by surveying God's former interpositions, but by laying them open before God in humble prayer, he more earnestly implores, and more effectually obtains new ones. By a secret kind of magnetism, he draws one benefit by another; he calls out, and as it were, allures the divine favour by itself..

Thou hast enlarged me. The redeemed of the Lord may especially say so, in reference to that grand and principal deliverance by which they are snatched from the borders of hell, from the jaws of eternal death. The remembrance of so great salvation may well excite songs of perpetual praise, to be ascribed to God the Deliverer; and by this deliverance, so much more illustrious than any of the rest, they may be encouraged in the confidence of faith, to urge and hope for the aids of his saving arm in every other exigence.

One thing more may be observed here, but it is so very obvious, that I shall only just mention it, as what needs not to be much inculcated-that he who has not been accustomed to prayer when the pleasant gales of prosperity have been breathing upon him, will have little skill and confidence in applying himself to it when the storms of adversity arise; as Xenophon well observed in the person of Cyrus.