against the " people and heritage" of God, are here specified. "Widows, ftrangers, and orphans" are deftitute of the help and protection afforded by hufbands, friends, and fathers. Chrift is become an husband to the church, a father to her children, and the only friend to both in time of need. Elfe were we all in the state of strangers and orphans, expofed, with our widowed mother, to the unrelenting malice and fury of the great oppreffor and murderer.

7. Yet they fay, the LORD fhall not fee, neither fall the God of Jacob regard it. 8. Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wife? 9. He that planted the ear, fhall he not hear? He that formed the eye fhall he not fee? 10. He that chafifeth the heathen, fhall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? Or, He that inftructeth the nations. fhall not he rebuke; even he that teacheth man knowledge?

The Pfalmift informeth us, that men are encouraged in their injustice and villainy by a perfuafion, that God doth not behold or regard what they do to his people. The abfurdity of fuch a conceit is fhewn from thefe confiderations; that it is God who beftoweth on man the powers of feeing and hearing, and therefore that he himself must needs be poffeffed of those powers in the highest perfection; that it is God who hath inftructed the world, by his revelations, in religious knowledge, and confequently, without all doubt, he cannot be ignorant of the use and abuse which men make of that his unspeakable gift.

11. The

11. The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

So far is God from being a ftranger to the actions, that he is privy to the first " thoughts" of men, from whence thofe actions flow; he is acquainted with all their counfels against his church, and knoweth them to be as vain as the imagination that he is ignorant of them. The wicked can no more escape the band, than they can elude the eye of heaven.

12. Bleed is the man whom thou chafteneft, or, inftructeft, O LORD, and teacheft him out of thy law : 13. That thou mayeft give him reft from the days of adverfity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

Since, therefore, the schemes of the adversary are vain, and the counsel of Jehovah shall infallibly stand, happy is the man who, having learned, from the Scriptures of truth, the leffons of faith and patience, enjoys tranquillity of mind in time of trouble, while deftruction is preparing for the impenitent. Then, when" the days of adverfity" are over, shall pain and forrow take a final leave of the righteous, to go and dwell with the wicked, to eternal a es. The former fhall enter into the reft and joy of their Lord, the latter into the fire prepared originally for the devil and his angels.

14. For the LORD will not caft off his people, neither will he forfake his inheritance. 15. But judgment fhall return unto righteoufnefs: and all the upright in heart Jhall follow it.

The faith and patience of the faints are built upon the foundation of God's promise not to "caft "off and forfake," however he may chaften and

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correct, his "people and inheritance." At a fit time, "judgment fhall return to righteoufnefs," which it might feem to have forfaken; iniquitous oppreffors shall meet with the punishment they have deferved, and the faithful fhall experience the promifed redemption. For thus Dr. Hammond renders and expounds the laft claufe of the two verfes under confideration" and after this," i. e. after "judgment" fhall have "returned to righteoufnefs, all the upright in heart;" i. e. it fhall be their time; they fhall fucceed and flourish. Such were thofe halcyon days enjoyed by the Jews, after the fall of Babylon, and their return to their own land; fuch those times of refreshment to the church Chriftian, when the pagan perfecutions were at an end, and the Roman empire became Chriftian. Far tranfcendent is the felicity of a foul when it exchanges the miseries of the world for the delights of paradife, there to wait, with its fifter spirits, until the bodies of faints shall pafs from the dishonours of the grave to the glories of immortality.

16. Who will rife up for me against the evil doers? Or who will fand up for me against the workers of iniquity? 17. Unless the LORD had been my help, my foul had almoft dwelt in filence.

But in the mean feafon, while "evil doers" are permitted to profper, and the workers of iniquity” carry on their defigns, the prophet afks, in the perfon of the church, who is there that will, or can protect, defend, and deliver? The answer is, God only can do it: "Unless the LORD had been my

help, my foul had almost dwelt in filence," or, I

had

155 had almost been in the ftate of death. How often have our spiritual enemies arifen against us, threatening to bring us into a state of eternal death, but the Lord Jefus was our help and our falvation.

18. When I faid, my foot flippeth thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.

When the child of God, walking in the flippery paths of life, findeth himfelf falling into temptation, if he confeffeth his inability to ftand his ground, and crieth out, like Peter on the water, to his heavenly Father, "Lord, fave me, I perifh;" a merciful, gracious, and powerful hand will immediately be stretched out, to support his steps, and establish his goings.

19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my foul.

The excellent Norris, in a mafterly fermon on this verfe, has given us the following elegant and affecting paraphrase of it-"When my mind fallies

out into a multitude of thoughts, and thofe "thoughts make me fad and heavy, anxious and "folicitous, as prefenting to my view my own "weakness and infirmity, and the univerfal vanity of "all those feeming props and stays, upon which my "deluded foul was apt to lean; the many great "calamities of life, and the much greater terrors of "death; the known miferies of the prefent ftate, "and the darkness and uncertainty of the future; "ftill urging me with fresh arguments of forrow, " and opening new and new fcenes of melancholy, "till my foul begins to faint and fink under the "burthen she has laid upon herself: when 1 am

"thus

"thus thoughtful, and thus forrowful; then it is, O my God, that I feel the relief of thy divine re"freshments; I find myself fupported and borne up by the ftrong tide of thy confolations, which raife

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my drooping head, ftrike a light into my foul, "and make me not only difmifs, but even forget "that forrow and melancholy, which my thought"fulness had brought upon me." Who, that reads this, will not thankfully take and follow the advice offered in another part of the fame difcourfe? "Whenever therefore thoughts arife in thy heart, "and troubles from thofe thoughts, when thy mind "is dark and cloudy, and all the regions of the foul

are overcaft; then betake thyfelf to thy oratory, "either to thy closet, or the church, and there en"tertain thy foul with the pleasures of religion, and "the fatisfactions of a clear confcience." See Norris's Practical Difcourfes, Vol. III. Serm. IV.

20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

One confideration which affordeth comfort to the faithful under perfecution and affliction, is this, that God can never be on the fide of oppreffion and injuftice, though to anfwer wife and falutary purposes, he may, for a time, fuffer them to have the dominion, and to establish iniquity by law. iniquity by law. A diftinction there certainly muft be between right and wrong: and the former muft as certainly triumph, at the last day.

21. They gather themfelves together against the foul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

Righteoufhefs and innocence are most atrocious

crimes,