country, ftripped of every comfort and convenience, in a ftrange land, among idolaters, wearied and brokenhearted, they fit in filence by those hoftile waters. Then the pleafant banks of Jordan prefent themfelves to their imaginations; the towers of Salem rife to view; and the fad remembrance of much-loved Zion caufes tears to run down their cheeks: " By "the waters of Babylon we fat down, yea, we wept "when we remembered Zion!" Befides the ufe which may be made of this Pfalm by any church, when, literally, in a state of captivity, there is a fenfe in which it may be used by us all. For Zion is, in Scripture, the ftanding type of heaven, as Babylon is the grand figure of the world, the feat of confusion, the oppreffor and perfecutor of the people of God. In these, or the like terms, we may, therefore, fuppofe a finner to bemoan himself upon the earthO Lord, I am an Ifraelite, exiled by my fins from thy holy city, and left to mourn in this Babylon, the land of my captivity. Here I dwell in forrow, by thefe tranfient waters, mufing on the reftlefs and unftable nature of earthly pleafures, which pafs fwiftly by me, and are foon gone for ever. Yet for thefe,

alas, I have exchanged the permanent joys of Zion, and parted with the felicity of thy chofen. Wherefore my heart is pained within me, and the remembrance of my folly will not, let me reft night or day. O Zion, thou holy and beautiful city, the temple of the Lamb, the habitation of the bleffed, the feat of delight, the land of the living, when fhall I behold thee? When (hall I enter thy gates with thankfgiving, and thy courts with praife? The hope of a re

turn

turn to thee is my only comfort in this vale of tears, where I am and will be a mourner, till my captivity be brought back, and my forrow be turned into joy.

2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midft thereof.

The additional circumftance, which the divine painter hath here thrown into his piece, is, to the last degree, juft and ftriking. It was not enough to reprefent the Hebrew captives weeping, on the banks of the Euphrates, at the remembrance of Zion, but, upon looking up, we behold their harps unftrung, and pendent on the willows that grew there. The fincere penitent, like them, hath bidden adieu to mirth; his foul refufeth to be comforted with the comforts of Babylon; nor can he fing any more, till pardon and restoration fhall have enabled him to fing, in the temple, a fong of praife and thanksgiving.

3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a fong; and they that wafed us, required of us mirth, faying, Sing us one of the fongs of Zion. 4. How shall we fing the LORD's fong in a frange land ?

The Babylonians are introduced as infulting over. the Ifraelites, and fcoffing at their faith and worship,

* Many fingers were carried captives, Ezr. ii. 41. These would of course take their inftruments with them, and be infulted, as here. Their fongs were facred, and unfit to be fung before idolaters. But the words, "How fhall we fing," &c. are not an anfwer given to them, but the free utterance afterwards of the feelings of the Jews among themselves. ANONYMOUS NOTES IN MERRICK'S ANNOTATIONS.

not

not without a tacit reflection on their God, who could not protect his favoured people against their enemies. "Now fing us one of your fongs of Zion; now let

us hear you found the praises of that God, of whom

ye boafted, that he dwelt among you in the temple "which we have laid wafte, and burnt with fire." Thus the faithful have been, and thus they will be infulted by infidels, in the day of their calamity. And "how," indeed, "can they fing the Lord's fong in a ftrange land ?" How can they tune their voices to feftive and euchariftic ftrains, when God, by punishing them for their fins, calleth to mourning and weeping? But then, Ifrael in Babylon forefaw a day of redemption; and fo doth the church in the world; a day, when the fhall triumph, and her enemies hall lick the duft. No circumftances, there. fore, fhould make us forget her, and the promifes concerning her.

5. If I forget thee, O Jerufalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerufalem above my chief joy.

The whole nation may be fuppofed in thefe words to declare, as one man, that neither the afflictions nor the allurements of Babylon fhould efface from their minds the remembrance of Jerufalem, or prevent their looking forward to her future glorious reftoration. If any temptation fhould induce them to employ their tongues and their hands in the fervice of Babel rather than in that of Zion, they wish to lose the ufe of the former, and the skill of the latter. The thoughts and affections of true penitents, both in

profperity

profperity and adverfity, are fixed upon their heavenly country and city; they had rather be deprived of their powers and faculties, than of the will to use them aright; and the hope of glory, hereafter to be revealed in the church, is the flower and crown of their joy.

7. Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerufalem; who faid, Rafe it, rafe it, even to the foundations thereof.

The people of God befeech him to take their cause in hand, and to avenge them on their adverfaries, particularly on the Edomites, who, though their brethren according to the flesh, being defcended from Efau, the brother of Jacob, yet in the day of Jerufalem's affliction, when the Chaldean's came against it, were aiding and encouraging those pagans to deftroy it utterly. Edom is charged with this unnatural behaviour, and threatened for it, by God himself, in the prophecy of Obadiah, ver. 10, &c. "For thy vio"lence against thy brother Jacob fhame fhall cover "thee, and thou fhalt be cut off for ever. In the

day that thou ftoodest on the other fide, in the day "that the ftrangers carried away captive his forces, "and foreigners entered into his gates, and caft lots

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upon Jerufalem, even thou waft as one of them. But "thou shouldeft not have looked on the day of thy "brother in the day that he became a stranger: nei"ther shouldeft thou have rejoiced over the children

of Judah in the day of their destruction-For the "day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as "thou haft done, it fhall be done unto thee, thy re"ward fhall return upon thine own head--but upon

"mount Zion fhall be deliverance, and there fhall "be holiness, and the house of Jacob fhall poffefs "their poffeffions." It may be obferved, that the Jews afterwards acted the fame part towards the Chriftian church, which the Edomites had acted toward them, encouraging and ftirring up the Gentiles to perfecute and destroy it from off the face of the earth. And God" remembered" them for the Chriftians' fakes, as they prayed him to "remember Edom" for their fakes. Learn we hence, what a crime it is, for Chriftians to affift the common enemy, or call in the common enemy to affift them, against their brethren.

8. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be defroyed; happy fhall he be, that rewardeth thee, as thou haft ferved us. 9. Happy thall he be, that taketh and dafheth thy little ones against the ftones.

The fubject of thefe two verfes is the fame with that of many chapters in Ifaiah and Jeremiah; namely, the vengeance of heaven executed upon Babylon, by Cyrus, raifed up to be king of the Medes and Perfians, united under him for that purpose. The meaning of the words, "happy fhall he be," is, He fhall go on and profper, for the Lord of hosts shall go with him, and fight his battles against the enemy and oppreffor of his people, impowering him to recompenfe upon the Chaldeans the works of their hands, and to reward them as they ferved Ifrael. The flaughter of the very infants, mentioned in the laft verfe, is exprefsly predicted by Ifaiah, Ch. xiii. 16. "Their children alfo fhall be dashed to pieces before "their eyes; their houfes fhall be fpoiled, and their "wives ravifhed." The deftruction was to be uni