hood victory over his enemies, sin, death, and hell; how much rather may his subjects and worshipers glory in their triumphant King; and how much more shall the blasphemers of such a Saviour be everlastingly confounded, when they shall behold him invested with all the power and majesty of the Father, and seated on the throne of judgment! Surely, THEN, "the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.”

PSALM LXXIII.

ARGUMENT.

THE person speaking in this Psalm relates the process of a temptation, occasioned by his beholding the prosperity of wicked men upon earth, which he describes, with the suggestions of nature on the occasion; but, in opposition to these, grace urges the examples of saints, the difficulty of judging concerning God's dispensations, and, above all, the final issue of things at the last day, and the end of that prosperity, which had excited his envy. Perfectly satisfied with these considerations, he owns his uneasiness to have sprung from his ignorance; and closes the Psalm with the most affectionate expressions of his full trust and confidence in the divine mercy and goodness.

No

temptation is more common, or more formi

dable, than that above-mentioned. A more powerful and effectual antidote to it cannot be devised, than this most instructive and beautiful Psalm affords.

1. Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

This declaration seems to be the result of a long struggle in the mind of the Psalmist, 'between nature and grace, in which the latter proves victorious, and, notwithstanding all appearances to to the contrary, determines, against the suggestions of the former, that God is the same good and merciful God to his church and people, if they do but preserve inviolable their fidelity to him, whether, in this world, they enjoy prosperity, or endure affliction.

2. But as for me, my feet were almost gone : my steps had well nigh slipt. 3. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Temptations impede the progress of the

Christian in the way of righteousness, and incline him to fall; as it happens to one who walks in a slippery path. The temptation here complained of, is that excited by seeing wealth and honour in the hands of infidelity and villany, while the faithful servants of God are often covered with infamy, and oppressed. by poverty. A prospect of this sort is apt to. make us distrust the love of heaven towards us, and its providence over us. For our benefit, therefore, in the course of this Psalm, the disease is particularized, and the remedy prescribed..

4. For there are no bands, or, pangs, in their death; but their strength is firm.

Health and strength are to be reckoned among those temporal blessings, which the long suffering of God sometimes permits the ungodly to enjoy. And accordingly we find men of that cast, who live without sickness, and die in a manner without pain while others, of a contrary character, are worn with chronical, or racked with acute disorders,

which bring them with sorrow and torment to

the grave.

5. They are not in trouble as other men: neither are they plagued like other men.

Calamities, which overwhelm the small concerns of the poor righteous man, approach not the borders of the wealthy sinner. Far from poverty, as free from disease, he seems to pass his days exempted from the miseries of mankind, without labour or anxiety; and not so much as to think of those who, distressed on all sides, can scarcely earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. See this sentiment

beautifully dilated, Job xxi.

6. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain: violence covereth them as a garment. Among men who have not the love of God in their hearts, or his fear before their eyes, pride and oppression are the offspring of worldly prosperity. The daughters attend the mother wherever she goes, and show themselves openly without reserve; pride compasses them about as a chain; they wear it