Psalms 103

Were it not for Christ's manhood, the sight of the Godhead would be formidable to us: but through Christ's flesh we may look upon God without terror. And Christ took our flesh that he might know how to pity us; he knows what it is to be faint, sorrowful, tempted (Psalm 103:14).…

2. And as a conqueror in regard of Satan, the cross being his triumphant chariot, [reconstructed: wherein] he has led hell and death captive. Final use: Bless God for this precious sacrifice of Christ's death (Psalm 103:1): Bless the Lord, O my soul. And for what does David bles…

Every time we draw our breath, we suck in mercy; God has mercies under heaven, and those we taste of, and mercies in heaven, and those we hope for: thus God's mercy is superabundant. 4. The mercy God shows is abiding (Psalm 103:16): The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to e…

Use 4. Of comfort to such as can make out their covenant interest in God: 1. You that are in covenant with God, all your sins are pardoned. Pardon is the crowning mercy (Psalm 103:3). Who forgives your iniquity, who crowns you, etc.

It is the same love for the unchangeableness of it: God will no more cease to love his adopted sons than he will to love his natural Son. 3. If God be our Father he will be full of sympathy (Psalm 103:13). As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him.

We have deserved wrath, yet God has not given us our desert. We may all subscribe to that, (Psalm 103:8). The Lord is slow to anger. And (verse 10). He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities.

And when the Lord would shave off the pride of a nation, he is said to hire a razor, as if he had none of his own (Isaiah 7:20): "He shall shave with a razor that is hired." He is slow to anger (Psalm 103:8), but ready to forgive (Psalm 86:5). Position 3. There is no condition b…

He rested from all his works, and therefore the Scripture must needs be meant of God's works of Providence: My Father works and I work. Psalm 103:19: His kingdom rules over all — that is, his Providential kingdom. Now for the clearing of this point, I shall: 1. Show you that the…

Then we do God's will as it is done in Heaven when we do it regularly — we reverence God's institutions, and observe that mode of worship which has the stamp of divine authority upon it. 2. We do God's will as it is done by the angels in heaven, when we do it entirely, sine muti…

Things do not work of themselves, but God sets them a working for good. God is the great Disposer of all events and issues, he sets everything a working, His Kingdom ruleth over all, Psalm 103.13. It is meant of his providential Kingdom.

For the question might be how we would do God's will: and the answer is, that his will must be done in earth as it is in heaven. Heaven] By heaven here is meant the souls of faithful men departed, and the elect Angels (Psalm 103:20): praise the Lord you his angels, that excel in…

- The one is to believe that God can grant our requests, because he is almighty, and thus much is signified when he is said to be in heaven. - The second is to believe that God is ready and willing to grant the same, and this we are taught in the title father, which serves to pu…

And indeed the highest end of the ministry of angels is the manifestation of the glory of God. The second, is to stand in God's presence, evermore ready to do his commandments, as David says, praise the Lord, you his angels that excel in strength that do his commandments in obey…

Pardoning, Adopting, Saving mercy. The Picture of God's mercy can never be drawn to the full; you cannot take the breadth of his mercy, for it is infinite, nor the height of it, for it reaches above the clouds, nor the length of it, for it is from everlasting to everlasting, Psa…

Not the second: 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it' (Psalm 24:1); his name is God All-sufficient (Genesis 17:1). Not the last: 'As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those that fear him' (Psalm 103:13); 'The Lord is exceedingly pitiful and of tender me…

There must be a use making of Christ, as a Priest, not only to remove daily contracted guiltiness, but also to heal the infirmity and weakness of our graces; especially of faith and love; giving Him credit to bring our faith and love to perfection. It is a sweet word, which we h…

Crisp and his followers are far wide, for Christ died freely, out of extreme love, and yet he died out of a command laid on him, to lay down his life for his sheep, though no penal power was above Christ's head, to punish him if he should not die (John 10:18). Nor was there need…

The Arminian taking away of sins is of all and every one of Adam's seed, of such as never heard of a covenant, of a word, of a Spirit, of a seed, a holy seed, of a new heart. Finally, the taking away of the sins of the world is the removing of them as far from us as the east is…

They are not ministers of conversion and sanctification; to this ministry Christ has called men, not Angels; but in preserving the converted the Angels have a hand. Therefore it is notable, they are sometimes called God's Angels (Psalm 103:21), Bless the Lord, all you his hosts,…

God when he gave the Law he spoke on earth, but when he spoke by Christ, he spoke from heaven; for Christ came from heaven to acquaint us with the mind of God, and having done it is returned to heaven again; from where he sent down his Spirit on the Apostles, who revealed his Go…

1. Natural strength. The Psalmist tells us, that he will not always chide and keep his anger forever (Psalm 103:9). Why?

Here then a great comfort is to be remembered: if we be of the number of them that believe in Christ, having vice, and having a care to please God, our weaknesses and falls of weakness, do not abolish the mercy of God, but are occasions to illustrate the same. The weakness of th…

As in Micah 7:9, You have cast all their sins into the bottom of the sea. And in Psalm 103:12, He separates our sins as far from us, as the East is from the West. All which sentences may assure us that God will never impute the sins to us which he has once pardoned.

All flesh is grass.] First it is to be noted, that he speaks not here of the fragility of man's life only, for the words have a larger sense; that is, to bring to nothing all the excellency which men may seem to have in them. David indeed compares this life to grass (Psalm 103:1…

Corrections would draw from us no purity at all. The Lord in trying us then has respect to our ability, lest he should pass measure, as (Psalm 103:13-14); then he makes our chastisements profitable to us by the work of his own Spirit, which would otherwise prove mortal and deadl…

For while men rest in themselves, they cannot conceive so much as the least dram of hope, which will not forthwith vanish. And therefore he turns our eyes to God, whose mercy endures for ever, upon them that fear him, and his righteousness upon their children's children, as Davi…

As if he should say, I am not a mortal man that I should be so severe, and an enemy to you for ever: no, my thoughts are far unlike yours, for though it be impossible for you to be pacified, and that it be a hard matter to bring you to be reconciled with those which have offende…

But I should think that the Prophet mounts higher: for he teaches that the Lord handles us thus mildly and graciously, because he knows and is well acquainted with our frailty and infirmities. This doctrine is confirmed to us by many other places of the Scriptures; but among the…

This is a very apt comparison: which shows that men wither and wane away as soon as they feel God's wrath. Which point is notably described in (Psalm 90:5) and (Psalm 103:15) and in (chapter 40:6). We are rightly compared to leaves then; because our iniquities are the winds whic…

This appears more clearly from the Epistle to the Ephesians, (1:6,) where, speaking of our reconciliation to God, Paul says, God “hath made us accepted (ἐχαρίτωσεν) in the Beloved:” that is, he has received into his favor, and embraced with kindness, us who were formerly his ene…

But as not all who are descended from Abraham according to the flesh are the true children of Abraham, Mary confines the accomplishment of the promise to the true worshippers of God, to them that fear him: as David also does: "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlas…

The present allusion is to their notion of Fate, a mysterious and irresistible necessity, over which those beings whom they blindly worshipped were supposed to have as little control as the inhabitants of the earth. Calvin demonstrates that the serenity of a Christian differs no…

"A douceur et compassion;" -- "to mildness and [reconstructed: compassion]." Though the whole world may sometimes be ungrateful, and may return the very worst reward to those who have done acts of kindness to them, it ought to be reckoned enough, that grace is laid up with God f…

But here we are commanded to pray that, in another sense, his will may be done, — that all creatures may obey him, without opposition, and without reluctance. This appears more clearly from the comparison, as in heaven For, as He has the angels constantly ready to execute his co…

This is fundamental to all praise: God cannot e glorified for the mercies we never noted. (2.) A faithful Remembrance of the favor. received, Psalm 103:2 Bless the Lord, O my soul. and forget not all his benefits. Hence the Lord brands the Ingratitude of his people, Psalm 106:13…

Secondly, man blesses God; and then man blesses God when he praises God, when he takes notice of and returns thanks for the blessings received from God. Bless the Lord O my soul, etc. (Psalm 103:2), and forget not all, (that is,) forget not any of his benefits. Thankfully to rem…

The second effect is, We will remember your love more than wine: What is understood by love and wine, as also, why the number is changed from the singular to the plural, has been formerly cleared. The word Remember, does import these three things, 1. A thankful acknowledgment of…

Certainly were we as tender towards our brothers, as we all desire God should be towards us; could we forbear others, as we ourselves would be forborne, there would never be any quarrel commenced; or if it were, it would be soon compounded. What says the Psalmist (Psalm 103:9):…

Begin to enumerate your mercies, and you'll see further occasion of gratitude; especially recount your spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Jesus Christ. Thus does holy David (Psalm 103:1-3). He stirs up all within him to praise God, and reckons up spiritual mercies first,…

Our life we live now flies away as a shadow. It is called a flower (Psalm 103:15), a vapor (James 4:14). Job sets forth fragile life very elegantly in three of the elements — land, water, air (Job 9:25-26).

"The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind." So as to healing the sick: Psalm 103:3. "Who healeth all thy diseases."

And can a father stand by his dying child, see his fainting fits, hear his melting groans, and pity begging looks; and not help him; especially having restoratives by him that can do it? Surely, as a father pities his own children, so will your God pity you (Psalm 103:12-13). He…

1. Superiors are commonly very apt to chide, and that is for want of meekness. It is spoken to the praise of him, who is the great ruler of this perverse and rebellious world, that he will not always chide (Psalm 103:9): but how many little rulers are there of families and petty…

The whole rise of it is from this love of God, flowing out by the ways there described. To assure us of his love, there is not anything that has a loving and tender nature in the world which God has not compared himself to — as a father, a mother, a shepherd, a hen over her chic…

Who can sufficiently set it forth? For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him (Psalm 103:11). §. 79. Of the ancient law of marriage.

And second, as it is free mercy, it is tender mercy, the word in the Prophet signifies tenderness or bowels of compassion, and such are the mercies of our God towards us (Jeremiah 31:20). The bowels of a father (Psalm 103:13), and if you think not that tenderness enough, those o…

There is a common bounty of God wherein he does good to all, and so the whole earth is full of his goodness: But the goodness that the Gospel is full of, the particular stream that runs in that channel, is his peculiar graciousness, and love to his own children; that by which th…

It is a pure vulgar piece of goodness to be helpful and bountiful to friends, or to such as are within appearance of requital — it is a trading kind of commerce that: but pity and bounty that needs no inducements, but the meeting of a fit object to work on, where it can expect n…

It is full in several respects. 1. Because, where the party is forgiven, he is accepted with God as if he had never sinned; (Psalm 103:12) As far as the east is from the west; so far has he removed our transgressions from us. And (Micah 7:19) You will cast all their sins into th…

Get a greater esteem of him in your hearts; for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak. We should be calling upon ourselves, as David (Psalm 103:1), Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Thirdly, I observe again; it is brough…