Psalms 104

Though a Christian wants the sun, he has a day-star in his heart. 2. A believer has real, though not royal comforts; he has, as Aquinas says, Gaudium in Deo, though not à Deo, joy in God, though not from God: joy in God, is the delight and complacency the soul takes in God (Psal…

They spend their days in mirth. I have read of a place in Africa, where the people spend all their time in dancing, and making merry: and have not we many, who make a God of pleasure; who spend their time in going to plays, and visiting stews, as if God had made them like the Le…

Is there beauty in a rose? what beauty then is there in Christ the Rose of Sharon? Does oil make the face shine? (Psalms 104:15). How will the light of God's countenance make it shine?

It is such a deep as cannot be fathomed — deep pride, hypocrisy, atheism. The heart is like the sea, where is the leviathan, and creeping things innumerable (Psalms 104). If the skin has boils or leprosy in it, how much corruption is in the blood?

God's wisdom is seen in setting bounds to the sea, and so wisely contriving it, that though the sea be higher than the earth, yet it should not overflow the earth. So that we may cry out with the Psalmist (Psalm 104:24): O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you ma…

God being in Heaven governs the universe, and orders all occurrences here below for the good of his children: When the saints are in straits and dangers, and see no way of relief, he can send from Heaven and help them; (Psalm 57:3) He shall send from heaven and save me. 3. We le…

Let us on a Sabbath meditate on the infiniteness of our Creator, look up to the firmament, there we may see God's glory blazing in the sun, twinkling in the stars; look into the sea, there we may see God's wonders in the deep (Psalm 107:24). Look into the earth, there we may beh…

God is worthy of honor. Psalm 104:1. You are clothed with honor and majesty. What are all his attributes, but glorious beams shining from this sun.

Love is as musk among linen, that perfumes it; love perfumes obedience, and makes it go up to Heaven as incense; this is doing God's will as the angels in Heaven do it; they are ravished with delight while they are praising God, therefore the angels are said to have harps in the…

The Spirit of God has made me. Psalm 104:30. You sendest forth your Spirit; they are created.

1. As we are creatures, there is such a weakness and infirmity in us, as David speaks — by reason of which, if God does but hide himself and withdraw his presence (which supports us in comfort as in being), we are ready presently to fall into these fears of ourselves. The psalmi…

Whom this apostle compares to a roaring lion that seeks whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). And like as when God makes this natural darkness and it is night, then the young lions creep forth and roar after their prey, as the psalmist says (Psalm 104:20-21): so do these roaring lio…

But you who are more deeply and lastingly distressed — I pity you; I do not blame you for being troubled. For when he hides his face the creatures all are troubled (Psalm 104:29). God would have you lay it to heart when he is angry (Isaiah 57:17).

Religion does not seal Warrants to idleness. Christians must not be as the Leviathan, which is made to play in the Sea, Psalm 104.26. Idleness is Balneum Diaboli, the Devils Bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation.

Question. Must we then use God's creatures only for necessity? Answer. We may use them not only for necessity, but also for honest delight and pleasure (Psalm 104:15): God gives wine to make glad the heart of man: and oil to make his face shine. And (John 12:3) our Savior Christ…

The poor are tanquam in sepulchro, as it were in the grave, the comfort of their life is buried, O help with your merciful hands, to raise them out of the Sepulchre. God sends his springs into the valleys, Psalm 104. 10. let the springs of your charity run among the valleys of p…

A righteous man is got upon the top of Mount Tabor, solacing himself in Jehovah; he contemplates the beauty of holiness, the love of Christ, the felicity of saints glorified; his thoughts are among the cherubims. The soul while it is musing on Christ, is filled with holy and swe…

This maketh the day of judgment sweet, for then we shall meet with our Beloved in the air (2 Timothy 4:18). In short, this maketh the soul to take such contentment in thinking of God, and speaking of God; 'tis the feast of the soul; My meditation of him shall be sweet (Psalms 10…

O what precious communion you might have with God every time you approach him, if your hearts were but in frame! You might then say with David — Psalm 104:34 — 'My meditation of him shall be sweet.' What loses all our comforts in ordinances and more secret duties is the indispos…

Actively, because, if we be like our Master, even followers of Jesus Christ, or partakers of his unction, then our Ministry will have not only light, but fire in it, we must be burning as well as shining lights; not only shining with the light of knowledge, and of the doctrine w…

What the psalmist observes of natural darkness is equally true of spiritual darkness. Psalm 104:20: You make darkness and it is night, in which all the beasts of the forest creep forth, the young lions roaring after their prey. When it is dark night with men, it is noonday with…

God keeps them in the observation of their first ordinance. They observe their stations, the law God has set them, as if they had a rational knowledge of their duty in their particular motions (Psalm 104:19): the sun knows his going down. Sometimes he makes them instruments of h…

Ans. We may use them not only for necessity, but also for honest delight and pleasure. (Psalm 104:15) God gives wine to make glad the heart of man: and oil to make his face shine. And (John 12:3) our Savior Christ allowed of the fact of Mary, which took a pound of ointment of sp…

The other two, of things of the life to come. The first is disposed in an axiom simple of the subject, and the adjoint, God's giving, occupied in providing bread, saying thus: Give us that which is not in our power, and whereof we are unworthy (Deuteronomy 8:18), even bread, tha…

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…

God was well pleased, that lapsed mankind should be restored, at the first God was pleased with his creation (Exodus 31:17), on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed, that is recreated in the view of his works, as the effects of his wisdom, power and goodness. And (Psalm…

It is very probable that that at the beginning of things, I mean that flaming sword which turned every ways at the entrance of Paradise, belonged to this species. Indeed this could not have been better expressed than by the Original [in non-Latin alphabet], and by the Version of…

But the Prophet will handle this matter more largely hereafter in Chapters 30 and 31. Behold the Lord rides] This manner of speech is found in other places of the Scripture, as in Psalm 104:3, but only in general. But Isaiah applies it here to this prophecy; because the Egyptian…

But it is necessary first to see what the breath of the nostril signifies. He thereby sets forth the fragility of mankind: namely, that the life of man is but a breath which forthwith vanishes away; and as David says, If the Lord withdraws the spirit, man returns to his dust: Al…

It is not without cause then that Isaiah says, the Spirit shall come from above, which warming the earth, shall cause the same to flourish with new fruitfulness. Neither do I doubt but he alludes to that sentence of David, Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and y…

To the end then that they might no more deceive themselves with the sweet deceits of lying vanities, the Prophet summons them before God's judgment seat, and grants indeed that they flourish in appearance, as long as they keep themselves a great way off from the presence of God'…

Isaiah will afterwards likewise call the holy Spirit water, but in another respect: to wit, in that it gives strength and vigor to fainting souls, by his secret and inward power. But here the Prophet's words have a further extent: for he not only speaks of the spirit of regenera…

Now this is nothing else but to overturn the whole order of nature. For as David says, Man ought to rise in the morning to go to his work, and to wait upon his business till the evening (Psalm 104:23). But if he rise to do nothing but to take his pleasures, and to give himself t…

And I think the Prophet meant thus much in this place, as if the Lord should have said; What should I do trying my force against a little wind, or breath; or against a leaf, or grass, which vanishes in a moment, and withers away as soon as it has felt the heat of the sun? Some e…

Thou Lord hast made me glad through your works: I will triumph in the works of your hands, Psalm 2:4 Your hearts may be as sweetly and sensibly refresht by the works of Gods hands, as by the words of his mouth. Psalm 104. per totum is spent in the consideration of the works of P…

These were those clouds and winds which the Lord sent before the Israelites, to the sea and Jordan, to drive them back. He makes the clouds his chariots, and walks upon the wings of the wind (Psalm 104:3); so (Psalm 18:11) he did fly upon the wings of the wind. After the manner…

(2) A day of rest according to rules of natural equity, ought to be proportioned to a day of work or labor, which God has granted to us for our own use. Now this is to be reckoned from morning to evening (Psalm 104:20-23): You makes darkness and it is night, wherein all the beas…

There may be a double allusion in these words. 1. To the common use of oil, and anointing, which was to exhilerate and make the countenance appear cheerful at feasts and public solemnities (Psalm 104:15, Luke 7:37). 2. To the especial use of it in the unction of kings, priests a…

Elijah procures fire from Heaven to consume the captains that came from the King to take him (2 Kings 1:10, 12). The Psalmist speaking of the plagues of Egypt (Psalm 105:32) says that the Lord sent flames of fire in the land; so some expound that place (Psalm 104:3), He makes hi…

It seems that Christ here speaks especially of a priuate fast, for besides that he vses words of the singular number, you, yours, &c. he inioyns the concealing of it frō others, which cannot be done in a publike fast: and yet the maine thing here inioyned, is the approbatiō of…

The second word to be cleared, is wine. Wine is cheering to men (Psalm 104:15), and makes their heart glad: under it here is understood, what is most cheering and comfortable in its use to men. 3. Christ's love is better, 1. Simply in itself, it's most excellent.

The second way how he explains and illustrates this, is more particular, by two comparisons, yet keeping still the former manner of expression, by way of question and admiration: The first is, how much better is your love than wine! Wine may be looked on in two respects, 1. As i…

They choose rather to go in a feather-bed to hell, than to be carried to heaven in a fiery chariot of zeal and violence. How many sleep away, and play away their time; as if they were made like the Leviathan, to play in the sea! (Psalm 104:26). It is a speech of Seneca, No man i…

Not a gourd groweth, nor a worm eats it, but at his command (Jonah 4:6, 7; Amos 4:7, 8, 9; Joel 1:1, 2, 3, 4; Psalm 105:29, 30, 31, 32, 33, &c.). He has a hand in the bird-nests building (Psalm 104:17, 18). 4. The actings of the Lord are in great things, as the translation of ki…

By the influences of this Spirit sent by Christ, are the redeemed led (Romans 8:14), directed (Acts 16:6, 9, 10, 14), sealed and confirmed (Ephesians 4:30), having received the earnest of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22), taught, guided, and the Word made effectual (John 16:13),…

Yes, 3. Suppose the habit of grace were not kindled, or in any near disposition to flame, but there were deadness on the soul, and the habit of grace lying deadened and covered with ashes; yet is there warrant to blow aside the ashes, to stir the fire, and to smite upon the flin…

Answ. If God first by order of nature, but in the same moment of time, must stir and bow our souls to holy duties, before our souls can act and stir themselves, then must God domineer over free-will, and make it a mere passive lump in acting it, it's palpably false. For first, b…

A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall lie (or lodge) all night between my breasts. And (Canticles 2:4) the King brought me into his house of wine, that is, into the chamber of the most spiritual and soul-delighting consolations of the Gospel, that rejoice and cheer the…

3. In that there is a promise, to him that has it shall be given (Matthew 25:29, Matthew 13:12), but how far the promise extends is after to be discussed. (3.) As touching influences natural, they seem to be common to free and voluntary agents, and also to natural causes; so the…

The Lord by casting an ague of love-sickness in the soul, moves the free-will of the Spouse, and of the Martyrs to die for Christ, rather than deny him, because love of itself considered as separated from the Lord's physical motions on the soul, works upon the will more strongly…