Psalms 31

Doct. To a believer death is great gain. A saint can tell what his losses for Christ are, but he cannot tell how great his gains are at death: To me to die is gain. Death to a believer is Crepusculum gloriae, the daybreak of eternal brightness. To show fully what a believer's ga…

Though grace puts a believer out of the devil's possession, only death frees him from the devil's temptation. 6. Sorrow: a cloud of sorrow gathers in the heart, and drops into tears (Psalm 31:10). My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.

1. Jesus Christ our Mediator has perfection in every grace: (Colossians 1:19) [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉]; he is a panoply, magazine and storehouse of all heavenly treasure, all fullness: this no saint on earth has, he may excel in one grace, but not in all; as Abraham was emine…

So faith brings glory to God, it sets to its seal that God is true (John 3:33). He that believes flies to God's mercy and truth, as to an altar of refuge; he does garrison himself in the promises, he trusts all he has with God (Psalm 31:5): Into your hands I commit my spirit. Th…

Sin lived in does ponere obicem, put a bar to our prayer; but want of assurance does not hinder prayer; we may go to God still in a humble fiducial manner: a Christian perhaps may think, because he does not see God's smiling face, therefore God will not hear him. This is a mista…

Trusting in God is when we rely on his power as a creator, and on his love as a father. Trusting in God is when we commit our chief treasure to him: Our soul is our chief treasure, we commit our soul to him (Psalm 31:5): Into your hands I commit my spirit. As the orphan trusts h…

He guides our head, keeps us from error, and he guides our feet, keeps us from scandal. O what mercy is it to have God to be our guide and pilot (Psalm 31:3): For your name's sake lead me and guide me. 7. God shows mercy in correcting us.

Resp. If you mourn for this, it hinders not but that your prayer may be in faith, and God may hear it. Weakness in prayer shall not make void the saints' prayers; (Psalm 31:22). I said in my haste I am cut off.

One destroys the name, the other the life. It is the Lord that muzzles the mouths of the wicked, and keeps these dogs that snarl at us from flying upon us (Psalm 31:20). You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

God might make them rise higher, indeed, he might drown you in the waters; this may make us submit quietly and say, your will be done, because there is so much kindness in it; whereas God uses the rod, he might use the scorpion. 6. There is kindness in affliction, in that your c…

But he soon recalls himself and adds, 'I said this in my haste.' So likewise in Psalm 31:22: 'I said in my haste, I am cut off' — rash speeches, as he confesses, spoken in haste. Even so many a poor soul breaks forth and says — after having had strong hopes at first conversion t…

Indeed sometime he said, all men were liars, but that was in his fear, Psalm 116.11. And again, I am cast out of thy sight, but that was in his haste, Psalm 31.22. that is, when the force of some passion, or the violence of some temptations did carry him headlong: but otherwise…

The fifth event that fell out when Christ was upon the cross was, that he cried with a loud voice, and said, Father, into your hands I lay down my spirit, that is, I commend my soul as being the most precious thing which I have in this world into your custody, who are a most fai…

Again, Let us adore Christ that he may say to us, fear not your sins of this world, nor the waves of bodily sufferings: I have remission of sins. Jerome says on Psalm 31: The sin that is covered is not seen, the sin that is not seen is not imputed: that which is not imputed, is…

Query 1. Have not many saints stumbled on this stone before you? Psalm 31:22: 'I said in my haste, I am cut off from before your eyes: nevertheless you heard the voice of my supplications.' So the church — Lamentations 3:44: 'You cover yourself with a cloud, that our prayer shou…

Sometimes he injects despairing thoughts into the afflicted soul. Then said I, I am cut off from before your eyes (Psalm 31:22). And Lamentations 3:18-19: My hope is perished from the Lord, remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

Third, in urging this doctrine more hardly upon the people, to cause them not to rest on the letter of the law, but seek to the promised Messiah, in whom only was their righteousness — as young heirs and minors are kept under tutors while their minority expires. But, first, who…

(Isaiah 53:3) We did hide our faces from him; all his friends thought shame of him, and fled the way for him, they refuse to give him one look of their eye. 2. (Psalm 31:11) I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to my acquaintance,…

If we look to the beginning, we draw an ill picture of God in our minds, as if he were harsh, severe, and cruel to his creatures, indeed, to his best servants; but in the end we find him very tender of his people, and that sense has made lies of God. At the very time when we thi…

For he shows what the state of the faithful shall be under the reign of Christ: otherwise, we know that the Lord makes the sun to shine, no less upon the wicked than upon the good: but the question is here, of such a felicity as the wicked cannot attain to. There is difference b…

So as the saying of Saint John is truly accomplished, namely, that of his fullness we all have received grace for grace (John 1:16). I grant the fathers under the law felt this goodness and spiritual liberality of God, which is here mentioned: Oh how great says David is the good…

And certainly there is not a stronger or more decided testimony of faith than when a pious man—perceiving himself attacked on every hand, so that he finds no consolation on the part of men—despises the madness of the whole world, discharges his sorrows and cares into the bosom o…

Blessed is the Man that trusteth in the Lord, whose Hope the Lord is. Psalm 31. 24. Be of good Courage, and he shall strengthen your Heart, all ye that Hope in the Lord.

May we not say of them, as the Scripture speaks of the restoration of the Jews, it is even life from the dead. This was David's case, Psalm 31:22 he gave up his hopes and prayers for lost, yet lived to see the comfortable and unexpected returns of them. And this was the case of…

Psalm 13. 1, 2. These delayes both upon spiritual and temporal accounts are frequent, and when they befaus, we are too apt to interpret them as denyals and fall into a sinful despondency of mind, though there be no cause at all for it, Psalm 31:12 Lam. 3:8 44. It is not always t…

'How long, Lord?' — they cried not to cruel tyrants, 'How long will you persecute?' but 'Lord, how long will it be before you come to revenge?' And so David (Psalm 31:15): 'My time is in your hand,' speaking of his afflictions. There is no affliction but it is in the hand of God…

And for this cause is Jerusalem called a city upon which God's eyes do behold. After this manner lies the Christian congregation or church in the depth, and is of no reputation before the world: therefore God does look upon it, and turns his sight always upon the same, as David…

So then, to lay up, signifies, 1. A carefulness and solicitousness, carefully to gather together, as covetous worldly men use to lay up riches, and to gather them together. 2. It signifies the success which she had in her endeavor, that there was much gathered, a store of fruits…

I will get upon my knees in my closet, and there I'll seek, and shall find my Father that sees in secret; I will go to his table and partake of his holy Supper, and while the king sits at his table, my spikenard sends forth the smell thereof; my bruised spices, my exercised grac…

4. In that heavenly kingdom there shall be freedom from all molestations. Our lives now are interlined with troubles (Psalm 31:10). My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.

O how great is your goodness which you hast laid up for them that fear you, which you hast wrought before the sons of men! Psalm 31:19 If ever God wrought about any thing, it was about the communication of his goodness to mankinde; yea, how great is it before the sons of men, be…

This is that which I intend; by the omission of this duty, grace withers, lust flourishes, and the frame of the heart grows worse and worse: and the Lord knows what desperate and fearful issues it has had with many. Where sin through the neglect of mortification gets a considera…

In those days his goodness shall manifest itself more than before, the beams of his love shall break forth more abundantly in the days of the Gospel, and shall bear more direct and hotter on the hearts of men, and then they shall fear him more, because they shall love him more.…

The believing soul makes haste to Christ, but it never finds cause to hasten from him, and though the comfort it expects and longs for, be for a time deferred, yet it gives not over, knowing that in due time, it shall rejoice; and shall not have cause to blush, and think shame o…

Therefore let us rely on that promise, that God holds us dear as the pupil of his eye, and will hide us in his fortress, so that neither wicked men who could cause trouble and harm, nor any power of theirs however great, nor the plots by which we could be overwhelmed, may reach…

God may let loose a railing Shimei against David. Many times he complains of his reproaches, often in this Psalm, more in other Psalms (Psalm 31:13): For I have heard the slander of many, they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. Sundry sorts of p…

6. Acting in spiritual duties fits us for them: Iter ad pietatem, est intra pietatem, praying fits for praying, meditating for meditating: frequent turning the key makes the lock go more easy. Good dispositions make way for good dispositions (Psalm 27:14; Psalm 31:24). Wait on t…

The proud have forged a lie against me. God may let loose a barking Shimei upon a holy David; and therefore does he so often complain of reproaches; so elsewhere, Psalm 31:13. For I have heard the slander of many.

1. Know him (Psalm 9:10): They that know your name will put their trust in you, if God were better known he would be better trusted (2 Timothy 1:12): I know whom I have believed. 2. Get a covenant interest in him, if our interest be clouded, how can we put promises in suit, but…

Fifthly, protection in their work. They are under the special care and conduct of his providence while they keep his precepts; he keeps them as in a pavilion, "You shall hide them in the secret of your presence from the pride of men" (Psalm 31:20). And who are they that are kept?

I said in my haste, all men are liars. I said in my haste, I am cut off from before your eyes (Psalm 31:22).

1. Here you come to remember his goodness to you in Christ. Now the goodness of God should never be thought on, or commemorated, but your hearts should be raised in the wonder and admiration of it: Psalm 31:19: O how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for them that f…

When we view providences by pieces, we know not God's mind; for the present we see him — it may be — rending and tearing all things; therefore let us not judge of God's work by the beginnings, till all work together. Our present state may be very sad and uncomfortable, and yet G…

And partly because it is no strange thing for a good man to be forsaken of his friends: so (Job 6:15-17) My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away, which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: What time the…

Faith is the strength of the soul; as faith decays, or is tired, the soul faints. Faith may be damped, and give up our case for gone (Psalm 116:11; Psalm 31:22). They throw up all, and think it is in vain to wait any longer.

He had a particular promise and assurance of the kingdom, and had seen much of God's care over him, and yet after all this David doubts of the Word of God, and betrayed his weakness of faith and affiance in him, who had watched over him, and delivered him out of many great and i…

This spiritual good intended, is the heap of grace [illegible] happiness, with all those sweet fruits and [illegible] which are either in preparation to it, or [illegible] upon it; the whole estate, and portion, and patrimony of a Christian, the riches and revenues of [illegible…

It might well therefore be said, I had fainted, if I had not believed (or who can express how sad my case had been, if I had not believed? for there is an elegant Aposiopesis in the Hebrew text, the words [I had fainted] being supplied in the translation; if I had not believed,…

(3.) There is in it a receiving of Christ (John 1:11) a fiducial resting of the heart upon God in Christ. And the word [illegible] is to confide, to betake himself to a lurking place, where one may be safe from a storm (Psalm 2:12; Psalm 11:1; Psalm 31:2; Deuteronomy 32:37; Psal…

And such as in this regard say, I thank God, I was plagued and pained, but now nothing ails me, I have peace, I am rich, I have need of nothing (Revelation 3:17), I am all whole, must be in a dangerous case. Indeed the complaining of want of justification and of the righteousnes…