Psalms 5

If there be a world of iniquity in the tongue, how many worlds of sin are there in the heart? "Their inward part is very wickedness" (Psalms 5:9). If the tongue, which is the outward part, be so wicked, the inward part is very wickedness.

Let his name be hallowed: by giving God his venerable titles we do as it were hang his jewels on his crown. 5. We hallow and sanctify God's name when we love his name (Psalm 5:11): Let them that love your name be joyful; and that love which is honoring God's name must be a speci…

2. God can so use evil instruments, that the work done by them being a sin, shall nevertheless in him be a good work: because he knows how to use evil instruments well. If it be further alleged, that God wills no wickedness (Psalm 5:5), we must know, that God's will is twofold,…

Oh then what manner of persons ought you to be! You have many eyes over you: the omniscient eye of God that searches the heart and minds (Revelation 2:23); the vigilant eye of Satan (Job 1:7-8); the envious eyes of enemies that curiously observe you (Psalm 5:8); the quick and ob…

We may fear the Lord and his goodness (Hosea 3:5) as well as we fear his eternal displeasure. (4.) Sanctified soul-trouble is a son-like commotion and agony of spirit, for trampling under feet tender love, spurning and kicking against the lovely warmness of the flowings of the b…

The drift of the Psalm is, to set forth God's power and majesty when he comes to call the Gentiles, and to set up the evangelical way of his worship, when the light of the Gospel shall shine forth from Zion. (Psalm 5:5) By terrible things in righteousness will you answer us, O G…

Section 3. Further duties after Closet-Prayer. 3. Another duty after you have been with God in secret, is, to expect a seasonable return: stand upon your watch, hearken what God will speak; To you, says David, will I direct my Prayer, and will look up (Psalm 5:3). So do you: Chr…

Hereby we may plainly see that the Pope with his doctrine does nothing else, but trouble and torment men's consciences, and at length drives them to desperation: for he not only teaches, but also commands men to doubt. Therefore, according to the Psalm (Psalm 5:9): There is no t…

And (Psalm 15:2) he shall rest in the mountain of God, who speaks the truth from his heart. Lastly, destruction is the liar's reward (Psalm 5:6): God will destroy them that speak lies: and they must have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Revelation 22…

But the Prophet respected none of these things. Justice is often in the holy Scriptures taken for faithfulness; for God's righteousness shines especially in defending of his Saints: in which he shows a singular token of his sovereign and unspotted uprightness: (Psalm 5:9 and 7:1…

But now it often falls out, that in such doubtful cases we are entangled in our own thoughts, and put to a loss what course to take. We pray with David. that God would make his way plain before us, Psalm 5:8 Afraid we are of displeasing God, and yet doubtful we may do so; whethe…

(3.) As the freeness of mercies dispensed by Providence, engageth praise; so the Multitudes of mercies heaped this way upon us, strongly oblige the soul to thankfulness. Thus David comes before the Lord encompassed with a multitude of mercies to praise him, Psalm 5:7 We have our…

1. That it is God's due and our duty, to dedicate the morning, the first and best of every day to God. (Psalm 5:3). My voice you will hear in the morning, in the morning will I direct my prayer to you, and will look up. We have a saying among us, that the morning is a friend to…

As the not showing of the countenance supposes discontent or fear; So then the Lord calls by this to holy familiarity with him, and confidence in it, in opposition to her former fainting and misbelief. The second direction is, Let me hear your voice, To make him hear the voice,…

And this translation agrees well with the scope here, where before he broke off communing with the Bride, as in the first part of the verse he had commended her for her frequenting of public ordinances, and in the second, for her keeping fellowship with others, in both which her…

Purity: as washed doves' eyes for purity — this may be taken either subjectively, for the excellency and unmixed cleanness and purity of his sight and knowledge in himself, or objectively, for his delighting to behold purity in others. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity…

Again, the word Command is notable, and expresses the case to the full; command deliverances; all things are at God's command and beck; if he does but speak the word, or give out order to second causes, it is all done instantly. So, (Psalm 5:2) Hearken to the voice of my cry, my…

We pray, and then he gives direct answers, (Psalm 116:1) I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice, and my supplication. So our hope is exercised, in waiting for the blessing prayed for: (Psalm 5:3) O Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer to you, and will look up. Th…

Whatever it be, there must be such a sight in prayer, something answerable to this; in a spiritual way this must ever be done. (Psalm 5:3). I will pray, says the Psalmist, and look up. There is a looking up required in all prayer, a seeing the invisible God by faith.

When we come with raw dough-baked offerings, before we have concocted and prepared our thoughts by mature deliberation, we are barren or tumultuary in our prayers to God. Prayer is called by the name of meditation, because it is the product and issue of it, as Psalm 5:1: Give ea…

First men are smitten with the tongue of slander, and afterwards with the fist of wickedness: the showers of slander are but presages and beginnings of grievous storms of persecution; wicked men take more liberty when the children of God are imprisoned as criminals: Therefore it…

USE 1. If God be so ready to hear his people, let us not throw away our prayers as children shoot away their arrows; but let us observe God's answer, what comes in upon every prayer; in every address you make to God, put the soul in a posture of expectation. (Psalm 5:3) I will p…

7. It's a sin which God has expressly threatened to punish in this life, and in the life to come. In this life (Psalm 5:6): You shall destroy them that speak leasing. And (Proverbs 19:5): He that speaks lies shall not escape.

I think rather it is to be applied not to the righteousness he has required, but the righteousness that is in God himself. So (Psalm 5:8). (Lead me O Lord in your righteousness). Now the righteousness of God is put for the whole perfection of the divine essence; for his justice,…

In every nation he that fears God, and works righteousness, is accepted with him. (Psalm 5:5) You hate all the workers of iniquity. (Proverbs 11:20) They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord, but such as are upright in their way are his delight.

And it is an usual practice of Satan and his instruments, to blast the repute of religious persons, to clothe them with the livery of reproach, and then prosecute them as offenders. (Psalm 5:9) Their throat is an open sepulchre. The slanders of the wicked are preparatives to dea…

If we dissect and anatomize man, we shall find this but too true, for not to name every sin that cleaves to the whole or every part, but in a more general way, it is thus said of sinful men: their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, with their tongues they use deceit, the p…

As it is the best of comforts to have assurance of the love of God, and to be sealed to the day of redemption; so it is the saddest of judgments to be given up (as it is three times in one place, Romans 1) to their lusts, to a hardened heart, a seared conscience, a reprobate min…

God's ear is not heavy that it cannot hear nor his hand that it cannot help, but your iniquities have separated between God and you, and your sins have hid his face that he will not hear. For he professes (Psalm 5:4) that he is a God that wills not wickedness, neither shall iniq…

So (Deuteronomy 29:14, 15) he says not, he shall make another Covenant with these when they shall be born: but I make a Covenant with you, and with these that are not here, not born. Hence by way of excellency he calls it the Covenant, the Covenant of the Lord (Jeremiah 2[illegi…

4. We are to beware of 1. the reigning evils of the heart, of a rotten and unsound heart (1 Timothy 6:5; Psalm 119:82). 2. Of an unsavory stinking heart, that smells of hell and the second death, of all sort of unrighteousness and malice, like a green opened grave (Psalm 5:9). 3…

For truly nothing does so much awake us to cast all our confidence and assurance of mind upon the Lord, as does the distrust of ourselves and carefulness conceived by knowledge in conscience of our own wretchedness. And according to this meaning is that saying in the Prophet to…

Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame that issued out and came from before him, a convenient distance between him and them, as between the judge and the prisoners at the bar. (1 Corinthia…

Philosophy tells us there is a main-business, and a by-business; the same is found in religion also. There are those that give themselves to the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:5), whose way of life or trade is heaven (Philippians 3:18), the end or scope of whose life is Christ (Hebrews 1…

Teach me O Lord (Psalm 25:5), lead me in your truth. Like a blind man holding out his hand to his guide, so they (Psalm 5:8): Lord lead me in your righteousness. 2. It's not common leading, but the leading of children learning to go by a hold (Hosea 11:1).

Hence observe what acts of efficacious power instant and earnest prayer puts forth upon God, and how the clay-creature does work upon, and prevail with the great potter and former of all things. 1. Prayer is a messenger and a swift and winged post dispatched up to court (Psalm 5…

Objection 4: But I have neither weeping one way or other, ordinary nor marred. Answer: Looking up to heaven, lifting up of the eyes, goes for prayer also in God's books (Psalm 5:3). My prayer will I direct to you, and I will look up (Isaiah 48:14). My eyes fail with looking upwa…

What makes them to cry out, Holy, holy, holy, etc.? Why, the prophet was now to be sent about this very business we have now in hand, he was to go to the people (verses 9, 10, 11), to make their hearts fat, and their ears heavy, lest they should be converted: God is proclaimed t…

So (2 Samuel 24:10) David's heart smote him, and then he looks up to God for pardon (2 Samuel 7:18; 1 Chronicles 29:10). Thirdly, a praying frame brings with it a reverent fear of the holy presence of God, it puts him into a childlike awe-filled disposition (Psalm 5:7). In your…