Psalms 52

His mercy is on them that fear him. 3. If we take sanctuary in God's mercy, we trust in it (Psalm 52:8). As a man is saved by catching hold of a cable.

But it is a sinful boasting, when men display their trophies, boast of their own worth and eminence, that others may admire and cry them up: a man's self is his idol, and he loves to have this idol worshipped (Acts 5:36). There arose up Theudas boasting himself to be somebody. 2…

Go with confidence in this mercy; as when one goes to a fire, it is not doubtingly, perhaps it will warm me, perhaps not. Use 2. Believe in this mercy (Psalm 52:8): I trust in the mercy of God for ever. God's mercy is a fountain opened, let down the bucket of faith, and you may…

Those who have their mouths opened against God, yet God puts bread in those mouths. O the royal bounty of God (Psalm 52:1): "The goodness of God endures continually." Swinish sinners God puts jewels upon, and feeds them every day.

And the want of this is the cause why so few perceive any sweetness or comfort in the Gospel: and why it is so little loved and embraced nowadays. Lastly, if all mankind be shut up under unbelief, the duty of every man is, to labor in using all good means whereby we may be deliv…

If they that know his name will put their trust in him (Psalm 9:10), for you, Lord, has not forsaken them that seek you; then a distrust of him discovers an ignorance and inconsideration of his name and his ways of working, and implies his forsaking of his creature. He that trus…

To be driven out of God's House is a sore evil, that makes all other evils indeed to be evil, as abiding in God's House is a great blessing, and recompences the want of many outward blessings. If any of you that have been servants to great men, and should be driven out of their…

The saints may look upon wicked men when they see them executed and pity them as men; but they may rejoice in this, because they see such a spectacle before them as makes this Scripture to be good, Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is a God that judges in…

And by so much the more odious is your crime, in that you pervert the law, which was intended to be a fence and safeguard to every man's property, and turn it against itself, making it the instrument of your injustice and cruelty. The Psalmist (Psalm 52:2) compares Doeg's malici…

(Proverbs 18:11) The rich man's wealth is his city, and a high wall in his own conceit. God has by the fire, which has consumed so much of the wealth of the city, shown how insufficient a foundation wealth is for any man's confidence, he has made it evident that riches are uncer…

We shall have waterings, and the believer's well shall never run dry (Psalm 104:33). I will sing to the Lord as long as I live (Psalm 104:33; Psalm 146:1; Psalm 52:8, 9). Then he knew of a stock and a new furniture in heaven, suppose his own well should go dry.

Has not the Lord been pleased to bring you into the honorable estate of sonship? and has put his glory upon your souls, and has honored you by that near relation you have to Christ? he has honored you by the glorious priviledges of the Gospel, he has honored you by giving himsel…

The Righteous shall have Dominion over them in the Morning; They shall have Dominion over the Wicked in the Morning of the Resurrection. They shall then Laugh the Wicked to Scorn, Psalm 52:6. Then shall the difference be seen between the Righteous and the Wicked, between him tha…

Nevertheless, as appears from Psalm 34, which we said in the previous sermon was composed about this history, these thoughts never moved David from his duty or prostrated his spirit. For although he knew he had been denounced to Saul by Doeg and saw death apparently imminent bef…

And let us learn to say with David: Lord, I am silent, because you have done it. And in Psalm 52 he shows that he then meditated on the same doctrine and applied it to his own use, when he says: Doeg was an impious man who did not place his trust in God, but in honors and power,…

Psalm 13:5: I have trusted in your mercy, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. So, Psalm 52:8: I am like a green olive tree, for I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. As some trees are green in winter, this will make a man flourish notwithstanding opposition, and a…

5. As God's justice is manifested (Proverbs 11:10): "When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices: but when the wicked perish, there is shouting." (Psalm 52:6): "The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him: Lo, this is the man that made not God his…

Carnal men think the difference between them and others will ever hold out when they glitter in the world: O but the time is coming when death will undeceive them. And at the day of judgment they will be sensible of it, when they shall be refused as the outcasts of the world; an…

David when his old sins troubled him, the sins of his youth (Psalm 25:7): Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to your mercy remember me, for your goodness' sake, O Lord. When his enemies consulted his ruin (Psalm 52:1): Why do you boast yourself i…

Secondly, I shall draw some inferences from the consideration of sin, as it is contrary to the good of man. 1. Then I infer, that they are miserably mistaken that seek for any good in sin; as sin is, so its effects are, all evil to man: there are (woe to them) that call evil goo…

1. On what account they are called Fig-trees? That the people of God are in Scripture, particularly and personally compared to trees, is observable: sometimes to the Cedar for its stateliness and perpetual greenness (Psalm 92:12), and to the Palm Tree, for its growing the faster…

3. That when it comes to this, they shall then have none to plead for them. That a sinner under the Gospel may sin himself out of all pity, and beyond the prayers of the godly: they may go on so far in their obstinacy, that even they who have been most sollicitous for them, and…

I know Grotius, to favor his Arminian notions, interprets the Vineyard to mean the world, and the Fig-tree the nation of the Jews; but, though a particular church, is sometimes resembled by a plant, as a vine (Psalm 80) and an olive (Romans 11) and the members of it to so many b…

Many ignorant people thank God they have good hearts; but that heart can no more be good which lacks grace than a body can be sound which lacks health. All are not healed because they love their sickness (Psalm 52:3): you love evil. Many embrace their disease.

Every man would catch at a Godhead, and either assume it to himself, or cast it, many times upon other creatures, viler and more ignoble than himself. Snatch the reins of government out of God's hand; and exalt their own wills into an absoluteness as liable to control from none;…

Lo, (says he) this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches. But I am like a green olive-tree in the House of God; I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever, Psalms 52:7, 8. While others trust in the riches of their own righteousne…

9th Commandment: You shall not bear, etc. He breaks this commandment: who envies at the prosperity of his neighbor (1 Timothy 6:4); who seeks only his own good report; who is suspicious (1 Corinthians 13:5); who gives rash or hard sentence against others (Matthew 7:1); who takes…

But though the malice of men be great, and backt with a power not to be control'd by any visible means, and therefore likely to continue; yet the goodness of God is greater than the malice of men, and of a longer duration and continuance. And thus David comforted himself, when h…

He that makes an idol of his riches, will worship and trust in it, when he has done; and therefore Timothy must give rich men a second charge. That they trust not in uncertain riches — by which, first, he gives us a plain intimation that rich men are naturally apt and prone to t…

For he that upon hatred, reports the evil he knows by another, is a backbiter. When Doeg the Edomite came, and showed Saul that David was gone to the house of Abimelech, he told no more than the truth; and yet because it proceeded from an evil mind, therefore David accuses him o…