Psalms 55

To all such as can make out this covenant-union, it exhorts to several things. 1. If God be our God, let us improve our interest in him, cast all our burdens upon him; the burden of our fears, wants, sins (Psalm 55:22). Cast your burden upon the Lord.

The heart and tongue should go together, as the dial goes exactly with the sun. To speak fair to one's face, and not to mean what one speaks, is no better than a lie (Psalm 55:21). His words were smoother than oil, but war was in his heart.

Vengeance as a blood-hound pursues the murderer. Bloody men shall not live out half their days (Psalm 55:23). (2.) It brings eternal judgments.

It is our great Ahithophel — and as David says of him, 'our guide with whom we have taken so much sweet counsel' in all our worldly and political affairs, in which only we should make use of its advice. But we too often take it into the sanctuary with us and walk in company with…

And, to do these things the better, we must remember to set apart some special time every day, for this special work; so as we may say with David, Psalm 25.1, Lord, I lift up my heart unto thee, David was well acquainted with this exercise, and so was Daniel: for, both of them u…

Question 4: What is the time appointed for prayer? Answer: Pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17), that is, upon all occasions: or when a man begins any business, whether it be in word or deed (Colossians 3:17): or as Daniel, who prayed three times every day (Daniel 6:11): or a…

God overrules these things to serve his own ends, but no way approves them: but it greatly relieves against all our involuntary and unavoidable oversights and mistakes about the use of means, or the timing of them; for it could not be otherwise than now it is. Objection: But man…

Christ is held out in the Gospel as the City of Refuge, and the exercise of faith is to run from the hazard to Him, as a child that is chased by an unknown and uncouth body, flees to the mother's arms, or as the man-slayer fled from the Avenger of Blood to the City of Refuge; an…

4. And by faith I live not, Christ lives in me, and I am crucified and mortified; that is, by faith I know that I did live the life of God, and was crucified to the world; whereas I was dead in sins, before I believed. 5. And because believing is somewhat more than a naked act o…

When we think to eat with the broken tooth, or to walk with the foot out of joint we are put to grievous pain and torment; therefore we should go to God, and pray him to direct us in the choice of intimate friends. David sadly regrets a disappointment in a friend (Psalm 55:12-15…

Think of this rule. 3. For the season, the Apostle says: Pray continually, or without ceasing, yet there are some (as it were) canonical hours of prayer, wherein a Christian's discretion must interpose: only in this case, take the fittest seasons for secret prayer, as when you a…

As Peter also in Acts 8 curses Simon the Sorcerer: Your money and you perish together. And the holy Scripture often uses cursing, against such troublers of men's consciences, and chiefly in the Psalms: as Psalm 55: Let death come upon them: let them go quickly into the pit of co…

Now we are to observe this similitude of which we have spoken; to wit, that those who are filled with a hidden venom to hurt, shall in such wise change their natural inclination, that they shall not hurt so much as little children. Some are openly fierce and cruel; others carry…

For prayer is nothing else but a manifesting of the heart in the presence of God; so as the best remedy we have to relieve our cares and anguishes is to lay them up in his bosom. Cast your burden, says David, upon the Lord, and he shall nourish you (Psalm 55:22 and 37:5). The Pr…

For Christ does not employ an ironical address when he calls him friend, but charges him with ingratitude, that, from being an intimate friend, who sat at his table, he had become a traitor, as had been predicted in the psalm: If a stranger had done this, I could have endured it…

Their damnation shall come upon them sooner than they think: although God seems to defer his coming, and to tarry long, yet will he hasten his judgment, and come time enough to their cost. But this shall not be corporally and visibly to the eye, but so and in such sort as it is…

And they continuing daily, with one Accord in the Temple, and breaking Bread from House to House, did eat their Meat with Gladness, and Singleness of Heart, praising God. Grace made Daniel delight in the Duty of Prayer, and solemnly to attend it three Times a Day: As it also did…

But how blank looked Satan, how was he clothed with shame at the fall of those words from Job, Naked came I out of, etc. What David spoke concerning the words of his enemies (Psalm 55:21, their words were smoother than butter, but war was in their heart, they were sweeter than h…

And the Psalmist (Psalm 37:16), A little that a righteous man has, is better than the riches of many wicked. Fourthly, robbery and deceit provokes God to cut men off by some untimely stroke and immature judgment; and that, either by the hand of human justice with shame and repro…

And the Instance of Achitophel is also very remarkable; whom David did not discern, though he was so wise and holy a Man, a Person of such great Experience, and so great a Divine, and had such great Acquaintance with the Scriptures, and knew more than all his Teachers, and more…

1. The grace itself here recommended to us; it is a meek and quiet spirit. There must be not only a meek and quiet behavior outwardly; there may be that either by constraint, or with some base and disguised design, while the soul in the mean time is rough and turbulent and enven…

They are the sheep of Christ, such as are patient and inoffensive, that are called to inherit the kingdom; without are dogs that bite and devour (Revelation 22:15). They are the wings of a dove, not those of a hawk or eagle that David would fly upon to his desired rest (Psalm 55…

(2.) The belief of his gracious Providence to his own, that he orders all for their true advantage, and makes all different lines and ways converge in their highest good, all to meet in that, how opposite soever in appearance. (3.) A particular confidence of his good-will toward…

Daniel, though with the hazard of his life, would not omit praying three times a day (Daniel 6:10). And David speaks of morning, evening, and noon (Psalm 55:17). Though we cannot bind all men absolutely to these hours, because of the difference of conditions, employments, and oc…

In prosperity, for a regulation and restraint to their affections, that they might not too freely run out on the creature to the wrong of God. It is said of the wicked (Psalm 55:19): "Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God" — but God's children remember him in…

Neither God's mercies nor judgments will have any gracious and kindly work upon them. But if it be well with them, they take the more liberty to live loosely and profanely; the fear of God which is the great hold-back from all wickedness is lessened, and quite lost in them when…

When men go on prosperously, they are apt wrongfully to trouble others, and then to flout at them in their misery, and to despise the person and cause of God's People, which is a sure effect of great arrogance and pride; they think they may do what they please. They have no chan…

2. The persecution of the tongue, which is two-fold. 1. Reviling; this few think of, or lay to heart; but it is called in the text persecution; when men shall revile and persecute you; this is tongue-persecution (Psalm 55:21). His words were drawn swords.

And this is contradistinguished from the devils and hypocrites who cannot seek their lodging nor a hiding place against wrath in the Lord. 2. It is to lean and rest the body (2 Samuel 1:6): Saul leaned upon his spear, and by a metaphor it is to cast the burden upon the Lord (Isa…

4 This mystical union affords much comfort to believers, in several cases. 1 In case of the disrespects and unkindnesses of the world, Psalm 55:3. In wrath they hate me: but though we live in an unkind world, we have a kind Husband, John 15:9. As the father has loved me, so have…

A Christian of the right breed is ambitiously desirous to put off the earthly clothes of his body, and make his bed in the grave; how is this bed perfumed with Christ's lying in it? A pillow of down, is not so sweet as a pillow of dust; a regenerate person looking upon himself a…

But woe to us if God should give us the desire of our hearts in this. See what the temper of those men's spirits is that meet with no changes (Psalm 55:19): 'Because they have no changes, therefore they have not God.' O, it is better to be preserved sweet in brine than to spoil…

Psalm 6:4, compared with verse 9. Psalm 55:2, Attend to me, and hear me, verse 19. God shall hear and afflict them.

For the disciples do afterward complain that she cries so after them: was Christ so difficult to be entreated? The reasons for crying are: 1. Want cannot blush; the pinching necessity of the saints is not tied to the law of modesty: hunger cannot be ashamed (Psalm 55:2). I mourn…

Now, says the king of Nineveh, let man and beast cry mightily to the Lord (Jonah 3:7-8). That is the nature of the work of faith, it opens the heart to cry for renewal of justification (Psalm 55:1-2). Now a man can tell what he stands in need of, now he does not only confess his…

I confess the hearts of many men are so glued to the world, especially when they find all things succeed prosperously with them, that they are apt enough to set up their rest, and to conceive a kind of steadfastness in the things they possess. Because they have no changes, says…