Psalms 85

It is sad to have the league of national peace broken, but it is worse to have the peace of conscience broken: Oh preserve this peace. First, Take heed of relapses; has God spoken peace, do not turn again to folly (Psalm 85:8). Besides the ingratitude, there's folly in relapses;…

Mercy swims to us through Christ's blood. 2. If we would have mercy, we must pray for it (Psalm 85:7). Show us your mercy O Lord, and grant us your salvation (Psalm 25:16).

Sometimes God does change a temporal promise into a spiritual. (Psalm 85:12) The Lord shall give that which is good: perhaps this may not be fulfilled in a temporal sense, but a spiritual. God may let a Christian be cut short in temporals, but God makes it up in spirituals.

2. To forgive sin is to cover sin. (Psalm 85:2) "You have covered all their sin." This was typified by the mercy seat covering the ark, to show God's covering of sin through Christ.

God must be righteous or else not be God: there can be no unrighteousness at all with him. It is one of his inseparable attributes: the Psalmist therefore acquaints us that these two attributes of God, namely, his justice and mercy do in the great affair of man's salvation meet…

There is no peace but what proceeds from and is the effect of righteousness. So these things with respect to Christ are declared by the Psalmist (Psalm 85:9, 10, 11, 12, 13). What we are taught hence is,

Therefore the reduction of Perfection must in the first place be by righteousness. This was the great fundamental promise of the times of the New Testament (Isaiah 60:21; Psalm 72:7; Psalm 85:10, 11). And this was to be brought in by Christ alone.

Partly by a further declaration of God's love to the conscience (Isaiah 26:3). Partly by stirring us up to watchfulness, that no occasion may be given on our part by returning to folly (Psalm 85:8). Thus you see what Christ does; all is briefly summed up by the Apostle in 2 Cori…

Therefore the third way of help in way of injustice it is the mean, and that is by our Parliament, that is, as things are now, is the only regular help that we can have, if we see therefore, or feel some things amiss, we may be sensible and seek help too, but in a peaceable and…

That is, God did secretly support him and strengthen him, under the trouble. He does it also by a word; therefore we read of God's speaking peace to his people (Psalm 85:8): I will hear what God will say, for he will speak peace to his people and his saints. Besides an inward st…

But when we shall consider all things advisedly, I doubt not but he takes the bud of the Lord, and the fruit of the earth, for an abundance of most ample and unusual grace, which abundance shall recreate the famished: for he speaks even as if the earth after a waste should be so…

Now this phrase of speech is usual in the holy Scripture: as in the Psalms; The mountains shall bring peace to the people by justice (Psalm 72:3). Truth shall bud out of the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven (Psalm 85:11). Also, mercy and truth are met togethe…

Third, such diverse excellencies are expressed in him toward men, that otherwise would have seemed impossible to be exercised toward the same object; as particularly these three: justice, mercy, and truth. The same that are mentioned in Psalm 85:10: Mercy and truth are met toget…

For caution against sin for the time to come; it's plain, that the rebukes of Providence leave that effect also upon gracious hearts, Ezra 9. 13, 14. Psalm 85:8 Sometimes he cheers and comforts the hearts of his people with smiling and reviving Providences, both public and perso…

Besides, they were wont to express their faith in this mystery with words to this purpose. [in non-Latin alphabet], glory, is sometimes put for God himself (Psalm 85:10): [in non-Latin alphabet], That glory may dwell in our land; that is, the God of glory, or glorious God. This…

It was the repository of the Covenant; for so the Law written by the finger of God in Tables of stone, is often called metonymically, and being anointed (Exodus 40:9), became [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], holiness of holinesses, or most holy, a type of him who was to fulfill the La…

But especially God speaks with his Word by his Spirit, when he sends his Spirit for conversion, and to effect a saving change: thus God speaks when he calls blind sinners out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9), quickens dead sinners, putting into them a new princ…

3. It will keep the heart full of kindness towards God, from where love and gracious hope will spring. It is impossible but that a soul overwhelmed with a sense of sin, and thereon [illegible] with self-condemnation, but if it has a view of the consistency of the glory of God wi…

Psalm, Truly God is good to Israel; however it be, yet God is good to Israel, though many things seem to the contrary: and therefore, conclude with your own heart, Though I should never see good day in the world, yet that comfort I have received in the ways of God, it is enough…

4. Which is worst of all, it amends not the life, it heals not the evil, it cures not the distemper. When God speaks peace, it guides and keeps the soul that it turn not again to folly (Psalm 85:8). When we speak it ourselves, the heart is not taken off the evil.

Therefore they bent their thoughts this way, praying, and searching, and waiting for answers, studying to keep the passage open, as it were, for the beams of those divine revelations to come in at — not to have their spirits clogged and stopped with earthly and sinful affections…

It is a debt that will render you liable to the wrath of God; in itself it merits eternal death: O therefore sin no more, do not run again into the snare! When you give way to sin, you hazard the comfort of your acquittance by Christ (Psalm 85:8): The Lord will speak peace to hi…

18. Such as Fear God are the only persons that shall be saved. Psalm 85:9. Salvation is nigh them that Fear him.

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…

He cries out, how long? (Psalm 13:1). He deliberates with himself, and expostulates with God (Psalm 85:5, 6): will you be angry for ever? Will you not revive me?

(Proverbs 2:10) When wisdom enters into your [illegible], and knowledge is pleasant to your soul: Oh [illegible] has wished this, longed for, looked for this, and [illegible] now he has his will, and his heart's desire, [illegible] is pleased at the heart; when the Lord brings o…

2. Mercy pleads (not having a throne higher than justice, as Arminius says) that so many chosen ones may find mercy, and peace calls for reconciliation to sinners. 3. Infinite wisdom also requires that justice and righteousness (under the name of mercy we comprehend free and ric…

Christ, by his satisfactory obedience, purchased and laid in all that was needful for the salvation of man. Had not God put him into office, and commissioned him for this, all his obedience had been insignificant: for, not only or merely the value, but the acceptance of it for u…

He that is in earnest, will take no denial, but will press with greatest urgency and resolution: one of the ancients complains of himself, that when he prayed against his lusts, he was afraid lest God should answer him: this was not from the Spirit of grace. And if you are in go…

It being a thing that shall be very surprising to all that shall observe it. Hitherto also may that have a special reference (Psalms 85:3), 'Glorious things are spoken of you, oh City of God.' 2. That these glorious things have not as yet befallen it in their complete accomplish…

First, the Psalmist handles, wherein the forgiveness of sin consists, that he mentions under two expressions, Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered: the forgiveness of sin consists, first in the covering of sin: the covering of sin not from…

But on the other side, see what happiness it is to have sin remitted, and the person justified. 1 It is acknowledged by David, Hezekiah, and others as a point of great blessedness (Psalms 32:1,2; Isaiah 38:17; Psalms 85:2). 2 It is also promised as a special blessing of the new…

Fourthly, the sincere soul hates sin with an irreconcilable hatred: there was a time when sin and his soul fell out, but there never will be a time of reconciliation between them again. That breach which effectual conviction once made, can never be made up any more: 'They will r…

And indeed they cannot sew up the woman's rent heart. This is the Lord's prerogative (Isaiah 57:19): I create the fruit of the lips, peace; I know no Creator but one, and I know no Peace-Creator but one; peace of conscience is grace, grace is made of pure nothing, and not made o…

So the king of Nineveh in this case, he rises from his throne, and puts on sackcloth, they debase themselves to the dust, as unworthy of any mercy. Thirdly, faith, when it leads us to justification, it opens the heart, and that both to speak to God in prayer, to long after him w…

Fourthly, Obedience. 1 For Knowledge, in all things that we do, we must by the Word understand and know what God says; what is his good will, pleasing and acceptable to him: for which we have both the practice of the Psalmist (Psalm 85:8) and the precept of the Apostle (Romans 1…