Psalms 88

Now his poisoned arrow sticks fast in the heart. (Psalm 88:15-16.) While I suffer your terrors I am distracted, your fierce wrath goes over me. Luther in desertion was in such horror of mind, that Nec calor, nec Sanguis super-esset, he had no blood seen in his face, but he lay a…

Qu. 8. How many we sanctify the name of God in the use of Gospel institutions? Answ. 1. By a holy reverence of his sovereign authority appointing of them. 2. A holy regard to his special presence in them. 3. Faith in his promises annexed to them. 4. Delight in his will, wisdom,…

Therefore, secondly, it is principally to be understood of the want of inward comfort in their spirits, from something that is between God and them, and so meant of that darkness and terrors which accompany the want and the sense of God's favor. And so darkness is elsewhere take…

This may seem to be the reason for God's dealing with Heman. Heman was brought up in this school of temptation and kept in this condition of desertion from his youth (Psalm 88:15). He was put to it early, and so deep were the lessons set him that he was nearly out of his mind, a…

First, to show his power and faithfulness in upholding, raising up, and healing again a spirit that has been long and deadly wounded with inward terrors — which is as great an evidence of his power as any other. Therefore Heman says in Psalm 88:10-11: 'Will you show wonders to t…

So Christ in Luke 22:44, being in agony, 'prayed more earnestly'; and being in fears he offered up 'strong cries' (Hebrews 5:7). So Heman by reason of his terrors was a man much in prayer: 'I have cried day and night before you' (Psalm 88:1). Christians who do not enjoy communio…

Even so long as David puts God in remembrance and pleads how short a time in all he had to live, and complains how in much of that time his face had been hid from him (verse 47). And the like was Heman's case, and this also long, even from his youth up (Psalm 88:14-15). So from…

But when the spirit itself is laid bare and naked and wounded immediately by God's wrath (which only can reach it and wound it), who can bear this? Thus toward Heman: God did not only hide his face from him (Psalm 88:14), but 'his fierce wrath went over him, and your terrors,' s…

Misinterpreting and perverting all these his righteous proceedings — as interpreting that withdrawing his light and presence and hiding himself to be a casting them off. Thus Heman (Psalm 88:14). So likewise misconstruing that temporary wrath, chastising and wounding their spiri…

Darkness covers not the face of this deep only, but it is darkness to the bottom, throughout darkness. No wonder then if, when the Spirit ceases to move upon this deep with beams of light, it casts us into such deeps and darkness as Heman (complaining) speaks of (Psalm 88:6), an…

He thought, 'If God had loved me, he would presently have heard me'; he thought his soul would not have been worse after praying. This was false reasoning, for sometimes God shuts out his people's prayers (Psalm 88:14). A father may sometimes seem so angry that he throws away hi…

Fear and hate sin still. Pray day and night as Heman did when he thought himself cut off: 'I have cried day and night, though I be as one you remember no more' (Psalm 88:1, 4-5). And so at verse 9: 'I have called daily' — though in verses 10-12 he thought himself as it were in h…

Plead that this is the way at present to disable you for service — for while you suffer his terrors you are as one among the dead, listless not to his business only but to all things else. Distracted with terrors (as Heman pleads in Psalm 88:15), the powers and forces of your so…

If to them for neglecting opportunities of drawing nearer to God, what to you for neglecting the offer of grace and trampling under foot the blood of Christ? All you who think there is no hell, or if there is, that it is not so dark as it is usually painted — look upon Heman, re…

But you will say: It is not only that he hides his face, but I suffer terrors; he is angry; he is turned enemy; he fights against me; and therefore I am a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction. So it was with Job (chapter 13:24), and so with Isaiah 63:10 and Psalm 88:16. But all…

Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. And the like has been the state of many of Gods children: Psalm 88:3, 7, My soul is filled with evils: thou hast vexed me with all thy waves, etc. Question. How can this stand with the tr…

And for ability to examine themselves, cannot this be wanting but the want of the being of faith must be inferred from there? What shall we then say to Souls in such a case as Heman's (Psalm 88), who complains, that God's wrath lay hard upon him, and that he was shut up, and cou…

From hence cometh it, that we fear not in greatest dangers (2 Kings 6:16; Psalm 3:7; Psalm 27:3); that in the time of affliction, we are patient (Proverbs 20:22; Hebrews 10:33); without all murmuring to hold our peace (Psalm 39:10); receiving them as from a father (Job 1:21; Psa…

No such complaints read you, so bitter, so pathetic, and coming from deeper sense, than the want of the sense of Christ's love. It's broken bones, and a dried up body to David; it's bitter weeping and crying, like the chattering of a Crane to Hezekiah; it's more than strangling,…

Why does David complain that he was as a bottle in the smoke, and pray so often that God would quicken him, if under a dead disposition we were not to pray? 4. If often the saints beginning to pray do speak words of unbelief and from a principle of nature, and if words flowing f…

Therefore it concerns us to seek to God that we may have a godly wise man, with whom we may be free in all cases of mind or conscience, and to whom we may freely open ourselves, and be strengthened in the service of God; it is a great part of our contentment and happiness theref…

Secondly, that many of God's dear children may lie a very long time in the want of this assurance, touching their effectual calling. Psalm 88 — it is said of Heman, verses 14, 15, 16 — Lord, why have you cast off my soul? And why have you hid your face from me?

You Lord [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] wilt not with-hold, or restrain your mercy from me. So also to shut up, or put a stop to; as Jeremiah 52:3, Haggai 1:10, 1 Samuel 25:33, Psalm 88:9. From there is [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] Carcer, a prison wherein men are put under restrain…

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord, my sore ran in the night and ceased not, my soul refused to be comforted. So Heman (Psalm 88:3), my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws nigh to the grave, and verse 15, I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up, while I…

And again: Your seed shall possess the gates of his enemies, and in your seed shall all nations on earth be blessed (Genesis 22). And of David is written in Psalm 88: I have sworn once by my holiness, that I will not fail David. His seed shall endure forever, and his seat also l…

And a man may have grace acting in him, and yet not know, not be sensible that he has acting grace. We see persons frequently under great temptations of apprehension that they have no grace at all, and yet at the same time to the clear conviction of all who are able to discern s…

It is a trouble that all earthly things cannot take off and remove. This trouble of his mind in his sorrow for sin, David on all occasions expresseth to God; and sometimes it riseth to a great and dreadful height, as it is expressed (Psalms 88) throughout. Hereby the soul is som…

True: But there shall not one hair of your head perish; its but our unbelief which sees God suffering all to roll and reel as Fortune, Nature, and Devils will, which makes us sinfully care; for the Lord and Father of Christ cannot vace, and Christ's not working is contrary to Jo…

2. It implies sickness and weakening of the person, as in Amnon's love to his sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1, 2, 3, 4). It comes from apprehended wrath, and the curse of the Law (Psalms 90:8; Psalms 32:3, 4; Psalms 6:1; Psalms 38:1, 2, 3, 4, &c.; Daniel 9:11; Romans 7:24; Isaiah 33…

2. Nor should Christians be unwilling to know the spiritual condition one of another; you may fall upon some, in your very course and kind. It is like David (Psalm 71:7), Heman (Psalm 88:15), the suffering Church (Lamentations 1:12; Psalm 102:6, 7), Elias (1 Kings 19:10), Isaiah…

2. The children of God appear dead, cold, and unbelievingly to complain in the beginning of praying, and of a Psalm, as is clear in David (Psalm 22:2, expounding that of him, as some verify it has in some points of him, verse 2), and in Hezekiah in his song (Isaiah 39:10), in Jo…

Worshippers of God never miss gracious influences: when the soul is sick after Christ, influences of God, for the high praise of Christ, abound (Canticles 5:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, &c. and Psalm 63:1). When the soul thirsts for God, and the heart and flesh cry out for the living God…

1. Terrors and distractions, and all the waves of God's displeasure. Heman (Psalm 88:1): O Lord God of my salvation, I cry day and night before you. Verse 9: Lord I have called daily to you, I have stretched out my hands to you.

Yet are we to drink with Christ, the cup of sad absence, and his holy withdrawings. Heman has come near this, and David and Jonah; all your waves have gone over me, your wrath lies hard upon me; and yet hear savory prayers speaking the rejoicing, and kissing of sovereignty, and…

If I shall finde favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back again, but if he thus say, I have no delight in you; behold, here I am, let him do to me as seemeth good to him. We reade of Heman, a man of admirable wisdom, one of the wisest upon earth in his time, as appea…

I cannot bear this wrath; Angels could not bear it; it has sunk them into the depths of misery. Those that feel but a few sparks of it in their Consciences here, are even distracted by it, Psalm 88:15. Christ himself had never born up under it, had he not been subported by the i…

The vigor and comfort of our spiritual life depend on our mortification. In what sense — not absolutely and necessarily (Psalm 88; Heman's condition). Not as the next and immediate cause.

1. Their inward condition; and so through grief and terrors of conscience they are ready to drop into the grave. That trouble of mind is a usual exercise of God's people, see Heman's complaint, Psalm 88, from verse 3 to the end of verse 7. My soul is full of troubles, and my lif…

My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. So does Heman (Psalm 88:8): You have put away my acquaintance far from me: you have made me an abomination to them. Partly to humble us, and try us, for our depending too much upon man, and making us ourselves a…

And indeed these inward troubles are far more grievous than any outward can be. We hear Heman crying out, that because of these terrors of the Lord, he was ready to die from his youth up (Psalm 88:15). And while [illegible] suffered this wrath of God, he was [illegible] distract…

But Christians in this world have their peculiar opportunities, to be glorifying of Him that made them. This did the Psalmist speak in (Psalms 88:11), Shall the dead praise you? To instance in some particulars:

So it was with Job. Others are kept in the dark all their days; and possibly set in a cloud too; the Apostle speaks of some such (Hebrews 2:15), who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage; and we find the Psalmist thus representing his own condition in…

2. It is a more Gospel way to bear in the threat of everlasting wrath than of temporal rods. 3. Desertions and trials under the Law were more legal and sharp and sad upon David, Hezekiah, Job, Jeremiah, Heman (Psalm 6; Psalm 38; Psalm 77; Psalm 102; Psalm 88; Isaiah 38; Jeremiah…

By transmitting our experiences to our Children, God's name is eternized, and his mercies will bring forth a plentiful crop of praise when we are gone. Heman puts the question, Psalm 88. 10. Shall the dead praise thee? Yes, in this sense, when we are dead, we praise God, because…

Alstead calls desertion an agony of conscience; this made the Prophet Jonah call the whale's belly the belly of hell, because he was deserted there; Jonah 2. 2, 4. Out of the belly of hell cried I, then I said I am cast out of Thy sight. Heman grew distracted upon the suspension…

This is an abyss indeed. Psalm 88.6. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit. Desertion is a short Hell.

The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to the spirits of these two men. Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, or drop of drink, or light, or any…

Mr. Great-Heart: Yes, yes, I never had doubt about him. He was a man of a choice spirit, only he was always kept very low, and that made his life so burdensome to himself, and so troublesome to others (Psalm 88). He was, above many, tender of sin: he was so afraid of doing injur…

In others their sorrows soak in by degrees, Gutta cavat lapidem, the Lord empties them by continual droppings, and hence feel not that measure of sorrow that others do. Every Christian is not a Heman (Psalm 88) who suffers distracting fears and terrors from his youth up (verse 1…

The first is expressly mentioned (Acts 10:43) and (Romans 1:17); the second is expressly set down also (Psalm 32:4). The first is the cause and foundation of this second; the second arises from the first: otherwise peace of conscience is a mere delusion: the first is sometimes l…