51 Wherewith thy raging enemies
Reproach'd, O Lord, think on;

Wherewith they have reproach'd the steps
Of thine anointed one.

52 Ail blessing to the Lord our God

Let be ascribed then;

For evermore so let it be,
Amen, yea, and amen.

PSALM XC.

THIS Psalm is intitled a prayer of Moses, the man of God, by whom it is supposed to have been written for the comfort and direction of his people, upon the occasion referred to, Num. xiv. It is however of a general im port and application; and while the Church of England makes it a part of her funeral service, she should understand it as predicting a future life and resurrection commensurate to every death, and to every grave.

1 LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place

In generations all.

2 Before thou ever hadst brought forth

The mountains great or small;

Ere ever thou hadst form'd the earth,

And all the world abroad;

demption of all his people, the avowed belief of which truth, often procures the reproach of all the mighty people, and opens the mouths of enemies against them. Are not the partial and narrow views given of the gospel salvation, and of the love of our heavenly Father, often urged as a plea for Deism, and a reason for rejecting Christianity? But these nighty reasoners of the world will have their mouths stopped, and their reproaches of Christ, in his first and second coming, nust recoil upon themselves. See 2 Pet. iii. 4.

The Psalm concludes with an ascription of blessedness to Jehovah, whose word is true, whose works are faithful, whose chastisements or punishments are mercies, and all whose promises are, in Christ Jesus, yea and amen, for evermore!' Amen, and amen, so Lord let it be!

Notes on Psalm XC. The two first verses contain an address to the immutable God, as the preserver and Saviour of his people. See the same

Ev'n thou from everlasting art
To everlasting God.

3 Thou dost unto destruction
Man that is mortal turn;

And unto them thou say'st Again,
Ye sons of men, return.

4 Because a thousand years appear
No more before thy sight
Than yesterday, when it is past,
Or than a watch by night.

5 As with an overflowing flood
Thou carriest them away:

They like a sleep are, like the grass
That grows at morn are they.
6 At morn it flourishes and grows,

Cut down at ev'n doth fade.

truth, Ps. cii. 25. &c. Heb. i. 10.- The destruction to which he is said to turn man, ver. 3. and from which he says,—Return, ye children of men, Heb. of Adam, should not be confined to natural death and its grave, as Paul employs the same term to denote the punishment of hell. It is predicted that God will yet send his word to heal them, and to deliver them from their destructions, which includes them all. To understand the last clause as the sentence, Gen. ii. 19. and the first clause as importing its execution, is preposterous As that death is chiefly intended to which the sons and heirs of Adam are liable in the other world, the last clause imports certain deliverance from it. The language also be speaks their repentance, as some render it.-Return from a state of sin and misery, to the knowledge, love, service and enjoyment of the true God. This is called conversion, or a returning.

The 4th verse assigns a reason why the turning of men into destruction, and continuing them in that state for an unknown duration, is perfectly consistent with God's paternal character; for as a thousand years are in his sight but like yesterday, or a watch of the night, consisting of three hours; so a happiness to be bestowed a million of years after this is as near in regard of him, as that which shall be enjoyed eight days hence is in respect of us. If David denied his presence to Absalom for so many years, though a very affectionate and indulgent father; should God hide his face so long from the wicked, calculating upon the above principle, will not this give them a long eternity in hell, of which all but atheistical madmen will be afraid?

In verses 6, 7. the brevity of human life, and the suddenness of our

7 For by thine anger we're consum'd,
Thy wrath makes us afraid.

Our sins thou and iniquities

Dost in thy presence place,
And sett'st our secret faults before
The brightness of thy face.
9 For in thine anger all our days
Do pass on to an end;

removal hence, are illustrated by three similitudes; a flood, sweeping all instantaneously in its course-a sleep, in which we perceive not the lapse of time-and the grass of the field. These similitudes have a particular signifiance as applied to that generation that were doomed to wander in the wilderness, forty years, and to die under a sentence of exclusion from the land of promise. Divine judgments, like rapid floods, often swept them away in great numbers. These were awful, though faint figures of the wrath to come, by which the whole generation of the ungodly shall be swept from the face of the earth as with the bessom of destruction. Sleep is an emblem of death, which treats the wicked as the scythe in the mower's hand does the grass of the meadow. While good men are compared to palms and cedars, men of the world are likened to the grass, which of old was employed to heat their ovens. The word of truth, the voice of nature, and universal experience, concur in attesting the solemn declaration, Isa. xl. 6. yet how few evidence their belief of it, by its practical effects in their life and conversation?

What Moses says of the children of Israel, ver. 7, 8. applies to all mankind in a certain degree. But it will hold true in an especial manner, relative to the subjects of future punishment, that are to be so consumed by God's anger and wrath, that wicked men thall cease to exist in that character, as in Ps. civ. 55. When God places men's iniquities before him, and their secret sins in the light of his countenance; will not his eyes, sit ting in judgment, scatter and dissipate these evils, so as effectually to take them away? The Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world by atonement, will yet take it completely away by agency.

Though the days of that generation passed away in God's wrath, as in verse 9. or under the sentence pronounced against them; yet were they not debarred from the benefit of repentance. While God took vengeance on their inventions, he extended forgiveness to the penitent among them. Of the 38. years spent under the rod in the wilderness, no record was kept, so that what occurred was repeated to one another merely as a tale that is told. In this respect we view these years, and the state of the Jews during that period, as a figure of the state of the wicked under future punishment. And we view the noble character of the generation educated in the wilderness under the rod, as a pledge of what those shall finally be, who shall be doomed to pass the wintry years of an unknown duration in the wilderness of a future state. In Josh. xxii, we have a

And as a tale that hath been told,
So we our years do spend.

10 Threescore and ten years do sum up
Our days and years, we see;
Or if, by reason of more strength,
In some fourscore they be;

Yet doth the strength of such old men
But grief and labour prove;

For it is soon cut off, and we

Fly hence, and soon remove.

11 Who knows the power of thy wrath?
According to thy fear

12 So is thy wrath: Lord, teach thou us
Our end in mind to bear;

And so to count our days, that we
Our hearts may still apply

To learn thy wisdom and thy truth,

That we may live thereby.

proof and example of their faith, pious zeal, and firm adherence to the worship and service of the God of Israel.

Verse 10. may have a particular reference to those who came out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upwards, and fell in the wilderness within the space of forty years; Numb. xxiv. 29. Such of them as were older, and reached the periods here mentioned, experienced much labour and sorrow, and how scon were their strength and age cut off! They are made to confess---we fly away, that is, quickly leave the present state, and enter into the future. But these things apply to the state of mankind at large.

The 11th verse is rendered, Who knoweth, or duly considereth, the power of thine anger; and thy wrath, in proportion as thou art terrible? Moses saw much of this displayed in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness; yet here disclaims all adequate knowledge of this in any creature. Christ alone knoweth the whole power of God's anger and wrath, as he alone endured it, and inflicts on the wicked that degree of it which they deserve.

The consideration of this leads Moses to pray in the 12th verse, in name of the people committed to his care;-So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. We find the prayer granted in the rising generation of that people; and does Christ present no such praver in behalf of those who are excluded from the land of pre

13 Turn yet again to us, O Lord,
How long thus shall it be?

Let it repent thee now for those
That servants are to thee.

14 O with thy tender mercies, Lord,
Us early satisfy;

So we rejoice shall all our days,
And still be glad in thee.

15 According as the days have been,
Wherein we grief have had,

And years wherein we ill have seen,
So do thou make us glad.

16 O let thy work and pow'r appear
Thy servants' face before;

mise above? Will his word and rod impart no such wisdom to the children of death? The prayer is a prediction of what shall be realized.

In the 13th verse Moses, as a figure of our Lord, expostulates with God respecting the duration of their punishment, and his return to them in mercy. The last clause is rendered-Be propitiated towards thy servants, who were so by profession, but in conduct rebels. This prayer in the mouth of both, and of all that present it in faith, will receive an answer of peace, respecting all that have the honour to be his reputed servants. However long the Lord may delay his return in mercy, he will at length repent him, or change his conduct respecting all his professed people that are punished in the wilderness, and so excluded from heaven. He retains not his anger for the whole ever of his reign.

As this prayer, in all its parts, is predictive, or foretels what shall be brought to pass hereafter; so the two following verses promise that the Lord will satisfy his people, early or in the morning with his mercy, and that he will succeed their afflicted days, and the years in which they have seen evil, or endured punishment, with the return of happiness and joy. There are two mornings, that of the first, and of the second resurrection, on which this shall be realized. These verses contain an invariable maxim of the Divine government, and no part of Scripture should be so glossed, as to give it the lie. Why should Christians banish from their commisera tion all the subjects of future misery, who are still brethren? for

'Love glows with social tenderness,

And feels for all mankind.' Paraph. xlix. 7.

The prophetic prayer in the 16th and 17th verses cannot be fully ac complished till God shall restore the lost part of mankind to holiness and happiness; for their recovery is the chief work of his servants in every