us pray that God would enlighten our minds by his Holy Spirit, and fill our hearts with his grace,
that we may be ready for death every day and hour.
Verses 7–13
There is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature; but it is to be found in the Lord, and in
communion with him; to him we should be driven by our disappointments. If the world be nothing
but vanity, may God deliver us from having or seeking our portion in it. When creature-confidences
fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust in. We may see a good God doing
all, and ordering all events concerning us; and a good man, for that reason, says nothing against it.
He desires the pardoning of his sin, and the preventing of his shame. We must both watch and pray
against sin. When under the correcting hand of the Lord, we must look to God himself for relief,
not to any other. Our ways and our doings bring us into trouble, and we are beaten with a rod of
our own making. What a poor thing is beauty! and what fools are those that are proud of it, when
it will certainly, and may quickly, be consumed! The body of man is as a garment to the soul. In
this garment sin has lodged a moth, which wears away, first the beauty, then the strength, and finally
the substance of its parts. Whoever has watched the progress of a lingering distemper, or the work
of time alone, in the human frame, will feel at once the force of this comparison, and that, surely
every man is vanity. Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, we may hope
that God will hear our prayer. The believer expects weariness and ill treatment on his way to heaven;
but he shall not stay here long : walking with God by faith, he goes forward on his journey, not
diverted from his course, nor cast down by the difficulties he meets. How blessed it is to sit loose
from things here below, that while going home to our Father's house, we may use the world as not
abusing it! May we always look for that city, whose Builder and Maker is God.
Chapter 40
Chapter Outline
Confidence for deliverance. (1–5)
Christ's work of redemption. (6–10)
Prayer for mercy and grace. (11–17)Verses 1–5
Doubts and fears about the eternal state, are a horrible pit and miry clay, and have been so to
many a dear child of God. There is power enough in God to help the weakest, and grace enough
to help the unworthiest of all that trust in him. The psalmist waited patiently; he continued believing,
hoping, and praying. This is applicable to Christ. His agony, in the garden and on the cross, was a
horrible pit and miry clay. But those that wait patiently for God do not wait in vain. Those that
have been under religious melancholy, and by the grace of God have been relieved, may apply ver.
#(2) very feelingly to themselves; they are brought up out of a horrible pit. Christ is the Rock on