A deceitful imagination allures a man into a fool's paradife. When things go well, fecurity kills us. When God shines on the mount of transfiguration, we dream of building tabernacles there; but a change foon takes place. "Thou didst hide thy face, and I am troubled; the withdrawing of the light of thy countenance deprived me of my com forts." The turning away of God's face overfpreads the gracious foul with a heavy gloom, and beclouds its hopes and comforts. We ought to be perpetually dependent on him. Our mountain is supported by his hand, and when he withdraws it, we fink into a valley of defpondency and dejection, if not to the very borders of despair.

In this cafe the Pfalmift's voice was changed, from joyful praise to importunate supplication. "I cried unto thee, O Lord." How often do God's children, in this imperfect state, change their notes! Singing and fighing are frequently in near connection. The skilful painter can, with a few strokes of his pencil, turn a smiling into a forrowful counWe find David here, at one time fo full of joy, that he calls upon his fellow-faints to help him to praise his gracious Benefactor; and very foon the scene is so changed, that he can do nothing but mourn and cry for deliverance." Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; Lord, be thou my Helper." Again

tenance.

Again we find the cloud difpelled. The Pfalmift experienced a happy deliverance. His darkness is turned into light, his forrow into joy, his hell into heaven. “Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou haft put off my fackcloth, and girded me with gladnefs." What wonderful effects do the restored joys of God's falvation produce, in minds fervently fet on heavenly things! He that was proftrate on the earth, repenting and mourning in the duft, in fackcloth and afhes, is now fo tranfported with divine delights, that he feems almost at a loss in what way to express his gratitude. He is like one fet at liberty from the restraints, the fetters and the darkness of imprisonment. He puts off his fackcloth, and is clothed with the garments of joy and praife.

The refult of all is expreffed in the last verse: "To the end that my glory may fing praise to thee, and not be filent; O Lord my God, I will give thanks to thee for ever." By his glory, the Pfalmift means the best thing he had. His tongue was the glory of his frame, and that should be employed in fpeaking forth the honours of his Saviour. If by his glory, as fome think, he means his foul, he refolved that that, with all its powers, fhonld be engaged in the delightful work of praife. "I will praife thee, O God, with my whole heart, I will

not

not be filent, I will not cease." The more we praise his gracious name, the more occafions of praise he will minifter to us. Let us therefore fay, with this holy man in another place, "I will hope continually, and will yet praife thee more and more."

Through the whole of this pfalm we fee, to what changes the fervants of God are subject in this life. Like mariners, they have fometimes a ftormy, and sometimes a smooth sea; or like travellers by land, they have to pafs over mountains of difficulty and danger, as well as through vallies of delights. And what a variety of affections are stirred up in their minds, upon feveral occafions! Joy and forrow, fear and fortitude, eager defire and pleasurable fatisfaction, take their turns, and act their feveral parts, in the breasts of those who are travelling towards the celeftial country.

In the verse in which our text lies, we perceive both night and day; thunder and lightning, and the bright fhining of the fun after rain; the lightfome and the dark fide of the pillar of the cloud; the law and the gofpel; wrath and love; thefe are compared, and fet in oppofition to each other. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

The

....4..4..'

The words, In his favour is life, feem to come in as a fatisfying answer to a tacit objection formed by those who are invited to fing the praises of God, ver. 4. As if it had been faid, Alas! How can we join in the pleafing work of thanksgiving. We lie under the tokens of God's displeasure, and seem to feel the marks of his anger within us. How can we fing the Lord's fong, when our harps are hung on the willows?

The Pfalmift answers this by a conceffion; "Be it fo; it is proper there should be an interchangeable fucceffion of joy and forrow, as of day and night. Sorrow, like an unwelcome, guest, may lodge with us during the night, but a blessed morning of deliverance fucceeds. The feafon of difconfolation is but fhort; it will not laft for ever; fo far from this, God's anger is but for a moment, and in his favour is life." The displeasure and the favour of the Moft High are here compared, in their nature and their duration.

The displeasure of God occafions a night of forrow and diftress. Night in fcripture often denotes a feafon of gloom and difconfolation. The gracious foul is under great discouragement when the Sun of righteousness is withdrawn. If the wrath of a king be as the messengers of death, how afflictive must a sense of God's displeasure be, to the man who looks

for

for all his felicity from him! But in his favour is life; it is that which gives being to all the hope, the peace and comfort of a faint. He lives by the fhining of his heavenly Father's countenance.

The divine displeasure is but for a moment; the gloominefs occafioned by it is but for a night. At longeft, the season of affliction and forrow can but continue during the period of a good man's pilgrimage through this vale of tears; but the favour of God is life everlasting; it runs parallel with the existence of the foul, and with the line of eternity.

The former part of this verse, because short and - concife, feems rather intricate; but in the latter, the Pfalmift more fully unfolds his meaning. Anger, by an usual figure, is put for chastisement, which, among earthly parents, is frequently the effect of anger. The Supreme Being is not angry as men are; yet he visits the tranfgreffions of his children with a rod, and their iniquities with ftripes, though he will not take away his loving-kindness from them, nor fuffer his faithfulness to fail.

The words in the Hebrew text lie thus, A moment in his anger; in his favour life. Life is opposed 'to a moment, as favour is to anger. Displeasure is momentary, love is everlafting. The general sense of the paffage appears to be this,―Though for our offences the Lord may hide his face, withdraw