world, shall be enriched with spiritual blessings and glorified; and that this word of grace and the remission of sins, this joyful and all-sweet Gospel shall be diffused abroad among all nations, and that the godly and those that believe, shall rejoice and be glad, and exult in it with a full and perfect joy, which no creature shall be able to destroy or to take away.

On the other hand, David shews that the Jews who opposed this counsel of God, and the whole of their kingdom should be destroyed by the awful judgment of God, "Thou shalt make them (says he) to turn their back;" that is, because that people opposed themselves to the Gospel, and crucified Christ, thou shalt afflict them with heavy calamities; and, having rejected the people destroyed their kingdom, and having done away with, and abrogated the whole of their law and worship for which they so furiously fight, thou shalt reduce them to a miserable slavery, so that they shall be oppressed under a foreign yoke and laws, and shall thus suffer the punishment due to their sins.

This Psalm belongs to the first commandment, and to the second petition of the Lord's Prayer: for it foretells of a people that should not be under the law of Moses, but in a kingdom of rejoicing and thanksgiving, and it speaks of a new manner of worship.

PSALM XXII.

David complaineth in great discouragement.—He prayeth in great distress. He praiseth God.

To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest

not; and in the night-season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

They cried unto thee, and were delivered; they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.

I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother's belly.

Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon

me.

They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

But be not thou far from me, O LORD; O my strength, haste thee to help me.

Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the LORD, praise him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction

of the afflicted, neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the LORD; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

For the kingdom is the LORD's; and he is the governor among the nations.

All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship :

all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation.

They shall come, and shall declare his righteous

F

ness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

THIS Psalm is a kind of gem among the Psalms that contain prophecies concerning Christ and his kingdom, and it is peculiarly excellent and remarkable. For here, if anywhere, it may be said that David does not seem to be delivering a prophecy of the future, but a history of the past; a history of circumstances that took place within his own sight and knowledge; for his expressions concerning Christ are not at all more obscure than those of Peter or Paul, or any other of the Apostles: and he speaks of Christ being nailed to the tree, and of the piercing of his hands and his feet, as if the whole had taken place before his own natural sight.

This Psalm contains those deep, sublime, and heavy sufferings of Christ, when agonizing in the midst of the terrors and pangs of divine wrath and death, which surpass all human thought and comprehension. And I know not whether any Psalm throughout the whole Book contains matter more weighty, or from which the hearts of the godly can so truly perceive those sighs and groans, inexpressible by man, which their Lord and head Jesus Christ uttered when conflicting for us in the midst of death, and in the midst of the pains and terrors of hell. Wherefore this Psalm ought to be most highly prized by all who have any acquaintance with these temptations of faith, and these spiritual conflicts.

Let Epicureans despise these things: examples of this kind will be more precious to the truly godly and spiritual, whether they be found in Christ himself, or (as St. Peter saith,) in our brethren that are in the world, than all the treasures and riches of which the world can boast.

David as I said, describes most clearly and expressively the sufferings of Christ, so much so, that you seem to see the circumstances to take place before your eyes. And as he so clearly pourtrays the forerunning sufferings of Christ, so does he with equal plainness set forth the glories which followed them; for in the end of the Psalm he shows that Christ should be delivered from the mouth of the lion and of the dog, and from the midst of death and sufferings, and should, through his resurrection wrought by divine power, be glorified; that his Gospel should be preached, not only among that people and in that kingdom, such narrow limits, but throughout all the nations and kingdoms of the world; that the fat ones of the earth, that is the rich and powerful of this world, and the poor also, should be converted unto Christ; that his Church should be eternal, and his posterity infinite; and that as King he should be adored throughout the whole world, that his name should be praised and celebrated throughout all ages, and his kingdom endure for ever, and remain invincible against all the kingdoms of the world, and against all creatures.

The Psalm belongs to the first commandment of the Decalogue, for it foretels a new worship of God; and it has reference to the first petition of the Lord's Prayer.

PSALM XXIII.

David's confidence in God's grace.

A Psalm of David.

THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.