EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 17.—If any of you would abide by Jesus Christ in this storm, try how ye have covenanted with him, and how ye have closed the bargain with him, and upon what terms. But I trow there are many of you in this age that are like young wanton folk, that run fast together and marry, but never take any account how they will keep house, but presently go to poverty and beggary. I trow it falls out so with many of you that are professors in this generation. Ye take up your religion, and ye wot not how, and ye cannot give an account how ye came by it. I will tell you, sirs; ye will abide no longer by Christ than till a storm blow, and then ye will quit him and deny his cause. Ye have need to take heed to this, for it will ruin your souls in the end of the day. But I shall tell you, sirs, the right way of covenanting with God. It is when Christ and the believer meet. Our Lord gives him his laws, statutes, and commands, and he charges him not to quit a hoof of them. No; though he should be torn into a thousand pieces; and the right covenanter says, Amen.—Alexander Peden’s Sermon, 1682.

Verses 17-19.--Neither the persecuting hand of men, nor the chastising hand of God, relaxed ancient singular saints. Believers resemble the moon, which emerges from her eclipse by keeping her motion, and ceases not to shine because the dogs bark at her. Shall we cease to be professors because others will not cease to be persecutors?—William Secker.

Verses 17-19.—The church having reported her great troubles, speaks it as an argument of much sincerity towards God, and strength of grace received from him: “All this has come upon us” (that is, all these common calamities and afflictions), “yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;” as if she had said, These afflictions have been strong temptations upon us to cause us to decline from thy ways, but through grace we have kept our ground and remained constant in thy covenant, yea, “though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” As many, yea, most of the saints have improved under the cross, so there have been some, who either through their present unbelief, or forgetfulness of “the exhortation which” (as the apostle saith, Heb. xii. 5), “speaketh unto them as unto children,” have had their faintings or declinings under it.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 18.—“Our heart is not turned back.” Serious piety has become a ludicrous subject with which the wanton wits of this atheistical world sport themselves; but behold the wisdom and goodness of God, exhibiting to the world undeniable testimonies of the truth of religion as often as the sincere professors thereof are brought to the test by afflictions from the hand of God, or persecutions from the hands of men. Lo! “here is the faith and patience of the saints;” here is their courage, meekness, and self-denial, shining as gold in the fire. They have the real proofs of it before their eyes. Instead of casting them into hell, and convincing them by eternal fire, he is pleased to cast his own people into the fire of affliction, that they who scoff at them may be convinced at an easier and cheaper rate. It is no new thing to see the enemies of religion brought over to embrace it by the constancy and faithfulness of the saints in their trials and sufferings for it. God grant that the atheism of this present generation do not occasion a more fiery trial to the people of God in it than they have yet suffered.—John Flavel.

Verse 18.—“Our heart.” The word לֵבָב or Greek καρδία, that is rendered “heart,” both in the Old and New Testament, doth signify the understanding, the mind, will, affections, conscience, the whole soul. “Our heart is not turned back.” Our understandings and minds are the same as they were in a summer’s day, though now we be in a winter’s storm; though now we be afflicted, tossed, broken, and persecuted, yet notwithstanding, “our heart is not turned back,” our mind, will, affections, and conscience, our whole soul, is the same now as before.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 19.—“Though thou hast sore broken us in place of dragons,” etc. Where men, comparable to dragons for their poison and cruelty, dwell particularly in Rome, and the Roman jurisdiction, both Pagan and Papal, the seat of Satan, the great red dragon, and of his wretched brood and offspring, the beast, to whom he has given his power; where the saints and followers of Christ have been sorely afflicted and persecuted, and yet have held fast the name of Christ, and not denied his faith. See Rev. ii. 13, and xii. 3. The wilderness is the habitation of dragons; and this is the name of the place where the church is said to be in the times of the Papacy, and where she is fed and preserved for a time, and times, and half-a-time. Rev. xii. 6, 14. “And covered us with the shadow of death.” As the former phrase denotes the cruelty of the enemies of Christ’s church and people, this their dismal afflictions and forlorn state and condition; and may have some respect to the darkness of Popery, when it was at the height, and the church of Christ was covered with it, there being very little appearances and breakings forth of gospel light anywhere.—John Gill.

Verse 19.—“Dragons.” The word rendered dragons—תַּנִּים, tannim—means either a great fish, a sea monster, a serpent, a dragon, or a crocodile. It may also mean a jackal, a fox, or a wolf. De Wette renders it here jackals. The idea in the passage is essentially the same, whichever interpretation of the word is adopted. The “place of dragons” would denote the place where such monsters are found, or where they had their abode: that is to say, in desolate places, wastes, deserts, old ruins, depopulated towns.—Albert Barnes.

Verse 20.—“Stretched out our hands to a strange god.” The stretching out the hand towards an object of devotion, or an holy place, was an ancient usage among the Jews and heathens both, and it continues in the East to this time, which continuance I do not remember to have seen remarked. That this attitude in prayer has continued among the Eastern people, appears by the following passage from Pitts, in his account of the religion and manners of the Mohammedans. Speaking of the Algerines throwing wax candles and pots of oil overboard, as a present to some marabbot (or Mohammedan saint), Pitts goes on, and says, “When this is done, they all together hold up their hands, begging the marabbot’s blessing, and a prosperous voyage.” In the same page he tells us, “the marabbots have generally a little neat room built over their graves, resembling in figure their mosques or churches, which is very nicely cleaned, and well looked after.” And in the succeeding page he tells us, “Many people there are who will scarce pass by any of them without lifting up their hand, and saying some short prayer.” In like manner, he tells us, that at quitting the Beat, or holy house at Mecca, to which they make devout pilgrimages, “they hold up their hands towards the Beat, making earnest petitions.”—Harmer’s “Observations.”

Verse 21.—“Shall not God search this out?” etc. Are there such variety of trials appointed to examine the sincerity of men’s graces? How great a vanity, then, is hypocrisy! and to how little purpose do men endeavour to conceal and hide it! We say, murder will out; and we may as confidently affirm, hypocrisy will out. When Rebekah had laid the plot to disguise her son Jacob, and by personating his brother, to get the blessing, Jacob thus objects against it: “My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me and not a blessing.” And if he should say, But what if my father detect the cheat? How, then, shall I look him in the face? How shall I escape a curse? After the same manner every upright soul scares itself from the way of hypocrisy. If I dissemble, and pretend to be what I am not, my Father will find me out. There is no darkness nor shadow of death that can conceal the hypocrite; but out it will come at last, let him use all the art he can to hide it.... If men’s works be not good, it is impossible they should be hid long. A gilded piece of brass may pass from hand to hand a little while, but the touchstone will discover the base metal; and if that does not, the fire will.—John Flavel.

Verse 21.—A godly man dares not sin secretly. He knows that God sees in secret. As God cannot be deceived by our subtlety, so he cannot be excluded by our secrecy.—Thomas Watson.

Verse 21.—In time of persecution for religion, nothing can counterbalance the terrors and allurements of the persecutors, and make a man steadfast in the cause of God, save the fear of God, and love to God settled in the heart; for the reason of the saints’ steadfastness in this Psalm, is because God would have searched out their sin if they had done otherwise, “for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.”—David Dickson.

Verse 22.—“Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long,” etc. Leonard Schoener left, amongst other papers, the following admonition, to comfort all who were suffering for Christ’s name:—

“We pray thee, O eternal God, to bow down thy gracious ear. Lord of Sabaoth, thou Lord of hosts, hear our complaint, for great affliction and persecution have prevailed. Pride has entered thine inheritance, and many supposed to be Christians, have united themselves therewith, and have thus brought in the abomination of desolation. They waste and destroy the Christian sanctuary. They have trodden the same under foot, and the abomination of desolation is worshipped as God. They have troubled thy holy city, thrown down thy holy altar, and slain her servants when they could lay their hands upon them. And now that we as a little flock are left, they have driven us into all thy lands with contempt and reproach. We are scattered as sheep having no shepherd. We have been compelled to forsake house and home. We are as night ravens which abide in the rocks; our chambers are in holes and crags. They watch for us as fowls that fly in the air. We wander in the woods, they hunt us with dogs. They lead us away, seized and bound, as lambs that open not their mouths. They cry out against us as seditious persons and heretics. We are brought like sheep to the slaughter. Many sit oppressed, and in bonds which even decay their bodies. Some have sunk under their sufferings, and died without fault. Here is the patience of the saints in the earth. We must be tried by suffering here. The faithful have they hanged on trees, strangled, hewn in pieces, secretly and openly drowned. Not only men, but likewise women and maidens have borne witness to the truth, that Jesus Christ is the truth, the only way to eternal life. The world still rages, and rests not; it raves as if mad. They invent lies against us. They cease not their fires and murders. They make the world too narrow for us. O Lord, how long wilt thou be silent? How long wilt thou not judge the blood of thy saints? Let it come up before thy throne. How precious in thine eye is the blood of thy holy ones! Therefore have we comfort in all our need, a refuge in thee alone, and in none besides; but neither comfort, nor rest, nor peace on this earth. But he who hopeth in thee shall never be confounded. O Lord, there is no sorrow so great that can separate us from thee; therefore, without ceasing we call upon thee, through Christ thy Son our Lord, whom thou of thy free grace hast given us for our comfort. He hath prepared and made known to us the straight path, and the way to eternal life. Everlasting glory and triumph, honour and praise, be given unto thee, both now and to eternity, and let thy righteousness remain for ever. Let all the people bless thy holy name, through Christ the righteous Judge, who cometh to judge the whole world. Amen.”—From “A Martyrology of the Churches of Christ, commonly called Baptists. Edited by E. B. Underhill.” 1850.

Verse 22.—“For thy sake are we killed.” It is mercy to us, that when God might punish us for our sins, he doth make our correction honourable, and our troubles to be for a good cause—“For thy sake,” etc.—David Dickson.

Verse 22.—“For thy sake.” This passage is cited by St. Paul, Rom. viii. 36, apparently from the LXX, an illustration of the fact that the church of God has in all ages been a persecuted church. But there is this remarkable difference between the tone of the Psalmist and the tone of the apostle: the former cannot understand the chastening, and complains that God’s heavy hand has been laid without cause upon his people; the latter can rejoice in persecutions also, and exclaim, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.”—J. J. Stewart Perowne.