EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 5 (last clause).—“Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” For what God thinks of sin, see Deut. vii. 22; Prov. vi. 16; Rev. ii. 6, 15; where he expresseth his detestation and hatred of it, from which hatred proceeds all those direful plagues and judgments thundered from the fiery mouth of his most holy law against it; nay, not only the work, but worker also of iniquity becomes the object of his hatred.—William Gurnall.

Verse 5 (last clause).—“Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” If God’s hatred be against the workers of iniquity, how great is it against iniquity itself! If a man hate a poisonous creature, he hates poison much more. The strength of God’s hatred is against sin, and so should we hate sin, and hate it with strength; it is an abomination unto God, let it be so unto us. Prov. vi. 16-19, “These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him; a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”—William Greenhill.

Verse 5 (last clause).—Those whom the Lord hates must perish. But he hates impenitent sinners, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Now, who are so properly workers of iniquity as those who are so eager at it that they will not leave this work, though they be in danger to perish for it? Christ puts it out of doubt. The workers of iniquity must perish. Luke xiii. 27. Those whom the Lord will tear in his wrath must perish with a witness; but those whom he hates, he tears, &c. Job xvi. 8. What more due to such impenitent sinners than hatred! What more proper than wrath, since they treasure up wrath? Rom. ii. Will he entertain those in the bosom of love whom his soul hates? No; destruction is their portion. Prov. xxi. 15. If all the curses of the law, all the threatenings of the gospel, all judgments in earth or in hell, will be the ruin of him, he must perish. If the Lord’s arm be strong enough to wound him dead, he must die. Psalm lxviii. 21.... Avoid all that Christ hates. If you love, approve, entertain that which is hateful to Christ, how can he love you? What is that which Christ hates? The psalmist (Psalm xlv. 7) tells us, making it one of Christ’s attributes, to hate wickedness.... As Christ hates iniquity, so the “workers of iniquity.” You must not love them, so as to be intimate with them, delight in the company of evil doers, openly profane, scorners of godliness, obstructors of the power of it. 2 Cor. vi. 14-18. If you love so near relations to wicked men, Christ will have no relation to you. If you would have communion with Christ in sweet acts of love, you must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, nor those that act them.—David Clarkson, B.D., 1621-1686.

Verse 6.—“Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing,” whether in jest or earnest. Those that lie in jest will (without repentance) go to hell in earnest.—John Trapp.

Verse 6.—“Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing,” etc. In the same field wherein Absalom raised battle against his father, stood the oak that was his gibbet. The mule whereon he rode was his hangman, for the mule carried him to the tree, and the hair wherein he gloried served for a rope to hang. Little know the wicked how everything which now they have, shall be a snare to trap them when God begins to punish them.—William Cowper, 1612.

Verse 7.—“In thy fear will I worship.” As natural fear makes the spirits retire from the outward parts of the body to the heart, so a holy fear of miscarrying, in so solemn a duty, would be a means to call thy thoughts from all exterior carnal objects, and fix them upon the duty in hand. As the sculpture is on the seal, so will the print on the wax be; if the fear of God be deeply engraven on thy heart, there is no doubt but it will make a suitable impression on the duty thou performest.—William Gurnall.

Verse 7.—David saith, “In thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.” The temple did shadow forth the body of our Lord Christ, the Mediator, in whom only our prayers and services are accepted with the Father which Solomon respected in looking towards the temple.—Thomas Manton, D.D., 1620-1677.

Verse 7.—“But as for me,” etc. A blessed verse this! a blessed saying! The words and the sense itself, carry with them a powerful contrast. For there are two things with which this life is exercised, Hope and Fear, which are, as it were, those two springs of Judges i. 15, the one from above, the other from beneath. Fear comes from beholding the threats and fearful judgments of God; as being a God in whose sight no one is clean, every one is a sinner, every one is damnable. But hope comes from beholding the promises, and the all-sweet mercies of God; as it is written (Psalm xxv. 6), “Remember, O Lord, thy lovingkindnesses, and thy tender mercies which have been ever of old.” Between these two, as between the upper and nether millstone, we must always be ground and kept, that we never turn either to the right hand or to the left. For this turning is the state peculiar to hypocrites, who are exercised with the two contrary things, security and presumption.—Martin Luther.

Verse 9.—If the whole soul be infected with such a desperate disease, what a great and difficult work is it to regenerate, to restore men again to spiritual life and vigour, when every part of them is seized by such a mortal distemper! How great a cure doth the Spirit of God effect in restoring a soul by sanctifying it! To heal but the lungs or the liver, if corrupted, is counted a great cure, though performed but upon one part of thee; but all thy inward parts are very rottenness. “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness: their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.” How great a cure is it then to heal thee! Such as is only in the skill and power of God to do.—Thomas Goodwin.

Verse 9.—“Their throat is an open sepulchre.” This figure graphically portrays the filthy conversation of the wicked. Nothing can be more abominable to the senses than an open sepulchre, when a dead body beginning to putrefy steams forth its tainted exhalations. What proceeds out of their mouth is infected and putrid; and as the exhalation from a sepulchre proves the corruption within, so it is with the corrupt conversation of sinners.—Robert Haldane’s “Expositions of the Epistle to the Romans,” 1835.

Verse 9.—“Their throat is an open sepulchre.” This doth admonish us, (1) that the speeches of natural unregenerate men are unsavoury, rotten, and hurtful to others; for, as a sepulchre doth send out noisome savours and filthy smells, so evil men do utter rotten and filthy words. (2) As a sepulchre doth consume and devour bodies cast into it, so wicked men do with their cruel words destroy others; they are like a gulf to destroy others. (3) As a sepulchre, having devoured many corpses, is still ready to consume more, being never satisfied, so wicked men, having overthrown many with their words, do proceed in their outrage, seeking whom they may devour.—Thomas Wilson, 1653.

Verse 9.—“Their inward part,” etc. Their hearts are storehouses for the devil.—John Trapp.

Verse 10.—All those portions where we find apparently prayers that breathe revenge, are never to be thought of as anything else than the breathed assent of righteous souls to the justice of their God, who taketh vengeance on sin. When taken as the words of Christ himself, they are no other than an echo of the Intercessor’s acquiescence at last in the sentence on the barren fig-tree. It is as if he cried aloud, “Hew it down now, I will intercede no longer, the doom is righteous, destroy them, O God; cast them out in (or, for) the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee.” And in the same moment he may be supposed to invite his saints to sympathise in his decision; just as in Rev. xviii. 20, “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets.” In like manner, when one of Christ’s members, in entire sympathy with his Head, views the barren fig-tree from the same point of observation, and sees the glory of God concerned in inflicting the blow, he too can cry, “Let the axe smite!” Had Abraham stood beside the angel who destroyed Sodom, and seen how Jehovah’s name required the ruin of these impenitent rebels, he would have cried out, “Let the shower descend; let the fire and brimstone come down!” not in any spirit of revenge; not from want of tender love to souls, but from intense earnestness of concern for the glory of his God. We consider this explanation to be the real key that opens all the difficult passages in this book, where curses seem to be called for on the head of the ungodly. They are no more than a carrying out of Deut. xxvii. 15-26, “Let all the people say, Amen,” and an entering into the Lord’s holy abhorrence of sin, and delight in acts of justice expressed in the “Amen hallelujah,” of Rev. xix. 3.—Andrew A. Bonar, 1859.

Verse 10.—(Or imprecatory passages generally). Lord, when in my daily service I read David’s Psalms, give me to alter the accent of my soul according to their several subjects. In such Psalms wherein he confesseth his sins, or requesteth thy pardon, or praiseth for former, or prayeth for future favours, in all these give me to raise my soul to as high a pitch as may be. But when I come to such Psalms wherein he curseth his enemies, O there let me bring my soul down to a lower note. For those words were made only to fit David’s mouth. I have the like breath, but not the same spirit to pronounce them. Nor let me flatter myself, that it is lawful for me, with David, to curse thine enemies, lest my deceitful heart entitle mine enemies to be thine, and so what was religion in David, prove malice in me, whilst I act revenge under the pretence of piety.—Thomas Fuller, D.D., 1608-1661.

Verse 12.—When the strong man armed comes against us, when he darts his fiery darts, what can hurt us, if God compass us about with his lovingkindness as with a shield? He can disarm the tempter and restrain his malice, and tread him under our feet. If God be not with us, if he do not give us sufficient grace, so subtle, so powerful, so politic an enemy, will be too hard for us. How surely are we foiled, and get the worse, when we pretend to grapple with him in our own strength! How many falls, and how many bruises by those falls have we got, by relying too much on our own skill? How often have we had the help of God when we have humbly asked it! And how sure are we to get the victory, if Christ pray for us that we do not fail! Luke xxii. 31. Where can we go for shelter but unto God our Maker! When this lion of the forest does begin to roar, how will he terrify and vex us, till he that permits him for awhile to trouble us, be pleased to chain him up again!—Timothy Rogers, 1691.

Verse 12.—“As with a shield.” Luther, when making his way into the presence of Cardinal Cajetan, who had summoned him to answer for his heretical opinions at Augsburg, was asked by one of the Cardinal’s minions, where he should find a shelter, if his patron, the Elector of Saxony, should desert him? “Under the shelter of heaven!” was the reply. The silenced minion turned round and went his way.

Verse 12.—“With favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.” The shield is not for the defence of any particular part of the body, as almost all the other pieces are: helmet, fitted for the head; plate designed for the breast; and so others, they have their several parts, which they are fastened to; but the shield is a piece that is intended for the defence of the whole body. It was used therefore to be made very large; for its broadness, called a gate or door, because so long and large, as in a manner to cover the whole body. And if the shield were not large enough at once to cover every part, yet being a movable piece of armour, the skilful soldier might turn it this way or that way, to catch the blow or arrow from lighting on any part they were directed to. And this indeed doth excellently well set forth the universal use that faith is of to the Christian. It defends the whole man: every part of the Christian by it is preserved.... The shield doth not only defend the whole body, but it is a defence to the soldier’s armour also; it keeps the arrow from the helmet as well as head, from the breast and breastplate also. Thus faith, it is armour upon armour, a grace that preserves all the other graces.—William Gurnall.