EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

Verse 9.—“My flesh shall rest in hope.” If a Jew pawned his bed-clothes, God provided mercifully that it should be restored before night: “For,” saith he, “that is his covering: wherein shall he sleep?” Exodus xxii. 27. Truly, hope is the saint’s covering, wherein he wraps himself, when he lays his body down to sleep in the grave: “My flesh,” saith David, “shall rest in hope.” O Christian, bestir thyself to redeem thy hope before this sun of thy temporal life goes down upon thee, or else thou art sure to lie down in sorrow. A sad going to the bed of the grave he hath who hath no hope of a resurrection to life.—William Gurnall.

Verse 9.—“My flesh shall rest in hope.” That hope which is grounded on the word, gives rest to the soul; ’tis an anchor to keep it steady. Heb. vi. 13. Which shows the unmovableness of that which our anchor is fastened to. The promise sustains our faith, and our faith is that which supports us. He that hopes in the Word as David did (Psalm cxix. 81), lays a mighty stress upon it; as Samson did when he leaned upon the pillars of the house, so as to pull it down upon the Philistines. A believer throws the whole weight of all his affairs and concernments, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, upon the promises of God, like a man resolved to stand or fall with them. He ventures himself, and all that belongs to him, entirely upon this bottom, which is in effect to say, if they will not bear me up, I am content to sink; I know that there shall be a performance of those things which have been told me from the Lord, and therefore I will incessantly look for it.—Timothy Cruso.

Verse 10.—“For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,” etc. The title of this golden text may be—The embalming of the dead saints: the force whereof is to free the souls from dereliction in the state of death, and to secure the bodies of God’s saints from corruption in the grave. It is the art which I desire to learn, and at this time, teach upon this sad occasion,[5] even the preparing of this confection against our burials.—George Hughes, 1642.

Verse 10.—Many of the elder Reformers held that our Lord in soul actually descended into hell, according to some of them to suffer there as our surety, and according to others to make a public triumph over death and hell. This idea was almost universally, and, as we believe, most properly repudiated by the Puritans. To prove this fact, it may be well to quote from Corbet’s witty itinerary of,

e laments the secularisation of church appurtenances at Banbury, by the Puritans whom he describes as,

Verse 10.—“My soul in hell.” Christ in soul descended into hell, when as our surety he submitted himself to bear those hellish sorrows (or equivalent to them), which we were bound by our sins to suffer for ever. His descension is his projection of himself into the sea of God’s wrath conceived for our sins, and his ingression into most unspeakable straits and torments in his soul, which we should else have suffered for ever in hell. This way of Christ’s descending into hell is expressly uttered in the person of David, as the type of Christ. Psalm lxxxvi. 13; cxvi. 3; lxix. 1-3. Thus the prophet Isaiah saith, “His soul was made an offering.” Isaiah liii. 10. And this I take it David means, when he said of Christ, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.” Psalm xvi.; Acts ii. And thus Christ descended into hell when he was alive, not when he was dead. Thus his soul was in hell when in the garden he did sweat blood, and on the cross when he cried so lamentably, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matt. xxvi. 38.—Nicholas Byfield’s “Exposition of the Creed,” 1676.

Verse 10.—“In hell.” Sheol here, as hades in the New Testament, signifies the state of the dead, the separate state of souls after death, the invisible world of souls, where Christ’s soul was, though it did not remain there, but on the third day returned to its body again. It seems best of all to interpret this word of the grave as it is rendered; Gen. xlii. 38; Isaiah xxxviii. 18.—John Gill.

Verse 10.—“Thine Holy One.” Holiness preserves the soul from dereliction, in the state of death, and the body of the saint from corruption in the grave. If it be desired by any that doubt of it, to see the clear issue of this from the text, I shall guide them to read this text with a great accent upon that term, “Thine Holy One,” that they may take special notice of it, even the quality of that man exempted from these evils. In this the Spirit of God puts an emphasis upon holiness, as counter-working and prevailing over death and the grave. It is this and nothing but this, that thus keeps the man, dead and buried, from desertion in death, and corruption in the grave.—George Hughes.

Verse 10.—The great promise to Christ is, that though he took a corruptible body upon him, yet he should “not see corruption,” that is, partake of corruption, corruption should have no communion with, much less power over him.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 10.—Quoted by the apostle Peter (Acts ii. 27); on which Hackett (Com. in loc.) observes:—“The sense then may be expressed thus: Thou wilt not give me up as a prey to death; he shall not have power over me, to dissolve the body and cause it to return to dust.”

Verse 11.—In this verse are four things observable:—1. A Guide, Thou. 2. A Traveller, Me. 3. A Way, the Path. 4. The End, Life, described after. For that which follows is but the description of this life.

This verse is a proper subject for a meditation. For, all three are solitary. The guide is but one; the traveller, one; the way, one; and the life, the only one. To meditate well on this is to bring all together; and at last make them all but one. Which that we may do, let us first seek our Guide.

The Guide. Him we find named in the first verse—Jehovah. Here we may begin, as we ought in all holy exercises, with adoration. For, “unto him all knees shall bow;” nay, unto his name. For holy is his name. Glory be to thee, O God! He is Deus, therefore holy; he is Deus fortis, therefore able. “For the strength of the hills is his;” and if there be a way on earth, he can “show” it; for in his hands are all the corners of the earth. But is he willing to “show”? Yes, though he be Deus, holy (which is a word terrible to poor flesh and blood), yet he is Deus meus, my holiness. That takes away servile fear. He is meus, we have a property in him; and he is willing: “Thou wilt show,” etc. And that you may know he will guide, David shows a little above how diligently he will guide. First, he will go before, he will lead the way himself: if I can but follow, I shall be sure to go right. And he that hath a guide before him, and will not follow, is worthy to be left behind. But say, I am willing, I do desire to go, and I do follow: what if, through faintness in the long way, I fall often? or, for want of care step out of the way, shall I not then be left behind? Fear not; for “He is at my right hand, so that I shall not slip.” Verse 8. This is some comfort indeed. But we are so soon weary in this way, and do fall and err so often, that it would weary the patience of a good guide to lead us but one day. Will he bear with us, and continue to the end? Yes, always; or this text deceives us; for all this is found in the eighth verse. We must have him or none; for he is one, and the only one. So confessed Asaph: “Whom have I on earth but thee?” Seek this good Guide, he is easy to be found: “Seek, and ye shall find.” You shall find that he is first holy; secondly, able; thirdly, willing; fourthly, diligent; and fifthly, constant. O my soul! to follow him, and he will make thee both able to follow to the end; and holy in the end.

The traveller. Having found the Guide, we shall not long seek for one that wants him; for, see, here is a man out of his way. And that will soon appear if we consider his condition. For, he is a stranger (“Thou wilt show me”); and what am I? “I am a stranger, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were,” says he, in another place. But this was in the old time under the law; what, are we, their sons, in the gospel, any other? Peter tells us no: that we are strangers and pilgrims too; that is, travellers. We travel, as being out of our country; and we are strangers to those we converse with. For neither the natives be our friends, nor anything we possess truly our own. It is time we had animum revertendi; and surely so we have if we could but pray on the way. Converte nos Domine. But it is so long since we came hither, we have forgot the way home: obliti sunt montis mei. Yet still we are travelling; and, we think, homewards. For all hope well: oculi omnium sperant in te. But right, like pilgrims, or rather, wanderers. For we scarce know if we go right; and, which is worse, have little care to enquire.

“Me.” David still keeps the singular number. As there is but one guide, so he speaks in the person but of one traveller. There is somewhat, peradventure, in that. It is to show his confidence. The Lord’s prayer is in the plural, but the creed in the singular. We may pray that God would guide all; but we can be confident for none but ourselves. “Thou wilt show,” or thou dost, or hast, as some translate: all is but to show particular confidence. “Thou wilt show me;” me, not us, a number indefinite wherein I may be one; but me in particular that am out of the way; that am myself alone; that must walk in “the path” alone. Either I must follow, or go before others; I must work for myself alone; believe for myself alone; and be saved by one alone. The way in this text that I must walk is but one; nay, it is but a “path” where but one can go: this is no highway, but a way of sufferance by favour: it is none of ours. It is no road; you cannot hurry here, or gallop by troops: it is but semita, a small footpath for one to go alone in. Nay, as it is a way for one alone, so it is a lonely way: preparate vias ejus in solitudine, saith John, and he knew which way God went, who is our Guide in solitudine: there is the sweetness of solitariness, the comforts of meditation. For God is never more familiar with man than when man is in solitudine, alone, in his path by himself. Christ himself came thus, all lonely; without troop, or noise, and ever avoided the tumultuous multitude, though they would have made him a king. And he never spake to them but in parables; but to his that sought him, in solitudine, in private, he spake plain; and so doth he still love to do to the soul, in private and particular. Therefore well said David, “Thou wilt show me,” in particular, and in the singular number. But how shall I know that I, in particular, shall be taught and showed this way? This prophet, that had experience, will tell us: mites docebit, the humble he will teach. Psalm xxv. 9. If thou canst humble thyself, thou mayst be sure to see thy guide; Christ hath crowned this virtue with a blessing: “Blessed are the meek;” for them he will call to him and teach. But thou must be humble then. For heaven is built like our churches, high-roofed within, but with a strait low gate; they then that enter there must stoop, ere they can see God. Humility is the mark at every cross, whereby thou shalt know if thou be in the way: if any be otherwise minded, God also shall reveal it unto you, for, “Thou wilt show.”

“The path.” But let us now see what he will show us: “the path.” We must know, that as men have many paths out of their highway—the world—but they all end in destruction; so God hath many paths out of his highway, the word, but they all end in salvation. Let us oppose ours to his (as indeed they are opposite), and see how they agree. Ours are not worth marking, his marked with an attendite, to begin withal; ours bloody, his unpolluted; ours crooked, his straight; ours lead to hell, his to heaven. Have not we strayed then? We had need to turn and take another path, and that quickly: we may well say, semitas nostras, à viâ tuâ. Well, here is the Book, and here are the ways before you; and he will show you. Here is semita mandatorum, in the one hundred-and-nineteenth Psalm, verse thirty-five; here is semita pacifica (Prov iii. 17); here is semita æquitatis (Prov. iv. 11); here is semita justitiæ (Psalm xxiii. 3); here is semita judicii (Prov. xvii. 23); and many others. These are, every one of them, God’s ways; but these are somewhat too many and too far off: we must seek the way where all these meet, and that will bring us into “the path;” these are many, but I will show you yet “a more excellent way,” saith Paul. 1 Cor. xii. 31.