PART IV.

25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.

No one can lay claim to the character and privileges of a believer, to whom sin is not the greatest sorrow and the heaviest burden.1 To have a "soul cleaving unto the dust," and not to feel the trouble of it, is the black mark of a sinner, "dead in sins"-dead to God. To "know the plague of our own heart," 2 to feel our misery, to believe the remedy, and to apply it to our own case, is the satisfactory evidence of a child of God. Dust is the portion of the world; better. But how strange, how

they wish for no

3

humbling, that the believer should still continue to

so polluting habit of the

have so much connexion with the dust as it is to the touch, the taste, and the renewed man, yet that there should be a cleaving to it!" Alas, how close it clings! And it is this that, like the dust of the summer road, blinds our eyes, and obscures our prospects. It is this earthliness of the soul that obstructs our brighter view of the Saviour, dims the eye of faith, and hides the glorious prospects which, if beheld in the clear horizon, would enliven and invigorate us in our heavenly way. But in the midst of conflict, humiliation, and discouragement, the believer prays-" Quicken me." Jesus came that we might have life; "let us come to him "that we may have it more abundantly.” The plea

66

1 Psalm xxxviii. 4.

3 Rom. vii. 24, 25.

2 1 Kings viii. 38.

4 John x. 10.

you,

is such as must "have power with God and prevail' According to thy word -"Faithful is he that calleth who also will do it.' " 1 But how different is the character of the mere professor; ready probably to make the same confession, yet without humiliation, without prayer, without faith. Nothing is more common than to hear the complaint-“ My soul cleaveth unto the dust." The world has such power over us-we are so cold-so dead to God!' whilst perhaps the complaint is never once brought to God-never accompanied with earnest wrestling for quickening grace. Nay, more, the complaint is often the language of self-complacency, and urged as an evidence of the good state of the heart before God. Yet it is not the complaint of sickness, but an application to the physician, that advances the recovery of the patient. We do not usually expect to improve our condition, by wishing it better, or by mourning that it is so bad. Nor is it the confession of sin, but the application to him who alone is able to relieve our case, that marks the real contrition of the soul before God. When confession evaporates in heartless complaints, it has little connexion with the tenderness of a heart, whose secret springs have been touched by Divine grace. But when the utterance of prayer flows from the expression of complaint, it is the voice of God's own "Spirit making intercession for us; 2 and then indeed we can realize the encouragement, that he that "searcheth the hearts, knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Some are ready to give up or delay their duty, when they have been unable to bring their

1 1 Thess. v. 23, 24.

2 Rom. viii. 26.

3 Ibid. 27.

heart to it. Thus does Satan get advantage of us' by our ignorance of his devices.' Quickening grace is not the ground or warrant for duty. Indisposition to duty is not our weakness but our sin-not therefore to be indulged but resisted. We must mourn over the dulness that hinders us, and diligently wait for the help we every moment need.' God keeps the grace in his own hands to exercise our daily dependence upon him. But the door will not be long shut to him, who has faith and patience to wait until it is opened.

Now let me sift the character of my profession. Is it such as humbles me in a painful sense of shortcomings? Am I never spending time in fruitless bemoanings of my state, which had been far better spent in vigorous actings of grace? If I find "my soul cleaving to the dust," am I not sometimes "lying on my face," when I ought to be taking heaven by violence, by importunate restless petitions for quickening grace? Are my prayers invigorated by confidence in the word of God? Is my religion an habitual, persevering, overcoming conflict with sin ?

2

O Lord, make me more deeply ashamed, that "my soul should cleave to the dust." Breathe upon me fresh influence from thy quickening Spirit. Help me to plead thy word of promise; and oh! may every fresh view of my sinfulness, while it prostrates me in self-abasement before thee, be overruled to endear the Saviour as daily and hourly more precious to my soul. For defiled as I am in myself, in every service of my heart, what but the unceasing application of his blood, and the uninterrupted prevalence

1 Joshua vii. 10.

2 Matt. xi. 12.

of his intercession, gives me a moment's confidence before thee, or prevents the very sins that mingle with my prayers from sealing my condemnation? Blessed Saviour! it is nothing but thy everlasting merit, covering my person, and honouring my sacrifice, that satisfies the justice of an offended God, and restrains it from breaking forth as a devouring fire to consume me upon my very knees!

26. I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.

A BEAUTIFUL description of the " simplicity and godly sincerity "I of the believer's "walk with God!" He spreads his whole case before his God, " declaring his ways" of conduct with filial confidence, his ways of difficulty with holy fellowship, and his ways of sinfulness with tender contrition. It is his delight to acquaint him with all his undertakings; to receive his direction; 2 and to tell him his distress, that he may be guided by his counsel, confirmed by his strength, pitied by his love, and delivered by his power. And how sweet, above all, to overcome his strangeness under a sense of guilt, and to lay open "his ways" of sin before him “ without partiality and without hypocrisy ! " 3 Then indeed he is enabled to say, "Thou heardest me." "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.' "4 While the voice of ingenuous confession was suppressed, cries and lamentations were disregarded. It was not the voice of the penitent child, and therefore "where was the sounding of his father's bowels, and of his mercies towards him?" 1 But now, on the first

1 Prov. iii. 6.

3 Comp. Ps. li. 3; lxix. 5.

2 Comp. Psalm xxxiv. 4—6. 4 Ibid. xxxii. 3. 5 Isa. lxiii. 15,

utterance of confession from his lips, or rather on the first purpose of contrition formed in his heart; "while he is yet speaking," the full and free pardon, which had been signed in heaven, comes down with royal parental love to his soul-" I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."2 Oh! what cannot the child of God, in the same spirit of ingenuous confession, testify of the more than parental tenderness with which his transgression is forgiven, and his sin covered." ." And yet how necessary to the free declaration of our ways is an acquaintance with the way of forgiveness! If our great High Priest had not passed into the heavens, how awful would have been the thought, that "all things were naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do ! " We could only then have thought of "covering our transgressions like Adam, by hiding our iniquity in our bosom."4 But now, even though "our ways" are so defiled, so crooked, that we are made to abhor ourselves on account of them, we are yet encouraged boldly to "declare" them all before God with the assurance of finding pardon, acceptance, and seasonable supply of grace.5

And thus does the child of God gain confidence in prayer for the continual teaching of his Father's Spirit. The same heavenly guidance that brought him into the way of return, he needs for every successive step to the end-"Teach me thy way, O Lord: I will walk in thy truth."6 "I have declared my " ignorance, my sinfulness, and my whole experience before thee,

1 Dan. ix. 20.

Psalm. xxxii. 5. 2 Sam. xii. 13. Compare Jer. iii. 12, 13.

3 Compare Psalm xxxii. 1. Luke xv. 18-22. Prov. xxviii. 13. 4 Job xxxi. 33. 5 Heb. iv. 13-16. Psalm lxxxvi. 11.