Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/207

Rh and confusion, and all their pleas and excuses will be overruled as frivolous. There is a judgment to come, in which every man's present character and work, though ever so artfully concealed and disguised, shall be truly and perfectly discovered, and appear in their own colours, and every man's future state will be, by an irreversible sentence, determined for eternity. The ungodly must appear in that judgment, to receive according to the things done in the body; they may hope to come off, nay, to come off with honour, but their hope will deceive them; they shall not stand in the judgment; so plain will the evidence be against them, and so just and impartial will the judgment be upon it. (2.) They will be for ever shut out from the society of the blessed; they shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous; in the judgment, so some, in that court wherein the saints, as assessors with Christ, shall judge the world, those holy myriads with which he shall come to execute judgment upon all, Jude 14. 1 Cor. vi. 2. Or, in heaven; there will be seen, shortly, a general assembly of the church of the first-born, a congregation of the righteous, of all the saints, and none but saints, and saints made perfect, such a congregation of them as never was in this world, 2 Thess. ii. 1. The wicked shall not have a place in the congregation. Into the new Jerusalem none unclean or unsanctified shall enter; they shall see the righteous enter into the kingdom, and themselves, to their everlasting vexation, thrust out, Luke xiii. 27. The wicked and profane, in this world, ridiculed the righteous and their congregation, despised them, and cared not for their company; justly, therefore, will they be for ever separated from them. Hypocrites, in this world, under the disguise of a plausible profession, may thrust themselves into the congregation of the righteous, and remain undisturbed and undiscovered there; but Christ cannot be imposed upon, though his ministers may; the day is coming when he will separate between the sheep and the goats, the tares and the wheat; see Matth. xiii. 41, 49. That great day, so the Chaldee here calls it, will be a day of discovery, a day of distinction, and a day of final division. Then you shall return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, which here it is sometimes hard to do, Mal. iii. 18.

3. The reason rendered of this different state of the godly and wicked, v. 6. (1.) God must have all the glory of the prosperity and happiness of the righteous. They are blessed, because the Lord knows their way; he chose them into it, inclined them to choose it, leads and guides them in it, and orders all their steps. (2.) Sinners must bear all the blame of their own destruction. Therefore the ungodly perish, because the very way in which they have chosen and resolved to walk, leads directly to destruction; it naturally tends toward ruin, and therefore must necessarily end in it. Or, we may take it thus, The Lord approves of, and is well pleased with, the way of the righteous, and therefore, under the influence of his gracious smiles, it shall prosper, and end well; but he is angry at the way of the wicked, all they do is offensive to him, and therefore it shall perish, and they in it. It is certain that every man's judgment proceeds from the Lord, and it is well or ill with us, and is likely to be so to all eternity, according as we are, or are not, accepted of God. Let this support the drooping spirits of the righteous, that the Lord knows their way, knows their hearts, (Jer. xii. 3.) knows their secret devotions, (Matth. vi. 6.) knows their character, how much soever it is blackened and blemished by the reproaches of men, and will shortly make them and their way manifest before the world, to their immortal joy and honour. Let this cast a damp upon the security and jollity of sinners, that their way, though pleasant now, will perish at last.

In singing these verses, and praying over them, let us possess ourselves with a holy dread of the wicked man's portion, and deprecate it with a firm and lively expectation of the judgment to come, and stir up ourselves to prepare for it, and with a holy care, to approve ourselves to God in every thing, entreating his favour with our whole hearts.

PSALM II.

As the foregoing psalm was moral, and showed us our duty, so this is evangelical, and shows us our Saviour. Under the type of David's kingdom, which was of divine appointment, met with much opposition, but prevailed at last, the kingdom of the Messiah, the Son of David, is prophesied of, which is the primary intention and scope of the psalm; and I think there is less in it of the type, and more of the anti-type, than in any of the gospel-psalms, for there is nothing in it but what is applicable to Christ, but some things that are not at all applicable to David; (v. 6, 7.) Thou art my Son, (v. 8.) I will give thee the uttermost parts of the earth, and, (v. 12.) Kiss the Son. It is interpreted of Christ, Acts iv. 27.—xiii. 33. Heb, i. 5. The Holy Ghost here foretells, I. The opposition that should be given to the kingdom of the Messiah, v. 1..3. II. The baffling and chastising of that opposition, v. 4, 5. III. The setting up of the kingdom of Christ, notwithstanding that opposition, v. 6. IV. The confirmation and establishment of it, v. 7. V. A promise of the enlargement and success of it, v. 8, 9. VI. A call and exhortation to kings and princes, to yield themselves the willing subjects of this kingdom, v. 10..12. Or thus; We have here, 1. Threatenings denounced against the adversaries of Christ's kingdom, v. 1..6. 2. Promises made to Christ himself the Head of this kingdom, v. 7..9. 3. Counsel given to all, to espouse the interests of this kingdom, v. 10..12. This psalm, as the former, is very fitly prefixed to this book of devotions, because, as it is necessary to our acceptance with God, that we should be subject to the precepts of his law, so it is likewise, that we should be subject to the grace of his gospel, and come to him in the name of a Mediator.

HY do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the, and against his Anointed, saying, 3. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the shall have them in derision. 5. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

We have here a very great struggle about the kingdom of Christ, hell and heaven contesting it; the seat of the war is this earth, where Satan has long had an usurped kingdom, and exercised dominion to that degree, that he has been called The prince of the power of the very air we breathe in, and The god of the world we live in. He knows very well that, as the Messiah's kingdom rises and gets ground, his falls and loses ground; and therefore, though it will be set up certainly, it shall not be set up tamely. Observe here,

I. The mighty opposition that would be given to the Messiah and his kingdom, to his holy religion and all the interests of it, v. 1··3. One would have expected that so great a blessing to this world, should have been universally welcomed and embraced, and that every sheaf should immediately have bowed to that of the Messiah, and all the crowns and sceptres on earth should have been laid at his feet; but it proves quite contrary. Never were the notions of any sect of philosophers, though