Psalms 14 commentary

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. The sinner here described is an atheist, one that saith there is no Judge or Governor of the world, no Providence ruling over the affairs of men. He says this in his heart. He cannot satisfy himself that there is none, but wishes there were none, and pleases himself that it is possible there may be none; he is willing to think there is none. This sinner is a fool; he is simple and unwise, and this is evidence of it: he is wicked and profane, and this is the cause. The word of God is a discerner of these thoughts. No man will say, There is no God, till he is so hardened in sin, that it is become his interest that there should be none to call him to an account. The disease of sin has infected the whole race of mankind. They are all gone aside, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Whatever good is in any of the children of men, or is done by them, it is not of themselves, it is God's work in them. They are gone aside from the right way of their duty, the way that leads to happiness, and are turned into the paths of the destroyer. Let us lament the corruption of our nature, and see what need we have of the grace of God: let us not marvel that we are told we must be born again. And we must not rest in any thing short of union with Christ, and a new creation to holiness by his Spirit. The psalmist endeavours to convince sinners of the evil and danger of their way, while they think themselves very wise, and good, and safe. Their wickedness is described. Those that care not for God's people, for God's poor, care not for God himself. People run into all manner of wickedness, because they do not call upon God for his grace. What good can be expected from those that live without prayer? But those that will not fear God, may be made to fear at the shaking of a leaf. All our knowledge of the depravity of human nature should endear to us salvation out of Zion. But in heaven alone shall the whole company of the redeemed rejoice fully, and for evermore. The world is bad; oh that the Messiah would come and change its character! There is universal corruption; oh for the times of reformation! The triumphs of Zion's King will be the joys of Zion's children. The second coming of Christ, finally to do away the dominion of sin and Satan, will be the completing of this salvation, which is the hope, and will be the joy of every Israelite indeed. With this assurance we should comfort ourselves and one another, under the sins of sinners and sufferings of saints.

PSALM 14.

In the beginning the Psalmist describes the wicked contempt of God into which almost the whole people had broken forth. To give the greater weight to his complaint, he represents God himself as uttering it. Afterwards he comforts himself and others with the hope of a remedy, which he assures himself God will very soon provide, although, in the meantime, he groans and feels deep distress at the disorder which he beholds. “Combien que cependant il gemisse et se sente angoisse du desordre qu’il veoit.” — Fr.

To the chief musician of David.

Psalm 14:1

1. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God; they have corrupted; Calvin has here given a literal rendering of the Hebrew words, They have corrupted. Some suppose that themselves is to be understood, as in Exodus 32:7; others, their ways, as in Genesis 6:12, but the meaning which Calvin has attached to the phrase is, They have corrupted or perverted all good order. , They have done abominable work; there is none that doeth good.

Many of the Jews are of opinion that in this psalm there is given forth a prediction concerning the future oppression of their nation: as if David, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, bewailed the afflicted condition of the Church of God under the tyranny of the Gentiles. They therefore refer what is here spoken to the dispersed condition in which we see them at the present day, as if they were that precious heritage of God which the wild beasts devour. But it is very apparent, that in wishing to cover the disgrace of their nation, they wrest and apply to the Gentiles, without any just ground, what is said concerning the perverse children of Abraham. “Ce qui est dit de ceux qui, fausses enseignes serenomment enfans d’Abraham vivans autrement qu’il n’appartient.” — Fr. “What is said of those who, according to false marks, call themselves the children of Abraham, while living a different life from what they ought.” We cannot certainly find a better qualified interpreter than the Apostle Paul, and he applies this psalm expressly to the people who lived under the law, (Romans 3:19.) Besides, although we had not the testimony of this Apostle, the structure of the psalm very clearly shows that David means rather the domestic tyrants and enemies of the faithful than foreign ones; a point which it is very necessary for us to understand. We know that it is a temptation which pains us exceedingly, to see wickedness breaking forth and prevailing in the midst of the Church, the good and the simple unrighteously afflicted, while the wicked cruelly domineer according to their pleasure. This sad spectacle almost completely disheartens us; and, therefore, we have much need to be fortified from the example which David here sets before us: so that, in the midst of the greatest desolations which we behold in the Church, we may comfort ourselves with this assurance, that God will finally deliver her from them. I have no doubt that there is here described the disordered and desolate state of Judea which Saul introduced when he began to rage openly. Then, as if the remembrance of God had been extinguished from the minds of men, all piety had vanished, and with respect to integrity or uprightness among men, there was just as little of it as of godliness.

The fool hath said. As the Hebrew word נבל, nabal, signifies not only a fool, but also a perverse, vile, and contemptible person, it would not have been unsuitable to have translated it so in this place; yet I am content to follow the more generally received interpretation, which is, that all profane persons, who have cast off all fear of God and abandoned themselves to iniquity, are convicted of madness. David does not bring against his enemies the charge of common foolishness, but rather inveighs against the folly and insane hardihood of those whom the world accounts eminent for their wisdom. We commonly see that those who, in the estimation both of themselves and of others, highly excel in sagacity and wisdom, employ their cunning in laying snares, and exercise the ingenuity of their minds in despising and mocking God. It is therefore important for us, in the first place, to know, that however much the world applaud these crafty and scoffing characters, who allow themselves to indulge to any extent in wickedness, yet the Holy Spirit condemns them as being fools; for there is no stupidity more brutish than forgetfulness of God. We ought, however, at the same time, carefully to mark the evidence on which the Psalmist comes to the conclusion that they have cast off all sense of religion, and it is this: that they have overthrown all order, so that they no longer make any distinction between right and wrong, and have no regard for honesty, nor love of humanity. David, therefore, does not speak of the hidden affection of the heart of the wicked, except in so far as they discover themselves by their external actions. The import of his language is, How does it come to pass, that these men indulge themselves in their lusts so boldly and so outrageously, that they pay no regard to righteousness or equity; in short, that they madly rush into every kind of wickedness, if it is not because they have shaken off all sense of religion, and extinguished, as far as they can, all remembrance of God from their minds? When persons retain in their heart any sense of religion, they must necessarily have some modesty, and be in some measure restrained and prevented from entirely disregarding the dictates of their conscience. From this it follows, that when the ungodly allow themselves to follow their own inclinations, so obstinately and audaciously as they are here represented as doing, without any sense of shame, it is an evidence that they have cast off all fear of God.

The Psalmist says that they speak in their heart They may not utter this detestable blasphemy, There is no God, with their mouths; but the unbridled licentiousness of their life loudly and distinctly declares that in their hearts, which are destitute of all godliness, they soothingly sing to themselves this song. Not that they maintain, by drawn out arguments or formal syllogisms, as they term them, that there is no God, (for to render them so much the more inexcusable, God from time to time causes even the most wicked of men to feel secret pangs of conscience, that they may be compelled to acknowledge his majesty and sovereign power;) but whatever right knowledge God instils into them they partly stifle it by their malice against him, and partly corrupt it, until religion in them becomes torpid, and at last dead. They may not plainly deny the existence of a God, but they imagine him to be shut up in heaven, and divested of his righteousness and power; and this is just to fashion an idol in the room of God. As if the time would never come when they will have to appear before him in judgment, Some critics observe, that as יהוה, Yehovah, the name which denotes the infinite, self-existent essence of God, is not the word here employed, but אלוהס, a name which they regard as referring to God as judge and governor of the world, the meaning of the first verse is not that the fool denies the existence of God, but only his providence and government of the world; that he persuades himself God has no concern about the actions of men, and that there will be no judgment to come; and, therefore, goes on in sin, in the hope of escaping with impunity. — See Poole’s Synopsis Criticorum. The Targum paraphrases the words, “There is no God,” thus, “There is no אלוהס government of God in the earth.” they endeavor, in all the transactions and concerns of their life, to remove him to the greatest distance, and to efface from their minds all apprehension of his majesty. “Et abolir de leurs esprits toute apprehension de sa majeste.” — Fr. And when God is dragged from his throne, and divested of his character as judge, impiety has come to its utmost height; and, therefore, we must conclude that David has most certainly spoken according to truth, in declaring that those who give themselves liberty to commit all manner of wickedness, in the flattering hope of escaping with impunity, deny in their heart that there is a God. As the fifty-third psalm, with the exception of a few words which are altered in it, is just a repetition of this psalm, I will show in the proper places, as we proceed, the difference which there is between the two psalms. David here complains that they have done abominable work; but for the word work, the term there employed is iniquity. It should be observed that David does not speak of one work or of two; but as he had said, that they have perverted or corrupted all lawful order, so now he adds, that they have so polluted their whole life, as to make it abominable, and the proof of this which he adduces is, that they have no regard to uprightness in their dealings with one another, but have forgotten all humanity, and all beneficence towards their fellow-creatures.

Psalm 14:2-3

2. Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see whether there were any that did understand, and seek after God. 3. Every one of them has gone aside, they have altogether become putrid, [or rotten;] there is none that doeth good, not even one,

PSALM 14

Psa 14:1-7. The practical atheism and total and universal depravity of the wicked, with their hatred to the good, are set forth. Yet, as they dread God's judgments when He vindicates His people, the Psalmist prays for His delivering power.

1. Sinners are termed "fools," because they think and act contrary to right reason (Ge 34:7; Jos 7:15; Psa 39:8; 74:18, 22).

in his heart--to himself (Ge 6:12).

2. looked--in earnest enquiry.

understand--as opposed to "fool" [Psa 14:1].

3. filthy--literally, "spoiled," or, "soured," "corrupted" (Job 15:16; Ro 3:12).

4-6. Their conduct evinces indifference rather than ignorance of God; for when He appears in judgment, they are stricken with great fear.

who eat up my people--to express their beastly fury (Pr 30:14; Ha 3:14). To "call on the Lord" is to worship Him.

7. captivity--denotes any great evil.

Zion--God's abode, from which He revealed His purposes of mercy, as He now does by the Church (compare Psa 3:4; 20:2), and which He rules and in which He does all other things for the good of His people (Ep 1:22).

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God - נבל nabal, which we render fool, signifies an empty fellow, a contemptible person, a villain. One who has a muddy head and an unclean heart; and, in his darkness and folly, says in his heart, "There is no God." "And none," says one, "but a fool would say so." The word is not to be taken in the strict sense in which we use the term atheist, that is, one who denies the being of a God, or confounds him with matter. 1. There have been some, not many, who have denied the existence of God. 2. There are others who, without absolutely denying the Divine existence, deny his providence; that is, they acknowledge a Being of infinite power, etc., but give him nothing to do, and no world to govern. 3. There are others, and they are very numerous, who, while they profess to acknowledge both, deny them in their heart, and live as if they were persuaded there was no God either to punish or reward.

They are corrupt - They are in a state of putrescence and they have done abominable works - the corruption of their hearts extends itself through all the actions of their lives. They are a plague of the most deadly kind; propagate nothing but destruction; and, like their father the devil, spread far and wide the contagion of sin and death. Not one of them does good. He cannot, for he has no Divine influence, and he denies that such can be received.

The Lord looked down from heaven - Words spoken after the manner of men. From this glorious eminence God is represented as looking down upon the habitable globe, to see if there were any that did understand that there was a Supreme Being, the governor and judge of men; and, in consequence, seek God for his mercy, support, and defense.

They are all gone aside - They will not walk in the straight path. They seek crooked ways; and they have departed from truth, and the God of truth.

They are all together become filthy - נאלחו neelachu. They are become sour and rancid; a metaphor taken from milk that has fermented and turned sour, rancid, and worthless.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one - This is not only the state of heathen Babylon! but the state of the whole inhabitants of the earth, till the grace of God changes their heart. By nature, and from nature, by practice, every man is sinful and corrupt. He feels no good; he is disposed to no good; he does no good. And even God himself, who cannot be deceived, cannot find a single exception to this! Lord, what is man?

The Vulgate, the Roman copy of the Septuagint, the Athtopic, and the Arabic, add those six verses here which are quoted by St. Paul, Rom 3:13-18 (note). See the observations at the end of this Psalm.

Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? - Is there not one of them who takes this dreadful subject into consideration? To their deeply fallen state they add cruelty; they oppress and destroy the poor, without either interest or reason.

Who eat up my people as they eat bread - Ye make them an easy and unresisting prey. They have no power to oppose you, and therefore you destroy them. That this is the meaning of the expression, is plain from the speech of Joshua and Caleb relative to the Canaanites. Num 14:9 : "Neither fear ye the people or the land; for they are bread for us."

And call not upon the Lord - They have no defense, for they invoke not the Lord. They are all either atheists or idolaters.

There were they in great fear - This is a manifest allusion to the history of the Canaanitish nations; they were struck with terror at the sight of the Israelites, and by this allusion the psalmist shows that a destruction similar to that which fell upon them, should fall on the Babylonians. Several of the versions add, from Psa 53:5, "Where no fear was." They were struck with terror, where no real cause of terror existed. Their fears had magnified their danger.

For God is in the generation - They feared the Israelites, because they knew that the Almighty God was among them.

Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor - Instead of תבישו tabishu, "Ye have shamed," Bishop Horsley proposes to read תבישם tabishem, and translates the clause thus: "The counsel of the helpless man shall put them to shame." But this is not authorized by MS. or version. There is no need for any change: the psalmist refers to the confidence which the afflicted people professed to have in God for their deliverance, which confidence the Babylonians turned into ridicule. The poor people took counsel together to expect help from God and to wait patiently for it; and this counsel ye derided, because ye did not know - did not consider, that God was in the congregation of the righteous.

O that the salvation - Or, more literally, Who will give from Zion salvation to Israel? From Zion the deliverance must come; for God alone can deliver them; but whom will he make his instruments?

When the Lord bringeth back - For it is Jehovah alone who can do it. Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. That is, according to Calmet, the remains of the kingdom of Israel and those of Judah, shall be rejoined, to their mutual satisfaction, and become one people, worshipping the same God; and he has endeavoured to prove, in a dissertation on the subject, that this actually took place after the return from the Babylonish captivity.

Many of the fathers have understood this verse as referring to the salvation of mankind by Jesus Christ; and so it is understood by my old MS. Psalter, as the following paraphrase will show: Qwa sal gyf of Syon hele til Israel? qwen Lord has turned a way the captyfte of his folk, glad sal Jacob, and fayne be Israel. Qwa bot Crist that ge despyse, qwen ge wit nout do his counsaile of Syon fra heven, sal gyf hele til Israel? that es, sal saf al trew cristen men, noght als ge er that lufs noght God. And qwen our Lord has turned o way the captyfte of his folk: that es, qwen he has dampned the devel, and al his Servaundes, the qwilk tourmentes gude men, and makes tham captyfs in pyne. Then glade sal Jacob; that es, al that wirstils o gayns vices and actyf: and fayne sal be Israel: that es, al that with the clene egh of thair hert, sees God in contemplatyf lyf. For Jacob es als mikil at say als, Wrestler, or suplanter of Syn. Israel es, man seand God.

Of the two chief opinions relative to the design of this Psalm:

1. That it refers to Absalom's rebellion.

2. That it is a complaint of the captives in Babylon; I incline to the latter, as by far the most probable.

I have referred, in the note on Psa 14:3, to that remarkable addition of no less than six verses, which is found here in the Vulgate, the Vatican copy of the Septuagint, the Ethiopic, and the Arabic, and also in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Rom 3:13-18, which he is supposed to have quoted from this Psalm as it then stood in the Hebrew text; or in the version of the Seventy, from which it has been generally thought he borrowed them. That they are not interpolations in the New Testament is evident from this, that they are not wanting in any MS. yet discovered; and they exist in all the ancient versions, the Vulgate, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Yet it has been contended, particularly by St. Jerome, that St. Paul did not quote them from this Psalm; but, being intent on showing the corruption and misery of man, he collected from different parts several passages that bore upon the subject, and united them here, with his quotation from Psa 14:3, as if they had all belonged to that place: and that succeeding copyists, finding them in Romans, as quoted from that Psalm, inserted them into the Septuagint, from which it was presumed they had been lost. It does not appear that they made a part of this Psalm in Origen's Hexapla. In the portions that still exist of this Psalm there is not a word of these additional verses referred to in that collection, neither here nor in the parallel Psa 53:1-6.

The places from which Jerome and others say St. Paul borrowed them are the following: - Rom 3:13 : "Their mouth is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit." Borrowed from Psa 5:10. "The poison of asps is under their lips." From Psa 140:3. Rom 3:14 : "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." From Psa 10:7. Rom 3:15 : "Their feet are swift to shed blood." From Pro 1:16, or Isa 59:7. Rom 3:16-18 : "Destruction and misery are in their ways, the way of peace they have not known, and there is no fear of God before their eyes." From Isa 59:7, Isa 59:8.

When the reader has collated all these passages in the original, he will probably feel little satisfaction relative to the probability of the hypothesis they are summoned to support.

These verses are not found in the best copies of the Vulgate, though it appears they were in the old Itala or Antehieronymain version. They are not in the Codex Alexandrinus of the Septuagint; nor are they in either the Greek or Latin text of the Complutenstan Polyglot. They are wanting also in the Antwerp and Parisian Polyglots. They are neither in the Chaldee nor Syriac versions. They are not acknowledged as a part of this Psalm by Theodoret, Chrysostom, Euthymius, Arnobius, Apollinaris, the Greek Catena, Eusebius, of Caesarea, nor Jerome. The latter, however, acknowledges that they were in his time read in the churches. I have seen no Latin MS. without them; and they are quoted by Justin Martyr and Augustine. They are also in the Editio Princeps of the Vulgate, and in all the ancient Psalters known. They are in that Psalter which I have frequently quoted, both in the Latino - Scotico - English version and paraphrase.

Of this version the following is a faithful copy, beginning with the third verse of the fourteenth Psalm: -

Al tha helddid togyher; thai er made unprofytable:

Thar es none that dos gude; thar es none til one.

A grave opynnand, es the throte of tham.

With thaire tunges trycherusly thai wroght

Venym of snakes undir the lippis of tham.

Qwhas mouth es ful of werying and bitternes:

Swyft thaire fete to spil blode.

Brekyng and wikednes in thair waies:

And the way of pees thai knew noght:

The drede of God es noght byfore the eghen of thaim.

There is a good deal of difference between this, and that version attributed to Wiclif, as it stands in my large MS. Bible, quoted in different parts of the New Testament, particularly in 1Cor 13:1, etc. I shall give it here line for line with the above.

Alle boweden aweye to gydre: thei ben maad unprofitable:

There is not that doith good thing, ther is not to oon.

A Sepulcre opnyng is the throote of hem:

With her tungis thei diden gylinly; or trecherously:

The venym of eddris, that is clepid Aspis, under her lippis:

The mouth of whom is ful of cursing, or worrying and bittrenesse:

The feet of hem ben swift to schede out blood:

Contricion or defouling to God, and infelicite or cursidnesse, the wayes of hem;

And thei knewen not the weyes of pees;

The dreed of God is not bifore her ygen.

The words underlined in the above are added by the translator as explanatory of the preceding terms. It is worthy of remark that Coverdale inserts the whole of the addition in this Psalm, and Cardmarden has inserted it in his Bible, but in a letter different from the text.

It is now time to state what has been deemed of considerable importance to the authenticity of these verses; viz., that they are found in a Hebrew MS., numbered by Kennicott in his catalogue 649. It is in the public library at Leyden; contains the Psalms with a Latin version and Scholia; and appears to have been written about the end of the fourteenth century and probably by some Christian. I shall give the text with a literal translation, as it stands in this MS., line for line with the preceding: - קבר פתוח גרונם

An open sepulcher is their throat; לשונם יחליקיו

With their tongues they flatter; חמת עכשוב תחת לשונם

The venom of the asp is under their tongue; אשר פיהם אלה ומרמה מלא

Whose mouth of cursing and bitterness is full; קלו רגליהם לשפוך דם

Swift are their feet to shed blood; מזל רע ופגע רע בדרכיהם

An evil aspect, and an evil event, in their ways: ודרך שלום לא ידעו

And the way of peace they know not. אי פחד אלהים לנגר עיניהם

No fear of God before their eyes.

It would be easy to criticise upon the Hebrew In this long quotation. I shall content myself with what Calmet, who received his information from others that had inspected the Leyden MS., says of this addition: "Les seavans, qui ont examine ce manuscrit, y ont remarque un Hebreu barbare en cet endroit; et des facons de parler, qui ne sentent point les siecles ou la langue Hebraique etoit en usage." "Learned men, who have examined this MS., have remarked a barbarous Hebraism in this place, and modes of speech which savor not of those ages in which the Hebrew language was in use."

If this be an interpolation in the Psalm, it is very ancient; as we have the testimony of Jerome, who was prejudiced against it, that it was read in all the churches in his time, and how long before we cannot tell. And that these verses are a valuable portion of Divine revelation, as they stand in Rom 3:13-18, none can successfully deny. See Rosenmuller, Kennicott, and De Rossi.

The fool - The wicked man. Good - That is, actions really good or pleasing to God.

Looked - God knoweth all things without any enquiry: but he speaks after the manner of men. Upon - Upon the whole Israelitish nation, and upon all mankind for he speaks of all except his people, and the righteous ones, who are opposed to these, ver.4,5.

Gone - From God, and from the rule which he hath given them. Filthy - Loathsome and abominable to God.

Bread - With as little remorse, and with as much greediness. Call not - They are guilty not only of gross injustice towards men, but also of horrid impiety and contempt of God.

There - Upon the spot, where they practised these insolences, God struck them with a panick fear. For - God is on their side, and therefore their enemies have cause to tremble.

Because - This was the ground of their contempt, that he lived by faith in God's promise and providence.

O that - These words immediately concern the deliverance of Israel out of that sinful state, in which they now were; which having described, he concludes, with a prayer to God to help them out of Zion, where the ark then was, but principally they design the spiritual redemption and salvation of all God's Israel by the Messiah. The captivity - His captive people. The children of Jacob, as Aaron is named for his sons, 1Chron 12:27.

1. THE fool hath said in his heart , there is no God : they are corrupt , they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good .

(i. e.) The wicked man: For such are commonly and justly called Fools every where in Scripture, and that purposely to meet with their false, yet common Conceit of themselves, as if they were the only wise men, and all others were Fools.

(i. e.) In his secret Thoughts, or within himself, being afraid and ashamed to utter it with his mouth. Not that it was his fixed and constant Opinion and Judgment, but this he saith by Construction, because he heartily wisheth there were no God, and lives as if there were none. So this Text may be explained by comparing it with Psal. 36. 1. and Tit: 1. 16.

He denies not God's Being or Existence, but only his Providence. He saith not, there is no Iehovah, which name of God notes his being, but no Elohim, which expresseth God as the Judge and Governour of the World, who observes and recompenseth all the Actions of all men according to their several Qualities.

Heb. They have corrupted, to wit, themselves, or their ways, as this word commonly signifies. Their great and wilful Wickedness is alledged as a ground of their Atheism or Infidelity.

None of their Actions are really and thoroughly good or pleasing to God; for if some of them be materially good, as when they do an act of Justice or Charity, yet they are poisoned with bad Principles or Ends, not being performed by them out of a good Conscience, and serious Care to please God, for then they would do one good Action as well as another, but in Hypocrisy, or with vain Glory, or some finister and unworthy Design.

e To wit, of the Fools here described.

Marginal references: Psal. 10. 4. & 53. 1.; Rom. 1. 21. &c.

2. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men ; to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God .

To search out the Truth. God knoweth all things without any enquiry: But this is a Figure called Anthropopathia, whereby Scripture oft speaks of God after the manner of Men.

Upon the whole Body of the Israelitish Nation, and upon the generality of Mankind under Heaven; for he speaks of all except his People, and the Righteous ones, who are here opposed to these, v. 4. 5.

That did truly know God, to wit, so as to love, and fear, and trust, and obey him, (for all these are frequently signified in Scripture by this Expression of knowing God) and that did diligently seek him. (i. e.) Study his Mind and Will that they might do it, and seek his Grace and Favour.

3. They are all gone aside , they are all together become filthy : there is none that doth good, no not one.

To wit, from God, whom they should have sought, v. 2. and from the Rule which he hath given him, and by which they sometimes professed, and seem'd to govern themselves. Or, are grown sowre, as this word signifies, Hos. 4. 18. And so this is a Metaphor from corrupted Drinks, as the next is taken from rotten Meat.

Heb. stinking, (i. e.) loathsom or abominable to God, and to all wise and sober Men.

Marginal references: Heb. stinking; Rom. 3. 10.

4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledg ? who eat up my people as they eat bread , and call not upon the LORD .

Have they lost their Wits? have they neither Religion nor common Discretion, either of which would teach them not to make themselves so hareful to the all-seeing and almighty God, and to all Men? The words may be rendered thus, Do not all the workers of Iniquity know it? So it is only an Ellipsis of the Pronoun, which is frequent, as I have shewed before. Are they not Conscious to themselves of the Truth of what I say? I dare appeal to their own Consciences. But this I propound with Submission.

Or, they eat up, (i. e.) devour and destroy, as this word signifies, Deut. 7. 16. Prov. 30. 14. Ier. 50. 17. Nah. 3. 15.

(i. e.) The poor and godly Israelites, of whom he principally speaks: whom he calleth my people. Either 1. God's people, as they were in many respects: Or rather, 2. David's people: For David speaks both these words, and all the rest of this Psalm in his own Name and Person. And David might well call them his People, either because they were his Friends and Favourers: Or because he being anointed their King, they were consequently his People: Or because he was now actually their King, and so they were actually his People: For some conceive that this Psalm was made in the time, and upon the occasion of Absalom's Rebellion.

(i. e.) With as little regret or remorse, and with as much greediness, and delight, and Constancy too, as they use to eat their Meat. The Particle as is here understood, as it is Psal. 125. 2. Prov. 26. 9. and in many other places.

They are guilty not only of gross Injustice, and Oppression towards men, but also of horrid Impiety and Contempt of God, whose Providence they deny, and whose Worship they wholly neglect and despise.

Marginal references: Heb the eaters up of my People, eat Bread.; M[illegible: 1+ letters]. 3. 3.

5. There were they in great fear : for God is in the generation of the righteous.

(i. e.) In the place, or upon the spot, where they practised these Insolencies, God struck them with a panick fear. Or, Then (i. e.) In the height of their Tyranny and prosperous Impiety, when they seemed to have no cause for it. An Adverb of Place for an Adverb of Time, of which there want not Examples in Scripture and other Authors, as hath been noted before. Or thence, as this Particle is rendered, Gen. 2. 10. and 49. 24. Isa. 65. 20, (i. e.) From that time; or, for that Cause, as some take it, and it may be taken, Iob 35. 12. Psal. 36. 12. (i. e.) For this their contempt of God and manifest injury to Men.

From their own guilty Consciences, and the just Expectation of divine Vengeance. Heb. They feared with fear, (i. e.) Vehemently, where there was no cause of fear, as is here implied, (for they are now supposed to be in a State of Power and Tyranny) as is expressed in the Parallel place, Psal. 53. 5. Or, they shall be greatly afraid, the past Tense being put for the future Prophetically.

For they remembred what a potent Adversary they had, and therefore had cause enough to fear. Or, B[illegible: 1+ letters]t, as this Particle is taken, Gen. 45. 8. Psal. 37. 20. Eccles. 2. 10. and 6. 2. So he describes the contrary and safe Condition of the Righteous. Or, when, as it oft signifies; and so it Answers to the then in the beginning of the Verse, when God shall once appear for his People, a dreadful Horror shall seize upon their wicked Enemies.

(i. e.) Among them, with his gracious and powerful Presence to defend them, and to fight against their Enemies. Or, God is for, &c. as the Hebrew beth oft signifies, that is, God is on their side, and therefore their Enemies have great cause to tremble.

Marginal references: Heb. they feared a fear.

6. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor ; because the LORD is his refuge.

(i. e.) Desired and endeavoured to bring it to Shame or disappoint it. Comp. Psal. 6. 10. Or, ye have reproached or derided it, as a foolish thing.

(i. e.) The cause which he hath taken to defend himself, which is not by lying and flattery and violence, and all manner of Wickedness, which is your Counsel and usual Practice, but by trusting in God and keeping his way, and calling upon his Name.

This was the ground of their Contempt and Scorn, that he lived by Faith in Gods promise and Providence. Or, but, as in the foregoing Verse: So there seems to be an Elegant and fit Opposition. You reproach them, but God will own and Protect them, and justifie their Counsel which you deride.

Marginal references: Psal. 22. 7. 8.

7. O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion ! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people Jacob shall rejoyce and Israel shall be glad.

These words directly and immediately Concern the deliverance of the People of Israel out of that sinful and deplorable Estate, in which they now were; which having described in the Body of the Psalm, he concludes, after his manner, with a prayer to God to hear and help them out of Zion, where the Ark then was, whence God used to hear and Answer his Peoples prayers. But ultimately and principally they Design a further, even the spiritual Redemption and Salvation of all Gods Israel by the M[illegible: 1+ letters]ssias as may appear by divers Considerations; 1. That the Ancient Jews did thus understand it, and among others, Ionathan's Targum or Paraphrase on the Bible, expound it thus: I do not expect Gideon's Salvation, which was but Corporeal, nor that of Sampson—but the Salvation of the Messias. With whom agrees the Targum of Ierusalem. 2. That the Doctrine of Israel's Redemption or Salvation by Christ was very well known as to other ancient Patriarchs, Iob 8. 56. 1 Pet. 1. 10, 11, 12. so particularly to David, of whom it is expresly said, that he knew and [illegible: 1+ letters]oresaw this Mystery, Act. 2. 30, 31. in whose Book of Psalms there are divers and very distinct and clear Prophecies of it, as we have in part seen upon Psal. 2. and 8. and shall see more fully and Evidently hereafter. 3. That David and other holy Prophets in the midst of their sad Thoughts, and Fears, and Troubles, did usually Comfort themselves with the Promise and Expectation of the Messias, by whom, and by whom alone they should receive that plenary Salvation for which they groaned; of which it is thought we have one instance, Gen. 49. 18. but we have many unquestionable Instances in the Prophecy of Isaiah, as Ch. 7. 14. and 9. 6. &c. And this Course might be the more seasonable for David, because he speaks here of his Troubles after he was settled in his Kingdom, (as may be gathered from the mention of Zion, where the Ark was not till that time) and possibly of the sad and sinful State of his Kingdom during Absolom's Rebellion; and therefore finding himself so strangely disappointed of that Peace and Happiness, which he Confidently expected when once he came to the Kingdom, and wisely and justly presaging that his Children and the following Generations of Israelites for the same Causes were likely to meet with the same or greater Calamities than this, he wearieth himself with the Expression of his Belief, and desire of the coming of the Messias to save his People. 4. To this also suits the mention of Zion because the Prophets knew and foretold that the Messias or Deliverer should first come to Zion, and should set up his Throne there, and from thence send forth his Laws and Edicts to the Gentile World; as is positively affirmed, Psal. 2. 6. and 110. 2. Isa. 2. 3 and 59. 20. Comp. with Rom. 11. 26, and in many other place. 5. The following words agree only to this time, wherein he speaks of bringing back the Captivity of his people with the universal joy of all Iacob and Israel; which cannot agree to David's time, wherein there was no such Captivity of the people, but only a Civil war and mutual slaughter, which is quite another thing; nor to the time of Israel's return from Babylon, when there was no such return of all Israel, but only of Iudah and Benjamin, and some few of the other Tribes, and the joy which the returning Isroelites then had, was but low and mixed with many Fears and Dangers, and Reproaches; as we see in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. And therefore they must belong to the times of the Messias, by whom this Promise was fulfilled to the true Israel of God, who were brought back from that most real and dreadful, though spiritual, Captivity of sin and Satan, as is declared; Luk. 4. 18. Eph. 4. 8. and shall be litterally accomplished to the natural seed of Iacob or Israel according to the Expectation and belief of all the Jews in their several Ages, and of most Christian Writers,

(i. e.) His Captive people, Captivity, being oft put for Captives, as Deut. 21. 10. and 30. 3. Psal. 126. 1. 4. Or, his people from Captivity, of which see the former Note.

(i. e.) The seed or Children of Iacob. as Aaron is named for his Sons, 1 Chron. 12. 27. and 27. 17. and David for his Sons, and the like.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word], &c. Psal. 53. 6.

The Prevailing Corruption and the Redemption Desired

Just as the general lamentation of Psa 12:1-8 assumes a personal character in Psa 13:1-6, so in Psa 14:1-7 it becomes again general; and the personal desire יגל לבּי, Psa 13:5, so full of hope, corresponds to יגל יעקב, which is extended to the whole people of God in Psa 14:7. Moreover, Psa 14:1-7, as being a gloomy picture of the times in which the dawn of the divine day is discernible in the background, is more closely allied to Psa 12:1-8 than to Psa 13:1-6, although this latter is not inserted between them without some recognised reason. In the reprobation of the moral and religious character of the men of the age, which Psa 14:1-7 has in common with Psa 12:1-8, we at once have a confirmation of the לדוד. But Psa 14:7 does not necessitate our coming down to the time of the Exile.

In Psa 53:1-6 we find this Psalm which is Jehovic, occurring again as Elohimic. The position of Psa 14:1-7 in the primary collection favours the presumption, that it is the earlier and more original composition. And since this presumption will bear the test of a critical comparison of the two Psalms, we may leave the treatment of Psa 53:1-6 to its proper place, without bringing it forward here. It is not as though Psa 14:1-7 were intact. It is marked out as seven three-line verses, but Psa 14:5 and Psa 14:6, which ought to be the fifth and sixth three lines, are only two; and the original form appears to be destroyed by some deficiency. The difficulty is got over in Psa 53:1-6, by making the two two-line verses into one three-line verse, so that it consists only of six three-line verses. And in that Psalm the announcement of judgment is applied to foreign enemies, a circumstance which has influenced some critics and led them astray in the interpretation of Psa 14:1-7.

Psa 14:1

The perfect אמר, as in Psa 1:1; Psa 10:3, is the so-called abstract present (Ges. §126, 3), expressing a fact of universal experience, inferred from a number of single instances. The Old Testament language is unusually rich in epithets for the unwise. The simple, פּתי, and the silly, כּסיל, for the lowest branches of this scale; the fool, אויל, and the madman, הולל, the uppermost. In the middle comes the notion of the simpleton or maniac, נבל - a word from the verbal stem נבל which, according as that which forms the centre of the group of consonants lies either in נב (Genesis S. 636), or in בל (comp. אבל, אול, אמל, קמל), signifies either to be extended, to relax, to become frail, to wither, or to be prominent, eminere, Arab. nabula; so that consequently נבל means the relaxed, powerless, expressed in New Testament language: πνεῦμα οὐκ ἔχοντα. Thus Isaiah (Isa 32:6) describes the נבל: “a simpleton speaks simpleness and his heart does godless things, to practice tricks and to say foolish things against Jahve, to leave the soul of the hungry empty, and to refuse drink to the thirsty.” Accordingly נבל is the synonym of לץ the scoffer (vid., the definition in Pro 21:24). A free spirit of this class is reckoned according to the Scriptures among the empty, hollow, and devoid of mind. The thought, אין אלהים, which is the root of the thought and action of such a man, is the climax of imbecility. It is not merely practical atheism, that is intended by this maxim of the נבל. The heart according to Scripture language is not only the seat of volition, but also of thought. The נבל is not content with acting as though there were no God, but directly denies that there is a God, i.e., a personal God. The psalmist makes this prominent as the very extreme and depth of human depravity, that there can be among men those who deny the existence of a God. The subject of what follows are, then, not these atheists but men in general, among whom such characters are to be found: they make the mode of action, (their) doings, corrupt, they make it abominable. עלילה, a poetical brevity of expression for עלילותם, belongs to both verbs, which have Tarcha and Mercha (the two usual conjunctives of Mugrash) in correct texts; and is in fact not used as an adverbial accusative (Hengstenberg and others), but as an object, since השׁהית is just the word that is generally used in this combination with עלילה Zep 3:7 or, what is the same thing, דּרך Gen 6:12; and התעיב (cf. 1Ki 21:26) is only added to give a superlative intensity to the expression. The negative: “there is none that doeth good” is just as unrestricted as in Psa 12:2. But further on the psalmist distinguishes between a דור צדיק, which experiences this corruption in the form of persecution, and the corrupt mass of mankind. He means what he says of mankind as κόσμος, in which, at first the few rescued by grace from the mass of corruption are lost sight of by him, just as in the words of God, Gen 6:5, Gen 6:12. Since it is only grace that frees any from the general corruption, it may also be said, that men are described just as they are by nature; although, be it admitted, it is not hereditary sin but actual sin, which springs up from it, and grows apace if grace do not interpose, that is here spoken of.

Psa 14:2

The second tristich appeals to the infallible decision of God Himself. The verb השׁקיף means to look forth, by bending one’s self forward. It is the proper word for looking out of a window, 2Ki 9:30 (cf. Niph. Jdg 5:28, and frequently), and for God’s looking down from heaven upon the earth, Psa 102:20, and frequently; and it is cognate and synonymous with השׁגּיח, Psa 33:13, Psa 33:14; cf. moreover, Sol 2:9. The perf. is used in the sense of the perfect only insofar as the divine survey is antecedent to its result as given in Psa 14:3. Just as השׁהיתוּ reminds one of the history of the Flood, so does לראות of the history of the building of the tower of Babel, Gen 11:5, cf. Psa 18:21. God’s judgment rests upon a knowledge of the matter of fact, which is represented in such passages after the manner of men. God’s all-seeing, all-piercing eyes scrutinise the whole human race. Is there one who shows discernment in thought and act, one to whom fellowship with God is the highest good, and consequently that after which he strives? - this is God’s question, and He delights in such persons, and certainly none such would escape His longing search. On את־אלהים, τὸν Θεόν, vid., Ges. §117, 2.

Psa 14:3

The third tristich bewails the condition in which He finds humanity. The universality of corruption is expressed in as strong terms as possible. הכּל they all (lit., the totality); יחדּו with one another (lit., in its or their unions, i.e., universi); אין גּם־אחד not a single one who might form an exception. סר (probably not 3 praet. but partic., which passes at once into the finite verb) signifies to depart, viz., from the ways of God, therefore to fall away (ἀποστάτης). נאלח, as in Job 15:16, denotes the moral corruptness as a becoming sour, putrefaction, and suppuration. Instead of אין גּם־אחד, the lxx translates οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός (as though it were עד־אחד, which is the more familiar form of expression). Paul quotes the first three verses of this Psalm (Rom 3:10-12) in order to show how the assertion, that Jews and heathen all are included under sin, is in accordance with the teaching of Scripture. What the psalmist says, applies primarily to Israel, his immediate neighbours, but at the same time to the heathen, as is self-evident. What is lamented is neither the pseudo-Israelitish corruption in particular, nor that of the heathen, but the universal corruption of man which prevails not less in Israel than in the heathen world. The citations of the apostle which follow his quotation of the Psalm, from τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος to ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν were early incorporated in the Psalm in the Κοινή of the lxx. They appear as an integral part of it in the Cod. Alex., in the Greco-Latin Psalterium Vernonense, and in the Syriac Psalterium Mediolanense. They are also found in Apollinaris’ paraphrase of the Psalms as a later interpolation; the Cod. Vat. has them in the margin; and the words σύντπιμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν have found admittance in the translation, which is more Rabbinical than Old Hebrew, מזּל רע וּפגע רע בּדרכיהם even in a Hebrew codex (Kennicott 649). Origen rightly excluded this apostolic Mosaic work of Old Testament testimonies from his text of the Psalm; and the true representation of the matter is to be found in Jerome, in the preface to the xvi. book of his commentary on Isaiah.Cf. Plüschke’s Monograph on the Milanese Psalterium Syriacum, 1835, p. 28-39.

Psa 14:4

Thus utterly cheerless is the issue of the divine scrutiny. It ought at least to have been different in Israel, the nation of the positive revelation. But even there wickedness prevails and makes God’s purpose of mercy of none effect. The divine outburst of indignation which the psalmist hears here, is applicable to the sinners in Israel. Also in Isa 3:13-15 the Judge of the world addresses Himself to the heads of Israel in particular. This one feature of the Psalm before us is raised to the consistency of a special prophetic picture in the Psalm of Asaph, Psa 82:1-8. That which is here clothed in the form of a question, הלא ידעוּ, is reversed into an assertion in Psa 82:5 of that Psalm. It is not to be translated: will they not have to feel (which ought to be ידעוּ); but also not as Hupfeld renders it: have they not experienced. “Not to know” is intended to be used as absolutely in the signification non sapere, and consequently insipientem esse, as it is in Psa 82:5; Psa 73:22; Psa 92:7; Isa 44:18, cf. 9, Isa 45:20, and frequently. The perfect is to be judged after the analogy of novisse (Ges. §126, 3), therefore it is to be rendered: have they attained to no knowledge, are they devoid of all knowledge, and therefore like the brutes, yea, according to Isa 1:2-3 even worse than the brutes, all the workers of iniquity? The two clauses which follow are, logically at least, attributive clauses. The subordination of אכלוּ לחם to the participle as a circumstantial clause in the sense of כּאכל לחם is syntactically inadmissible; neither can אכלו לחם, with Hupfeld, be understood of a brutish and secure passing away of life; for, as Olshausen, rightly observes אכל לחם does not signify to feast and carouse, but simply to eat, take a meal. Hengstenberg correctly translates it “who eating my people, eat bread,” i.e., who think that they are not doing anything more sinful, - indeed rather what is justifiable, irreproachable and lawful to them, - than when they are eating bread; cf. the further carrying out of this thought in Mic 3:1-3 (especially Mic 3:3 extr.: “just as in the pot and as flesh within the caldron.”). Instead of לא קראוּ ה Jeremiah says in Jer 10:21 (cf. however, Jer 10:25): לא דרשׁוּ ואת־ה. The meaning is like that in Hos 7:7. They do not pray as it becomes man who is endowed with mind, therefore they are like cattle, and act like beasts of prey.

Psa 14:5

When Jahve thus bursts forth in scorn His word, which never fails in its working, smites down these brutish men, who are without knowledge and conscience. The local demonstrative שׁם is used as temporal in this passage just as in Psa 66:6; Hos 2:17; Zep 1:14; Job 23:7; Job 35:12, and is joined with the perfect of certainty, as in Job 36:13, where it has not so much a temporal as a local sense. It does not mean “there = at a future time,” as pointing into the indefinite future, but “there = then,” when God shall thus speak to them in His anger. Intensity is here given to the verb פּחד by the addition of a substantival object of the same root, just as is frequently the case in the more elevated style, e.g., Hab 3:9; and as is done in other cases by the addition of the adverbial infinitive. Then, when God’s long-suffering changes into wrath, terror at His judgement seizes them and they tremble through and through. This judgment of wrath, however, is on the other hand a revelation of love. Jahve avenges and thus delivers those whom He calls עמּי (My people); and who are here called דּור צדּיק, the generation of the righteous, in opposition to the corrupted humanity of the time (Psa 12:8), as being conformed to the will of God and held together by a superior spirit to the prevailing spirit of the age. They are so called inasmuch as דּור passes over from the signification generatio to that of genus hominum here and also elsewhere, when it is not merely a temporal, but a moral notion; cf. Psa 24:6; Psa 83:15; Psa 112:2, where it uniformly denotes the whole of the children of God who are in bondage in the world and longing for deliverance, not Israel collectively in antithesis to the Scythians and the heathen in general (Hitzig).

Psa 14:6

The psalmist himself meets the oppressed full of joyous confidence, by reason of the self-manifestation of God in judgment, of which he is now become so confident and which so fills him with comfort. Instead of the sixth tristich, which we expected, we have another distich. The Hiph. הבישׁ with a personal object signifies: to put any one to shame, i.e., to bring it about that any one must be ashamed, e.g., Psa 44:8 (cf. Psa 53:6, where the accusative of the person has to be supplied), or absolutely: to act shamefully, as in the phrase used in Proverbs, בּן מיבישׁ (a prodigal son). It appears only here with a neuter accusative of the object, not in the signification to defame (Hitz.), - a meaning it never has (not even in Pro 13:5, where it is blended with הבאישׁ to make stinking, i.e., a reproach, Gen 34:30) - but to confound, put to shame = to frustrate (Hupf.), which is at once the most natural meaning in connection with עצת. But it is not to be rendered: ye put to shame, because..., for to what purpose is this statement with this inapplicable reason in support of it? The fut. תּבישׁוּ is used with a like shade of meaning as in Lev 19:17, and the imperative elsewhere; and כּי gives the reason for the tacitly implied clause, or if a line is really lost from the strophe, the lost clause (cf. Isa 8:9.): ye will not accomplish it. עצה is whatsoever the pious man, who as such suffers reproach, plans to do for the glory of his God, or even in accordance with the will of his God. All this the children of the world, who are in possession of worldly power, seek to frustrate; but viewed in the light of the final decision their attempt is futile: Jahve is his refuge, or, literally the place whither he flees to hide himself and finds a hiding or concealment (צל, Arab. dall, סתר, Arab. sitr, Arabic also drâ). מחסּהוּ has an orthophonic Dag., which obviates the necessity for the reading מחסּהוּ (cf. תּעלּים Psa 10:1, טעמּו Psa 34:1, לאסּר Psa 105:22, and similar instances).

Psa 14:7

This tristich sounds like a liturgical addition belonging to the time of the Exile, unless one is disposed to assign the whole Psalm to this period on account of it. For elsewhere in a similar connection, as e.g., in Psa 126:1-6, שׁוּב שׁבוּת means to turn the captivity, or to bring back the captives. שׁוּב has here, - as in Psa 126:4; Psa 2:3 (followed by את), cf. Eze 47:7, the Kal being preferred to the Hiph. השׁיב (Jer 32:44; Jer 33:11) in favour of the alliteration with שׁבוּת (from שׁבה to make any one a prisoner of war), - a transitive signification, which Hengstenberg (who interprets it: to turn back, to turn to the captivity, of God’s merciful visitation), vainly hesitates to admit. But Isa 66:6, for instance, shows that the exiles also never looked for redemption anywhere but from Zion. Not as though they had thought, that Jahve still dwelt among the ruins of His habitation, which indeed on the contrary was become a ruin because He had forsaken it (as we read in Ezekiel); but the moment of His return to His people is also the moment when He entered again upon the occupation of His sanctuary, and His sanctuary, again appropriated by Jahve even before it was actually reared, is the spot whence issues the kindling of the divine judgment on the enemies of Israel, as well as the spot whence issues the brightness of the reverse side of this judgment, viz., the final deliverance, hence even during the Exile, Jerusalem is the point (the kibla) whither the eye of the praying captive was directed, Dan 6:11. There would therefore be nothing strange if a psalm-writer belonging to the Exile should express his longing for deliverance in these words: who gives = oh that one would give = oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! But since שׁוב שׁבות also signifies metaphorically to turn misfortune, as in Job 42:10; Eze 16:53 (perhaps also in Psa 85:2, cf. Psa 14:5), inasmuch as the idea of שׁבוּת has been generalised exactly like the German “Elend,” exile (Old High German elilenti = sojourn in another country, banishment, homelessness), therefore the inscribed לדוד cannot be called in question from this quarter. Even Hitzig renders: “if Jahve would but turn the misfortune of His people,” regarding this Psalm as composed by Jeremiah during the time the Scythians were in the land. If this rendering is possible, and that it is is undeniable, then we retain the inscription לדוד. And we do so the more readily, as Jeremiah’s supposed authorship rests upon a non-recognition of his reproductive character, and the history of the prophet’s times make no allusion to any incursion by the Scythians.

The condition of the true people of God in the time of Absolom was really a שׁבוּת in more than a figurative sense. But we require no such comparison with contemporary history, since in these closing words we have only the gathering up into a brief form of the view which prevails in other parts of the Psalm, viz., that the “righteous generation” in the midst of the world, and even of the so-called Israel, finds itself in a state of oppression, imprisonment, and bondage. If God will turn this condition of His people, who are His people indeed and of a truth, then shall Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad. It is the grateful duty of the redeemed to rejoice. - And how could they do otherwise! The Final Hallelujah

Human Depravity.

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

If we apply our hearts as Solomon did (Eccl. vii. 25) to search out the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness, these verses will assist us in the search and will show us that sin is exceedingly sinful. Sin is the disease of mankind, and it appears here to be malignant and epidemic.

1. See how malignant it is (v. 1) in two things:—

(1.) The contempt it puts upon the honour of God: for there is something of practical atheism at the bottom of all sin. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. We are sometimes tempted to think, "Surely there never was so much atheism and profaneness as there is in our days;" but we see the former days were no better; even in David's time there were those who had arrived at such a height of impiety as to deny the very being of a God and the first and self-evident principles of religion. Observe, [1.] The sinner here described. He is one that saith in his heart, There is no God; he is an atheist. "There is no Elohim, no Judge or governor of the world, no providence presiding over the affairs of men." They cannot doubt of the being of God, but will question his dominion. He says this in his heart; it is not his judgment, but his imagination. He cannot satisfy himself that there is none, but he wishes there were none, and pleases himself with the fancy that it is possible there may be none. He cannot be sure there is one, and therefore he is willing to think there is none. He dares not speak it out, lest he be confuted, and so undeceived, but he whispers it secretly in his heart, for the silencing of the clamours of his conscience and the emboldening of himself in his evil ways. [2.] The character of this sinner. He is a fool; he is simple and unwise, and this is an evidence of it; he is wicked and profane, and this is the cause of it. Note, Atheistical thoughts are very foolish wicked thoughts, and they are at the bottom of a great deal of the wickedness that is in this world. The word of God is a discerner of these thoughts, and puts a just brand on him that harbours them. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; for he thinks against the clearest light, against his own knowledge and convictions, and the common sentiments of all the wise and sober part of mankind. No man will say, There is no God till he is so hardened in sin that it has become his interest that there should be none to call him to an account.

(2.) The disgrace and debasement it puts upon the nature of man. Sinners are corrupt, quite degenerated from what man was in his innocent estate: They have become filthy (v. 3), putrid. All their faculties are so disordered that they have become odious to their Maker and utterly incapable of answering the ends of their creation. They are corrupt indeed; for, [1.] They do no good, but are the unprofitable burdens of the earth; they do God no service, bring him no honour, nor do themselves any real kindness. [2.] They do a great deal of hurt. They have done abominable works, for such all sinful works are. Sin is an abomination to God; it is that abominable thing which he hates (Jer. xliv. 4), and, sooner or later, it will be so to the sinner; it will be found to be hateful (Ps. xxxvi. 2), an abomination of desolation, that is, making desolate, Matt. xxiv. 15. This follows upon their saying, There is no God; for those that profess they know God, but in works deny him, are abominable, and to every good work reprobate, Tit. i. 16.

2. See how epidemic this disease is; it has infected the whole race of mankind. To prove this, God himself is here brought in for a witness, and he is an eye-witness, v. 2, 3. Observe, (1.) His enquiry: The Lord looked down from heaven, a place of prospect, which commands this lower world; thence, with an all-seeing eye, he took a view of all the children of men, and the question was, Whether there were any among them that did understand themselves aright, their duty and interests, and did seek God and set him before them. He that made this search was not only one that could find out a good man if he was to be found, though ever so obscure, but one that would be glad to find out one, and would be sure to take notice of him, as of Noah in the old world. (2.) The result of this enquiry, v. 3. Upon search, upon his search, it appeared, They have all gone aside, the apostasy is universal, there is none that doeth good, no, not one, till the free and mighty grace of God has wrought a change. Whatever good is in any of the children of men, or is done by them, it is not of themselves; it is God's work in them. When God had made the world he looked upon his own work, and all was very good (Gen. i. 31); but, some time after, he looked upon man's work, and, behold, all was very bad (Gen. vi. 5), every operation of the thought of man's heart was evil, only evil, and that continually. They have gone aside from the right of their duty, the way that leads to happiness, and have turned into the paths of the destroyer.

In singing this let us lament the corruption of our own nature, and see what need we have of the grace of God; and, since that which is born of the flesh is flesh, let us not marvel that we are told we must be born again.

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord . 5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. 6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. 7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

In these verses the psalmist endeavours,

I. To convince sinners of the evil and danger of the way they are in, how secure soever they are in that way. Three things he shows them, which, it may be, they are not very willing to see—their wickedness, their folly, and their danger, while they are apt to believe themselves very wise, and good, and safe. See here,

1. Their wickedness. This is described in four instances:—(1.) They are themselves workers of iniquity; they design it, they practise it, and take as much pleasure in it as ever any man did in his business. (2.) They eat up God's people with as much greediness as they eat bread, such an innate and inveterate enmity they have to them, and so heartily do they desire their ruin, because they really hate God, whose people they are. It is meat and drink to persecutors to be doing mischief; it is as agreeable to them as their necessary food. They eat up God's people easily, daily, securely, without either check of conscience when they do it or remorse of conscience when they have done it; as Joseph's brethren cast him into a pit and then sat down to eat bread, Gen. xxxvii. 24, 25. See Mic. iii. 2, 3. (3.) They call not upon the Lord. Note, Those that care not for God's people, for God's poor, care not for God himself, but live in contempt of him. The reason why people run into all manner of wickedness, even the worst, is because they do not call upon God for his grace. What good can be expected from those that live without prayer? (4.) They shame the counsel of the poor, and upbraid them with making God their refuge, as David's enemies upbraided him, Ps. xi. 1. Note, Those are very wicked indeed, and have a great deal to answer for, who not only shake off religion, and live without it themselves, but say and do what they can to put others out of conceit with it that are well-inclined—with the duties of it, as if they were mean, melancholy, and unprofitable, and with the privileges of it, as if they were insufficient to make a man safe and happy. Those that banter religion and religious people will find, to their cost, it is ill jesting with edged-tools and dangerous persecuting those that make God their refuge. Be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong. He shows them,

2. Their folly: They have no knowledge; this is obvious, for if they had any knowledge of God, if they did rightly understand themselves, and would but consider things as men, they would not be so abusive and barbarous as they are to the people of God.

3. Their danger (v. 5): There were they in great fear. There, where they ate up God's people, their own consciences condemned what they did, and filled them with secret terrors; they sweetly sucked the blood of the saints, but in their bowels it is turned, and become the gall of asps. Many instances there have been of proud and cruel persecutors who have been made like Pashur, Magormissabibs—terrors to themselves and all about them. Those that will not fear God perhaps may be made to fear at the shaking of a leaf.

II. He endeavours to comfort the people of God, 1. With what they have. They have God's presence (v. 5): He is in the generation of the righteous. They have his protection (v. 6): The Lord is their refuge. This is as much their security as it is the terror of their enemies, who may jeer them for their confidence in God, but cannot jeer them out of it. In the judgment-day it will add to the terror and confusion of sinners to see God own the generation of the righteous, which they have hated and bantered. 2. With what they hope for; and that is the salvation of Israel, v. 7. When David was driven out by Absalom and his rebellious accomplices, he comforted himself with an assurance that god would in due time turn again his captivity, to the joy of all his good subjects. But surely this pleasing prospect looks further. He had, in the beginning of the psalm, lamented the general corruption of mankind; and, in the melancholy view of that, wishes for the salvation which should be wrought out by the Redeemer, who was expected to come to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, Rom. xi. 26. The world is bad; O that the Messiah would come and change its character! There is a universal corruption; O for the times of reformation! Those will be as joyful times as these are melancholy ones. Then shall God turn again the captivity of his people; for the Redeemer shall ascend on high, and lead captivity captive, and Jacob shall then rejoice. The triumphs of Zion's King will be the joys of Zion's children. The second coming of Christ, finally to extinguish the dominion of sin and Satan, will be the completing of this salvation, which is the hope, and will be the joy, of every Israelite indeed. With the assurance of that we should, in singing this, comfort ourselves and one another, with reference to the present sins of sinners and sufferings of saints.

PSAL. XIV.

To the Master of the Musicke, a Psalme of David.

THe foole saith in his heart, there is no God: they have corrupted, they have made abominable their practise; there is none that doth good. Iehovah from the heavens looked downe upon the sonnes of Adam, to see if there were any that understandeth, any that seeketh God. All is departed, together they are become unprofitable: there is none that doth good, none, not one. Doe they not know, all that worke painful iniquity, that eat my people as they eat bread; they call not on Iehovah. There dread they a dread, because God is in the just generation.

The counsell of the poore afflicted yee would make abashed, because Iehovah is his hope. Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? when Iehovah returneth the captivitie of his people, [illegible: 1 letter]akob shall be glad, Israel shall rejoyce.

Annotations. THe foole] Nabal (which hath the signification of jading, dying, or falling away, as doth a leafe or flower, Isa. 40. 8. 1 Pet. 1. 24.) is a title given to the foolish man, as having lost the juice and sap of wisdome, reason, honestie, godlinesse; being fallen from grace, ungratefull, and without the life of God; as a dead carkasse, (which of this word is called Neba[illegible: 1 letter]ah, Levit. 11. 40.) and therefore ignoble, and of vile esteeme; opposed to the noble man, Isa. 32. 5. The Apostle in Greeke turneth it imprudent or without understanding, Rom. 10. [illegible: 1 letter]9. from Deut. 32. 21. saith in his heart] that is, mindeth, and perswadeth himselfe in secret. So Psalm. 10. 4. and 53. 2. no God] the Chaldee expoundeth it, no power (or dominion) of God in the earth. they have corrupted] marred, to wit, themselves; therefore the Greeke saith, they are corrupted; the Chaldee saith, corrupted their workes. This word is used for corruption both of religion and manners, by idola[illegible: 1 letter]ry and other vices, Exod. 32. 7. Deut. 31. 29. Gen. 6. 12. And that which he spake before as of one man, he now applieth to all mankinde. made abominable] or made l[illegible: 1 letter]athsome, to wit, their action or themselves; as the Greeke faith, they are abominable, or become loathsome. So in 1 King. 21. 26. The Chaldee interpreteth, they abhorre good. practise] meaning their evill actions: therefore in Psal. 53. 2. it is gnavel, evill; which here is gnal[illegible: 1 letter]lah, action. Vers. 3. All is] or the all, that is, the whole universall multitude is departed; all in generall, and every one in particular, as is expressed, Psalm. 53. 4. become unprofitable] or fit for no use; so the Apostle expresseth it in Greeke: the word here used, being rare, and taken from Iob 15. 16. and betokeneth a thing loathsome, stinking, and so unfit for use. Vers. 4. Doe they not know?] meaning, doubtlesse they know, and cannot plead ignorance. A question hath often the force of an earnest asseveration. eat my people] that is, the poore, as is added for explanation in Exod. 22. 25. for Gods people commonly are the poorer sort, Iam. 2. 5, 6. Luke 6. 20. and such are eaten or devoured of the wicked, Psal. 79. 7. who eat their flesh, and flay off their skin, and chop them in peeces as flesh for the cauldron, Mic. 3. 3. as they eat bread] the word as seemeth here to be understood; or without it, we may reade, they eat bread, that is, are secure, and without remorse, doe give themselves to eating and drinking. So eating of bread is used for banquetting, Exod. 18. 12. Vers. 5. There dread they a dread] that is, they are sore adread, or feare a great feare, as Luke 2. 9. So, hath sinned a sinne, Lam. 1. 8. that is, hath grievously sinned. And by there, hee meaneth the suddennesse of it, as also in Psal. 36. 13. or, there, that is, in their heart and conscience. The Greeke translateth, they dreaded with feare, where no feare was: the Chaldee, they feared with a false feare, with which it was not meet to feare. because God is] this may be taken as a cause of their foresaid feare, as Saul was afraid of David, 1 Sam. 18. 14, 15. or it is an opposition to their dread, but God is in the just generation, and therefore they dread not, but are defended from the siege of their enemies, as Psal. 53. 6. The Chaldee saith, because the word of the Lord is in the generation of the just. Vers. 6. yee would make abashed] that is, ye reproach it, and would confound, frustrate, and bring it to nothing. So abashing and shame is often used for frustration of ones purpose and hope, Psal. 6. 11. because Iehovah] or, but Iehovah is his shelter and hope, therefore he shall not be abashed, Psal. 25. 3. Contrariwise, the wicked shall be abashed, because God refuseth them, Psal. 53. 6. Vers. 7. Who will give] or, O that some would give! it is a forme of wishing often used in the Scripture, as Ps. 55. 7. Deut. 5. 29. Iob 6. 8. out of Sion] this is meant of Christ the salvation of God to Israel, who was expected out of Sion; as it is written, the Redeemer shall come out of Sion, and shall turne away impieties from Iakob, Rom. 11. 26. returneth the captivitie] that is, bringeth againe those that were led captives: according to the promise, Deut. 30. 3. and this was performed by Christ, Luke 4. 18. Eph. 4. 8. Captivity, or Leading away, is here used for the people led away; as another word of like signification is so used, Ezek. 11. 24, 25. So Psal. 126. Iakob, Israel] that is, Gods people, the posteritie of Iakob, who also was called Israel. (So Aaron is put for his posterity, the Aaronites, 1 Chron. 12. 27. and 27. 17. and David, for his children, 1 Chron. 4. 31.) Iakob is a name that noteth infirmitie; for he strove for the first birth-right, but obtained it not, when hee tooke his brother by the heele in the wombe; and thereupon was called Iakob, Gen. 25. 22, 26. But Israel is a name of power and principalitie; for after he had wrastled with the Angell, behaved him-selfe princely, wept, prayed, and prevailed, his name was changed from Iakob to Israel, as a Prince or prevailer with God, Gen. 32. 24, 26, 28. Hos. 12. 3, 4. Therefore is the name Israel given to all Gods people, even the Gentiles also that have Iakobs faith, Gal. 6. 16. as long before Iether, who was by nature an Ismaelite, 1 Chron. 7. 17. was for his faith and religion called an Israelite, 2 Sam. 17. 25. It may also bee observed, how in this word ISRAEL are contained the first letters of the names of Abraham and Sarah his wife, of Isaak and Rebekah his wife, of Iakob and of both his wives, Leah and Rachel: all which persons (except Rachel,) were also buried together in one cave, Gen. 49. 29, 31.

PSAL. XIV.

VErſ. 1. The fool] That ſapleſſe fellow, that carcaſe of a man,Nabal, a foo[illegible: 1 letter] or a churle. Nebalah a [illegible: 1 word] kaſs, Levit. 1[illegible: 1 letter].40. that walking ſepulchre of himſelf, in whom all Religion and right Reaſon is withered and waſted, dryed up and decayed. That Apoſtate, in whom naturall Principles are extinct, and from whom God is departed; as when the Prince is removing, hangings are taken down. That meer Animal that hath no more than areaſonable ſoul, and for little other purpoſe than as ſalt, to keep his body from putrefying. That wicked man hereafter deſcribed, [non-Latin text not transcribed] 1 Cor. 2.14. that ſtudieth Atheiſm,

Hath ſaid in his heart] As David proves afterward by his practice; for there are practicall Atheiſts as well as Dogmaticall. See a like paſſage, Pſal. 36.1. the tranſgreſſion of the Wicked ſaith, within my heart (that is, my mind gives mee, and I am ſtrongly perſwaded) that there as no fear of God before his eyes. This is the charge; but what proof is there? proof good enough, verſ. 2, 3, 4. For hee flattereth himſelf, &c. So here; Hee is a flat Atheiſt; for corrupt hee is, and become abominable, &c. That which Cicero ſaith of Epicurus, that leſt hee ſhould offend the Athenians, verbis reliquit deos, re ſuſtulit, De nat. Deor. in words hee affirmed there were Gods, but in deed hee denied a deity, is found true in many even at this day; for all places are full of them, and ſo is Hell too. Lucian is their old Teſtament, and Machiavell their New. Worſe they are than Agrippa, who was almoſt a Chriſtian; worſe than Protagoras with his De diis utrum ſint, non anſim affirmare. For in their hearts and lives there is heard this helliſh language,

There is no God] Oh horrible! Not that Atheiſm can ever find a perfect and continuall aſſent in mans heart: For there is no Nation under Heaven ſo barbarous, but yeelds that there is a God. When man fell from God, this Truth ſtood; as when Cities and great buildings are overthrown by war, ſome Towers, ſome Pinnacles ſurvive the violence. They lye, ſaith Seneca, whoſay that they hold there is no God;Theat. Hiſt. 127. for though to thee they ſay ſo by day, yet to themſelves and by night they doubt of it, at leaſt. And when they come to dye, they ſometimes cry out they are damned; as did Thomas Blaverus chief Counſellor ſometimes to the King of Scots; and one Arthur Miller a profeſt Atheiſt, and before them both, a certain deſperate Dean of Pauls. Sword againſt Swearer[illegible: 1 letter] Pa. [illegible: 1 letter]4.

Corrupt are they and become abominable] Or loathſome; how ſhould they bee better, that have laid hands upon al the principles in their heads, and made a clean riddancſt of them; that they may run riot in ſin without reſtraint or controule? which while others ſee, they alſo are ready to ſay with that Poet, Sollicitor nullos eſſe putare Deos.

I have read of a Woman who living in profeſſed doubt of the God-head, after better illumination and repentance,Mr. Wards Hap. of Par[illegible: 2 letters] did often proteſt, that the vicious life of a great Schollar in that Town did conjure up thoſe damnable doubtings in her ſoul.

There is none that doeth good] i. e. None to ſpeak of, no conſiderable number, Apparent rarinantes in gurgite vaſto.

Verſ. 2.Virgil. Ae [illegible: 1 letter]eid. The Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of men] As oppoſed to the Children of God; ſo ſome take it, as Gen. 4 26. & 6.2. As a Judge he looketh down, he vieweth, he taketh cognizance, ere hee proceedeth to ſentence: Thus he dealt with the old World, with Sodom, with Egypt, &c. to teach us not to bee over haſty. No more haſt than good ſpeed, ſaith one. The caeleſtiall Spheres, the higher they are in ſituation, the flower in their proper motion; and the ſupreme Judge of all uſeth much forbearance.

Any that did underſtand and ſeek God] Theſe only are they, whom God looketh after; not the rich, but the righteous. And becauſe Knowledge is the ground of all goodneſſe, as folly is of wickedneſſe, verſ. 1. therefore is it here ſaid, any that did underſtand and ſeek God. Loe theſe are thoſe precious ones whom God regardeth; ſuch as are full of goodneſſe, filled with all knowledge, Rom. 15.14. The Father ſeeketh ſuch to worſhip him, Joh. 4.23.

Verſ. 3. They are all gone aſide, &c.] This is Gods own report of the matter, fully anſwering to that before given in by David, verſ. 1. Good men have the mind of Chriſt, 1 Cor. 2.16. and do fully concurre with him in Judgement and affection. David was a man after Gods own heart, and the heart of Paul is the heart of Chriſt, ſaith Chryſoſtome. But why then doth not David except himſelf out of this univerſitas declinantinus, community of ſtraglers that are gone aſide? and why doth St. Paul argue from this Text, that all, both Jews and Gentiles, are ſtark naught[illegible: 1 letter] Rom. 3.10, 11, 12. I anſwer, becauſe by nature there is never a better of us: but [non-Latin text not transcribed], as the Greek Proverb hath it. All we like ſheep have gone aſtray, ſaith the whole Church, Iſa. 53. Home eſt inverſus decalogus, we naturally all ſtand acrols to all goodneſs. The word here rendred gone aſide, ſignifieth to give back ſturdily, as a ſtubborn Heifer, that refuſeth to receive the yoke.

They are altogether become filthy] Heb. ſtinking, yeelding a worſe ſmell than Carrion doth, or than the filthy Fox doth, of whom Oppianus reporteth (and experience ſheweth it to be true) that when he is beſet on all ſides by the Doggs that hunt him, he bewrayeth his tail with urine, and dung, of a moſt loathſome ſmell,Bodin. [illegible: 1 letter] Nat. 352. and beſmearing therewith the Doggs Noſes, driveth them away therewith many times. But all this is nothing to the filth and ſtench of ſin, which made their very Incenſe an abomination, Iſa. 1.13. and rendreth them moſt like the Devil, that foul Spirit, that ever goeth out with a ſtench, as they ſay of him. The Hebrews have the ſame word for ſin, [non-Latin text not transcribed] and a dead Carcaſs; and again, the ſame word for ſin, and ſtench. Gods Vine-yard brought forth ſtinking Grapes, Iſa. 5. and the wicked utter rotten Language, Epheſ. 4. Hence Longinquus eſt Jehovah ab impiis, The Lord ſtands aloof off from the wicked, Prov. 15.29. Pſal. 5.5. that is, from all for whom Chriſt hath not given himſelf an Offering, and a Sacrifice to God for a ſweet ſmelling ſavour, Epheſ. 5.2. The Apoſtle rendreth it, They are uſeleſs: or, as he elſewhere phraſeth it, to every good work reprobate, Tit. 1. ult.

There is none that doth good] Spiritually good, andunto divine acceptation. There is many times Malum opus in bona materia. How can you that are evil do good works? Good they may be materially, but not formally and eventually; ſuch were the good parts and practices of Socrates, Ariſtides, Scipio, Atticus, Cato, and other honeſt Heathens; they were no better than ſplendida peccata, gliſtering ſins, becauſe they failed,

1 Quoad fontem, they did not out of the good treaſure of their hearts bring forth thoſe good things: they were ſtrangers to the Life of God, to the new Nature.

2 Quoad finem, they brought forth fruit to themſelves, Hof. 10.1. they had not good aims in their good actions. Now, Bonum non fit niſi ex integra cauſa; malum ex quolibet defectu, ſay the Schools.

No not one] Ʋſ que ad unum. i. c. ad Chriſtum, ſaith Auſtin, not conſidering the force of the Hebrew phraſe, which importeth an utter denial of any meer man, that of himſelf doeth good.

Verſ. 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?] No, not ſo much as Pilates Wife had in a Dream; for elſe they would take heed of having any thing to do with thoſe juſtmen. But they are workers of iniquity, habituated and hardned in cruelty, fleſhed in bloud; and having an hoof upon their hearts, ſo that they are Maſters of their Conſciences, and have taken a courſe with them. In this queſtion here asked, the Pſalmiſt doth not ſo much quaerere, as queri, ask, as chide, and complain.

Who eat up my people as they eat bread] That is, quotid'e, daily, ſaith Auſtin; as duly as they eat bread; or, with the ſame eagerneſs and voracity. Theſe mancaters, theſe [non-Latin text not transcribed], cruel Cannibals, make no more conſcience to undoe a poor man, than to eat a good meal when they are hungty. Like Pickerels in a Pond, or Sharks in the Sea, they devour the poorer, as thoſe do the leſſer Fiſhes; and that many times with a plauſible inviſible conſumption; as the Uſurer, who like the Oſtrich can digeſt any metal; but eſpecially mony.

They call not upon the Lord] viz. for a bleſſing upon that their bread, as ſome ſenſe it; how ſhould they, ſith God abhorreth them? Pſal. 10.3. But better take it for neglect of the duty of Prayer; they rob God of his inward and outward Worſhip, and ſo deal worſe with him than Idolaters do with their Dunghildeities, whom they ceaſe not to call upon. Theſe will commit no Soleciſm in Gods Service; and be ſure that their prayer (like that of Hamaus, Eſth. 7.7.) ſhall never be turned into ſin. If they pray in extreamity (as then a Joah will lay hold on the Horns of the Altar) it is but as blinde Beggers are forced to ask, though they know not of whom.

Verſ. 5. There were they in great fear [illegible: 1 letter] There? and they? and in great fear? where? and who? and what kind of fear was it they were in? For anſwer; There, that is, in the generation of the righteous, in the aſſemblies of the Saints, according to that, Pſal. 76.3. There brake he the arrows of the Bow, the Shield, and the Sword, and the Battel. Selah. There, that is, in Salem, where is Gods Tabernacle; and in Sion, where is his dwelling place, verſ. 2. in the Congregation where the Saints were praying. Or, There, that is, in the very place where they oppreſſed and devoured the poor, they were ſurpriſed with a ſudden horrour; even there where they had ſaid,In locoubi opprimu[illegible: 2 letters], R. David. peace and ſafety &c. and where no fear was, Pſal. 53.5. no apparent cauſe of ſuch an amazement, Iſa. 13.8. A panick terrour fell upon them; they feared a fear, as the Hebrew hath it, but could not tell why: The Hornet within ſtings them, and they have many a ſecret twinge that the World is never aware of. Saul was afraid of David, and Catiline trembled upon the leaſt noyſe made.

For God is in the generation of the righteous] And natural Conſcience cannot but do homage to the Image of God, ſtamped upon the natures and works of the godly. See it in the carriage of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius toward Daniel, ſticking ſtoutly to his Principles. The piety, patience, mercy, goodneſs, expreſt by the righteous when oppreſſed, makes the hearts of wicked men ake within them; and they are ſore afraid of the Name of God called upon by them, Deut. 38.10. Or, God is in the generation of the righteous, ſcil. Ad juvandum eum, ſaith Aben-Ezra, to ſupport and ſuccour them; and that ſtrangely many times, the enemies themſelves being Judges, to their great aſtoniſhment.

Verſ. 6. You have ſhamed the counſel of the poor] And thought to mock him out of his confidence, as Sennacherib did by Hezekiah, and the Jews by our Saviour. Religion was long ſince grown, as it is alſo at this day among many, not more a matter of form, than of ſcorn. In our wretched days, as the Turks count all fools to be Saints, ſo many with us account all Saints to be fools. He is a fool, we ſay, that would be laughed out of his Coat; but he were a double fool that would bee laughed out of his skin, that would hazard his Soul, becauſe loath to bee laughed at.

Becauſe the Lord is his refuge] Sed Jehovah Protector ejus, becauſe he runs to God by prayer, and commits himſelf wholly to him for direction and ſucceſs in all his enterpriſes; Pudefacitis, id eſt, facitis ut videatur putidum, you'jeer, and hold it an egregious ſillineſs. You reject his confidence, and relye on the arm of fleſh; which yet was never true to thoſe that truſted unto it.

Verſ. 7. O that the Salvation of Iſrael, &c.] This is the ſecond part of the Pſalm, wherein David prayeth to God to deliver his Iſrael out of the hands of thoſe Atheiſts, and Oppreſſors. The whole Church muſt be remembred in our prayers,Sanhed. c. 11. and that ancient people of God the Jews not forgotten. Many of their Rabbins make this whole Pſalm a Prophecie of their diſperſion among the Genitles their Oppreſſors; and this, a prayer for their reſtauration. For our ſins, ſay they, which are many, the coming of the Meſſiah (that Salvation of Iſrael) is deferred; the time of his coming is ſealed up, Dan. 12.4. Verum enimverò Deus nos dignabitur clariſſima viſione cum reducet Zionem; tunc intelligemus res ipſas prout ſunt, ſaith Jachiades on that Text: but God ſhall give us a clear ſight of all things, when he ſhall bring back Zion, &c. This is truth, and we muſt haſten that time by our heartieſt wiſhes for that obdurate people, that a Redeemer would come to them out of Zion. Rom. 11.26. that the covering caſt over that people might be deſtroyed, Iſa. 25.7. and a general joy conceived throughout all the Churches for their happy re-admiſſion.

Out of Zion] i.e. Out of the Church, whence all good cometh; and ſuch bleſſings as are better than all elſe that Heaven or Earth affordeth, Pſal. 134.3.

"The fool." The Atheist is the fool pre-eminently, and a fool universally. He would not deny God if he were not a fool by nature, and having denied God it is no marvel that he becomes a fool in practice. Sin is always folly, and as it is the height of sin to attack the very existence of the Most High, so it is also the greatest imaginable folly. To say there is no God is to belie the plainest evidence, which is obstinacy; to oppose the common consent of mankind, which is stupidity; to stifle consciousness, which is madness. If the sinner could by his atheism destroy the God whom he hates there were some sense, although much wickedness, in his infidelity; but as denying the existence of fire does not prevent its burning a man who is in it, so doubting the existence of God will not stop the Judge of all the earth from destroying the rebel who breaks his laws; nay, this atheism is a crime which much provokes heaven, and will bring down terrible vengeance on the fool who indulges it. The proverb says, "A fool's tongue cuts his own throat," and in this instance it kills both soul and body for ever: would to God the mischief stopped even there, but alas! one fool makes hundreds, and a noisy blasphemer spreads his horrible doctrines as lepers spread the plague. Ainsworth, in his "Annotations," tells us that the word here used is Nabal, which has the signification of fading, dying, or falling away, as a withered leaf or flower; it is a title given to the foolish man as having lost the juice and sap of wisdom, reason, honesty, and godliness. Trapp hits the mark when he calls him "that sapless fellow, that carcase of a man, that walking sepulchre of himself, in whom all religion and right reason is withered and wasted, dried up and decayed. Some translate it the apostate, and others the wretch. With what earnestness should we shun the appearance of doubt as to the presence, activity, power and love of God, for all such mistrust is of the nature of folly, and who among us would wish to be ranked with the fool in the text? Yet let us never forget that all unregenerate men are more or less such fools.

The fool "hath said in his heart." May a man with his mouth profess to believe, and yet in heart say the reverse? Had he hardly become audacious enough to utter his folly with his tongue? Did the Lord look upon his thoughts as being in the nature of words to Him though not to man? Is this where man first becomes an unbeliever? —in his heart, not in his head? And when he talks atheistically, is it a foolish heart speaking, and endeavouring to clamour down the voice of conscience? We think so. If the affections were set upon truth and righteousness, the understanding would have no difficulty in settling the question of a present personal Deity, but as the heart dislikes the good and the right, it is no wonder that it desires to be rid of that Elohim, who is the great moral Governor, the Patron of rectitude and the Punisher of iniquity. While men's hearts remain what they are, we must not be surprised at the prevalence of scepticism; a corrupt tree will bring forth corrupt fruit. "Every man," says Dickson, "so long as he lieth unrenewed and unreconciled to God is nothing in effect but a madman." What wonder then if he raves? Such fools as those we are now dealing with are common to all time, and all countries; they grow without watering, and are found all the world over. The spread of mere intellectual enlightenment will not diminish their number, for since it is an affair of the heart, this folly and great learning will often dwell together. To answer sceptical cavillings will be labour lost until grace enters to make the mind willing to believe; fools can raise more objections in an hour than wise men can answer in seven years, indeed it is their mirth to set stools for wise men to stumble over. Let the preacher aim at the heart, and preach the all-conquering love of Jesus, and he will by God's grace win more doubters to the faith of the gospel than any hundred of the best reasoners who only direct their arguments to the head. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," or "no God." So monstrous is the assertion, that the man hardly dared to put it as a positive statement, but went very near to doing so. Calvin seems to regard this saying, "no God," as hardly amounting to a syllogism, scarcely reaching to a positive, dogmatical declaration; but Dr. Alexander clearly shows that it does. It is not merely the wish of the sinner's corrupt nature, and the hope of his rebellious heart, but he manages after a fashion to bring himself to assert it, and at certain seasons he thinks that he believes it. It is a solemn reflection that some who worship God with their lips may in their hearts be saying, "no God." It is worthy of observation that he does not say there is no Jehovah, but there is no Elohim; Deity in the abstract is not so much the object of attack, as the covenant, personal, ruling and governing presence of God in the world. God as ruler, lawgiver, worker, Saviour, is the butt at which the arrows of human wrath are shot. How impotent the malice! How mad the rage which raves and foams against Him in whom we live and move and have our being! How horrible the insanity which leads a man who owes his all to God to cry out, "No God"! How terrible the depravity which makes the whole race adopt this as their hearts desire, "no God!" "They are corrupt." This refers to all men, and we have the warrant of the Holy Ghost for so saying; see the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Where there is enmity to God, there is deep, inward depravity of mind. The words are rendered by eminent critics in an active sense, "they have done corruptly:" this may serve to remind us that sin is not only in our nature passively as the source of evil, but we ourselves actively fan the flame and corrupt ourselves, making that blacker still which was black as darkness itself already. We rivet our own chains by habit and continuance. "They have done abominable works." When men begin with renouncing the Most High God, who shall tell where they will end? When the Master's eyes are put out, what will not the servants do? Observe the state of the world before the flood, as pourtrayed in Genesis 6:12, and remember that human nature is unchanged. He who would see a terrible photograph of the world without God must read that most painful of all inspired Scriptures, the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Learned Hindoos have confessed that the description is literally correct in Hindostan at the present moment; and were it not for the restraining grace of God, it would be so in England. Alas! it is even here but too correct a picture of things which are done of men in secret. Things loathsome to God and man are sweet to some palates. "There is none that doeth good." Sins of omission must abound where transgressions are rife. Those who do the things which they ought not to have done, are sure to leave undone those things which they ought to have done. What a picture of our race is this! Save only where grace reigns, there is none that doeth good; humanity, fallen and debased, is a desert without an oasis, a night without a star, a dunghill without a jewel, a hell without a bottom.

"The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men." As from a watchtower, or other elevated place of observation, the Lord is represented as gazing intently upon men. He will not punish blindly, nor like a tyrant command an indiscriminate massacre because a rumour of rebellion has come up to his ears. What condescending interest and impartial justice are here imaged! The case of Sodom, visited before it was overthrown, illustrates the careful manner in which Divine Justice beholds the sin before it avenges it, and searches out the righteous that they perish not with the guilty. Behold then the eyes of Omniscience ransacking the globe, and prying among every people and nation, "to see if there were any that did understand and seek God." He who is looking down knows the good, is quick to discern it, would be delighted to find it; but as he views all the unregenerate children of men his search is fruitless, for of all the race of Adam, no unrenewed soul is other than an enemy to God and goodness. The objects of the Lord's search are not wealthy men, great men, or learned men; these, with all they can offer, cannot meet the demands of the great Governor: at the same time, he is not looking for superlative eminence in virtue, he seeks for any that understand themselves, their state, their duty, their destiny, their happiness; he looks for any that seek God, who, if there be a God, are willing and anxious to find him out. Surely this is not too great a matter to expect; for if men have not yet known God, if they have any right understanding, they will seek him. Alas! even this low degree of good is not to be found even by him who sees all things: but men love the hideous negation of "No God," and with their backs to their Creator, who is the sun of their life, they journey into the dreary region of unbelief and alienation, which is a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death without any order and where the light is as darkness.

"They are all gone aside." Without exception, all men have apostatized from the Lord their Maker, from his laws, and from all the eternal principles of right. Like stubborn heifers they have sturdily refused to receive the yoke, like errant sheep they have found a gap and left the right field. The original speaks of the race as a whole, as a totality; and humanity as a whole has become depraved in heart and defiled in life. "They have altogether become filthy;" as a whole they are spoiled and soured like corrupt leaven, or, as some put it, they have become putrid and even stinking. The only reason why we do not more clearly see this foulness is because we are accustomed to it, just as those who work daily among offensive odours at last cease to smell them. The miller does not observe the noise of his own mill, and we are slow to discover our own ruin and depravity. But are there no special cases, are all men sinful? "Yes," says the Psalmist, in a manner not to be mistaken, "they are." He has put it positively, he repeats it negatively, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one." The Hebrew phrase is an utter denial concerning any mere man that he of himself doeth good. What can be more sweeping? This is the verdict of the all-seeing Jehovah, who cannot exaggerate or mistake. As if no hope of finding a solitary specimen of a good man among the unrenewed human family might be harboured for an instant. The Holy Spirit is not content with saying all and altogether, but adds the crushing threefold negative, "none, no, not one." What say the opponents to the doctrine of natural depravity to this? Rather what do we feel concerning it? Do we not confess that we by nature are corrupt, and do we not bless the sovereign grace which has renewed us in the spirit of our minds, that sin may no more have dominion over us, but that grace may rule and reign?

Hatred of God and corruptness of life are the motive forces which produce persecution. Men who having no saving knowledge of divine things, enslave themselves to become workers of iniquity, have no heart to cry to the Lord for deliverance, but seek to amuse themselves with devouring the poor and despised people of God. It is hard bondage to be a "worker of iniquity;" a worker at the galleys, or in the mines of Siberia, is not more truly degraded and wretched; the toil is hard and the reward dreadful: those who have no knowledge choose such slavery, but those who are taught of God cry to be rescued from it. The same ignorance which keeps men bondsmen to evil, makes them hate the freeborn sons of God; hence they seek to eat them up "as they eat bread," —daily, ravenously, as though it were an ordinary, usual, every-day matter to oppress the saints of God. As pikes in a pond, eat up little fish, as eagles prey on smaller birds, as wolves rend the sheep of the pasture, so sinners naturally and as a matter of course, persecute, malign, and mock the followers of the Lord Jesus. While thus preying, they forswear all praying, and in this act consistently, for how could they hope to be heard while their hands are full of blood?

Oppressors have it not all their own way, they have their fits of trembling and their appointed seasons of overthrow. There —where they denied God and hectored against his people; there —where they thought of peace and safety, they were made to quail. "There were they" —these very loud-mouthed, iron-handed, proud-hearted Nimrods and Herods, those heady, high-minded sinners —"there were they in great fear." A panic terror seized them: "they feared a fear," as the Hebrew puts it; an undefinable, horrible, mysterious dread crept over them. The most hardened of men have their periods when conscience casts them into a cold sweat of alarm. As cowards are cruel, so all cruel men are at heart cowards. The ghost of past sin is a terrible spectre to haunt any man, and though unbelievers may boast as loudly as they will, a sound is in their ears which makes them ill at ease. "For God is in the generation of the righteous." This makes the company of godly men so irksome to the wicked because they perceive that God is with them. Shut their eyes as they may, they cannot but perceive the image of God in the character of his truly gracious people, nor can they fail to see that he works for their deliverance. Like Haman, they instinctively feel a trembling when they see God's Mordecais. Even though the saint may be in a mean position, mourning at the gate where the persecutor rejoices in state, the sinner feels the influence of the believer's true nobility and quails before it, for God is there. Let scoffers beware, for they persecute the Lord Jesus when they molest his people; the union is very close between God and his people, it amounts to a mysterious indwelling, for God is in the generation of the righteous.

Notwithstanding their real cowardice, the wicked put on the lion's skin and lord it over the Lord's poor ones. Though fools themselves, they mock at the truly wise as if the folly were on their side; but this is what might be expected, for how should brutish minds appreciate excellence, and how can those who have owl's eyes admire the sun? The special point and butt of their jest seems to be the confidence of the godly in their Lord. What can your God do for you now? Who is that God who can deliver out of our hand? Where is the reward of all your praying and beseeching? Taunting questions of this sort they thrust into the faces of weak but gracious souls, and tempt them to feel ashamed of their refuge. Let us not be laughed out of our confidence by them, let us scorn their scorning and defy their jeers; we shall need to wait but a little, and then the Lord our refuge will avenge his own elect, and ease himself of his adversaries, who once made so light of him and of his people.

Natural enough is this closing prayer, for what would so effectually convince atheists, overthrow persecutors, stay sin, and secure the godly, as the manifest appearance of Israel's great Salvation? The coming of Messiah was the desire of the godly in all ages, and though he has already come with a sin-offering to purge away iniquity, we look for him to come a second time, to come without a sin-offering unto salvation. O that these weary years would have an end! Why tarries he so long? He knows that sin abounds and that his people are down-trodden; why comes he not to the rescue? His glorious advent will restore his ancient people from literal captivity, and his SPIRITUAL seed from spiritual sorrow. Wrestling Jacob and prevailing Israel shall alike rejoice before him when he is revealed as their salvation. O that he were come! What happy, holy, halcyon, heavenly days should we then see! But let us not count him slack, for behold he comes, he comes quickly! Blessed are all they that wait for him.

Whole Psalm. There is a peculiar mark put upon this Psalm, in that it is twice in the Book of psalms. The fourteenth Psalm and the fifty-third Psalm are the same, with the alteration of one or two expressions at most. And there is another mark put upon it, that the apostle transcribes a great part of it. Romans 3:10-12.

It contains a description of a most deplorable state of things in the world —ay, in Israel; a most deplorable state, by reason of the general corruption that was befallen all sorts of men, in their principles, and in their practices, and in their opinions.

First, it was a time when there was a mighty prevalent principle of atheism got into the world, got among the great men of the world. Saith he, "That is their principle, they say in their hearts, 'There is no God.'" It is true, they did not absolutely profess it; but it was the principle whereby all their actings were regulated, and which they conformed unto. "The fool," saith he, "hath said in his heart, There is no God." Not this or that particular man, but the fool —that is, those foolish men; for in the next word he tells you, "They are corrupt;" and verse 3, "They are all gone aside." "The fool" is taken indefinitely for the great company and society of foolish men, to intimate that whatsoever they were divided about else, they were all agreed in this. "They are all a company of atheists," saith he, "practical atheists."

Secondly, their affections were suitable to this principle, as all men's affections and actions are suitable to their principles. What are you to expect from men whose principle is, that there is no God? Why, saith he, for their affections, "They are corrupt;" which he expresseth again (verse 3), "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy." "All gone aside." The word in the original is, "They are all grown sour;" as drink, that hath been formerly of some use, but when grown vapid — lost all its spirits and life —it is an insipid thing, good for nothing. And, saith he, "They are altogether become filthy" — "become stinking," as the margin hath it. They have corrupt affections, that have left them no life, no savour; but stinking, corrupt lusts prevail in them universally. They say, "There is no God;" and they are filled with stinking, corrupt lusts.

Thirdly, if this be their principle and these their affections, let us look after their actions, to see if they be any better. But consider their actions. They be of two sorts; 1. How they act in the world, 2. How they act toward the people of God.

1. How do they act in the world? Why, consider that, as to their duties which they omit, and as to the wickednesses which they perform. What good do they do? Nay, saith he, "None of them doeth good." Yea, some of them. "No, not one." Saith he, verses 1, 3, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one." If there was any one among them that did attend to what was really good, and useful in the world, there was some hope. "No," saith he, "their principle is atheism, their affections are corrupt; and for good, there is not one of them doeth any good —they omit all duties."

What do they do for evil? Why, saith he, "They have done abominable works" —"works," saith he, "not to be named, not to be spoken of —works which God abhors, which all good men abhor." "Abominable works," saith he, "such as the very light of nature would abhor;" and give me leave to use the expression of the psalmist —"stinking, filthy works." So he doth describe the state and condition of things under the reign of Saul, when he wrote this Psalm.

2. "If thus it be with them, and if thus it be with their own ways, yet they let the people of God alone; they will not add that to the rest of their sins." Nay, it is quite otherwise, saith he, "They eat up my people as they eat bread." "Those workers of iniquity have no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord." What is the reason why he brings it in in that manner? Why could he not say, "They have no knowledge that do such abominable things;" but brings it in thus, "They have no knowledge who eat up my people as they eat bread?" "It is strange, that after all my dealings with them and declaration of my will, they should be so brutish as not to know this would be their ruin. Don't they know this will devour them, destroy them, and be called over again in a particular manner? In the midst of all the sins, and greatest and highest provocations that are in the world, God lays a special weight upon the eating of his people. They may feed upon their own lusts what they will; but, "Have they no knowledge, that they eat up my people as they eat bread?"

There are very many things that might be observed from all this; but I aim to give but a few hints from the Psalms.

Well, what is the state of things now? You see what it was with them. How was it with the providence of God in reference unto them? Which is strange, and a man would scarce believe it in such a course as this is, he tells you (verse 5), notwithstanding all this, they were in great fear. "There were they in great fear," saith he. May be so, for they saw some evil coming upon them. No, there was nothing but the hand of God in it; for in Psalm 53:5, where these words are repeated, it is, "There were they in great fear, where no fear was" —no visible cause of fear yet they were in great fear.

God by his providence seldom gives an absolute, universal security unto men in their height of sin, and oppression, and sensuality, and lusts; but he will secretly put them in fear where no fear is: and though there be nothing seen that should cause them to have any fear, they shall act like men at their wits' end with fear.

But whence should this fear arise? Saith he, it ariseth from hence, "For God is in the generation of the righteous." Plainly they see their work doth not go on; their meat doth not digest with them; their bread doth not go well down. "They were eating and devouring my people, and when they came to devour them, they found God was among them (they could not digest their bread); and this put them in fear; quite surprised them." They came, and thought to have found them a sweet morsel: when engaged, God was there filling their mouth and teeth with gravel; and he began to break out the jawbone of the terrible ones when they came to feed upon them. Saith he, "God was there." (Verse 5.)

The Holy Ghost gives an account of the state of things that was between those two sorts of people he had described —between the fool and the people of God —them that were devouring, and them that had been utterly devoured, had not God been among them. Both were in fear —they that were to be devoured, and those that did devour. And they took several ways for their relief; and he showeth what those ways were, and what judgment they made upon the ways of one another. Saith he, "Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge."

There are the persons spoken of —they are "the poor;" and that is those who are described in the verses foregoing, the people that were ready to be eaten up and devoured.

And there is the hope and refuge that these poor had in such a time as this, when all things were in fear; and that was "the LORD." The poor maketh the Lord his refuge.

And you may observe here, that as he did describe all the wicked as one man, "the fool," so he describes all his own people as one man, "the poor" —that is, the poor man: "Because the LORD is his refuge." He keeps it in the singular number. Whatsoever the people of God may differ in, they are all as one man in this business.

And there is the way whereby these poor make God their refuge. They do it by "counsel," saith he. It is not a thing they do by chance, but they look upon it as their wisdom. They do it upon consideration, upon advice. It is a thing of great wisdom.

Well, what thoughts have the others concerning this acting of theirs? The poor make God their refuge; and they do it by counsel. What judgment, now, doth the world make of this counsel of theirs? Why, they "shame it;" that is, they cast shame upon it, contemn it as a very foolish thing, to make the Lord their refuge. "Truly, if they could make this or that great man their refuge, it were something; but to make the Lord their refuge, this is the foolishest thing in the world," say they. To shame men's counsel, to despise their counsel as foolish, is as great contempt as they can lay upon them.

Here you see the state of things as they are represented in this Psalm, and spread before the Lord: which being laid down, the psalmist showeth what our duty is upon such a state of things —what is the duty of the people of God, things thus being stated. Saith he, "Their way is to go to prayer:" verse 7, "O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad." If things are thus stated, then cry, then pray, "O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion," etc. There shall a revenue of praise come to God out of Zion, to the rejoicing of his people. John Owen.

"The fool." That sapless fellow, that carcase of a man, that walking sepulchre of himself, in whom all religion and right reason is withered and wasted, dried up and decayed. That apostate in whom natural principles are extinct, and from whom God is departed, as when the prince is departed, hangings are taken down. That mere animal that hath no more than a reasonable soul, and for little other purpose than as salt, to keep his body from putrefying. That wicked man hereafter described, that studieth atheism. John Trapp.

"The fool," etc. The world we live in is a world of fools. The far greater part of mankind act a part entirely irrational. So great is their infatuation, that they prefer time to eternity, momentary enjoyments to those that shall never have an end, and listen to the testimony of Satan in preference to that of God. Of all folly, that is the greatest, which relates to eternal objects, because it is the most fatal, and when persisted in through life, entirely remediless. A mistake in the management of temporal concerns may be afterwards rectified. At any rate, it is comparatively of little importance. But an error in spiritual and eternal matters, as it is in itself of the greatest moment, if carried through life, can never be remedied; because after death there is no redemption. The greatest folly that any creature is capable of, is that of denying or entertaining unjust apprehensions of the being and perfections of the great Creator. Therefore in a way of eminence, the appellation of fool is given by the Spirit of God, to him who is chargeable with this guilt. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." John Jamieson, M.A., 1789.

"The fool," a term in Scripture signifying a wicked man, used also by the heathen philosophers to signify a vicious person, (Heb.) as coming from (Heb.) signifies the extinction of life in men, animals, and plants; so the word (Heb.) is taken Isaiah 40:7, (Heb.) "the flower fadeth" (Isaiah 28:1), a plant that hath lost all that juice that made it lovely and useful. So, a fool is one that hath lost his wisdom and right notion of God and divine things, which were communicated to man by creation; one dead in sin, yet one not so much void of rational faculties, as of grace in those faculties; not one that wants a reason, but abuses his reason. Stephen Charnock.

"The fool hath said," etc. This folly is bound up in every heart. It is bound, but it is not tongue-tied; it speaks blasphemous things against God, it says there is "no God." There is a difference indeed in the language: gross sins speak this louder, there are crying sins; but though less sins speak it not so loud, they whisper it. But the Lord can hear the language of the heart, the whisperings of its motions, as plainly as we hear one another in our ordinary discourse. Oh, how heinous is the least sin, which is so injurious to the very being of the great God! David Clarkson.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." If you will turn over some few leaves, as far as the fifty-third Psalm, you shall not only find my text, but this whole Psalm, without any alteration, save only in the fifth verse, and that not at all in the sense neither. What shall we say? Took the Holy Spirit of God such especial particular notice of the sayings and deeds of a fool, that one expression of them would not serve the turn? Or, does that babbling and madness of a fool so much concern us, as that we need to have them urged upon us once and again, and a third time in the third of the Romans? Surely not any one of us present here, is this fool! Nay, if one of us could but tell where to find such a fool as this, that would offer to say, though in his heart, "There is no God," he should not rest in quiet, he should soon perceive we were not of his faction. We that are able to tell David an article or two of faith more than ever he was acquainted with! Nay, more; can we with any imaginable ground of reason be supposed liable to any suspicion of atheism, that are able to read to David a lecture out of his own Psalms, and explain the meaning of his own prophecies much clearer than himself which held the pen to the Holy Spirit of God? Though we cannot deny but that in other things there may be found some spice of folly and imperfection in us, but it cannot be imagined that we, who are almost cloyed with heavenly manna of God's word, that can instruct our teachers, and are able to maintain opinions and tenets, the scruples whereof not both the universities in this land, nor the whole clergy are able to resolve, that it should be possible for us ever to come to that perfection and excellency of folly and madness, as to entertain thought that there is no God: nay, we are not so uncharitable as to charge a Turk or an infidel with such a horrible imputation as this.

Beloved Christians, be not wise in your own conceits: if you will seriously examine the third of Romans (which I mentioned before), you shall find that Paul, out of this Psalm, and the like words of Isaiah, doth conclude the whole posterity of Adam (Christ only excepted), under sin and the curse of God; which inference of his were weak and inconcluding, unless every man of his own nature were such a one as the prophet here describes; and the same apostle in another place expresses, "Even altogether without God in the world," i.e., not maintaining it as an opinion which they would undertake by force of argument to confirm. That there is no God: for we read not of above three or four among the heathens, that were of any fashion, which went this far; but such as though in their discourse and serious thoughts they do not question a deity, but would abhor any man that would not liberally allow unto God all his glorious attributes, yet in their hearts and affections they deny him; they live as if there was no God, having no respect at all to him in all their projects, and therefore, indeed and in God's esteem, become formally, and in strict propriety of speech, very atheists. William Chillingworth, 1602-1643.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Why do men resist God's authority, against which they cannot dispute? and disobey his commands, unto which they cannot devise to frame an exception? What but the spirit of enmity, can make them regret "so easy a yoke," reject so "light a burden," shun and fly off from so peaceful and pleasant paths? yea, and take ways that so manifestly "take hold of hell, and lead down to the chambers of death," rather choosing to perish than obey? Is not this the very height of enmity? What further proof would we seek of a disaffected and implacable heart? Yet to all this we may cast in that fearful addition, their saying in their heart, "No God;" as much as to say, "O that there were none!" This is enmity not only to the highest pitch of wickedness, to wish their common parent extinct, the author of their being, but even unto madness itself. For in the forgetful heat of this transport, it is not thought on that they wish the most absolute impossibility; and that, if it were possible, they wish, with his, the extinction of their own and of all being; and that the sense of their hearts, put into words, would amount to no less than a direful and most horrid execration and curse upon God and the whole creation of God at once! As if, by the blasphemy of their poisonous breath, they would wither all nature, blast the whole universe of being, and make it fade, languish, and drop into nothing. This is to set their mouth against heaven and earth, themselves, and all things at once, as if they thought their feeble breath should overpower the omnipotent Word, shake and shiver the adamantine pillars of heaven and earth, and the Almighty fiat be defeated by their nay, striking at the root of all! So fitly is it said, "The fool hath in his heart" muttered thus. Nor are there few such fools; but this is plainly given us as the common character of apostate man, the whole revolted race, of whom it is said in very general terms, "They are all gone back, there is none that doeth good." This is their sense, one and all, that is, comparatively; and the true state of the case being laid before them, it is more their temper and sense to say, "No God," than to repent, "and turn to him." What mad enmity is this! Nor can we devise into what else to resolve it. John Howe.

"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." He that shall deny there is a God, sins with a very high hand against the light of nature; for every creature, yea, the least gnat and fly, and the meanest worm that crawls upon the ground will confute and confound that man that disputes whether there be a God or no. The name of God is written in such full, fair, and shining characters upon the whole creation, that all men may run and read that there is a God. The notion of a deity is so strongly and deeply impressed upon the tables of all men's hearts, that to deny a God is to quench the very principles of common nature; yea, it is formally deicidium, a killing of God, as much a sin the creature lies. There are none of these atheists in hell, for the devils believe and tremble. James 2:19. The Greek word priddoudi, that is here used, signifies properly the roaring of the sea; it implies such an extreme fear, as causeth not only trembling, but also a roaring and screeching out. Mark 6:49; Acts 16:29. The devils believe and acknowledge four articles of our faith. Matthew 8:29. (1.) They acknowledge God; (2.) Christ; (3.) The day of judgment; (4.) That they shall be tormented then; so that he doth not believe that there is a God, is more vile than a devil. To deny there is a God, is a sort of atheism that is not to be found in hell.

"On earth are atheists many,

In hell there is not any."

Augustine, speaking of atheists, saith, "That albeit there be some who think, or would persuade themselves, that there is no God, yet the most vile and desperate wretch that ever lived would not say, there was no God." Seneca hath a remarkable speech, Mentiuntur qui dicunt se non sentire Deum esse: nam etsi tibi affirmant interdi— noctu tamen dubitant. They lie, saith he, who say they perceive not there is a God; for although they affirm it to thee in the daytime, yet by night they doubt of it. Further, saith the same author, I have heard of some that deny that there was a God; yet never knew the man, but when he was sick he would seek unto God for help; therefore they do but lie that say there is no God; they sin against the light of their own consciences; they who most studiously go about to deny God, yet cannot do it but some check of conscience will fly in their faces. Tully would say that there was never any nation under heaven so barbarous as to deny that there was a God. T. Brooks.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Popery has not won to itself so great wits as atheism; it is the superfluity of wit that makes atheists. These will not be beaten down with impertinent arguments; disordered hail-shot of Scriptures will never scare them; they must be convinced and beaten by their own weapons. "Hast thou appealed to Caesar? To Caesar thou shalt go." Have they appealed to reason? Let us bring reason to them, that we may bring them to reason. We need not fear the want of weapons in that armoury, but our own ignorance and want of skill to use them. There is enough even in philosophy to convince atheism, and make them confess, "We are foiled with our own weapons;" for with all their wit atheists are fools. Thomas Adams.

As there is no wound more mortal than that which plucketh forth man's heart or soul; so, likewise, is there no person or pestilence of greater force suddenly in men to kill all faith, hope, and charity, with the fear of God, and consequently to cast them headlong into the pit of hell, than to deny the principle and foundation of all religion —namely, that there is a God. Robert Cawdray's "Treasury or Storehouse of Similes," 1609.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Who in the world is a verier fool, a more ignorant, wretched person, than he that is an atheist? A man may better believe there is no such man as himself, and that he is not in being, than that there is no God; for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and shall be changed from what he is, and in very many periods of his life knows not that he is; and so it is every night with him when he sleeps; but none of these can happen to God; and if he knows it not, he is a fool. Can anything in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; an excellent government and no prince; a motion without an immovable; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second without a first; a thing that begins not from itself, and therefore, not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without beginning; these things are so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them; this is the atheist: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." That is his character; the thing framed, says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying, that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is as infinite as hell, as much without light or bound, as the chaos or the primitive nothing. Jeremy Taylor, 1613-1667.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." A wise man, that lives up to the principles of reason and virtue, if one considers him in his solitude as taking in the system of the universe, observing the mutual dependence and harmony by which the whole frame of it hangs together, beating down his passions, or swelling his thoughts with magnificent ideas of providence, makes a nobler figure in the eye of an intelligent being, than the greatest conqueror amidst the pomp and solemnities of a triumph. On the contrary, there is not a more ridiculous animal than an atheist in his retirement. His mind is incapable of rapture or elevation: he can only consider himself as an insignificant figure in a landscape, and wandering up and down in a field or a meadow, under the same terms as the meanest animals about him, and as subject to as total a mortality as they, with this aggravation, that he is the only one amongst them who lies under the apprehension of it. In distresses he must be of all creatures the most helpless and forlorn; he feels the whole pressure of a present calamity, without being relieved by the memory of anything that is past, or the prospect of anything that is to come. Annihilation is the greatest blessing that he proposes to himself, and a halter or a pistol the only refuge he can fly to. But if you would behold one of these gloomy miscreants in his poorest figure, you must consider him under the terrors or at the approach of death. About thirty years ago, I was a shipboard with one of these vermin, when there arose a brisk gale, which could frighten nobody but himself. Upon the rolling of the ship he fell upon his knees, and confessed to the chaplain, that he had been a vile atheist, and had denied a Supreme Being ever since he came to his estate. The good man was astonished, and a report immediately ran through the ship, that there was an atheist upon the upper deck. Several of the common seamen, who had never heard the word before, thought it had been some strange fish; but they were more surprised when they saw it was a man, and heard out of his own mouth, "That he never believed till that day that there was a God." As he lay in the agonies of confession, one of the honest tars whispered to the boatswain, "That it would be a good deed to heave him overboard." But we were now within sight of a port, when of a sudden the wind fell, and the penitent relapsed, begging all of us that were present, as we were gentlemen, not to say anything of what had passed. He had not been ashore above two days, when one of the company began to rally him upon his devotion on shipboard, which the other denied in so high terms, that it produced the lie on both sides, and ended in a duel. The atheist was run through the body, and after some loss of blood, became as good a Christian as he was at sea, till he found that his wound was not mortal. He is at present one of the free-thinkers of the age, and now writing a pamphlet against several received opinions concerning the existence of fairies. Joseph Addison (1671 - 1719), in "The Tattler."

Verse 1: —

"'There is no God,' the fool in secret said:

There is no God that rules or earth or sky.'

Tear off the band that binds the wretch's head,

That God may burst upon his faithless eye!

Is there no God? —The stars in myriads spread,

If he look up, the blasphemy deny;

While his own features, in the mirror read,

Reflect the image of Divinity.

Is there no God? —The streams that silver flows,

The air he breathes, the ground he treads, the trees,

The flowers, the grass, the sands, each wind that blows,

All speak of God; throughout, onne voice agres,

And, eloquent, his dread existence shows:

Blind to thyself, ah, see him, fool, in these!" Giovanni Cotta.

Verse 1: —

"The owlet, Atheism,

Sailing on obscene wings across the noon,

Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close,

And, hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,

Cries out, 'Where is it'" Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834.

"They are corrupt, they have done abominable works." Sin pleaseth the flesh. Omne simile nutrit simile. Corruption inherent is nourished by the accession of corrupt actions. Judas's covetousness is sweetened with unjust gain. Joab is heartened and hardened with blood. 1 Kings 2:5. Theft is fitted to and fatted in the thievish heart with obvious booties. Pride is fed with the officious compliments of observant grooms. Extortion battens in the usurer's affections by the trolling in of his moneys. Sacrilege thrives in the church-robber by the pleasing distinctions of those sycophant priests, and helped with their not laborious profit. Nature is led, is fed with sense. And when the citadel of the heart is once won, the turret of the understanding will not long hold out. As the suffumigations of the oppressed stomach surge up and cause the headache, or as the thick spumy mists, which vapour up from the dark and foggy earth, do often suffocate the brighter air, and to us more than eclipse the sun, the black and corrupt affections, which ascend out of the nether part of the soul, do no less darken and choke the understanding. Neither can the fire of grace be kept alive at God's altar (man's heart), when the clouds of lust shall rain down such showers of impiety on it. Perit omne judicium, cum res transit ad affectum. Farewell the perspicuity of judgment, when the matter is put to the partiality of affection. Thomas Adams.

" They are corrupt, they have done abominable things: there is none that doeth good." "Men," says Bernard, "because they are corrupt in their minds, become abominable in their doings: corrupt before God, abominable before men. There are three sorts of men of which none doeth good. There are those who neither understand nor seek God, and they are the dead: there are others who understand him, but seek him not, and they are the wicked. There are others that seek him but understand him not, and they are the fools." "O God," cries a writer of the middle ages, "how many are here at this day who, under the name of Christianity, worship idols, and are abominable both to thee and to men! For every man worships that which he most loves. The proud man bows down before the idol of worldly power; the covetous man before the idol of money; the adulterer before the idol of beauty; and so of the rest." And of such, saith the apostle, "They profess that they know God, but in works deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." Titus 1:16. "There is none that doeth good." Notice how Paul avails himself of this testimony of the psalmist, among those which he heaps together in the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans, where he is proving concerning "both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Romans 3:9. John Mason Neale, in loc.

The argument of my text is the atheist's divinity, the brief of his belief couched all in one article, and that negative too, clean contrary to the fashion of all creeds, "There is no God." The article but one; but so many absurdities tied to the train of it, and itself so irreligious, so prodigiously profane, that he dares not speak it out, but saith it softly to himself, in secret, "in his heart." So the text yields these three points; Who is he? A "fool." What he saith, "no God." How he speaks it, "in his heart." A fool, his bolt, and his draught. I will speak of them severally. . . . . . . . There is a child in years, and there is a child in manners, aetate et moribus, saith Aristotle. So there is a fool; for fools and children both are called nhpioi. There is a fool in wit, and there is a fool in life; stultus in scientia, et stultus in conscientia, a witless and a graceless fool. The latter is worthy of the title as the first; both void of reason; not of the faculty but of the use. Yea, the latter fool is indeed the more kindly of the twain; for the sot would use his reason if he could; the sinner will not though he may. It is not the natural, but the moral fool that David means, the wicked and ungracious person, for so is the sense of the original term. . . . . . . It is time we leave the person, and come unto the act. What hath this fool done? Surely nothing; he hath only said. What hath he said? Nay, nothing either; he hath only thought: for to say in heart, is but to think. There are two sorts of saying in the Scripture, one meant indeed so properly, the other but in hope; one by word of mouth, the other by thought of heart. You see the psalmist means here the second sort. The bolt the fool here shoots is atheism: he makes no noise at the loss of it, as bowmen use; he draws and delivers closely, and stilly, out of sight, and without sound: he saith "God is not," but "in heart." The heart hath a mouth; intus est os cordis, saith Augustine. God, saith Cyprian, is cordis auditor, he hears the heart; then belike it hath some speech. When God said to Moses, quare clamas? why criest thou? we find no words he uttered: silens auditor, saith Gregory, he is heard through saying nothing. There is a silent speech (Psalm 4:4), "Commune with your own heart," saith David, "and be still." Speech is not the heart's action, no more than meditation is the mouth's. But sometimes the heart and mouth exchange offices; lingua mea meditabitur, saith David. Psalm 35:28. There is lingua meditans, a musing tongue; here is cor loquens, a speaking heart. And to say the truth, the philosopher saith well, it is the heart doth all things, mens videt, mens audit, mens loquitur. It is the heart that speaks, the tongue is but the instrument to give the sound. It is but the heart's echo to repeat the words after it. Except when the tongue doth run before the wit, the heart doth dictate to the mouth; it suggests what it shall say. The heart is the soul's herald: look what she will have proclaimed, the heart reads it, and the mouth cries it. The tongue saith nought but what the heart saith first. Nay, in very deed, the truest and kindest speech is the heart's. The tongue and lips are Jesuits, they lease, and lie, and use equivocations: flattery, or fear, or other by-respect, other wry respect adulterate their words. But the heart speaks as it means, worth twenty mouths, if it could speak audibly. Richard Clerke, D.D., —1634 (one of the translators of our English Bible).

The Scripture gives this as a cause of the notorious courses of wicked men, that "God is not in all their thoughts." Psalm 10:4. They forget there is a God of vengeance and a day of reckoning. "The fool" would needs enforce upon his heart, that "there is no God," and what follows: "Corrupt they are, there is none doth good: they eat up my people as bread," etc. They make no more bones of devouring men and their estates, than they make conscience of eating a piece of bread. What a wretched condition hath sin brought man unto, that the great God who "filleth heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:24) should yet have no place in the heart which he hath especially made for himself! The sun is not so clear as this truth, that God is, for all things in the world are because God is. If he were not, nothing could be. It is from him that wicked men have that strength they have to commit sin, therefore sin proceeds from atheism, especially these plotting sins; for if God were more thought on, he would take off the soul from sinful contrivings, and fix it upon himself. Richard Sibbes.

The Scripture gives this as a cause of the notorious courses of wicked men, that "God is not in all their thoughts." Psalm 10:4. They forget there is a God of vengeance and a day of reckoning. "The fool" would needs enforce upon his heart, that "there is no God," and what follows: "Corrupt they are, there is none doth good: they eat up my people as bread," etc. They make no more bones of devouring men and their estates, than they make conscience of eating a piece of bread. What a wretched condition hath sin brought man unto, that the great God who "filleth heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:24) should yet have no place in the heart which he hath especially made for himself! The sun is not so clear as this truth, that God is, for all things in the world are because God is. If he were not, nothing could be. It is from him that wicked men have that strength they have to commit sin, therefore sin proceeds from atheism, especially these plotting sins; for if God were more thought on, he would take off the soul from sinful contrivings, and fix it upon himself. Richard Sibbes.

To see if there were any that did understand. . . . . seek God." None seek him aright, and as he ought to be sought, nor can do while they live in sin: for men in seeking God fail in many things: as, First, men seek him not for himself. Secondly, they seek him not alone, but other things with him. Thirdly, they seek other things before him, as worldlings do. Fourthly, they seek him coldly or carelessly. Fifthly, they seek him inconstantly; example of Judas and Demas. Sixthly, they seek him not in his word, as heretics do. Seventhly, they seek him not in all his word, as hypocrites do. Lastly, they seek him not seasonably and timely, as profane, impenitent sinners do; have no care to depend upon God's word, but follow their own lusts and fashions of this world. Thomas Wilson, 1653.

What was the issue of God's so looking upon men? "They are all gone aside," that is, from him and his ways; "They are altogether become filthy;" their practices are such as make then stink; "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" of so many millions of men that are upon the earth, there is not one doeth good. There were men of excellent parts then in the world, men of soul, but not one of them did know God, or seek after God: Paul therefore hath laid it down for a universal maxim, that the animal, natural, or intellectual man, receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and so are rejected by him. William Greenhill.

What was the issue of God's so looking upon men? "They are all gone aside," that is, from him and his ways; "They are altogether become filthy;" their practices are such as make then stink; "There is none that doeth good, no, not one;" of so many millions of men that are upon the earth, there is not one doeth good. There were men of excellent parts then in the world, men of soul, but not one of them did know God, or seek after God: Paul therefore hath laid it down for a universal maxim, that the animal, natural, or intellectual man, receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, and so are rejected by him. William Greenhill.

The ungodly are "vile" persons (Nahum 1:14). "I will make thy grave; for thou art vile." Sin makes men base, it blots their name, it taints their blood: "They are altogether become filthy;" in the Hebrew it is, they are become stinking. Call wicked men ever so bad, you cannot call them out of their name; they are "swine" (Matthew 7:6); "vipers" (Matthew 3:7); "devils" (John 6:70). The wicked are the dross and refuse (Psalms 119:119); and heaven is too pure to have any dross mingle with it. Thomas Watson.

"Altogether become filthy." Thus the Roman satirist describes his own age:

"Nothing is left, nothing, for future times

To add to the full catalogue of crimes;

The baffled sons must feel the same desires,

And act the same mad follies as their sires,

Vice has attained its zenith." Juvenal, Sat. 1.

"There is none that doeth good, no, not one." Origen maketh a question, how it could be said that there was none, neither among the Jews nor Gentiles, that did any good; seeing there were many among them which did clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and did other good things: he hereunto maketh this answer: —That like as one that layeth a foundation, and buildeth upon it a wall or two, yet cannot be said to have built a house till he have finished it; so although these might do some good things, yet they attained not unto perfect goodness, which was only to be found in Christ. But this is not the apostle's meaning only to exclude men from the perfection of justice; for even the faithful and believers were short of that perfection which is required; he therefore showeth what men are by nature, all under sin and in the same state of damnation, without grace and faith in Christ: if any perform any good work, either it is of grace, and so not of themselves, or if they did it by the light of nature, they did it not as they ought, and so it was far from a good work indeed. Andrew Willet (1562-1621), on Romans 3:10.

"Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?" Men's ignorance is the reason why they fear not what they should fear. Why is it that the ungodly fear not sin? Oh, it's because they know it not. "Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?" Sure enough they have none, for "they eat up my people as they eat bread;" such morsels would scald their mouths, they would not dare to be such persecutors and destroyers of the people of God; they would be afraid to touch them if they did but know what they did. Richard Alleine.

"Who eat up my people as they eat bread." That is, quotidiŠ, daily, saith Austin; as duly as they eat bread; or, with the same eagerness and voracity. These man-eaters, these Laobomoi, cruel cannibals, make no more conscience to undo a poor man, than to eat a good meal when they are hungry. Like pickerels in a pond, or sharks in the sea, they devour the poorer, as those do the lesser fishes; and that many times with a plausible, invisible consumption; as the usurer, who like the ostrich, can digest any metal; but especially money. John Trapp.

"Who eat up my people as the eat bread." Oh, how few consult and believe the Scriptures setting forth the enmity of wicked men against God's people! The Scripture tells us "they eat up God's people as bread," which implies a strange inclination in them to devour the saints, and that they take as great delight therein as a hungry man in eating, and that it is natural to them to molest them. The Scripture compares them, for their hateful qualities, to the lions, and bears, to foxes for subtlety, to wild bulls, to greedy swine, to scorpions, to briers and thorns (grievous and vexing things). The Scripture represents them as industrious and unwearied in their bloody enterprises, they cannot sleep without doing mischief. Herodias had rather have the blood of a saint than half a kingdom. Haman would pay a great fine to the king that the scattered Jews (who keep not the king's laws) may be cut off. Wicked men will run the hazard of damning their own souls, rather than not fling a dagger at the apple of God's eye. Though they know what one word —aha!! —cost, yet they will break through all natural, civil, and moral obligations, to ruin God's people. The Holy Ghost calls them "implacable" men, fierce and headstrong; they are like the hot oven for fury, like the sea for boundless rage; yet, "who hath believed" this Scripture "report?" Did we believe what enemies all wicked men are unto all saints, we should not lean to our own prudence and discretion to secure us from any danger by these men; we would get an ark to secure us from the deluge of their wrath; if at any time we be cast among them and delivered, we would bless God with the three children that the hot fiery oven did not consume us; we would not wonder when we hear of any of their barbarous cruelty, but rather wonder at God's restraining them every day; we would be suspicious of receiving hurt when cast among light and frothy companions; we would shun their company as we do lions and scorpions; we would never commit any trust or secret into their hands; we would not be light-hearted whilst in their society; we would not rely on their promises any more than we would on the promise of the devil, their father; we would long for heaven, to be delivered from "the tents of Kedar;" we would not count any of the saints secured from danger, though related to any great wicked man; we would not twist ourselves with them by matching ourselves or children to these sons and daughters of Belial; neither would we make choice of devils to be our servants. Lewis Stuckley.

This is an evil world. It hates the people of God. "Because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you." John 15:19. Haman's hatred was against the whole seed of the Jews. When you can find a serpent without a sting, or a leopard without spots, then may you expect to find a wicked world without hatred to the saints. Piety is the target which is aimed at. "They are mine adversaries because I follow the thing that good is." Psalm 38:20. The world pretends to hate the godly for something else, but the ground of their quarrel is holiness. The world's hatred is implacable: anger may be reconciled, hatred cannot. You may as soon reconcile heaven and hell as the two seeds. If the world hated Christ, no wonder that it hates us. "The world hated me before it hated you." John 15:18. Why should any hate Christ? This blessed Dove had no gall, this rose of Sharon did send forth a most sweet perfume; but this shows the world's baseness, it is a Christ- hating and a saint-eating world. Thomas Watson.

"There were they in great fear." That we may not mistake the meaning of the point, we must understand that this faintheartedness and cowardliness doth not always come upon presumptuous sinners when they behold imminent dangers, for though none of them have true courage and fortitude, yet many of them have a kind of desperate stoutness and resolution when they do, as it were, see death present before their faces; which proceedeth from a kind of deadness, that is upon their hearts, and a brawniness that hath overgrown their consciences to their greater condemnation. But when it pleaseth the Lord to waken them out of the dead slumber, and to set the worm of conscience awork within them, then this doctrine holdeth true without any exception, that the boldest sinners prove at length the basest cowards: and they that have been most audacious in adventuring upon the most mischievous evils, do become of all others most timorous when God's revenging hand seizeth upon them for the same. John Dod, 1547-1645.

"God is in the generation of the righteous;" that is, he favours that generation or sort of men; God is in all generations, but such he delights in most: the wicked have cause enough to fear those in whom God delights. Joseph Caryl.

The King of Glory cannot come into the heart (as he is said to come into the hearts of his people as such; Psalm 24:9,10), but some glory of himself will appear; and as God doth accompany the word with majesty because it is his word, so he doth accompany his own children, and their ways, with majesty, yea, even in their greatest debasements. As when Stephen was brought before the council, as a prisoner at the bar for his life, then God manifested his presence to him, for it is said, "His face shone as the face of an angel of God" (Acts 6:15); in a proportionable manner it is ordinarily true what Solomon says of all righteous men, "A man's wisdom makes his face to shine." Ecclesiastes 8:1. Thus Peter also speaks (1 Peter 4:14): "If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit," not only of God, or of grace, but "of glory, resteth upon you." And so in the martyrs; their innocency, and carriage, and godly behaviour, what majesty had it with it! What an amiableness in the sight of the people, which daunted, dashed, and confounded their most wretched oppressors; so that although the wicked persecutors "did eat up God's people as bread" (verse 4), yet it is added that they were in great fear upon this very account, that "God is in the generation of the just." God stands, as it were, astonished at their dealings: "Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge," (so in the words afore) "that they eat up my people as bread," and make no more ado of it that a man doth that heartily eats of his meat? They seem to do thus, they would carry it and bear it out; but for all that they are in great fear whilst they do thus, and God strikes their hearts with terror when they most insult. Why? For, "God is in the generation of, or dwelleth in the just," and God gives often some glimmerings, hints, and warnings to the wicked (such as Pilate had concerning Christ), that his people are righteous. And this you may see in Philippians 1:28: "And in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God." In that latter passage, I observe that an assurance of salvation, and a spirit of terror, and that of God, is given either. In the Old Testament it is recorded of David (1 Samuel 18:12), that although Saul hated him (verse 9), and sought to destroy him (verse 10,11), "yet Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul;" which is the reason in hand. God manifested his presence in David, and struck Saul's conscience with his godly and wise carriage, and that made him afraid. Thomas Goodwin.

"Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge." In the fifty-third Psalm it is, "Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them." Of course, the allusion is totally different in each; in this Psalm it is the indignant remonstrance of the Psalmist with "the workers of iniquity" for undervaluing and putting God's poor to shame; the other affirms the final shame and confusion of the ungodly, and the contempt in which the Lord holds them. In either case it sweetly illustrates God's care of his poor, not merely the poor in spirit, but literally the poor and low ones, the oppressed and the injured. It is this character of God which is so conspicuously delineated in his word. We may look through all the Shasters and Vedas of the Hindoo, the Koran of the Mahometan, the legislation of the Greek, and the code of the Roman, aye, and the Talmud of the Jew, the bitterest of all; and not in one single line or page shall we find a vestige or trace of that tenderness, compassion, or sympathy for the wrongs, and oppressions, and trials, and sorrows of God's poor, which the Christian's Bible evidences in almost every page. Barton Bouchier.

"Ye have shamed." Every fool that saith in his heart there is no God, hath out of the same quiver a bolt to shoot at goodness. Barren Michal hath too many sons, who, like their mother, jeer at holy David. John Trapp.

"Ye have shamed," saith he, "the counsel of the poor." There is nothing that wicked men do so despise as the making God a refuge —nothing which they scorn in their hearts like it. "They shame it," saith he, "It is a thing to be cast out of all consideration. The wise man trusts in his wisdom, the strong man in his strength, the rich man in his riches; but this trusting in God is the foolishest thing in the world." The reasons of it are —1. They know not God; and it is a foolish thing to trust one knows not whom. 2. They are enemies to God, and God is their enemy; and they account it a foolish thing to trust their enemy. 3. They know not the way of God's assistance and help. And —4. They seek for such help, such assistance, such supplies, as God will not give; to be delivered, to serve their lusts; to be preserved, to execute their rage, filthiness, and folly. They have no other design or end of these things; and God will give none of them. And it is a foolish thing in any man to trust God to be preserved in sin. It is true, their folly is their wisdom, considering their state and condition. It is a folly to trust in God to live in sin, and despise the counsel of the poor. John Owen.

"Ye have made a mock of the counsel of the poor:" and why? "because the Lord is his trust." This is the very true cause, whatsoever other pretenses there be. Whence observe this doctrine; that true godliness is that which breeds the quarrel between God's children and the wicked. Ungodly men may say what they list, as, namely, that they hate and dislike them for that they are proud and saucy in meddling with their betters; for that they are so scornful and disdainful towards their neighbours; for that they are malcontent, and turbulent, and I know not what; but the true reason is yielded by the Lord in this place, to wit, because they make him their stay and their confidence, and will not depend upon lying vanities as the men of the world do. John Dod.

"The Lord is his refuge." Be persuaded actually to hide yourselves with Jesus Christ. To have a hiding-place and not to use it, is as bad as to want one; fly to Christ; run into the holes of this Rock. Ralph Robinson, 1656.

"O that salvation," etc. Like as when we be in quiet, we do pray either nothing at all, or very coldly unto God; so in adversity and trouble, our spirit is stirred up and enkindled to prayer, whereof we do find examples everywhere in the Psalms of David; so that affliction is as it were the sauce of prayer, as hunger is unto meat. Truly their prayer is usually unsavoury who are without afflictions, and many of them do not pray truly, but do rather counterfeit a prayer, or pray for custom. Wolfgang Musculus, 1497-1563.

"Out of Zion." Zion, the church is no Saviour, neither dare we trust in her ministers or ordinances, and yet salvation comes to men through her. The hungry multitudes are fed by the hands of the disciples, who delight to act as the servitors of the gospel feast. Zion becomes the site of the fountain of healing waters which shall flow east and west till all nations drink thereat. What a reason for maintaining in the utmost purity and energy all the works of the church of the living God! C. H. S.

"When the Lord turneth the captivity of his people: then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be glad." Notice that by Israel we are to understand those other sheep which the Lord has that are not of this fold, but which he must also bring, that they may hear his voice. For it is Israel, not Judah; Sion, not Jerusalem. "When the Lord turneth the captivity of his people." "Then," as it is in the parallel passage, "were we like unto them that dream." A glorious dream indeed, in which, fancy what we may, the half of the beauty, the half of the splendour, will not be reached by our imagination. "The captivity" of our souls to the law of concupiscence, of our bodies to the law of death; the captivity of our senses to fear; the captivity, the conclusion of which is so beautifully expressed by one of our greatest poets: namely, Giles Fletcher (1588-1623), in his "Christ's Triumph over Death."

"No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow;

No bloodless malady impales their face;

No age drops on their hairs his silver snow;

No nakedness their bodies doth embase;

No poverty themselves and theirs disgrace;

No fear of death the joy of life devours;

No unchaste sleep their precious time deflower;

No loss, no grief, no change, wait on their winged hours." John Mason Neale, in loc.

Verse 1 (first clause). The folly of atheism.

Atheism of the heart. Jamieson's Sermons on the Heart.

Verse 1 (whole verse). Describe:

I. The creed of the fool.

II. The fool who holds the creed: or thus, Atheism.

I. Its source: "the heart."

II. Its creed: "no God."

III. Its fruits: "corrupt," etc.

I. The great source of sin —alienation from God.

II. Its place of dominion —the heart.

III. Its effect upon the intellect — makes man a fool.

IV. Its manifestations in the life —acts of commission and omission.

Verse 1 (last clause). The lantern of Diogenes. Hold it up upon all classes, and denounce their sins.

I. Condescending search.

II. Favoured subjects.

III. Generous intentions.

What God looks for, and what we should look for. Men usually are quick to see things congruous to their own character.

God's search for a naturally good man; the result; lessons to be learned therefrom.

God's search for a naturally good man; the result; lessons to be learned therefrom.

Total depravity of the race.

"Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?" If men rightly knew God, his law, the evil of sin, the torment of hell, and other great truths, would they sin as they do? Or if they know these and yet continue in their iniquities, how guilty and foolish they are! Answer the question both positively and negatively, and it supplies material for a searching discourse.

Verse 4 (first clause). The crying sin of transgressing against light and knowledge.

Verse 4 (last clause). Absence of prayer, a sure mark of a graceless state.

The foolish fears of those who have no fear of God.

The Lord's nearness to the righteous, its consequences to the persecutor, and its encouragement to saints.

The wisdom of making the Lord our refuge. John Owen.

Describe,

I. The poor man here intended.

II. His counsel.

III. His reproach.

IV. His refuge.

Trust in God, a theme for mockery to fools only. Show its wisdom.

Longings for the advent.

"Out of Zion." The church, the channel of blessings to men.

Discourse to promote revival.

I. Frequent condition of the church, "captivity."

II. Means of revival —the Lord's coming in grace.

III. Consequences, "rejoice," "be glad."

Captivity of soul. What it is. How provided for. How accomplished. With what results.