66 'gracious" to us in all His dealings, and we have sinned against Him times and ways without number. We have daily provoked Him to His face, and yet He has not once punished us according to the amount of our transgressions. Again and again therefore let it be repeated, "He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." Oh the goodness of God and the unworthiness of man! Thy long-suffering Lord, and my multiplied transgressions, who shall declare! Oh touch and teach my inmost soul. Rouse me from insensibility, and quicken me to life. Pour upon my heart Thy enlightening Spirit; and, bright as the sun, irradiate my mind with these two truths-Thy goodness, and my unworthiness. All revelation teaches meall Nature certifies me-all experience convinces me-every day, every hour, and every circumstance, cries aloud to me. of Thy goodness, and my unworthiness? These, the two grand facts in the history of my past life, are also the two great truths in the recorded Scriptures of my God; these, the first lessons of my infant faith, shall also be the last utterances of my departing breath,-Thy goodness, and my unworthiness! X. Immeasurable Benefits. GOD'S MERCY-ITS HEIGHT-ITS EMBLEM-HEAVEN'S HEIGHT, For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His So enlarged does the heart of the Psalmist become with meditating on the long-suffering goodness of his Lord, that language fails any longer to express the emotions which rise within his breast. So vast, so glorious, is the theme, that it overpowers his mind. If, even in reference to earthly things, there are thoughts which lie too deep for utterancewhich labor for adequate expression; how much more will this be felt by the believer, when the Omniscient Spirit has led his mind into the deep things of God? ! In the renewed soul, there are depths of sorrow, and heights of joy which cannot possibly be described. On the one hand, loathings of self and sin are awakened by the Holy One, which can find vent only in sighs and tears. The Refiner searches into the innermost recesses of the human spirit, the soul becomes agitated to its centre--a living fire from the sanctifying Spirit has entered it, and sins, like snakes before unnoticed issue from their lurking-places, hissing yet retreating, writhing yet resisting in every part. We become wretched and appalled at the spiritual conflictat the war of elements, within us. Words fail upon the tongue. Even prayer dies away from the lip. But then, even then, blessed be God, His own Spirit condescends to pray from within us, and to make intercessions on our behalf "with groanings that cannot be uttered." Heb. viii. 26. This is indeed a sorrow which the world knoweth not, and with which a stranger cannot intermeddle. On the other hand, there is also a spiritual joy which overpowers expression. When the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, and the Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; when the sweet consciousness of God's love to us, and of our love to Him, is imparted to the soul--and when this felt blessedness of holy mutual love, awakens an intense longing for nearer and never-ending communion, Cant. ii. 5-7; then indeed the soul feels lost in that love which passeth knowledge; the language of emotion supersedes the language of expression-the Lord God Almighty is silently "resting in His love," and the enraptured soul is resting therein with Him. Zeph. iii. 17. (Margin.) St. Peter thus appeals to his Christian brethren for the truth of this ineffable and thrilling joy in their adorable Redeemer: "Whom having not seen," he says, "ye love: in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” 1. Pet. i. 8. Believers under the Old Testament dispensation were privileged, like believers under the New, to know that love which passeth knowledge. David was a partaker of this unspeakable spiritual joy. In this, and other Psalms, he labors to express emotions which no language can adequately describe. He had enumerated various blessings. He had specially alluded to, and mentioned, several times, the "mercy" of the Lord. But his sense of that long-suffering mercy was far too great to be comprehended within the mere term. He turns therefore from the use of direct statements to employ illustrative comparisons; and in the next verses introduces the most beautiful and appropriate images that can possibly be imagined. He feels himself, also, to be so unworthy of that mercy, that he searches in vain for the cause of it in himself. No sooner, however, does he turn to meditate on the character of God, than the true cause bursts at once upon his view. He joyfully discovers the truth, that the reason why God had not dealt with him according to a limited measure of mercy, was because His mercy is itself immeasurable. The most immeasurable thing, therefore, in the whole visible creation must now become to Him, instead of words, the proper symbol, the appropriate expression, of that mercy. And having said in the verses just before, that the Lord was " merciful and gracious," and that He had "not dealt with him after his sins, nor awarded him according to his iniquities;" he amplifies and illustrates his idea, and exclaims, in the 11th, "For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy towards them that fear Him. As if he would say, "This is the reason why the Lord shows such marvellous long-suffering towards me, because His long-suffering is utterly inexhaustible." Our sins and iniquities are immeasurable in their guilt. How, then, shall our fears be quieted? By remembering that there is something more immeasurable still-the mercy of the Lord! Does the vastness of this declaration cause thy faith to stagger? And dost thou say, "But how shall I believe in a mercy like this, which I can neither see nor prove?" Here is a mode of measurement proposed, which you daily see, and which you can constantly apply. Go forth from thy dwelling-place, and look upward to the heavens. Seest thou the blue sky ?-Dost thou doubt its existence ?-Canst thou measure its height? That heaven is but one of the letters in God's universal alphabet, by which he carries on, in part, the education of His children. All believers have been instructed in this school. Abraham, the father of the faithful, received here the rudiments of his knowledge; and the Almighty God Himself condescended to instruct him. Ignorant as a child, and unbelieving, this illuminated letter was pointed out to him by the finger of his Divine Teacher, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and He said unto them, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. xv. 5, 6. David, also, gained heavenly wisdom in the same school. The one looked upward to the heaven, and beheld in its countless host, a picture of his own countless posterity. The other looked up into the same heaven, and beheld in its immeasurable height, an emblem of the immeasurable mercy of his Redeemer. David studied God in His works, and |