tence, Gen. iii. 19. " Duft thou art, and unto dust "fhalt thou return.' How apt are we to forget both our original and our end!

4. For a thousand years in thy fight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. The connection between the verse preceding and the verse now before us, feems to be this. God fentenced man to death. It is true, the execution of the sentence was at firft deferred, and the term of human life fuffered to extend to near a thousand years. But what was even that, what is any period of time, or time itself, if compared with the duration of the Eternal? All time is equal, when it is paft; a thousand years, when gone, are forgotten as yesterday; and the longeft life of man, to a perfon who looks back upon it, may appear only as three hours, or one quarter of the night.

5. Thou carrieft them away as with a flood, they are as a fleep in the morning; they are like grafs which groweth up; or, as grafs that changeth. 6. In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

The fhortness of life, and the fuddennefs of our departure hence, are illuftrated by three fimilitudes. The first is that of a "flood," or torrent pouring unexpectedly and impetuously from the mountains, and fweeping all before it in an inftant. The fecond is that of" fleep," from which when a man awaketh, he thinketh the time paffed in it to have been nothing. In the third fimilitude, man is compared to the "grafs" of the field. In the morning of youth fair and beautiful, he groweth up and flourisheth;

in the evening of old age, (and how often before that evening!) he is cut down by the stroke of death; all his juices, to the circulation of which he ftood indebted for life, health, and ftrength, are dried up; he withereth, and turneth again to his earth. "Surely "all flesh is grafs, and all the goodlinefs thereof is as "the flower of the field !” Ifai. xl. 6. Of this truth, the word of God, the voice of nature, and daily ex-1 perience join to affure us: yet who ordereth his life and conversation, as if he believed it?

7. For we are confumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. 8. Thou haft fet our iniquities before thee; our fecret fins in the light of thy countenance.

The generations of men are troubled and confumed by divers difeafes, and fundry kinds of death, through the displeasure of God; his displeasure is occafioned by their fins, all of which he feeth and punifheth. If Mofes wrote this Pfalm, the provocations and chaftisements of Ifrael are here alluded to. But the cafe of the Ifraelites in the wilderness is the cafe of Chriftians in the world, and the fame thing is true both in them and in us.

9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath, we spend our years as a tale that is told.

Life is compared to a "tale" that is told and forgotten; to a word" which is but air, or breath, and vanisheth into nothing, as foon as spoken; or perhaps, as the original generally fignifies, to a" medi"tation, a thought," which is of a nature still more fleeting and tranfient.

10. The days of our years are threefcore years and

ten, and if by reafon of ftrength they be four/core years, yet is their strength labour and forrow: for it is foon cut off, and we fly away.

This again might be primarily spoken by Mofes, concerning Ifrael. The generation of thofe who came out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upwards, fell within the space of forty years, in the wilderness; Numb. xxiv. 29. and they who lived longest experienced only labour and forrow, until they were cut off, like grafs, and, by the breath of God's dif pleasure, blown away from the face of the earth. Like the Ifraelites, we have been brought out of Egypt, and fojourn in the wilderness; like them we murmur, and offend God our Saviour; like them we fall and perish. To the age of feventy years few of us can hope to attain; labour and forrow are our portion in the world; we are mowed down, as this year's grafs of the field; we fly away and are no more seen in the land of the living.

II. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, fo is thy wrath.

Houbigant renders the verse thus: "Quis novit "vim iræ tuæ; et, prout terribilis es, furorem "tuum?"-" Who knoweth" or confidereth," the

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power of thine anger; and thy wrath, in propor"tion as thou art terrible?" That is, in other words, Notwithstanding all the manifeftations of God's indignation against fin, which introduced death and every other calamity among men, who is there that knoweth, who that duly confidereth and layeth to heart the almighty power of that indignation; who that is induced, by beholding the mor

tality of his neighbours to prepare himself for his own departure hence? Such holy confideration is the gift of God, from whom the Pfalmift, in the next verfe, directeth us to requeft it.

12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

He who "numbereth his days," or taketh a right account of the fhortness of this prefent life, compared with the unnumbered ages of that eternity which is future, will foon become a proficient in the school of true wisdom. He will learn to give the preference where it is due; to do good, and fuffer evil, upon earth, expecting the reward of both in heaven. Make us wife, blessed Lord, but wife unto falvation.

13. Return, O LORD, how long? And let it repent thee concerning, or, be propitiated towards thy fervants.

During the reign of death over poor mankind, God is represented as abfent; he is therefore by the faithful entreated to "return," and to fatisfy their longing defires after falvation; to haften the day when Meffiah should make a " propitiation" for fin, when he should redeem his fervants from death, and ranfom them from the power of the grave. The Christian, who knoweth that his Lord is rifen indeed, looks forward to the refurrection of the juft, when death shall be finally swallowed up in victory.

14. O fatisfy us early, or, in the morning, with thy mercy: that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou haft afflictedus, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

The church prayeth for the dawning of that glorious morning, when every cloud fhall vanish at the rifing of the fun of righteousness, and night and darkness shall be no more. Then only fhall we be "fatisfied, or faturated with the mercy" of Jehovah ; then only shall we " rejoice and be glad all our "days." The time of our pilgrimage upon earth is a time of forrow; we grieve for our departed friends; and our furviving friends muft foon grieve for us; thefe are "the days wherein God afflicteth "us, these the years wherein we see evil;" but he will hereafter" make us glad according to them;" in proportion to our fufferings, if rightly we bear thofe fufferings, will be our reward; nay, "these "light afflictions, which are but for a moment, "work for us a far more exceeding and eternal "weight of glory." Then shall our joy be increased, and receive an additional relish from the remembrance of our former forrow; then fhall we bless the days and the years which exercised our faith, and perfected our patience; and then fhall we blefs God, who chastised us for a season, that he might fave us for

ever.

16. Let thy work appear unto thy fervants, and thy glory unto their children. 17. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

The Redemption of man is that "work" of God, whereby his glory" is manifefted to all generations, and which all generations do therefore long to behold accomplished. For this purpose the faith

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