Psalm 5:7 But as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy: and in your fear will I worship toward your holy temple. From the sense the Psalmist had of God's manifold, repeated favours to him, from the multitude of the Divine mercies towards him, he would be always glad and ready to resort to the house of God; there to prostrate himself with all humble reverence, and there to pay Him the tribute of a public and solemn worship. I. THE REASONABLENESS OF THIS RESOLUTION. His reason in this instance was indeed occasional and particular, and but one of the many motives which persuade to the discharge of this important duty. Consider well the intrinsic grounds of that fitness which it is so generally agreed there is in the worship of our Maker. Moral duties have, besides His will and pleasure, reasons of their own. How doth the relation of a reasonable creature to an all-perfect Creator, infinite in wisdom, goodness, and power, introduce the fitness of any application from the one to the other, in the offices of religious worship? How should it appear, if God had not commanded it, that He would either expect or accept such a service from us? With what view do we lay our wants before Him? Doth He not know them beforehand much better than we do? Or doth His goodness want solicitation to induce Him to be yet more gracious than He is? Or when we deprecate the punishment of our sins, and implore His merciful pardon, do we intend to make our impressions upon the tenderness of His nature? Or when we approach Him with the charity of our intercessions for His mercies and blessings to our fellow creatures, is it that we are better than they? Are we more mindful of their interests than He is? Or when we praise Him for His benefits with joyful lips, do we mean by the pleasing sound of our eucharistical oblations to engage 'His goodness in the more and further largesses of His favour? If these are improper regards, what more proper reason will be left for the support of our worship? Why are we commanded to pray? Because prayer recognises and settles upon our minds a sense of those several attributes and perfections in God, the dutiful and cordial acknowledgment whereof is most likely to maintain and preserve us in the state of dependence and subjection we were made for. When we approach God in the humble strains of penitential sorrow, what a scene of melting and moving considerations must open to our minds! What indignation that we have not yet approved, what fear that we may not, what vehement desire that we may approve our hearts before Him in all holy obedience. Do we engage in the charitable office of intercession for others? The seeds of mutual benevolence are fostered hereby and greatly cultivated. We cannot ask with any decency the forgiveness of their sins at the hands of God, whose trespasses against ourselves we should not be willing to remit or pardon. Finally, the offices of praise and thanksgiving add the motives of gratitude to the sense of our dependence, and inspire us with a more generous and honourable principle of obedience. II. THE FITNESS OF THE PLACE HE CHOSE FOR IT. The palace of God's holiness where numbers resorted for the purposes of public prayer and thanksgiving. An appropriate place is necessary to the purposes of public worship. III. THE MANNER OF EXECUTING THE PIOUS RESOLUTION. In the fear of God with an awful sense of His wisdom, goodness, and power. With reverence and godly fear. This every attribute of God, when duly improved to us by proper reflections, may help to enforce and to inculcate. Even the forgiveness that there is with Him, by the manner and method wherein we partake of it, was, with our holy Psalmist, a motive to the fear of Him. (N. Marshall, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. |
    |