1. The spiritual condition of unsaved men. They are estranged from God. They have built up between themselves and their Creator an icy cold barrier of heartless indifference, or else an almost impregnable wall of dearly loved sins. This separation is the fruitful cause of all possible misery and destitution, for there is no hell of woe that can give greater pain to human spirits than the consciousness of their apostacy from God.

2. The condescending grace of God in His dealings with unsaved men. He speaks to them, makes gracious overtures, and sends them a message, tender with sympathy, rich in mercy, and pregnant in the promise and potency of a pure and vigorous spiritual life. S. The nature of true religion. It is the heart of man coming back to God.

II. THE HUMAN RESPONSE.

1. Personal. In some things men move in masses without any realization of individual responsibility. It is not so with this momentous question. There is no rest for the sin-troubled heart until it personally turns to God. Personal submission is needed to put our hearts into a right condition for receiving Divine grace. Personal faith brings to our hearts the saving and sanctifying influence of the Spirit. And personal love to the Divine Father is the only guarantee that our peace is made with Him.

2. Prompt. Procrastination is full of danger, it is not only the thief of time, but also the rock of peril upon which many good-intentioned souls have struck and perished. The Ancients taught a solemn truth when they represented Time as an old man with wings on his shoulders, a scythe and hour-glass in his hands, and on his wrinkled forehead one lock of hair, all bald behind, and therefore offering no hope to us when it is past. Let us then seize time by the forelock.

3. Explicit. Men will do anything rather than make an uncompromising surrender. They will turn over a new leaf, sign the pledge, attend the sanctuary, and even take the sacrament. All these are good and right in their place, but they are no substitute for salvation, they cannot set the heart at peace. Any one who tries to make them a compound between God and his own conscience will fail.

4. Sincere. It came from the heart. It is related of a Greek musician that his touch was so delicate and his ear so quick that he would often play a tune on his harp that only his own ear could catch. Whether fact or fable, this incident illustrates God's intercourse with men's hearts. You hear the preacher, but he does not hear your response to his appeal. God always hears it. He is speaking to you now, and His ear is close to your heart, listening to what it will say.

(W. Wheeler.)

I. GOD'S MERCIFUL CALL TO US ALL. "Seek ye My face." Have we to search for that as if it were something hidden, far off, lost, and only to be recovered by our effort? No! a thousand times. For the seeking to which God mercifully admits us is but the turning of the direction of our desires to Him, the recognition of the fact that His face is more than all else to men, the recognition that whilst there are many that say, "Who will show us any good?" and ask the question impatiently, despairingly, vainly, they that turn the seeking into a prayer, and ask, "Lord I lift Thou the light of Thy countenance upon us," will never ask in vain. By the very make of our own spirits He calls us to Himself. You remember the old story of the Saracen woman who came to England seeking her lover, and passed through these foreign cities with no word upon her tongue that could be understood of those that heard her except the name that she sought. Ah! That is how men wander through the earth, strangers in the midst of it. They cannot translate the cry of their own hearts, but it means, "God — my soul thirsteth for Thee": and the thirst bids us seek His face. He summons us by all the providences and events of our changeful lives. Our sorrows, by their poignancy, our joys, by their incompleteness and their transiency alike, callus to Him in whom alone the sorrows can be soothed and the joys made full and remain. Our duties, by their heaviness, call us to turn ourselves to Him, in whom alone we can find the strength to fill the role that is laid upon us, and to discharge our daily tasks. But, most of all, He summons us to Himself by Him who is the angel of His face, "the effulgence of His glory, and the express image of His person."

II. THE DEVOUT SOUL'S RESPONSE. .The psalmist takes the general invitation and converts it into an individual one, to which he responds. God's "ye" is met by his "I." The psalmist makes no hesitation or delay — "When Thou saidst... my heart said to Thee." The psalmist gathers himself together in a concentrated resolve of a fixed determination — "Thy face will I seek." That is how we ought to respond. Make the general invitation thy very own. God summons all, because He summons each. Again, the psalmist "made haste, and delayed not, but made haste" to respond to the merciful summons. Ah! how many of us, in how many different ways, fall into the snare "by and by "I" not now"; and all these days that slip away whilst we hesitate gather themselves together to be our accusers hereafter. It is poor courtesy to show to a merciful invitation from a bountiful host to say, "After I have looked to the oxen I have bought, and tested them, and measured the field that I have acquired; after I have drunk the sweetness of wedded life with the wife that I have married, then I will come. But, for the present, I pray thee, have me excused." And that is what we all are doing, more or less. The psalmist gathered himself together in a fixed resolve, and said, "I will!" That is what we have to do. A languid seeker will not find; an earnest one will not fail to find.

III. A PRAYER BUILT UPON BOTH THE INVITATION AND THE ACCEPTANCE. "Hide not Thy face far from me." That prayer implies that God will not contradict Himself. His promises are commandments. If He bids us seek He binds Himself to show. His veracity, His unchangeableness, are pledged to this, that no man who yields to His invitation will be baulked of his desire.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

1. It teaches that peace with God is not a human device, but a Divine revelation. "Thou saidst." True religion originates with God.

2. Indicates what religion is. "Seek ye My face," — not My Church, or Book, or ministers, but Me.

3. It implies estrangement. "Seek."

4. That estrangement may cease.

II. MAN'S REPLY. "Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

1. Personal. "I."

2. Prompt. "When Thou saidst."

3. Emphatic. "Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

4. Thorough. Reply, almost an echo of call. David practically said, "I mean just what God means."

5. It came from right place. "My heart said." Lips lie, heart never.

(T. Kelly.)

1. The character and condescension of the Saviour from whom the call comes.

2. The Divine love that prompts Psalms 2:8. It is the assurance of blessing — Divine, precious, abundant, everlasting. How poor is the mirth of the prodigal, how soon it all fades I There is no blessing for such until they come back to God.

II. THE RESPONSE.

1. It is a true response. It is the very echo of the call, like the echo of a trumpet amid mountains.

2. It is personal.

3. Hearty.

4. Immediate.

5. Decided — "Thy face will I seek."Conclusion —

1. What if you do not seek God?

2. What if you do?

(J. P. Chown.)

1. The natural duty of man.

2. But is nevertheless the work of the Holy Spirit.

3. And is an evidence of election unto salvation. Now concerning this spirit of response to God —

I. ITS TOO FREQUENT ABSENCE. In so many and for so long, though at times it has been disturbed. For Christ stands at the door, and knocks. Beware of resisting God.

II. ITS CULTIVATION. It should be our constant spirit, prompt to obey whenever God calls. See call of apostles (Luke 5:1-12). See, too, the personality of David's reply, and hearty likewise. And there was full resolve in it. Such echo of God's word is very sweet, like the echo of music amongst the hills.

III. ITS SPECIAL OUTLET. The seeking of God's face. God is over calling us to this. Let our days be more filled up with this blessed work.

IV. ITS REWARD, The margin reads — "My heart said unto Thee, Let my face seek Thy face." It means that the reward of such seeking is blessed communion with God, the joy of Eden restored to us. Our first parents had communion with God, which they lost by sin; but it is now more than restored to us in grace.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. GOD'S VOICE TO THE HEART — "Seek ye My face," The expression is of course figurative. But the most spiritual conception of God is reached, not by a pedantic scrupulosity in avoiding material representations, but by an unhesitating use of these, and the remembrance that they are representations. The unsubstantial abstraction of the metaphysical God, described only in terms as far removed as may be from human analogies, for fear of being guilty of "anthropomorphism," never helped or gladdened any human soul. It is but a bit of mist through which you can see the stars shining. But the God whom we need and can know and love, comes to us in descriptions Cast in the mould of humanity, and loses none of His purely Spiritual essence thereby. "The face of the Lord" means the same as "the name of the Lord," and both mean the manifested character of God. If these things be true, then we may learn what it is to "seek His face." We do not need long and painful search, as for something lost in dim darkness, in order to find the sun. We do not need to seek the sun with lanterns, nor to grope after God if haply we may find Him. A man need only come out of his dark hiding-place to find it. If he will but turn his face to the light, the glory will brighten his features and make glad his eyes. And, in like manner, to seek God's face is no long, dubious search, nor is He hard to be found. Endeavour, then, to keep vivid the consciousness of that face as looking always in on you, like the solemn frescoes of the Christ which Angelico painted on the walls of his convent cells, "that each poor brother might feel his Master ever with him." Make Him your companion, and then, though you may feel the awe of the thought, "Thou hast set our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance," you will find a joy deeper than the awe, and learn the blessedness of those, sinful though they may be, who walk in the full brightness of that face.

II. THE HEART'S ECHO TO THE VOICE OF GOD. "My heart said unto Thee, Thy face," etc. Immediate, as the thunder to the lightning, the answer follows the invitation. And it needs to be so. If we delay the response it is apt never to be made at all. The first notes of the Divine voice have more persuasive power than after the heart has become familiar with them, even as the first song of the thrush in spring, that breaks the long wintry silence, has a sweetness all its own. The echo answers as soon as the mother-voice ceases. But too many of us hesitate and delay. The only safety, the only peace lies in prompt obedience and in an immediate answer. There is also brought out here very plainly the complete correspondence between the Divine command and the devout man's resolve. Word for word the invitation is repeated in the answer. Like the sailor at the tiller, he answers his captain's directions by repeating them. "Port," says the officer. "Port it is," says the steersman. "Seek ye My face." "Thy face will I seek." The correspondence in words means the correspondence in action and the thorough-going obedience. How unlike the half-and-half seeking, the languid search, as of people listlessly looking-for something which they do not much expect to find, and do not much care whether they find or no, which characterizes so many so-called Christians! They are seekers after God, are they? Yes, with less eagerness than they would seek for a sovereign if it had fallen from their fingers into the mud. Note, too, the firm and decisive resolution shining through the very brevity of the words. In the original the brevity — three words only — is yet more marked. Fixed resolves need short professions. A Spartan brevity, as of a man with his lips tightly linked together, is fitting for such purposes. Waverers and the feeble. willed try to brace themselves up by talking, making a fence of words around them. But if we are quite resolved, we shall, for the most part, say little about it. What a contrast is this clear resolve to the indecisions and hesitations so common amongst us! The ship heads now one way and now another, and that not because we are wisely tacking — that is to say, seeking to reach one point by widely-varying courses — but because our hand is so weak on the helm that we drift, wherever the wash of the waves and the buffets of the wind carry us. Further, we have in this heart's echo to the voice of God the conversion of a general invitation into a personal resolution. The call is, "Seek ye." The answer is, "I will seek." That is what we have all to do with God's words. He sows His invitations broadcast; we have to make them our own. He sends out His mercy for a world; we have to claim each our portion. He issues His commands to all; I have to make them the law for my life. The stream flows deep and broad from the throne of God, and parts into four heads, the number expressive of universal diffusion throughout the world; but I have to bring it into my own garden by my own trench, and to carry it to my own lip in my own cup.

III. THE HEART'S CRY TO GOD FOUNDED ON BOTH THE DIVINE VOICE AND THE HUMAN ECHO. — "Hide not Thy face far from me" is clearly a prayer built upon both these elements in the past. Both give me the right to pray thus, and are pledges of the answer. As to the former, "Thou saidst, Seek ye My face." You may have exactly as much of God as you want and desire. Then "seek His face evermore," and your life will be bright because you will walk in the light of His countenance always.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

(J. Pulsford.)

I. THAT IN THE REPLY MAN DOES LITTLE MORE THAN REPEAT THE WORDS OF GOD. God says, "Seek ye My face"; man replies, "Thy face, Lord," etc. Now the disposition thus distinctly marked is one the want of which is at the root of half the practical unbelief and miserable inconsistencies by which the visible Church is deformed. Men acknowledge the Divine authority of the Scriptures, but hesitate and cavil as to obeying them. What could be more inconsistent and unreasonable? If God speaks and men know and confess it, then what else is there for them but to obey? Nevertheless they do not obey. Even professedly religious men do not. They object, and deliberate, and find excuse; they do anything but obey. Now it is the very opposite of this which we find here. There falls upon the ear — no matter how — a message which David feels to be from God. It is not a message about which there can be no room for question as to its meaning and the manner in which it should be obeyed. But the observable and admirable thing is, that David did not wait to deliberate, but instantly made his resolution upon hearing God's injunction.

II. OBSERVE THAT GOD ADDRESSES US IN PLURAL NUMBER, BUT MAN'S REPLY IS IN THE SINGULAR. "Thy face, Lord, will I seek." Now the individualizing God's Word, the taking it individually to oneself, as though designed for oneself, and spoken to oneself — this is very closely connected with the whole practice and the whole comfort of religion. For example, the human race is addressed in Scripture as "fallen and depraved" — far gone from original righteousness, inclined only to iniquity and that too continually. Well, so long as you speak to a man as a man, merely as being one of a sinful kind, one whose sinfulness, like the colour of his skin, he has in common with millions around him, he will generally quite complacently meet the accusation. It will hardly touch him. He may confess to the fact, but give in his confession with a smile. When, however, you try to single him out from the mass; when you speak to him like Nathan to David — "Thou art the man!" then he is full of indignation and resentment, and with Hazael of old is ready to exclaim — "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Yet, till a man thus separates himself, takes himself out of the mass — feels and confesses without any regard to his being one of a multitude, "I have gone astray, like a lost sheep," till then he has nothing of that feeling of being a sinner that will lead to genuine repentance. Oh! it is so easy to join in a general confession; the hard thing is to make the confession individual. And so with the precepts of Scripture. When they are delivered in the plural they can be listened to with great composure. But make the precept individual and personal, then what shrinking there is, what aversion, what refusal! Reduce therefore piety to a personality. The call may be general — "Seek ye"; the answer must be individual — "I will!" No being content with the confession of masses and multitudes! Alone thou must stand in judgment; alone thou must take thy resolution. When Thou saidst, "Seek ye My face," O Lord, it may have been to the millions that Thy voice was addressed; it may have been by millions that that mighty voice was" heard; but I paused not to know whether these millions would keep silence; whether they would join in one vast refusal, or in one vast consent; at once — on the instant — whatever the millions might determine to do, my heart said unto Thee, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

III. WHAT IS IT TO SEEK GOD'S FACE? The more ordinary signification of the phrase, "the face of God," is the love and favour of God — "Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant." "Cause Thy face to shine and we shall be saved." How much, then, is implied in this simple bidding — "Seek ye My face"! God would have us come back to Himself. Manifold are the methods by which God thus addresses us. But how often His message is heard and refused, and how terrible if this refusal be persisted in! But if obeyed, then how blessed are we!

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

I. GOD'S COMMAND.

1. God shows Himself to His understanding creature. But why should God bid men seek Him? Because He would have men worship Him, and in order to this God must show him how He will be served. It may be objected that everything proclaims this, to seek God. Though God had not spoken, nor His Word, every creature hath a voice to say, "Seek God." All His benefits have that voice to say, "Seek God." Everything hath a voice. We know God's nature somewhat in the creature, that He is a powerful, a wise, a just God. We see it by the works of creation and providence; but if we should know His nature, and not His will towards us — His commanding will, what He will have us do; and His promising will, what He will do for us — except we have a ground for this from God, the knowledge of His nature is but a confused knowledge; it serves but to make us inexcusable, as in Romans 1:19 it is proved at large. It is too confused to be the ground of obedience, unless the will of God be discovered before; therefore we must know the mind of God.

2. God is willing to be known. God delights not to hide Himself. God stands not upon state, as some emperors do that think their presence diminisheth respect. God is no such God, but He may be searched into. Man, if any weakness be discovered, we can soon search into the depth of his excellency; but with God it is clean otherwise. The more we know of Him, the more we shall admire Him. None admire Him more than the blessed angels, that see most of Him, and the blessed spirits that have communion with Him. Therefore He hides not Himself, nay, He desires to be known; and all those that have His Spirit desire to make Him known.

3. God's goodness is a communicative, spreading goodness. Two things make us very like God, that much concern this point: to do things freely of ourselves, and to do them far. To communicate goodness, and to communicate it far to many. The greater the fire is, the further it burns; the greater the love is, the further it extends and communicates itself. There are none more like God than those that communicate what good they have to others, and communicate it as far and remote as they can to extend it to many.

4. The ground of all obedience, of all holy intercourse with God, is a spirit of application. Applying the truths of God, though generally spoken, to ourselves in particular, if we do not — as indeed it is the fault of the times to hear the Word of God loosely — we care not so much to hear the Word of God, as to hear the gifts of men. We desire to hear fine things, to increase notions. We delight in them, and to hear some empty creature, to fasten upon a story or some phrases by the bye. Alas I you come here to hear duties and comforts, if you be good, and sentences against you, if you be naught. We speak God's threatenings to you that will wound you to hell, except you pull them out by repentance. It is another manner of matter to hear than it is took for. "Take heed how you hear," saith Christ (Luke 8:18). So we had need, for the Word that we hear now shall judge us at the latter day. Thereupon we should labour for a spirit of application, to make a right use of it as we should. For if we do not, we dishonour God and His bounty and give joy to the devil, for the devil rejoiceth when he seeth what excellent things are laid open in the Church of God, in the ministry, what sweet promises and comforts, but here is nobody to take them and lay hold on them; like a table that is richly furnished, and there is nobody comes and takes it. It makes the devil sport, it rejoiceth the enemy of mankind when we lose so great advantage, that we will not apply those blessed truths and make them our own.

II. THE OBEDIENCE TO THE COMMAND. "Thy face, Lord," etc. I will seek by Thy strength and grace. And this obedience was —

1. Present, at once.

2. Pliable, that of a ready, obedient heart.

3. Perfect and sincere.

4. Openly professed, as Joshua 24:15.

5. Continued, and —

6. Suitable, answerable to the command.Faith will see light at a little crevice. When it sees an encouragement once, a command, it will soon answer: and when it sees a promise, half a promise, it will welcome it. It is an obedient thing, "the obedience of faith" (Romans 16:26). It believes, and upon believing, it goes to God. As the servants of the king of Assyria, they catch the Word presently, "Thy servant Benhadad" (1 Kings 20:82); so faith, it catcheth the Word.

(R. Sibbea.)

1. Supremely beneficent.

2. Graciously merciful.

3. Infinitely condescending.

II. THE BELIEVER'S REPLY,

1. A wise resolve.

2. A blessed heritage.

3. An eternal privilege In heaven they see His face.

III. THE GIVEN OPPORTUNITY — "When Thou saidst." This opportunity is —

1. Universal. To all who hear the Gospel.

2. Continuous. From life till death.

3. Varied. Bible, conscience, providence.

4. Unsolicited. God makes the first approach.

(Homilist.)

(R. Brewin.)

     1210   God, human descriptions
     5015   heart, and Holy Spirit
     5150   face
     8164   spirituality
     8604   prayer, response to God

Psalm 27:4-8

     8160   seeking God

Psalm 27:7-12

     8640   calling upon God

God's Guests
'One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.' --PSALM xxvii. 4. We shall do great injustice to this mystical aspiration of the Psalmist, if we degrade it to be the mere expression of a desire for unbroken residence in a material Temple. He was no sickly, sentimental seeker after cloistered seclusion. He knew the necessities and duties of life far better than in a cowardly way to wish to shirk them, in order that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Seek Ye' --'I Will Seek'
'When Thou saidst, Seek ye my face; My heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. 9. Hide not Thy face far from me.' --PSALM xxvii. 8, 9. We have here a report of a brief dialogue between God and a devout soul. The Psalmist tells us of God's invitation and of his acceptance, and on both he builds the prayer that the face which he had been bidden to seek, and had sought, may not be hid from him. The correspondence between what God said to him and what he said to God is even more emphatically …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Of the Proving of the True Lover
"My Son, thou art not yet strong and prudent in thy love." 2. Wherefore, O my Lord? 3. "Because for a little opposition thou fallest away from thy undertakings, and too eagerly seekest after consolation. The strong lover standeth fast in temptations, and believeth not the evil persuasions of the enemy. As in prosperity I please him, so in adversity I do not displease. 4. "The prudent lover considereth not the gift of the lover so much as the love of the giver. He looketh for the affection more …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Another Wonderful Record of 25.
A Christian minister, living in Northern Indiana, was in want, and knelt in prayer again and again before his Father in heaven. His quarterly allowance had been withheld, and want stared him in the face. Constrained by urgent need, and shut up to God for help, he pleaded repeatedly for a supply of his temporal wants. Now see how extraordinary was the plan of the Lord to send relief. "In one of the lovely homes of Massachusetts, while the snow was falling and the winds were howling without, a lady …
Various—The Wonders of Prayer

Prayer in the Unconverted.
"When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek." --Psalm xxvii. 8. The faculty of prayer is not an acquisition of later years, but is created in us, inherent in the root of our being, inseparable from our nature. And yet consistent with this fact is the fact that the great majority of men do not pray. It is possible to possess a faculty dormant in us for a whole lifetime. The Malay possesses the faculty for studying modern languages as well as we, but he …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

In his Tabernacle
"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord."--Ps. xxvii. 4. T. S. M. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 Not built with hands is that fair radiant chamber Of God's untroubled rest-- Where Christ awaits to lay His weary-hearted In stillness on His breast. Not built on sands of time or place to perish, When tempests roar-- But on the mighty Rock of Ages founded, It stands for evermore-- …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

The Habitation of God
Gerhard Ter Steegen Ps. xxvii. 4 Here on earth a temple stands, Temple never built with hands; There the Lord doth fill the place With the glory of His grace. Cleansed by Christ's atoning Blood, Thou art this fair House of God. Thoughts, desires, that enter there, Should they not be pure and fair? Meet for holy courts and blest, Courts of stillness and of rest, Where the soul, a priest in white, Singeth praises day and night; Glory of the love divine Filling all this heart of thine. …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

Seeking the Lord's Face. --Psalm xxvii.
Seeking the Lord's Face.--Psalm xxvii. One thing, with all my soul's desire, I sought and will pursue; What Thine own Spirit doth inspire, Lord, for Thy servant do. Grant me within Thy courts a place, Among Thy saints a seat, For ever to behold Thy face, And worship at Thy feet. In Thy pavilion to abide, When storms of trouble blow, And in Thy tabernacle hide, Secure from every foe. "Seek ye My face-" without delay, When thus I hear Thee speak, My heart would leap for joy, and say, "Thy face, …
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

The Exile --Continued.
As our purpose in this volume is not a complete biography, it will not be necessary to dwell on the subsequent portions of the exile, inasmuch as there is little reference to these in the psalms. We must pass over even that exquisite episode of Abigail, whose graceful presence and "most subtle flow of silver-paced counsel" soothed David's ruffled spirit, and led him captive at once as in a silken leash. The glimpse of old-world ways in the story, the rough mirth of the shearers, the hint of the kind …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Why Should we not Believe These to be Angelic Operations through Dispensation of The...
16. Why should we not believe these to be angelic operations through dispensation of the providence of God, Who maketh good use of both good things and evil, according to the unsearchable depth of His judgments? whether thereby the minds of mortals be instructed, or whether deceived; whether consoled, or whether terrified: according as unto each one there is to be either a showing of mercy, or a taking of vengeance, by Him to Whom, not without a meaning, the Church doth sing "of mercy and of judgment." …
St. Augustine—On Care to Be Had for the Dead.

Epistle vi. To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari). Gregory to Januarius, &c. The Jews who have come hither from your city have complained to us that Peter, who has been brought by the will of God from their superstition to the worship of Christian faith, having taken with him certain disorderly persons, on the day after his baptism, that is on the Lord's day of the very Paschal festival, with grave scandal and without your consent, had taken possession of their synagogue in Caralis, and placed there the …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

The victory of Unarmed Faith
'And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. 33. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. 34. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock; 35. And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Fundamental Oneness of the Dispensations.
Hebrews iii. i-iv. 13 (R.V.). "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High-priest of our confession, even Jesus; who was faithful to Him that appointed Him as also was Moses in all his house. For He hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some one; but He that built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

Concerning Worship.
Concerning Worship. [780] All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times, nor persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; [781] yet as to the outward signification thereof, in prayers, praises, or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Out of the Deep of Fear and Anxiety.
My heart is disquieted within me. Tearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed me.--Ps. lv. 4. Thou hast proved and visited my heart in the night season--Ps. xvii. 3. Nevertheless though I am sometimes afraid, yet put I my trust in Thee.--Ps. lv. 3. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?--Ps. xxvii. 1. I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fear.--Ps. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep

The Acceptable Sacrifice;
OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

I Fear, I Say, Greatly for Thee, Lest...
39. I fear, I say, greatly for thee, lest, when thou boastest that thou wilt follow the Lamb wheresoever He shall have gone, thou be unable by reason of swelling pride to follow Him through strait ways. It is good for thee, O virgin soul, that thus, as thou art a virgin, thus altogether keeping in thy heart that thou hast been born again, keeping in thy flesh that thou hast been born, thou yet conceive of the fear of the Lord, and give birth to the spirit of salvation. [2142] "Fear," indeed, "there …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

Of Faith. The Definition of It. Its Peculiar Properties.
1. A brief recapitulation of the leading points of the whole discussion. The scope of this chapter. The necessity of the doctrine of faith. This doctrine obscured by the Schoolmen, who make God the object of faith, without referring to Christ. The Schoolmen refuted by various passages. 2. The dogma of implicit faith refuted. It destroys faith, which consists in a knowledge of the divine will. What this will is, and how necessary the knowledge of it. 3. Many things are and will continue to be implicitly …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament