2. In a personal delight in the Lord. Thin is infinitely more than to delight in our theology or our church.

3. In a settled reliance upon the Lord. This is a righteous, a necessary and a blessed work.

4. In a patient waiting upon the Lord. Be silent, and devoutly active.

II. ITS BLESSEDNESS.

1. Settledness. Piety makes a man feel at home in the world wherever he is, everywhere he feels that he is in his father's house, and though legally he cannot claim a foot of land, morally he inherits all.

2. Sustenance. "Verily thou shalt be fed," — fed not merely by bodily provisions, but by the higher provisions of soul — fed on truth. Nothing but truth can satisfy the cravings of the soul; nothing but truth can invigorate its powers. Man's spiritual nature grows in the atmosphere of genuine piety, but in all other climates it sickens and decays.

3. Realization. "He shall give thee the desires of thine heart," and "He shall bring it to pass." What do these expressions mean but this: Thou shalt realize both the cravings of thine heart and the objects of thine hope, the ideals thou art struggling after shall become grand realities in thy life?

4. Vindication. "He shall bring forth thy righteousness," etc. Whilst good men are unknown to most, and misunderstood by many, they are misrepresented by not a few. But one day they shall be revealed to all, they shall blaze as orbs on the vision of mankind.

(Homilist.)

I. WE MAY TRUST THE UNIVERSE. The confidence that the universe is essentially beneficent in all its operations, though it transcends actual knowledge, is yet based upon it. The more we study the relation of each part to the whole, and of the whole to each, the more do we see that what we call evil is but good in the making. Everywhere we see wisdom and goodness — one purpose, one law, one power, one God, throughout the universe. At the root of all the seeming severity of nature, there is the everlasting faithfulness and love of God.

II. WE MAY TRUST LIFE. We cannot hide from ourselves the dark side of human life, and we do not want a faith which does not fully recognize it; but when we study the tendency of things God becomes His own interpreter. God and good are perceived to be one, and our human world is seen to be moving through such processes as moral growth requires toward harmony with good. The week of creation is a long week. Wait! The end will explain and vindicate both the length and severity of the process. A careful study of the past affords sufficient justification for our largest expectations as to the coming years. The movement is ever towards good. The centuries grow juster, more merciful, more peaceful.

III. WE MAY TRUST GOD AS OUR FATHER AND SAVIOUR. What Christ was finitely, God is infinitely.

IV. WE MAY TRUST GOD FOR ALL THE FUTURE. NOT alone for these brief and troubled mortal years is He our Father and Saviour, but for ever. His laws will never play false with us; His mercy will never fail us. In all and through all the Father is redeeming and educating His children. From His love no soul is ever outcast; to His love no soul is ever lost.

V. TRUST IN THE LORD AND DO GOOD.

1. Trust in the Lord — there is our attitude toward the unknown and the unknowable. The unknown and the unknowable may be, and ought to be, trusted. With one of our modern seers we surely can say: "All I have seen bids me trust the Creator for all I have not seen."

2. Do good — there is our duty in the region of the known, in the realm of human relation and circumstance, in the realm of daily life. We cannot choose our life, but we can choose the way we shall live it. We can resolve and strive, whatever betides, to be good and to do good; ever to be loyal to the truest and best we know, and thus to compel the rapidly vanishing days to leave a blessing behind.

(John Hunter, D. D.)

I. THE ORDER OF THE THOUGHT IN OUR TEXT. The trust comes before the doing good. Trust is the living root out of which all living goodness springs. But nothing can be more false than the idea that there is no goodness possible as the fruit of the natural action of the human powers. s principle, The virtues of the heathen are splendid vices, is false to the heart's core. There is natural goodness; man is so made that the freest and happiest play of his powers is in speaking truth and doing good. So far the heathen and deistical moralists are right. But man is made for a higher, a diviner goodness than the mere self-sustained play of his faculties can realize, a goodness whose life is the inspiration of God. Rob a plant of the air and sunlight, if there is some moisture about its roots, the sap within will produce some dim likeness of the flower, which under benigner conditions would flaunt its splendour and breathe its fragrance in the sun. So man, cut off from God, can produce some dim, dry image of the goodness which, when the life of God flows through it, will rise to godlike beauty and proportion. Good deeds will be fully and really such when their root is the grace and love of God.

II. BUT WHAT IS GOOD? What are good deeds? "What shall we do that we may work the works of God?" How many would be thankful for a list of good deeds with the countersign of Heaven. And God gives no catalogue of good deeds in His Word. The Churches are ready enough with their Do this and thou shalt live. But it is not the method of God. He goes at once to the root of the matter. Be good, if you would do good. Good, beautiful, Christ-like deeds are the affluence of a good, beautiful, Christ-like life. And there is but one way to be good. Begin at the beginning. Enter the training school of duty. Do the good thing which now lies nearest to your hand. Master your besetting sins. Look out daily for means to help and bless others.

III. THE PROMISE. So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. The psalmist has no ideal meanings here: he means home and bread. And this would be the normal condition of things if the world were not so terribly jarred and jangled. Men and things would be in their right places. The wisest the teachers, the most prudent the managers, the ablest the rulers, the most liberal the almoners, the bravest the captains, the noblest the kings. But all is dislocated and confused. Yet through the whole there runs the law which finds expression in the text. "Trust in the Lord, and do good," and your home among your brethren is sure. They know the well-doers, they love them, they make room for them. "Come in and abide with us, O thou blessed of the Lord."

(J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)

II. THE NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGE OF SUCH TRUST.

1. It is right.

2. It is blessed.

3. Demands an obedient life.

(S. Partridge, M. A.)

I. THAT WE TRUST IN HIM. God's power to bless is not more boundless than His willingness to do so. Aye, He "is able to do exceedingly abundantly," etc. (Ephesians 3:20). There must be confidence in the heart towards God; indeed, the beginning and the end of true religion is confidence.

II. DOING GOOD. How much more we might do to make others happy than we ever try to do. One made happy each day, what a contribution to the general stock of joy that would be I And poor people can do this as well as rich. One is enabled to set an example of thankfulness and trust in God, which will be an encouragement to others who are careful and troubled about many things. Another exerts an influence for good, by showing a forgiving spirit.

(John W. Norton.)

(Evangelical Advocate.)

I. Those OF THE SENSES. How wrong are they who take their daily food without thankfulness or desire for God's blessing. See our Lord's example of thanksgiving, and that of St. Paul. But because the example of Confucius may weigh more with some men than that of St. Paul, let me add what is observed of him: that he never ate anything but he first prostrated himself, and offered it to the supreme Lord of heaven. In like manner, Whether we cat or drink, let us do all to the glory of God. This will ennoble and improve our carnal gratifications, and exalt them into religious acts of gratitude and love.

II. THOSE OF THE IMAGINATION. These are chiefly —

1. Beauty. Think of the beauty of the world and who has poured it out upon the creation, Himself, infinitely more beautiful. When we see the sun shine forth in its lustre, and nature appearing in its most advantageous dress, how can we avoid turning our thoughts upwards toward that Being, whose handiwork that sun shows, every field, every flower, contains the most edifying rhetoric to excite in us the love of that Being, who hath clothed the lilies of the field with that elegant simplicity, which was superior to Solomon's pomp, when arrayed in all his glory. But the Christian man must think of Him who has enriched the world with such a profusion of good; has beautified it with such order and harmony, and has ennobled it with such astonishing magnificence.

2. Greatness. We love to behold that which is great, solemn and majestic, and this desire was stamped upon our nature for this very purpose, that we might take delight in contemplating Him, of whose greatness there is no end. Everybody knows we hate nothing more than confinement in a prospect: the soul loves to have a free and unlimited range.

3. Novelty. This excites pleasure. How comes it that we are generally in pursuit of something new; and yet, when we are possessed of it, and the object becomes familiar to us, we cease to care for it. Does not the unsatisfactoriness of things here below admonish us to fix our rest upon Him, who alone can satisfy, and even exceed our wishes? Whom the more we know, the more amiable we shall find Him, and find no end of His perfections.

III. THOSE OF A MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL NATURE. No doubt, our highest affection, in the reason of the thing, is a tribute due to God considered as the highest good. Yet it must also be granted, that dry and abstracted reasons of love operate very faintly, unless we take into the account those affecting considerations of His being our Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and universal Benefactor. For this cause the Scripture tells us, we love God because He first loved us.

IV. THOSE OF HOPE AND EXPECTATION. NOW, present hope is present good; and a certain expectation of future blessings is in some measure a blessing in hand. Hope is the great cordial that must sweeten life, and make the nauseous draught go down. Recreations and pastimes, properly so called (for they serve for no other end but to pass away our time), may soothe the mind into a pleasing forgetfulness of its misery. But nothing can give us an exquisite relish and enjoyment of this life but the hopes of a better through the merits of Jesus Christ.

(J. Seed, M. A.)

2. The text says, "He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." "Why," the worldly man says, "I thought religion was all self-denial; I never imagined that in loving God we could have our desires." Christian men have two selves; there is the old self, and therein they do deny the flesh with its affections and lusts; but there is a new self; the new man in Christ Jesus; and our religion does not consist in any self-denial of that. No, let it have the full swing of its desires; for all that it can long to enjoy, it may most safely obtain. So it is with the believer; his religion is a matter of delight; and that which he avoids is very little self-denial to him.:His tastes are changed, his wishes are altered. He delights himself in his God, and joyously receives the desire of his heart.

I. A PRECEPT WRITTEN UPON SPARKLING JEWELS.

1. What is this delight? A delightful word — I cannot use anything but its own self to describe it. If you look at it — it is flashing with light, it sparkles like a star, nay, like a bright constellation, radiant with sweet influences like the Pleiades. Delight! it is mirth without its froth. Delight I it is peace, yet it is more than that: it is peace celebrated with festivity, with all the streamers hanging in the streets and all the music playing in the soul. Matthew Henry says, "desire is love in action, like a bird on the wing; delight is love in rest, like a bird on its nest."

2. Whence comes this delight? "Delight thyself in the Lord."(1) Delight thyself in Jehovah, in His very existence. This alone is enough to be a well-spring of joy for ever and ever to all true believers.(2) Delight also in His dominion. "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice." Jehovah is King! Come what may of it, He sits upon the throne and ruleth all things well.(3) Every attribute of God should become a fresh ray in this sunlight of delight. That He is wise should make us glad who know our folly. That He is mighty should cause us to rejoice who tremble at our own weakness. That He is everlasting should always be a theme for our music, when we know that we are grass and wither as the green herb. That He is unchanging should always give us a song, since we change every hour and are never long the same. That tie is full of grace, and that this grace in the covenant He has given to us, that it is ours to cleanse us, ours to keep us, ours to sanctify us, ours to perfect us, ours to bring us to glory — all this should tend to make us delight ourselves in Him.

3. When is this delight to be practised? My text does not say, "Delight thyself in the Lord occasionally, and now and then," but at all times.(1) It is hard to delight in God when everything goes well with us. "Oh," I hear you say, "I cannot understand that; that is the time when I do delight in God most." I am afraid it is the time when you delight in God least. Is it not likely that often you are delighting in His mercies rather than in Him? delighting in the creature rather than in the Creator?(2) Another time when it is hard to delight in God is when everything goes in with us. Then we are apt to say with Jacob, "All these things are against us."

4. Why is this delighting in God so rare? Because there is so little on the one hand of genuine religion, and so little on the other of deep-toned religion where the little that there is is genuine.

II. A PROMISE PRICELESS BEYOND RUBIES. Those who delight in God are qualified to have the promise fulfilled. When a man's delight is in God, then His desires are of such a sort that God may be glorified in the granting of them, and the man himself profited by the receiving of them. Again, delighting in God qualifies the believer not only for desiring aright, but for spending aright: for some men, if they had their heart's desire, and it were a good desire, would nevertheless make a wrong use of it; but he that delights in God, whatever he gets, knows how to use it well. "Still," says one, "what are those desires which we are sure to receive?" Now, we must single out those who delight themselves in God, and I believe the range of their desires will be found in a very short compass. But if the Apostle Paul were here, who had nothing, who was often naked and poor and miserable, I am persuaded if he had his wish, he would say, "I have nothing to wish for, nothing upon earth, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." But if I must have a wish, I know what I would wish for. I would wish to be perfect, to be free from every sin, from all self, from all temptation, from all love of the world, from all care for everything or anything that is contrary to God's Word. "Well," says another, "if I might have my desire I would have all these things, but I would desire to be useful always." Ah, to be useful! Delight thyself in the Lord, thou shalt have thy desire. Perhaps not exactly as you would like to word it. You may not be useful in the sphere you aspire to, but you shall be useful as God would have you useful in His own way and in His own measure.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

II. EVERY MAN DESIRES THAT WHICH HE DELIGHTS IN.

1. The object of our delight is a loadstone which draws us toward itself. Wealth, honour, virtue.

2. In proportion to the intensity of our delight is the strength of our desire.

3. Our desire will control our thoughts, and aims, and actions. What the spring is to the watch, and the sun is to the solar system, desire is to the life. How important is it, then, that the objects we desire should be worthy of our aspirations.

III. THE GODLY MAN DELIGHTS IN GOD, AND CONSEQUENTLY DOES NOT DESIRE ANYTHING WHICH IS OPPOSED TO HIS WILL.

1. But his desire is not only negative; it is strongly and intelligently positive.(1) He delights in God's Word, and studies it, that He may know God's will.(2) He delights in God's purposes, and is anxious to further them.(3) He delights in God's character, and lives to reflect it.

2. Such a desire is more than a desire. It is a determination — a determination to be as God is, and to do His will as it is done in heaven.

IV. GOD IS ALWAYS READY TO GIVE WHAT HE APPROVES, AND WHAT WE DELIGHT IN AND DESIRE. He cannot refuse anything which He has promised; He must and will give Himself to those who delight in and desire Him.

V. HE WHO MAKES GOD HIS CHIEF GOOD, DESIRES GOD, AND RECEIVES GOD, HAS IN HIMSELF THE SECRET OF REAL SATISFACTION. What more can we have than God? Possessing Him, we possess all things.

(J. Baker Norton.)

1. By contemplating God in the glories of His nature, both in their unmingled and combined beauties.

2. By studying the discoveries of His infinite mind: the exhibition of these in redemption is the study and highest joy of heaven, and should be the source of rapturous joy to the Christian on earth.

3. By meditating the manifestations of His mercy, and tracing up to this source all our welfare, temporal and eternal.

4. By reflecting on His moral empire over the souls of men, and especially the hearts of His people.

5. By confiding in the wisdom and goodness of His providence.

6. By rejoicing in God's special relation to His people — "This God is our God for ever and ever, and will be our guide even unto death."

II. THE GRACIOUS PROMISE. The desires of the righteous will always correspond with the objects of their delight. The Christian will desire —

1. To comprehend more of the eternal mind: thus David, when he said, "None upon earth I desire beside Thee."

2. To feel a deeper impression of interest in His mercy, and this to realize is his highest felicity.

3. To enjoy more communion with God, and be filled with all His communicable fulness.

4. To live more to God in the world and be completely prepared for future glory.

(T. Yockney.)

(H. Reynolds, D. D.)

1. What is necessary in order to the performance of it?(1) The first thing required is evidently an acquaintance with God. We must, to some extent, be acquainted with His character, His works, and His disposition and intentions towards ourselves.(2) We must be possessed of conformity to Him, and have some degree of likeness to Him ourselves; otherwise, we may know the truth about Him, but it will afford us no delight whatever. From Ephesians 4:22-24, and Colossians 3:9, 10, we learn that the likeness must consist in two things — holiness and knowledge. Holiness includes two things — justice and goodness. We cannot conceive of a holy being in the character of a malignant one, or suppose any, with a deep love for what is right, to be filled with malevolence. We must have a love for justice, then, before we can delight ourselves in God. And the only way by which we can come to have it, is by faith in Christ. Then, in conjunction with this, our character itself is changed; we have no longer the love of sin, but a true regard for everything in which there is any "virtue or any praise" — and therefore a supreme admiration of Him who is the "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." If we would be able to delight ourselves in God, we must likewise be conformed to Him in His knowledge. God knows what is the chief end of man's life, what is right and what is wrong. The Christian, by believing God's revelation, knows this too, and is conformed to Jehovah in respect to knowledge.

2. The way in which we should show our delight in Him.(1) By meditating upon Him.(2) By taking an interest in creation and created things as His work, and by observing the course of events as His providence working out the great end of His own glory and blessing His creatures.(3) By reading His Word, attending on His ordinances, and observing His sacraments.

II. THE BLESSING PROMISED TO THOSE WHO PERFORM THE DUTY. This would be a dangerous promise to make to those who were to retain their corrupt heart; for were the wicked man to obtain "the desires of his heart," he would destroy at one stroke all whom he thought his enemies, annihilate hell, make heaven a place of sensual enjoyment, and dethrone the Lord of all Himself. Happily, however, all who "delight themselves in God" will have very different wishes from these.

1. Those who delight in Him will desire to have a greater acquaintance with Him; and they will not fail to be gratified.

2. If we delight in God we shall desire a greater love to Him, and shall obtain it.

3. If we delight in God we shall wish to have closer communion with Him, and shall obtain our desire while we remain on earth.

4. Those who delight themselves in God will desire and obtain a greater degree of likeness to God; and what a noble thing it must be to resemble in the slightest extent the Lord of all! Their likeness will perhaps be best seen in regard to "God manifest in the flesh." "Because he lives, we shall live also." We shall partake of His glory, resemble His character, and sit down upon His throne.

(W. Dickson.)

1. I suppose there are many now past the middle age to whom the fact that the chapter of life is closing, the romance of life is concluding, causes many an ache. The primroses and bluebells of youth have died away, and now the leaves are falling round them. What faculties there were in the young mind never developed, because circumstances were adverse, how its joyousness was blighted by incessant toil, how its energies were marred by some fatal mistake, or some irretrievable choice. Without resurrection of the dead, now heavens and a new earth, God and Christ, and eternity, we are of all men most miserable; there is nothing more hopeless than a declining life, nothing more calculated to fill with despair than the ebbing away of life's forces. But the joyousness of the new birth[ childhood's innocence and mirth restored t faculties of receiving pleasure from sight and sound refreshed and enlarged f To this we must stretch, for this pray, and in this yearning and in thus praying we shall find-comfort as our day declines.

2. Passionate love is felt by some hearts which will, which can never be known by the object of affection, or which, if known, is never returned. Is there a more painful wound? Yet is there no balm in Gilead? Has He, the healer of every human misery, no touch for the heart stricken with such an arrow? Surely yes. The bruised and bleeding soul will find its only solace in prayer, in prayer for the object of affection. It may be that there is a separation on earth, but there will be a reunion in heaven.

(S. Baring Gould, M. A.)

1. Delight thyself in the favour, approbation, friendship of the Lord.

(1)Prize it.

(2)Seek it.

(3)Keep it.

2. Delight thyself in the service of the Lord.

(1)It is excellent in itself.

(2)It brings an excellent reward.

3. Delight thyself in the doctrine of the Lord.

II. THE PSALMIST'S ENCOURAGEMENT. He must be understood to speak of —

1. Innocent desires.

2. Spiritual desires.

3. Scriptural desires.

4. Earnest desires.

5. Expressed desires (Luke 11:9; Philippians 4:6).

(Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)

1. In the first place, their chief desire is one which can be always gratified. Now, is not that a great thing? But not only is the chief desire of those who delight themselves in the Lord one that can be always gratified; but all the desires that spring up around it are of the same nature. When a man delights himself in the Lord the merely selfish desires die out of his heart, and far better things take their place. Oh, do not think that the heart is left empty when the old desires go out. It is stocked with far better and nobler ones. Then the will becomes parallel to God's, and hence it does not need to be checked or thwarted as before.

2. Then, again, whatever is denied now is denied only for a time. We have already acknowledged that there are some of our desires that we must be content to wait for, but the time is certainly coming when they shall all be fulfilled. If only we give our hearts unreservedly to the Lord, we may rest assured that He will not allow any desire to remain in them which He does not intend to gratify to the full.

(J. Monro Gibson, D. D.)

I. IN FREEDOM FROM EAGER, EARTHLY DESIRES. "Delight thyself in the Lord," etc. The great reason why life is troubled lies not without but within. It is not our changing circumstances, but our unregulated desires, that rob us of peace. We are feverish, not because of the external temperature, but because of the state of our own blood. One desire unfulfilled is enough to banish tranquillity; but how can it survive a dozen dragging different ways? And, still further, they destroy tranquillity by putting us at the mercy of externals. Do not venture the rich freightage of your happiness in crazy vessels. If your life twines round any prop but God your strength, be sure that, some time or other, the stay to which its tendrils cling will be plucked up, and the poor vine will be lacerated, its clusters crushed, and its sap bleeding out of it. "Delight thyself in the Lord" — that is the cure for all the feverish unrest of desires. Rest must come from delighting in God, for it is no longer distracted by many desires, but has come under the one master-attraction. Such a soul is still as the great river above the falls, when all the side currents and dimpling eddies and backwaters are effaced by the attraction that draws every drop in the one direction. Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be filled and calmed by one master-passion which unites and stills the soul. And for another reason there will be peace: because in such a case desire and fruition go together. "He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Only do not vulgarize that great promise by making it out to mean that, if we will be good, He will give us the earthly blessings which we wish. Sometimes we shall get them, and sometimes not; but the real desire of the man who delights in God will be God Himself, and this desire is ever fulfilled. And again, desire after God brings peace by putting all other wishes in their right place. The counsel in the text does not enjoin the extinction, but the subordination of all other desires. The presence of the king awes the crowd into silence.

II. IN FREEDOM FROM THE PERPLEXITY OF CHOOSING OUR PATH. This is a word for all life, not only for its great occasions. Twice or thrice, perhaps, in a man's life his road leads him up to a high dividing point, a watershed, as it were, whence the rain runs from, the one side of the ridge to the Pacific, and from the other to the Atlantic. His whole future may depend on his bearing the least bit to the right hand or to the left, and all the slopes below, on either side, are wreathed in mist. Powerless as he is to see before him, he has yet to choose, and his choice determines the rest of his days. Certainly he needs some guidance then. But he needs it not less in the small decisions of every hour. Our histories are made up of a series of trifles, in each of which a separate act of will and choice is involved. Depend upon it that, if we have not learned the habit of committing the daily-recurring monotonous steps to Him, we shall find it very, very hard to seek His help when we come to a fork in the road. So this is a command for all life, not only for its turning-points. Thus, these two keys — joy in God, and trust in His guidance — open for us the double doors of the secret place of the Most High; where all the roar of the busy world dies upon the ear, and the still small voice of the present God deepens the silence, and hushes the heart. Be quiet, and you will hear Him speak-delight in Him, that you may be quiet.

III. The secret of tranquillity is found, thirdly, IN FREEDOM FROM THE ANXIETY OF AN UNKNOWN FUTURE. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." Such an addition to these previous counsels is needful, if all the sources of our disquiet are to be dealt with. The future is dim, after all our straining to see into its depths. Confidence that the future will but evolve God's purposes, and that all these are enlisted on our side, will give peace and power. Rut remember that the peaceful confidence of this final counsel is legitimate only when we have obeyed the other two.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

(C. Voysey, B. A.)

1. One of those powers of the mind, in which man finds a very copious spring of delight, is the capacity of looking onward into futurity, and indulging in the fair visions of hope. Anticipation has been called the better-half of pleasure. If this be so, where could you look for such full and safe indulgence of this faculty, as in the contemplation of what the Giver of all good can and will do for those who look to Him as the source of their happiness (Psalm 36:8).

2. The memory is another faculty of the mind, which is highly conducive to its happiness. Many sources of delight are richer even in the recollection than in the immediate enjoyment; as the tints that appear in the western heaven are frequently most beautiful, some time after the bright orb, from which they are reflected, has itself vanished from our sight. Now, if we were more addicted to marking the ways of God, and His gracious dealings towards us, we should find this to be eminently the case in respect to them. It is in the calmer moments of recollection, in the retrospect which the soul, at all habituated to self-examination, takes of the mercies for which it is indebted to God, that. the instances of His loving-kindness and fatherly care break out upon it in their full proportions, and almost melt and overcome it with sensations of gratitude and delight. In this respect, how little will any earthly joy bear a comparison with delight in the Lord!

3. Another distinguished source of human delight is the growth of the intellectual powers, the acquisition of knowledge. And what knowledge can bear a comparison with the knowledge of the Lord? If it be a delightful sensation to perceive that our mind has made some progress; that it knows that of which it was formerly ignorant; that it can form clear and distinct ideas about that which seemed to it formerly clouded and obscure; how must that delight be increased when the object of our newly acquired information is the highest on which the mind of man can dwell; and when the things which we learn are things which accompany salvation!

4. But the excitement of the affections is a much commoner source of delight than the acquisition of knowledge, and here we may boldly challenge any one to find an object that has so many and so powerful claims on the heart of man, as belong to God. If the most astonishing mercy, the most inestimable benefits, the tenderest care, the largest and most liberal bounty, are calculated to excite feelings of complacency and attachment in the human breast, then may we well delight in God, as an object of affection, and feel our hearts expand with indescribable pleasure, and with the most solid satisfaction, in meditating on His character and attributes.

(J. Marriott, M. A.)

I. WHAT THIS DELIGHT IS. Delight properly is an affection of the mind that springs from the possession of a good which hath been ardently desired. Delight properly is a silencing of desire, and the banquet of the soul on the presence of its desired object. But there is a delight of a lower stamp.

1. In desires. There is a delight in desire as well as in fruition.

2. In hopes (Romans 5:2).

3. In contemplation. The consideration and serious thoughts of heaven do affect a gracious heart and fill it with pleasure, though itself be as if in a wilderness. As the union with the object is nearer, so the delight is stronger. Now, this delight the soul hath in duty is not a delight of fruition, but of desire, hope or contemplation. Now, delight is active or passive, as Isaiah 64:5. When we delightfully clasp the throne of grace God doth often cast His arms about our necks.

II. WHENCE THIS DELIGHT SPRINGS.

1. From the Spirit of God. Not a spark of fire upon our own hearth that is able to kindle this spiritual delight. It is the Holy Ghost (Psalm 138:8; Isaiah 56:7).

2. From grace. Dead men cannot perform a duty (Psalm 115:17).

3. From a good conscience (Proverbs 15:15). He that hath a good conscience must needs be cheerful in his religious and civil duties. Guilt will come trembling, and with a sad countenance, into the presence of God's majesty. A guilty child cannot with cheerfulness come into a displeased father's presence.

4. From a holy familiarity with God. Hence there is delight in one another's company.

5. From hopes of speeding (Romans 12:12).

6. From a sense of former mercies and acceptation. These quicken our desire for and expectation of more (Psalm 116:2).

III. THE REASONS OF THIS DOCTRINE, that without cheerful seeking, we cannot have a gracious answer. For —

1. A fiat and dumpish temper is not for His honour; and prayers in such temper do not reach Him, and they speak an unwillingness that God should hear us.

2. And without delight we are not fit to receive a mercy. Delight in a mercy wanted makes room for desire, and large desires make room for mercy. If no delight in begging, there will be no delight in enjoying; if there be no cheerfulness to quicken our prayers when we need a blessing, there will be little joy to quicken our praise when we receive a blessing. Had not Zaccheus had a great joy at the news of Christ's coming by his door, he had not so readily entertained and welcomed Him.

IV. USES.

1. Of information.(1) There is a great pleasure in the ways of God, if rightly understood. Prayer, which is a duty wherein we express our wants, is delightful. There is more sweetness in a Christian's asking, than in a wicked man's enjoying, blessings.(2) What delight will there be in heaven! If there be such sweetness in desire, what will there he in full fruition! There is joy in seeking; what is there then in finding! Duty hath its sweets, its thousands, but glory its ten thousands.(3) The miserable condition of those that can delight in anything but prayer. It is an aggravation of our enmity to God, when we can sin cheerfully and pray dully, when duty is more loathsome than iniquity.

2. Of examination. We pray, but how are our hearts?

(S. Charnock.)

II. TRUE DELIGHT IN GOD WILL HAVE RESPECT, FIRST, TO WHAT GOD IS, AS A SPIRITUAL BEING OF SUPREME EXCELLENCY AND GLORY — the Author of all other beings and of all things. We are capable of so contemplating God. The Bible is full of this feeling: how eloquent, how rapturous are its recognitions of God. How David delighted in this. And so was it in the early Church. See the Te Deum, etc.

1. Now, 1 do not ask whether you delight in other things rather than in God; in your business or books, in science or social festivities, in amusements or sensual gratifications. In such a ease, your delight is dearly irreligious. But I ask you to distinguish between your religious delights — between the religious feelings that have your own soul for their object, and the religious feelings that have God for their object. The one is simply religious selfishness; the other is religious worship and sacrifice. I need not add, that our supreme delight in God is when God is manifested in Jesus Christ; when, in the Incarnate, redeeming Son, He expresses all the wondrous riches of His great wisdom and love — when we see the Eternal light in the Eternal love. No man can delight in God until he attains the perfect love which casteth out fear.

2. A religious soul will also delight in what God does; in all the movements of His providence; in all the arrangements of His grace. Our religious life is largely affected by the way in which we look at God's doings — by the feelings which we cherish towards them. It is easy, of course, to delight in God's doings when His providential ways are pleasant to us and His gifts affluent. And this is really the chief experience of most lives. Privation and sorrow are more exceptional than we think. A great sorrow fills a large space in our thoughts, but a small one in our lives. We think more of the one black cloud than of the blue sky across which it is driven. We cannot, of course, delight in pain, but we may delight in God who inflicts pain, delight in Him although He inflicts pain; have such strong assurance of His wise love, that we cling to Him in the stedfast love of our troubled hearts.

III. Is WHAT SENSE WILL THE LORD GIVE THE MAN WHO DELIGHTS IN HIM THE DESIRES OF HIS HEART? It is a daring phrase, for even good men may desire hurtful and wrong things. Our desires are no safe law no measure of blessing. But if God cannot change at our caprice, may not our caprice itself change? And is not this the way in which this daring assurance is really fulfilled? Delight thyself in the Lord, and then thy desires will be right: thou wilt be happy in the perfect gratification of thy instructed and pious desires. "The prayer of the upright is His delight." Our first and out great solicitude, then, should be about the delights of our souls. What are our supreme delights? God's gifts Of Himself? Our wealth, pleasures, borne, or our spiritual privileges? Our delights will always create and shape our desires. If we desire God and holiness, and the salvation of men, no desires of ours for these things can be so deep as God desires. A nurture, a culture, an urgency of the spiritual soul is possible to us. Delight in God will grow by that which it feeds upon — its satisfaction enlarges its desires. And when we do really delight in God, holiness will be easy and natural as common life; duty will be turned into a joy, and self-sacrifice will rejoice in love.

(H. Allon, D. D.)

(R. J. Campbell, M. A.)

(Homiletic Review.)

I. THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PAST. It is the attitude of hope. Hope for the past? Yes. It is an attitude taken up in full response to the psalmist's words, "Trust in the Lord," but with reasons and impulses behind it greater than the psalmist ever knew[ All cynicism is rooted in past failure and disappointment, is it not? The young, with life and the world all before them where to choose, are never cynical. At least, never at first hand: they learn a second-hand language of cynicism sometimes I No; it is the Adam-experience in every man which begets a cynical disbelief in the godly meaning of life; the experience of the hatefulness of a tiling that has happened — a deed that is done, and its inevitable consequences. It was Milton, you remember, who put into Adam's mouth the apparently hopeless words,

"The past who can recall, or done undo?

Not God omnipotent nor fate."

And it is surely well that we should early recognize the awful responsibility that attaches to every action of our complex human life. Yet, according to the old Genesis story, the glorious promise of redemption was mingled with the pronouncement of man's punishment! Sin, failure, disappointment bulk so largely in the past that it is not surprising they should cast their shadows over the. present. Friends, it is these shadows of the past which must be subdued and driven away by hope. Maeterlinck has written a wonderful essay on "The Past," which contains the very essence of the hope of Christian Gospel. Here is a paragraph of it, "'The past is past,' we say, and it is false; the past is always present .... 'Nothing can wipe out the past,' we say, and it is false; the least effort of will sends present and future travelling over the past to efface whatever we bid them efface .... 'My past is wicked, it is sorrowful, empty,' we say again, 'as I look back I can see no moment of beauty, of happiness or love; I see nothing but wretched ruins ....' And that is false; for you see precisely what you yourself place there at the moment your eyes rest upon it. Our past depends entirely upon our present, and is constantly changing with it .... Our chief concern with the past, that which truly remains and forms part of us, is not what we have done, or the adventures we have met with, but the moral reactions bygone events are producing within us at this very moment, the inward being they have helped to form." Now, the events of life constantly happening around us assure us that this is so. Look at those definite acts of sin committed in moments of sudden impulse by young people who seem to have been afflicted by an almost incurable lightness and frivolity of mind and heart. Well, they are done, beyond recall — they are of the past. Are they, therefore, changeless? Has the sinner who has committed them no control over them? True, they must go on working out some consequences which he cannot control; but he can still make of them for himself what he will. By his present attitude towards them they become either stones to roll upon the tomb of his own moral and spiritual life, or stones — like Jacob's pillow — whereon, lying down in repentance, he shall have visions of the angels of God ascending and descending upon the still possible upward-sloping stairway whose top reaches to heaven. Many a moral defeat has been the first awakening of a soul to the possibility of a moral victory. And as it is with past sin, so it may be with past sorrow, past failure, past disappointment. The Christian attitude of hope has power to transfigure and change them all! There is no sorrow which cannot be turned into joy. "Trust in the Lord." That grave you dug in the past was not so much a place of burial for earth's joy, as a sowing-ground for heaven's spiritual fellowship. You are better, if you have not allowed yourself to become worse, for being compelled to face the grimmest reality of earth's experience; and your dear one is worthier to be loved, having passed that holy way! That good thing you tried but failed to do is not the symbol of your weakness and ineffectiveness. Never think it. It is the indelible mark of your divine doom to future achievement! Every statue, every picture, every poem in the world is some artist's failure! Do you imagine that the painter found the sunset his spirit had seen in the sky, when he spread the colours of his palette on the canvas? Never. We can afford to fail in learning the way to succeed! That disappointment of yours, I care not what it was, was no proof that the best good is a delusion. The mirage of the desert is not a proof that there is no water anywhere. "Trust in the Lord," and regard your past — whatever it may contain — in the attitude of hope.

II. THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PRESENT. It is an attitude of love! "Do good," says the psalmist. "Dwell in the land .... Delight thyself also in the Lord." That is what you have to do now. The attitude of hope towards the past is strictly conditional upon the attitude of love towards the present. You and I are not likely to "trust in the Lord" about that strangely mysterious past of ours, if we feel no impulse to love Him to-day. "Dwell in the land!" Well, we must. Here we are. In some fashion or other we are occupying the land of our inheritance. "Dwell in the land," is not so much an invitation as a command. We cannot help ourselves. Well, then, "Do good Delight thyself in the Lord." There is one command there, not two. The man who does good because it is good, and because he loves the good when he sees it, does delight himself in the Lord, whether he knows it or not. There are not two opinions in this church this morning about doing good. When the good and the evil course of action lie clearly before us we all know we ought to do the good, and in our heart of hearts we all desire to do it, and feel convicted of sin if we refuse. And the harder it is to do the good in the face of temptation to do the evil, the deeper and more abiding is that mysterious glow of gladness with which our hearts are so strangely warmed. That glow of gladness just means that, at such times, whether we recognize it or not, in doing good we are delighting ourselves in the Lord. "Delight thyself also in the Lord!" Ah, well, that was easy a week ago, in the time of our sunshine, but not how! Then be very sure that you were not delighting yourself in the Lord a week ago, if you cannot do it now. You may have been delighting yourself in something pleasant He had given you. That is something very different from delighting yourself in Him.

III. THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE FUTURE. It is the attitude of faith. "Follow after faithfulness And He shall give thee the desire of thine heart." "Feed upon faithfulness," the margin says, that is, nourish your inner life with this spiritual food — "Faithfulness." What is exactly this attitude of faith towards the future? Let me answer you by quoting a beautiful passage I read the other day. A party of travellers was driving through lovely scenery within sight of the blue waters of the Mediterranean; one of them writes: "A short distance away, as we looked under the olive trees, across the ruddy clods and accidental wild flowers, were the innumerable dimples of the amiable sea .... 'Is it always like this?' asked Lamia. 'Far from it,' I was going to reply; but the Poet anticipated me. 'Yes, always, Lamia; always, always, always!' "No one deserves to travel who anticipates anything less agreeable than he is enjoying at the moment. Ah, then, this faith is self-delusion, after all, some of you will say. No, faith is the belief that the good and the beautiful must find issue in the best and the perfect! It is the assurance of the old poet Walt Whitman, who, looking back over a long life's work, set down as his last words,

(A. E. Hooper.)

     5511   safety
     5846   enjoyment
     6703   peace, divine OT
     8031   trust, importance
     8224   dependence
     8442   good works

Psalm 37:1-7

     5945   self-pity

Psalm 37:3-5

     5914   optimism
     8023   faith, necessity
     8315   orthodoxy, in OT

April 11. "Commit Thy Way unto the Lord" (Ps. xxxvii. 5).
"Commit thy way unto the Lord" (Ps. xxxvii. 5). Seldom have we heard a better definition of faith than was given once in one of our meetings by a dear old colored woman, as she answered the question of a young man how to take the Lord for needed help. In her characteristic way, pointing her finger toward him, she said with great emphasis: "You've just got to believe that He's done it, and it's done." The great danger with most of us is, that after we ask Him to do it, we do not believe that it's …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

April 19. "Rest in the Lord and Wait Patiently for Him" (Ps. xxxvii. 7).
"Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him" (Ps. xxxvii. 7). It is a very suggestive thought that it is in the Gospel of Mark, which is the Gospel of service, we hear the Master saying to His disciples, "Come ye apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." God wants rested workers. There is an energy that may be tireless and ceaseless, and yet still as the ocean's depth, with the peace of God, which passes all understanding. The two deepest secrets of rest are, first, to be in harmony with the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

April 24. "Fret not Thyself in any Wise" (Ps. xxxvii. 8).
"Fret not thyself in any wise" (Ps. xxxvii. 8). A life was lost in Israel because a pair of human hands were laid unbidden upon the ark of God. They were placed upon it with the best intent to steady it when trembling and shaking as the oxen drew it along the rough way, but they touched God's work presumptuously, and they fell paralyzed and lifeless. Much of the life of faith consists in letting things alone. If we wholly trust an interest to God we can keep our hands off it, and He will guard it …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 5. "Rest in the Lord" (Ps. xxxvii. ).
"Rest in the Lord" (Ps. xxxvii.). In the old creation the week began with work and ended with Sabbath rest. The resurrection week begins with the first day--first rest, then labor. So we must first cease from our own works as God did from His, and enter into His rest, and then we will work, with rested hearts, His works with effectual power. But why "labor to enter into rest"? See that ship--how restfully she sails over the waters, her sails swelling with the gale; and borne without an effort! And …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

The Secret of Tranquillity
'Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord.... 7. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.'--PSALM xxxvii. 4, 5, 7. 'I have been young, and now am old,' says the writer of this psalm. Its whole tone speaks the ripened wisdom and autumnal calm of age. The dim eyes have seen and survived so much, that it seems scarcely worth while to be agitated by what ceases so soon. He has known so many bad men blasted in all their leafy …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Heart's Desire Given to Help Mission Work in China.
"Sept. 30 [1869].--From Yorkshire L50.--Received also One Thousand Pounds to-day for the Lord's work in China. About this donation it is especially to be noticed, that for months it had been my earnest desire to do more than ever for Mission Work in China, and I had already taken steps to carry out this desire, when this donation of One Thousand Pounds came to hand. This precious answer to prayer for means should be a particular encouragement to all who are engaged in the Lord's work, and who may …
George Müller—Answers to Prayer

Of the Zealous Amendment of Our Whole Life
Be thou watchful and diligent in God's service, and bethink thee often why thou hast renounced the world. Was it not that thou mightest live to God and become a spiritual man? Be zealous, therefore, for thy spiritual profit, for thou shalt receive shortly the reward of thy labours, and neither fear nor sorrow shall come any more into thy borders. Now shalt thou labour a little, and thou shalt find great rest, yea everlasting joy. If thou shalt remain faithful and zealous in labour, doubt not …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Of the Inward Growth of Patience, and of the Struggle against Evil Desires
O Lord God, I see that patience is very necessary unto me; for many things in this life fall out contrary. For howsoever I may have contrived for my peace, my life cannot go on without strife and trouble. 2. "Thou speakest truly, My Son. For I will not that thou seek such a peace as is without trials, and knoweth no adversities; but rather that thou shouldest judge thyself to have found peace, when thou art tried with manifold tribulations, and proved by many adversities. If thou shalt say that …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Columban.
THE wild districts of Ireland were occupied with convents, after the example of Patrick, and cultivated by the hard labour of the monks. The Irish convents were distinguished by their strict Christian discipline, their diligence and their zeal in the study of the Scriptures, and of science in general, as far as they had the means of acquiring it. Irish monks brought learning from Britain and Gaul, they treasured up this learning and elaborated it in the solitude of the convent, and they are said …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places

The Fourth Continental Journey.
1842-3. In the journey which now lay before them, John and Martha Yeardley were about to explore a part of Europe hitherto untried,--the province of Languedoc, conspicuous in past ages for its superior enlightenment, but now, owing to the temporary mastery of error, wrapt in ignorance and gloom. In this mission, the opportunities which they found for reviving and gathering together the scattered embers of truth, were nearly confined to social intercourse; in seeking occasions for which, they availed …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

Christian Devotion to God's Will.
I into God's own heart and mind My heart and mind deliver, What evil seems, a gain I find, E'en death is life for ever. I am His son, Who spread the throne Of heaven high above me. Tho' I bend low Beneath His blow, Yet still His heart doth love me. He ne'er can prove untrue to me, My Father aye must love me, And tho' He cast me in the sea, He only thus would prove me; In what He good Doth count, He would My heart establish ever. And if I stand, His mighty hand Will raise me, and deliver. Vain had …
Paul Gerhardt—Paul GerhardtÆs Spiritual Songs

Biographical Sketch.
Paul Gerhardt was born in Graefenhainichen in Electoral Saxony, where his father, Christian Gerhardt, was Burgomaster. There is some doubt as to the precise year of his birth, owing to the destruction of the church books when the place was burnt by the Swedes on the 16th of April, 1637. According to some, the event took place in the year 1606; according to others, in 1607. The probability is in favour of the former date, for General Superintendent Goltlob Stolze, of Luebben,[1] says that he died, …
Paul Gerhardt—Paul GerhardtÆs Spiritual Songs

The Exile.
David's first years at the court of Saul in Gibeah do not appear to have produced any psalms which still survive. "The sweetest songs are those Which tell of saddest thought." It was natural, then, that a period full of novelty and of prosperous activity, very unlike the quiet days at Bethlehem, should rather accumulate materials for future use than be fruitful in actual production. The old life shut to behind him for ever, like some enchanted door in a hill-side, and an unexplored land lay beckoning …
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

A Condensed Guide for Life
'My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. 16. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things. 17. Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. 18. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. 19. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. 20. Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: 21. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Fret not Thyself
To fret means to chafe, to be irritated, to be uneasy, to be troubled and bothered. It is just the opposite of peaceful, trustful rest. Jesus has promised us rest to our souls, and we may have this rest. We can not have it, however, if we give place to worrying and fretting. God's purpose for us is that we shall have calmness and soul-quietness, even in the midst of tribulation. He has said, "My peace I give unto you." He followed this by saying, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be …
Charles Wesley Naylor—Heart Talks

Grace and Holiness.
"Now God Himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."--1 THESS. iii. 11-13. There are few more precious subjects for meditation and imitation than the prayers and intercessions of the great Apostle. …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Perfect Heart.
For the eyes of the Lord ran to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him--2 CHRON. xvi. 9. This passage occurs in the history of Asa, one of the most godly and devoted kings that ever sat upon the throne of Judah. We are told in the fourteenth chapter that he commenced his reign by setting himself to destroy the idolatry into which the whole nation had been betrayed by its former ruler, and to restore the worship and service …
Catherine Booth—Godliness

Exegetic.
(i) As of the De Spiritu Sancto, so of the Hexæmeron, no further account need be given here. It may, however, be noted that the Ninth Homily ends abruptly, and the latter, and apparently more important, portion of the subject is treated of at less length than the former. Jerome [472] and Cassiodorus [473] speak of nine homilies only on the creation. Socrates [474] says the Hexæmeron was completed by Gregory of Nyssa. Three orations are published among Basil's works, two on the creation …
Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works

Love
The rule of obedience being the moral law, comprehended in the Ten Commandments, the next question is: What is the sum of the Ten Commandments? The sum of the Ten Commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' Deut 6: 5. The duty called for is love, yea, the strength of love, with all …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

"Nunc Dimittis"
We shall note, this morning, first, that every believer may be assured of departing in peace; but that, secondly, some believers feel a special readiness to depart now: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace;" and, thirdly, that there are words of encouragement to produce in us the like readiness: "according to thy word." There are words of Holy Writ which afford richest consolation in prospect of departure. I. First, then, let us start with the great general principle, which is full of comfort; …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

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

Introduction. These Two Books were Written against the Novatian Heresy...
These two books were written against the Novatian heresy, which took its name, and to a considerable extent its form, from Novatus, a priest of the Church of Carthage, and Novatian, schismatically consecrated bishop at Rome. It was the outcome of a struggle which had long existed in the Church upon the question of the restitution to Church privileges of those who had fallen into grievous sin, and the possibility of their repentance. The severest ground was taken by the Novatians, who were condemned …
St. Ambrose—Works and Letters of St. Ambrose

Thou Shalt not Steal.
This Commandment also has a work, which embraces very many good works, and is opposed to many vices, and is called in German Mildigkeit, "benevolence;" which is a work ready to help and serve every one with one's goods. And it fights not only against theft and robbery, but against all stinting in temporal goods which men may practise toward one another: such as greed, usury, overcharging and plating wares that sell as solid, counterfeit wares, short measures and weights, and who could tell all the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works