1. A "sun." His people are not strangers to happiness, and they derive it all from Him.

2. A "shield" — always at hand, impenetrable by any weapons, capacious, encompassing, adequate.

II. WHAT GOD GIVES.

1. Grace — Divine assistance and influence, springing from the free favour of God. It is often expressed plurally: we hear of the graces of the Holy Spirit. When it regards truth, we call it faith; — a future good, hope;-trouble, patience.

2. Glory. This denotes splendour, fame, excellency displayed; and the sacred writers apply it by way of distinction to the transcendent dignity and sublime happiness reserved in heaven for the righteous.

III. And what does He WITHHOLD? "NO GOOD THING." — O how full and comprehensive is the language of promise!

1. Behold in it the grandeur of His possessions. He who engages to withhold no good thing must have all good things at His disposal.

2. Behold in this promise the wonders of His liberality. All earthly benefactors shrink from a comparison with Him. He acts by no ordinary rule of bounty, by no human standard of beneficence. "As the heavens are higher than the earth," etc.

3. Behold in this promise the wisdom of His dispensations. He has qualified His engagement, and regulated our hope, by the goodness of the things insured. Let us then drop not only our murmuring, but our anxiety.

IV. WHOM DOES GOD REGARD in all these exceeding great and precious promises? — "Them that walk uprightly "in reference to self, others, God.

(W. Jay.)

1. A "sun."

(1)Enlightening the dark mind.

(2)Fertilizing the barren mind.

(3)Consoling the cheerless mind.

2. A "shield"; protecting His people from the sword of Divine wrath, and from their spiritual adversaries.

II. WHAT GOD WILL DO FOR HIS PEOPLE. He will give —

1. Grace.

(1)He gives the principle of grace.

(2)He encourages the growth of grace.

(3)He will reward the combat of grace.

2. Glory.

(1)The glory for which grace prepares.

(2)The glory which the saints in heaven now enjoy.

(3)The glory which He has promised

(4)The glory that exceeds all conceptions.

III. WHAT GOD WILL NOT WITHHOLD.

1. Any necessary instruction.

2. Any needful correction.

3. Any requisite support.

(T. Dunn.)

1. A "sun."

(1)Illumination.

(2)Calefaction.

(3)Fructification.

(4)All-sufficiency.What is it that makes the day? Is it not the sun? And so what is it that makes the happiness of the Christian but even God Himself? Seeing the Lord God is a sun, we should then hence learn to rejoice in that light and comfort which He does impart, and which we receive from Him. We should still desire that the light of His countenance may shine upon us more and more, and nothing should be more grievous to us than the withdrawing of this from us.

2. A "shield."

(1)A large and broad shield, which is able fully to cover us, protect and keep us safe.

(2)A strong and impenetrable shield.

(3)A present shield.God is not a shield at large to all sorts of persons whatsoever, but He is a shield and buckler to His children, and to such persons as by faith cleave unto Him. To these He is a shield indeed, and it is that which is matter of great peace and encouragement to them, especially in times of danger and uncertainty. And accordingly, further, we should learn from hence to improve Him, and make use of Him upon all occasions: we should betake ourselves to Him for protection, who has expressed Himself ready hereunto, and drawn out that virtue which is in Him to this purpose. There are two attributes in God especially which redder Him to us as considerable in this respect — His truth, and His power. The truth of God, He is a shield in regard of that (Psalm 111:4). All those gracious promises which God has made for the protection of His people, they are so many shields unto them, under which they may cover themselves. And then His power, that is another of His attributes which is useful in this regard: forasmuch as He is stronger than any evil which can happen unto them.

II. THE PARTICULAR EXPRESSIONS OF GOD'S NATURE TO US.

1. Affirmative. "The Lord will give grace and glory." He might have said, has given for the time past, or does give it for the time present, but He chooses rather to set it in the future — will give for time to come, hereby to signify His constancy and unweariedness in this respect, and the continuation of His blessings to us. The gifts themselves here mentioned are of two forms: grace and glory, the one pertaining to this life present, the other to that which is in heaven.

2. The negative. "No good thing," etc.(1) In regard of that right and interest and propriety which a true believer has in all good things. There is no good thing whatsoever but a child of God has right to as his own, and as belonging unto him (Revelation 21:7; 1 Corinthians 3:21).(2) All true believers as they have interest in all good things themselves from their relation to the Lord Jesus Christ, so they have likewise interest in that affection which might incline the heart of Him that has these things in His own disposing to bestow these good things upon them whatsoever they be (Romans 8:32).(3) There is no good thing whatsoever which the children of God can desire which God is not able to bestow upon them in regard of Himself.(4) As to the matter of actual performance. God does withhold no good thing from those that fear Him, in the event itself, but does indeed bestow it upon them, and does here by this passage in the text engage Himself to as much for them. This must again be taken with these explications. First, there is no good thing which God does withhold from all His children, take it absolutely and specificatively in regard of the things themselves. There are some of the children of God which do partake of every good thing in kind, in one rank or degree or other, as some of them have riches; and some of them have none, and some health, etc. Secondly, there is no good thing whatsoever which God does withhold from any of His children either in the formality or equivalency of it. Let it be truly good, and He does not withhold it, or if He does withhold it in the kind, yet He does not withhold it in the analogy and proportion and equalness of it. He gives them the sweetness and comfort of all these things in the denial of themselves; this we may see in that expression in Mark 10:29, 30.

(T. Horton, D. D.)

1. It is the combination of characters which we regard as most deserving of attention: "The Lord God is a sun and shield." If we consider God as a "sun," there is much of grand and gorgeous imagery which comes sweeping before us. God is emphatically our "sun," our source of light, as showing us ourselves. Conscience is the candle of Deity; and it will burn long and brightly in the natural man, though he thicken the atmosphere with the impure vapours of passion and lust; but it is not the candle of Deity which can search the dark corners of the heart — it must be Deity itself. "O Lord," says the psalmist, "Thou hast searched me and known me"; and again he prays, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts." God, as a sun, saith, Let there be light, and there is light., and as it was in the first creation, this light discloses an unshapen chaos; and man looks into Himself thus suddenly and supernaturally illuminated; and everywhere may he discover nothing but moral confusion. Even the light itself is the only beautiful and glowing thing — all on which it rests is deformity, wildness, and corruption; and ever after God is a sun to the man, by enabling him to carry on that very process of research and discovery which is indispensable to all progress in righteousness. According to the expression of St. Paul — "He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts." And just as it is when the sunbeam finds its way into a darkened room, you see a thousand floating moats which would otherwise have escaped observation; so the piercing rays of Deity, entering the solitudes of the soul, will cause the chambers which had passed for cleansed and garnished, to appear full of the atoms of a widely diffused sinfulness. The light is carried into the corners which had been hitherto overlook

1. The sun shows him the hopelessness of the task in which he is engaged, and finds him fresh work to do, leaving him as far off as ever from completion. But now turn your thoughts on the combination of characters — "The Lord God is a sun and shield." As a sun He shows me more and more my sinfulness; but then as a shield He gives me power to oppose it, and an assurance that I shall conquer. As a sun He discloses so much of the enormity of guilt that I am forced to exclaim — "Mine iniquities are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear!" But then, as a shield, He shows me how He has laid the load on a Surety who can bear it away into a land of forgetfulness. As a sun He makes me daily more and more sensible of the utter impossibility of my working out a righteousness of my own; but then, as a shield, He fastens my thoughts on that righteousness of His Son which is mysteriously conveyed to all who believe on His name. As a sun, in short, He brings facts to my knowledge, inasmuch as He brings myself and mine enemies to my knowledge, which would make the matter of deliverance seem out of reach and hopeless, if He were not at the same time a shield; but, seeing that He is a shield as well as a sun, the disclosures which He makes as a sun only prepare me for the blessings which He imparts as a shield; making me desirous, and fitting me to receive them. Who, then, shall wonder that under the combination of the characters of God the psalmist should break into expressions of confidence and assurance? Take the catalogue of things which inasmuch as we are fallen creatures, God as our sun instructs us to fear, and you find that, inasmuch as we are redeemed creatures, God as our shield enables us to defy. Who, then, shall doubt that there results from the combination of characters exactly that system of counterpoise which is generally to be traced in the dealings of the Almighty? Who can feel, if indeed he have been disciplined by that twofold tuition which informs man first that "he hath destroyed himself," and then that "God hath laid help on One who is mighty," the former conciliating, the latter encouraging — the one making way for the other, so that the sinner is emptied of every false confidence, that he may be tempted to courage — who, we say, can fail to draw from the combination of the Divine characters the inference drawn by the psalmist — to exclaim, that is, after recording that "the Lord God is a sun and shield, He will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

2. Let us now examine more attentively the psalmist's expression of confidence, that "He will give grace and glory." Did David mean that God will "give grace here," and "glory hereafter"? No doubt the words are susceptible of this interpretation; and a very noble meaning it is — referring everything to the free gift of God, the power through which we become meet for heaven, and the heaven itself into which the righteous shall enter. And yet it would appear as though the psalmist were referring specially to what takes place upon earth. He applies the "shield "and the "sun" in his description of Deity, though it is only at present that God is as a shield to His people; in the higher state of being there will be no enemy, no difficulty, and, withal, no need of a shield. And if the "sun" and the "shield" may both be most properly referred to the Divine character, as a present display of grace, the "glory" may be presumed to belong to the Divine dealings, as at present experienced. In other words, "grace and glory" are represented as in some sense one and the same, as though grace were glory, and glory were grace. The truth contained in the clause is, then, that which may be derived from the saying of St. Peter, when he bids us "be sober, and hope to the end; for the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ." "The revelation of Jesus Christ" is to be at the consummation of all things, when everlasting happiness shall be entered on by the faithful; and nevertheless it is grace, not glory, which, according to the apostle, is then to be brought to the Church — an intimation which is only to be explained by identifying grace with glory — by supposing, that is, that glory differs from grace in measure, rather than in kind. And this is what we consider is taught by David in our text: he speaks of what God now communicates to the believer; but he speaks both of grace and glory. He represents, that is, grace as glory commenced, and glory as grace consummated. We do not wish to confound the engine with the work, or to make out that the process is the result. Of course, in strictness of speech, grace is the instrument, glory the produce. But if the glory lie in the being freed from sin, and if it be grace which is gradually setting us free, the hope of grace is the true "hope of glory." Nor is it only freedom from sin which grace effects. It effects also consecration to the service of God. There are none but true Christians who really fulfil the great end of their being — that of promoting the glory of their Maker; and it is not through the working of any mere human principle that they propose to themselves so sublime an object. There must have been a change in the affections, a withdrawment of the heart from temporary interests, a vivid recognition of the position which we occupy through creation and redemption, ere the end at which our actions aim can in any degree be for the honour of God. it is therefore to grace, as a principle implanted by God, that we ascribe every effort to advance God's glory. If it be the direct result of the workings of grace that we are led to consecrate ourselves to the service of the Most High, let grace have unrestrained sway, and dust and ashes though we be, should we not become ineffably glorious? It will not be the robe of light that shall make us glorious, though brighter threads than sunbeams shall be woven into its texture; it will not be the palm and the harp that shall make us glorious, though the one shall have grown on the trees of paradise, and the other have been strung with the Mediator's hands. We shall be glorious, as ministering to God's glory — glorious as devoted to the service of the Almighty — glorious as employed on the business, and delighting in the commands of our Maker — glorious with a more than angel's glory, because entrusted with more than an angel's freedom. And if this be our glory, yea, then, poetry may give her music to what she counts more beautiful, and painting its tints to more sparkling things; but Christianity, the scheme of human restoration, recognizes no glory but the living to God's glory! If this be our glory, where is the word which describes glory so emphatically as "grace"? Grace is that which produces consecration to God's service, and therefore is grace nothing less than glory begun.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

1. God's blessing to His people set forth under the figure of the sun.(1) The sun is the centre of all beauty and glory. At first darkness was upon the face of the deep, but God gathered up the light and concentrated it in the sun, so that all the glory of the heavens and the beauty of the earth are but a reflection of the sun. So with the Sun of Righteousness (Colossians 1:19). All the beauty and glory of the Church triumphant and militant, collectively and individually, is a reflection of the Sun of Righteousness.(2) The sun reveals and illuminates. We may pass along a highway surrounded with beauty on the one hand and dangers on the other, but all ignorant of it until it is revealed by the sun; so the plan of redemption by the light of the Sun of Righteousness reveals to us beauties that were hidden to the men of the world (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10).(3) The sun is the concentration of all power. Without Christ ye can do nothing, but with Christ all things are possible.(4) The sun is discovered by its own light. The same sun that looked down on the dial of Ahaz and painted the rose of Sharon in the days of Solomon, illuminates and beautifies the earth to-day, and is the only source of light, so the same Holy Spirit that inspired Samuel to teach and David to strike his lyre is the only source of instruction in the Church of God to-day.

2. The Lord is also a shield. This emphasizes the heroic side of the Christian's character. It means war, and protection in that war. God stands between His people and their enemies.

3. God will give grace. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." But we cannot work a thing out until it is first placed within, God gives us grace in the germ. Like the eagle that is in the egg, like the forest in the acorn, it takes time to develop.

4. God will give glory. The glory of creation is man. The glory of man is his soul. The glory of the soul is the grace of God within it. The kings of earth cause Daniel and Joseph to be clothed with royal robes, but God will clothe us with His own hands, with heaven's best wardrobe out of the ivory palace.

(W. N. Richie, D. D.)

1. A "sun." The source of —

(1)Light.

(2)Prosperity.

(3)Pleasure.

2. A "shield."

(1)To your persons.

(2)To your graces.

(3)To your property.

II. WHAT DOES GOD DO? He gives —

1. Grace.

(1)The goodwill of God towards us.

(2)The good work of God in us.

2. Glory — the completion of grace.

3. All good things — everything necessary for life.

III. WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKELY TO SHARE THIS FELICITY? "Them that walk uprightly."

(M. Wilks.)

I. OBSERVE ITS UNIVERSALITY, AS A FIT EMBLEM OF THE UNIVERSAL POWER OF GOD. It is, in its centre and power, definitely located, as it were; and yet it reaches itself out, and fills immensity, and is as much in the east as in the west, in the north as in the south; and it pervades with endlessness, and, at the same time, every part of the vast physical domain of God. As much at night as by day is the stream falling down and beating upon this globe; and all the forces of light, its life-giving power, are borne, in this immeasurable flood, through infinite space. And is it difficult to rise from this glory of fulness to some faint conception of a mind that issues and impels streams of influence that go forth and fill the vast domain of existence? Is it impossible, when matter so nearly takes the proportion of universality or omnipresence, that mind, more ineffable and subtle and mobile than matter, should be able to bear itself abroad into the infinite realm?

II. CONSIDER, ALSO, THAT THIS FORTH-STREAMING OF LIGHT AND POWER FROM THE SUN HAS BEEN GOING ON THROUGH INCOMPUTABLE PERIODS OF TIME. The historic period of this earth — that, in other words, which records the appearance of the race of man upon it — is relatively short, being but five or six thousand years; while the scientific periods — namely, those which are known only by the interpretation of physical facts — are inconceivably greater. And through the one and the other, doubtless for millions of years, the sun has poured its vast stream of influence, undiminished. Nor is the source apparently wasted. For all purposes of illustration, it may be said that the sun gives without wasting, and is infinitely abundant, after measureless periods and spaces have been filled, in its luminous supply. Thus we rise to the conception of a mind that shoots forth creative and nourishing energy, and that pours it unwasted down through the ages of time, boundless, fathomless, undiminishing.

III. CONSIDER ALSO WHAT AN IMAGE OF ABUNDANCE THE SUN AFFORDS. The leaves of the trees, the blades of grass, all the parts of the growing vegetable kingdom, and the infinite swarms of minor insect life — all of them go to illustrate the thought of abundance, of multitudinousness. But what shall equal in these things the abundance of that solar flood that fills the heaven and the earth, that penetrates the soil, that saturates with heat rocks and stones, and that moves on for ever and for ever with illimitable processions, and everywhere both carries life and finds it? And where else shall there be anything that at all, for an illustration, equals the conception which we strive to form of the creative abundance of God, whose thoughts are for ever brooding, and yet whose life for ever is developed, and who is perpetually changing chaos into organization, and making organization progress through endless cycles of evolution, and through an inconceivable multiplicity of details?

IV. CONSIDER ITS STIMULATING AND DEVELOPING POWER. All things presuppose the sun. It seems to us unthinking, as though everything had been created with its life within itself; as though animals had their life within themselves; as though vegetation had its life in itself. Nothing has. That sun which the beast does not recognize, that sun which the insect does not know, is, after all, its father and its mother. I ask the daisy, "Who is your father?" and it speaks to me of the seed and the root; while I know that the unplanted sun is the father of the daisy. I ask the pastures, "Who has created you?" and they speak of the showers; no blade of grass speaks of the sun; but I know that the unbaptized sun has, by its light of fire, baptized these its children, and that there is nothing that grows in Nature, of animals, or birds, or insects, or plants, that is not the immediate result of that unconscious sun that works everywhere. And when men say to me, "Show me the presence of your God; show me some sign that He is in human affairs, guiding them: you talk of the Holy Ghost, of the Spirit of God, of the Divine inspiration, and of the soul of man as being born thereby; now, give me some token that it is so" — when men say this to me, I point them to all the world, and say, "By the same signs and tokens by which you recognize that the life of the globe is in the sun, that is a myriad of leagues distant; the sun, that sounds no trumpet and waves no banner; the sun, that steals silently through the air, and that works, though you see not the working, but only the fruit of working — by these same signs and tokens you may recognize that the life of the soul is in God."

V. THE SUN IS THE CENTRE OF ATTRACTION, THE HOLDING-FORCE OF THE UNIVERSE. Its invisible power harnesses all planets and stars. It guides the earth in all its courses. It is a government, in short. It not only gives vitality to all things of the earth, but it surrounds the earth, rendered vital, with guiding power, and holds it in its movements. So God is the centre of power, and the centre of government. By maintaining those eternal laws by which the human soul acts, He sits central. As the sun sits central in the solar system to hold the planets that roam only by its permission, so God sits central in the universe, holding this globe not only, but all its habiliments; and all its habiliments not only, but the soul of every man; and the soul of every man not only, but all that is in the human soul.

VI. CONSIDER THAT GENEROSITY AND IMPARTIALITY WHICH THE SUN EXERCISES. It makes no discriminations and distinctions. I have growing in my garden the portulaca in beds, for the sake of its glowing colour. You know that it is first cousin to purslane — a weed that everybody who undertakes to keep a garden hates. I have hoed it, and pulled it up, and denounced it, and spurned it, and given it to the fire and to the pigs with maledictions. But I cannot find out that the sun exercises any discrimination between the purslane growing in my garden and the portulaca, r call one flower and the other weed; but God's sun calls them both flowers. In this it is the emblem of God, who "maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good," etc.

VII. PROLIFIC AND INTIMATE IN BENEFIT AS THE SUN IS, IT IS OBSERVABLE THAT ONLY A PART OF ITS BENEFIT IS THRUST UPON MAN, AND THAT THAT PART IS MAINLY THAT WHICH CONCERNS HIS LOWER NECESSITIES. If we would go further, and use the sun as artists use it, and draw out its subtler elements of beauty, we must study its laws in that direction, and obey them. If we would derive from the employment of the sun its more perfect fruits and harvests, we must take the steps necessary to this end. Not upon every one does it thrust these bounties. They must be inquired for. So it is with the Sun of Righteousness. He sheds a providential watchfulness and protection upon all men, without regard to character; but if men would go higher, and perfect the understanding, refine the moral sentiments, purify the heart, and come to be God-like, developing the God that is in them, for this there is special labour required.

(H. W. Beecher.)

1. In all probability he was the first natural object which had the religious homage of man, and this may suggest the thought that the human mind delights in mysteries — in the insolvable more than the apparent and simple — as man could not easily prostrate himself before any object more mysterious in its nature. There is no searching of the sun; our eyes are too weak to stand the ceaseless ocean of light that emanates from him. How much less can we search the sun's Creator. Contrasted with Him, myriads of suns are like so many dark bodies. His revelation of Himself in His works, and in His Word, in His Son, and in our souls, is more than sufficient for the comprehension of any finite mind and beyond the ken of the most philosophic eye.

2. The sun is ever the same. Ever since the Creator said on the fourth day, "Let there be light," he has faithfully performed his function. Generations live and die; empires wax and wane; but he is the same from age to age, and gives his light to the father and the son; and shines upon the babe in his cradle as well as years after upon his grave, when numbered with the tenants of mortality. Thus the psalmist, in speaking of the kingdom of Christ, says, "His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun." God is unchangeable. He is "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." His being fills every point of duration, "the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." His thoughts and purposes are immutable. "The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever; the thoughts of His heart to all generations."

3. The sun is larger than all the other planets. — It is difficult go conceive an adequate idea of his magnitude. If all the planets from Mercury, that receives a continual stream of light from him, to Neptune — that is three thousand and six hundred millions of miles distant from him, somewhere on the confines of creation — were made into one world, it is said that it would require six hundred such worlds to constitute one that would approach the sun in its dimensions. Infinitely greater than this is the disparity which exists between God and the highest, the mightiest, and holiest of His creatures.

4. Of all the works of God the sun is the most conspicuous. He occupies the most prominent position among the planets of heaven. Take him from the constellations of heaven, and all is darkness and confusion. What would this world be apart from God? Confusion, darkness, and unmitigated misery. Blessed be His name, He is here, as the cause of all causes, the force of all forces, the agent of all agencies, the breath of all life, and the source of all good.

5. The sun is most generous. He gives his all freely and impartially; he shineth on the just and unjust; his rays fall upon the sower of iniquity as well as the Christian in devout prayer and meditation. It is generally accepted now as being true that there are in the sunbeam three different principles, viz. the chemical, luminiferous, and calorific, and that each has a function to discharge in relation to the fruits of the earth. The chemical has to do with germinating the plant, the luminous assists in secreting from the air the carbon essential to its growth, while the calorie, or heating rays, are required to nurture the seed, and form the reproductive elements. What wisdom displayed in the fact, that the first of these is more powerful in the spring than in the summer, while the second becomes more powerful in the summer, and that in the autumn both are lessened, while the third increases in force; i.e. each principle becomes potent at the time when most required. How eminently adapted to our wants as well as those of Nature.

6. The sun is a fountain from whence flows a perpetual stream of goodness, and is an invaluable blessing to our world. God is an inexhaustible source of all good. He is the primal fount of all mercies. He is not only the Quickener of life, but the Giver and the Sustainer of it. Divine supplies and human wants are balanced. How loving the hand that adapts the blessings to our wants. How numerous they are. Can you reckon them? Life, health, food, raiment, peace, homes, relatives, friends, money, honour, and seasons of innocent pleasure; verily, our life is an endless history of Divine bounties. God gives these blessings to all without distinction. How loudly this calls for our gratitude. But He gives infinitely more to those that love Him, delight in His statutes, and frequent His sanctuary to adore and praise Him. To them He is a sun and shield. As the sun is everything to the earth, so God is to His people — He is their All.

(J. Stevenson.)

I. THEN MY LIFE MAY BE ILLUMINED. No nook or corner of our being need go unirradiated. Open the life to God as you open the eye to the sun, and you will no longer be a child of the darkness. We need not dwell in the shadow of sin, in the cave of doubt, in the pit of melancholy, in the cavern of unbelief, in the neighbourhood of gloom: we are called to the sunshine; we can walk in the light as He is in the light, we can tread on bright-topped hills, we can hear the message, "Let there be light."

II. THEN MY LIFE MAY BE CHEERED. He, whose shining sun brightens every earth-spot, making the flowers start up in rare brilliancy, causing the birds to sing their sweetest sonnets, putting a beauteous bloom upon the fruits of the orchard, and dressing Nature in a glorious dress, says to us, "What that sun is to the physical world, I am to the spiritual. I can work a mighty transformation in your lives, can put an end to your soul's winter, and can confer on you an endless summer. I can warm you through and through with My fires, and in the light of My face you can live perpetually, despite life's changefulness, and the hard, trying, and perplexing things which come to you — for I am God, your Exceeding Joy, the Fount of Life, the very God of Peace."

III. THEN MY LIFE MAY BE ENRICHED. It is God who quickens me from the death of sin, who renews my life from day to day, who gives it its finest expression, who stores it with heavenly treasures, who generates within me the holiest desires, and fosters a thrice-blessed bliss-inspiring hope. Who can tell how rich I may yet become? When I see the gorgeous garniture of the universe, I know that God does not want me to be clad in less than a royal dress. When I see the opulence of Nature on all hands, L am sure He does not want me to fare meagrely. When I observe the superb dome of many-coloured glass above us, the vast panorama of earth and sea full of pictures, poems, and symphonies, I am sure that He intends me to rise to full and rich perfection.

IV. THEN MY LIFE MAY BE BEAUTIFUL. Standing in the stream of the Divine Brightness, there is no knowing to what splendour we shall come. Drenched with the glory of His face, we shall have a sweetness far surpassing that of sun-kissed flowers, a ripeness which the fairest fruit will only faintly image, a beauty superior to anything earth has known.

(J. Pearce.)

1. Absolutely, grace and glory are the Lord's; being of the essence of His nature; his property and possession.

2. Relatively to us, grace and glory are the Lord's to give; He has them so that He may give them.

3. Grace and glory are given from the Father through the Son.

4. Grace and glory are given from the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

II. Consider it now ON THE SIDE OF MAN, and his need of God.

1. What are the aspects of our condition that make the assurance peculiarly suitable to our case?(1) We find no favour, no grace, in the eyes of God. On the contrary, we are the objects of His just displeasure; guilty; condemned.(2) In this condition, we have no fitness or qualification for being advanced by God to any post of honour, or distinguished by any special marks of His confidence and approval; no capacity of being glorified.(3) In this predicament of estrangement and dishonour we are helpless; without any means of extricating or raising ourselves.

2. What more suitable, — what more necessary, — than this promise — "The Lord will give grace and glory"? A right princely and royal gift! And a right princely and royal act to make it absolutely a free gift! It is a procedure worthy of God. And it is the only procedure that could really meet our case. Of His own free will begat He us by the Word. Of His own free will He called us in His Gospel. Of His own free will He puts His Holy Spirit within us, and works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

III. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GRACE AND GLORY, and the dependence of the one upon the other.

1. Grace comes before glory; and only through grace can glory be reached. Grace first, and then glory. It must be so. Vain will you seek to commend yourselves to God, and win a character and name before Him, if you are not first found willing to be debtors to His mercy and sovereign grace, His full and free mercy.

2. Glory comes after grace; and grace is in order to glory. Why would you have the Lord to give you grace? Is it that you may hopefully press on to glory? Grace is the means to glory. Do you so regard it? Are you anxious, not merely about your personal rest, and ease, and comfort, but about your being put in a position and receiving power to serve the Lord freely, and to enjoy Him fully?

3. Grace implies glory (Philippians 1:6; Romans 8:29, 80). What gracious soul is in heaviness through manifold affliction? Let him not faint. Let him seek grace to hold on, in the confident belief that the Lord, giving the grace he seeks, will give the glory for which he is content to wait.

4. Grace prepares for glory; and the proportion of grace determines the proportion of glory; or, to put it in a pointed form, the more grace the more glory.

5. The seals of grace are the pledges of glory. This is doubly true. It is true of the inward seal of grace, which is the Holy Ghost in the heart, and of the outward seals of grace, which are the holy sacraments in the Church.

(R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

I. THE FIRST GIFT: "The Lord will give grace."

1. The Lord will give grace to all those who feel that they need it, and confess their need. Claim anything as of right, and God will only give you what you have a right to claim, and that will be everlasting destruction from His presence and from the glory of His power. But confess that you are guilty, and stand ready for the death-sentence to be executed, and appeal to the unmerited mercy of God, and you shall have it freely given to you.

2. He will give grace to those who believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. Nay, He has given grace to them already. It has pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell, and therefore fulness of grace abides in Christ.

3. He will give more grace to those to whom He has given some grace. If you have had the first droppings of grace, keep on looking to Him who gave you those first drops, for there is a shower on the way.

4. He will give grace in the form in which it is needed.

5. He will give grace when it is needed. Grace is a thing which has to be used, and the Lord who gives it means us to use it. Whenever God sharpens my scythe, I know that there is some grass for me to cut. If ever He hands me down a sword, He seems by that very action to say to me, "Go and fight," and He does not give it to me that I may have it dangling between my legs to show what a man of war I am. When you need grace, you shall have grace.

6. He will give us grace to a much larger degree when we are prepared to receive it.

7. He will give grace till it melts into glory.

II. THE LAST GIFT. When our entire manhood, spirit, soul, and body shall be in heaven, then will this promise be fulfilled, "The Lord will give glory."

1. "Glory" means, first, recognition. When Christ shall declare that He knows us, and shall say to each one of us, "Well done, good and faithful servant"; when He shall confess us before men when He comes in the glory of His Father; O sirs, when Christ shall call out His poor persecuted followers, and amidst such a scene as never was beheld before, when angels shall lean from the battlements of heaven, and a cloud of witnesses shall gather round about assembled men, when Christ shall say, "You were with Me in My humiliation, and I own you as My chosen, My beloved, My brethren," that will be glory.

2. The next meaning of the word "glory" is vision. "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty." With Job, each believer can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," etc.

3. The third meaning of the word "glory" is fruition. What the fruition will be I will tell you when I have been there. Long ago, we learned that "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." Brothers and sisters, we have enjoyed His Word; we have enjoyed His day; we have enjoyed His covenant; we have enjoyed His love; but what will it be to enjoy God Himself, and to enjoy Him for ever?

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

( T. Guthrie.)

(J. S. Mayer, M. A.)

     1050   God, goodness of
     1055   God, grace and mercy
     1194   glory, divine and human
     1205   God, titles of
     4284   sun
     4835   light, spiritual
     5292   defence, divine
     5490   refuge
     8245   ethics, incentives
     8409   decision-making, and providence

Psalm 84:9-11

     5527   shield

March 16. "The Lord Will Give Grace and Glory" (Ps. Lxxxiv. 11).
"The Lord will give grace and glory" (Ps. lxxxiv. 11). The Lord will give grace and glory. This word glory is very difficult to translate, define and explain; but there is something in the spiritual consciousness of the quickened Christian that interprets it. It is the overflow of grace; it is the wine of life; it is the foretaste of heaven; it is a flash from the Throne and an inspiration from the heart of God which we may have and in which we may live. "The glory which Thou hast given Me I have …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Blessed Trust
'O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.' --PSALM lxxxiv. 12. In my last sermon from the central portion of this psalm I pointed out that the Psalmist thrice celebrates the blessedness of certain types of character, and that these threefold benedictions constitute, as it were, the keynotes of the portions of the psalm in which they respectively occur. They are these: 'Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house'; 'Blessed is the man in whose heart are the ways'; and this final one, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Sparrows and Altars
'Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 3. The well-known saying of the saintly Rutherford, when he was silenced and exiled from his parish, echoes and expounds these words. 'When I think,' said he, 'upon the sparrows and swallows that build their nests in the kirk of Anwoth, and of my dumb Sabbaths, my sorrowful, bleared eyes look asquint upon Christ, and present …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Happy Pilgrims
'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6. Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs; yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. 7. They go from strength to strength, every one of them appeareth before God in Zion.'--PSALM lxxxiv. 5-7. Rightly rendered, the first words of these verses are not a calm, prosaic statement, but an emotional exclamation. The Psalmist's tone would be more truly represented if we read, 'How …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

11TH DAY. After Grace, Glory.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "The Lord will give grace and glory."--PSALM lxxxiv. 11. After Grace, Glory. Oh! happy day, when this toilsome warfare will all be ended, Jordan crossed, Canaan entered, the legion-enemies of the wilderness no longer dreaded; sorrow, sighing, death, and, worst of all, sin, no more either to be felt or feared! Here is the terminating link in the golden chain of the everlasting covenant. It began with predestination; it ends with glorification. It began with sovereign …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

At Last!
Gerhard Ter Steegen Ps. lxxxiv. 4 Draw me to Thee, till far within Thy rest, In stillness of Thy peace, Thy voice I hear-- For ever quieted upon Thy breast, So loved, so near. By mystery of Thy touch my spirit thrilled, O Magnet all Divine; The hunger of my soul for ever stilled, For Thou art mine. For me, O Lord, the world is all too small, For I have seen Thy face, Where Thine eternal love irradiates all Within Thy secret place. And therefore from all others, from all else, Draw Thou my soul to …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

The Church Militant 467. Pleasant are Thy Courts Above
[1792]Maidstone: Walter Bond Gilbert, 1862 Psalm 84 Henry F. Lyte, 1834 Pleasant are thy courts above, In the land of light and love; Pleasant are thy courts below, In this land of sin and woe. O my spirit longs and faints For the converse of thy saints, For the brightness of thy face, For thy fullness, God of grace! Happy birds that sing and fly Round thy altars, O Most High! Happier souls that find a rest In a heavenly Father's breast! Like the wandering dove, that found No repose on earth around, …
Various—The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA

Reverence in Worship.
"Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod."--1 Samuel ii. 18. Samuel, viewed in his place in sacred history, that is, in the course of events which connect Moses with Christ, appears as a great ruler and teacher of his people; this is his prominent character. He was the first of the prophets; yet, when we read the sacred narrative itself, in which his life is set before us, I suppose those passages are the more striking and impressive which represent him, in …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Minstrel
ELISHA needed that the Holy Spirit should come upon him to inspire him with prophetic utterances. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." We need that the hand of the Lord should be laid upon us, for we can never open our mouths in wisdom except we are under the divine touch. Now, the Spirit of God works according to his own will. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and the Spirit of God operates as he chooseth. Elisha could not prophesy just when he liked; he must wait until …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881

The Old Man and the New.
"That we being dead unto sin should live unto righteousness."--1 Peter iv. 24. The Psalmist sings: "They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." (Psalm lxxxiv. 7) We must maintain this glorious testimony, altho our own experience often seems to contradict it. Not experience, but the Scripture, teaches us divine truth; nor is it as tho the procedure of the divine operation in our own heart could differ from the testimony of the Sacred Scripture, but that our …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

It Remains Then that we Understand as Concerning those Women...
33. It remains then that we understand as concerning those women, whether in Egypt or in Jericho, that for their humanity and mercy they received a reward, in any wise temporal, which indeed itself, while they wist not of it, should by prophetical signification prefigure somewhat eternal. But whether it be ever right, even for the saving of a man's life, to tell a lie, as it is a question in resolving which even the most learned do weary themselves, it did vastly surpass the capacity of those poor …
St. Augustine—Against Lying

A Book for Boys and Girls Or, Temporal Things Spritualized.
by John Bunyan, Licensed and entered according to order. London: Printed for, and sold by, R. Tookey, at his Printing House in St. Christopher's Court, in Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange, 1701. Advertisement by the Editor. Some degree of mystery hangs over these Divine Emblems for children, and many years' diligent researches have not enabled me completely to solve it. That they were written by Bunyan, there cannot be the slightest doubt. 'Manner and matter, too, are all his own.'[1] …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Various Experiences in Gospel Work
Soon after I discerned the one body, my brother and I visited St. James, Mo. We had labored there but a short time when Brother Warner and his company came to the town to hold a camp-meeting. When I was first introduced to Brother Warner, he made the remark, "And so you are the sister that wanted to stay in Babylon in order to get wolves to take care of Iambs?" and then broke into a hearty laugh. He referred to my remark that I was going to continue to work with the sects, so that whenever a congregation …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

The Tests of Love to God
LET us test ourselves impartially whether we are in the number of those that love God. For the deciding of this, as our love will be best seen by the fruits of it, I shall lay down fourteen signs, or fruits, of love to God, and it concerns us to search carefully whether any of these fruits grow in our garden. 1. The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Letter Xlvi (Circa A. D. 1125) to Guigues, the Prior, and to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse
To Guigues, the Prior, And to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse He discourses much and piously of the law of true and sincere charity, of its signs, its degrees, its effects, and of its perfection which is reserved for Heaven (Patria). Brother Bernard, of Clairvaux, wishes health eternal to the most reverend among fathers, and to the dearest among friends, Guigues, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and to the holy Monks who are with him. 1. I have received the letter of your Holiness as joyfully …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Growth in Grace
'But grow in grace.' 2 Pet 3:38. True grace is progressive, of a spreading and growing nature. It is with grace as with light; first, there is the crepusculum, or daybreak; then it shines brighter to the full meridian. A good Christian is like the crocodile. Quamdiu vivet crescit; he has never done growing. The saints are not only compared to stars for their light, but to trees for their growth. Isa 61:1, and Hos 14:4. A good Christian is not like Hezekiah's sun that went backwards, nor Joshua's …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

First Attempts on Jerusalem.
Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel are very confused on this point.[2] It was, it appears, in the year 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus attached from that time little value to the pilgrimage, he conformed …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Universal Chorus
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that stteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. M en have generally agreed to dignify their presumptuous and arrogant ^* disquisitions on the works and ways of God, with the name of wisdom ; though the principles upon which they proceed, and the conclusions which they draw from …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Under the Shepherd's Care.
A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."--1 Peter ii. 25. "Ye were as sheep going astray." This is evidently addressed to believers. We were like sheep, blindly, willfully following an unwise leader. Not only were we following ourselves, but we in our turn have led others astray. This is true of all of us: "All we like sheep have gone astray;" all equally foolish, "we have turned every one to his own way." Our first …
J. Hudson Taylor—A Ribband of Blue

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.

The History of the Psalter
[Sidenote: Nature of the Psalter] Corresponding to the book of Proverbs, itself a select library containing Israel's best gnomic literature, is the Psalter, the compendium of the nation's lyrical songs and hymns and prayers. It is the record of the soul experiences of the race. Its language is that of the heart, and its thoughts of common interest to worshipful humanity. It reflects almost every phase of religious feeling: penitence, doubt, remorse, confession, fear, faith, hope, adoration, and …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament