Psalms 35:28

REFLECTIONS

READER! methinks I would pass by every other consideration while going over this precious Psalm, and overlook all other persons and characters, to contemplate Him, and Him only, who here, under the prophetical inspiration given by God the Holy Ghost to his servant David, is so strikingly set forth! Let us behold him here as our surety; sustaining every indignity, reproach, and suffering which we merited, and he endured: and as the holy, harmless Jesus, who had done no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, appealing for the justice of his cause to his most righteous Father. And while you and I read the sorrowful account, oh! for grace so to take interest - in what we read of Jesus, as the Christ of God, as to feel our whole souls drawn out in love and affection to him. Yea, blessed Jesus! I would say, did false witnesses arise up against thee; did they nail thee to the cross, and insult over thy sacred person in those unequalled seasons of sorrow! Did they add cruelty to injustice, and bid defiance to thy sovereignty, grace, and love; and wert thou thus oppressed, detested, and despised for me and for my salvation? Didst thou indeed give thy back to the smiters, and thy cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not thy face from shame and spitting? And all this for me! Oh! love inexpressible, in comprehensible, and passing knowledge! Henceforth, dear Lord, let me never, never lose sight of thee, and thy patience under sufferings. Give me, I beseech thee, grace in all the little provocations which I meet with in life in following thee and thy glorious cause; give me grace to consider at all times Him who endured such a contradiction of sinners against himself, that I may never be weary nor faint in mind. Lord! let me esteem it my highest honour, my most distinguishing privilege, to be conformed to thee and to thy likeness in all things; that I may know the power of thy resurrection and the fellowship of thy sufferings. And oh! let my tongue speak of thy righteousness, and of thy praise all the day long.