THE Pfalm, of which these words S ER M• are a part, feems to have been written XIV. by David in the time of fome particular perfonal Calamity. Ver. 1. Preferve me, O God; for in thee have I put my Truft. The Ground of This his Truft, he expreffes to be his Adherence to the True Religion, in oppofition to the Idolatry of the Nations about him: Ver. 4, 6. They that run after another God, shall have great Trouble ;------but The Lord himself is the Portion of Mine inheritance, and of my Cup. The particular affliction, which he here refers to, whatsoever it was; he acknowledges, proved beneficial to him, in fixing his Mind more fteddily upon things relating to his fpiritual eftate: Ver. 8. I will thank the Lord for giving me warning; my Reins alfo chaften me in the night-feafon: I have fet God always before me; for he is on my right hand, therefore I shall not fall. And then he adds, in the words of the Text, the Comfort arifing to him from the fenfe of this Improvement: Wherefore my Heart was glad, and my Glory rejoiced; my Flesh alVOL. V.

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SERM. fo fhall reft in Hope: For why? Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell; neither fhalt thou fuffer thy Holy One to fee corruption. 'Tis remarkable here, that the former part of these words; My Heart was glad, and my Glory rejoiced; are cited, Acts ii. 26, according to the Rendring of the LXX, My Heart rejoiced, and my Tongue was glad. Which not only, in other words, expreffes the very fame fense; but shows us alfo what it is, that the Pfalmift, in Other Paffages, means by his Glory. Pfal. xxx. 12, To the end that my Glory, (that is, that my Tongue,) may fing Praife to thee, and not be filent. And Pfal. Ivii. 9, Awake up, my Glory; awake, lute and Harp; I my felf will awake right early: That is; Both with my Voice, and with Inftruments of Mufick, will I fing Praise unto thee.

The latter part of the words; My › Flesh also shall reft in Hope: For why? thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell, neither fhalt thou fuffer thy Holy One to fee corruption are by Many understood to be a highly figurative expreffion in the Pfal

mist, of his earnest expectation of a lite- SER M. ral and temporal Deliverance from the XIV. Affliction he was at prefent under. In like manner as St Paul, fpeaking of his own Escape from a very dangerous Perfecution, calls it a deliverance from a great Death; 2 Cor. i. 9, We should not truft, fays he, in ourselves, but in God which raifeth the Dead: Who delivered us from so great a Death, and doth deliver: In whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. And fo likewife Those remarkable Words of Job, ch. xix. 25, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall ftand at the latter day upon the Earth And though, after my Skin, Worms deftroy this Body, yet in my Flefh fhall I fee God; Whom I shall fee for myself, and mine eyes fhall behold, and not Another, though my reins be confumed within me : Even These words, I fay, are by fome Interpreters understood as a Prediction, in highly figurative and prophetical expreffions, of his Restoration to his Temporal Greatness and Profperity. But as This is a very forced Senfe of the words, and, if it were Y 3

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SER M. their True Meaning, would still be at XIV. least the borrowing of a Figure from the Notion and Expectation of a Refurrection: from the Dead; 'tis more reasonable and natural to understand them in that obvious and literal fenfe, wherein they are clearly and plainly the Expreffion of a better and more certain Hope. And, for the fame reason, the words of my Text likewise, if they are at all to be applied to the Pfalmift himself; may with a better emphafis, and as a more affured Ground of Hope, be understood to fignify his expectation of a Future State, than of a Temporal Deliverance. But indeed, in their real and most proper Senfe, they are not applicable to the Pfalmift himself, but to Him of whom David was both a Prophet and a Type; The fame Spirit of God, which through the whole Period of the old Teftament from the Beginning of the World pointed perpetually to Chrift through an innumerable variety of Types and Prophecies, here likewife directing the inspired Penman to such Expreffions, as might be a strict and literal descrip

tion of the Refurrection of Christ, but SER M. could not with the fame propriety be

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plied to David. Thus the Apostle obferves, Acts xiii. 36; David, after he had Served his own generation by the Will of God, fell on Sleep, and was laid unto his Fathers, and faw corruption; But he whom God raifed again, faw no corruption. And chap. ii. 29; The Patriarch David is both dead and buried, and his Sepulchre is with us unto This day: Therefore being a Prophet, and knowing that God had fworn with an Oath to him, that of the Fruit of his Loins, according to the Flesh, he would raise up Christ to fit on his Throne; He, feeing this before, Spake of the Refurrection of Chrift, that his Soul was not left in Hell, neither his Flesh did Jee Corruption. And 'tis remarkable, by the way; that, as the fore-cited words of Job, which are much more emphatically defcriptive of the Refurrection of the Dead, than of his Restoration to his Temporal Profperity; are, in order to excite our more particular Attention, introduced with That extraordinary and most folemn excla

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