FOURTEENTH EVENING.

Evening Prayer.

PSALM LXXIII.

The Pfalmift, who is fuppofed to have been Asaph, here exhorts us, not to envy the profperity of the wicked, nor to form any judgment from their prefent ftate and condition, but to await the event, in which God will evince himself to be the punisher of the wicked, and the preferver of the good.

1. TRUELY God is good to Ifrael, to fuch as are of a clean heart.

2. Yet as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh flipped.

3. For I was grieved at the wicked, feeing the ungodly in fuch prosperity.

4. For the bow is not bent against them; found and perfect is their strength.

5. They are not fubject to the toil of men, neither are they scourged with the rest of mankind.

6. Therefore pride compaffeth them about as a chain, violence covereth them as a robe.

7. Their iniquity proceedeth out of their inmost parts, the counfels of their heart break forth.

8. They are corrupt and speak wickedly; with haughtiness do they utter oppreffion.

9. They fet their mouth against the heaven, and their tongue walketh through the earth.

10. Therefore are his people turned unto them, and waters are found by them in a copious spring. 11. And they fay, how doth God know? Is there knowledge in the most high?

12. Behold, these are the ungodly, and the profperous of the world.

13. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.

14 And all day long have been plagued, and chaftened every morning.

15. If, faid I, I fhould fpeak thus, behold, I fhould break covenant with the generation of thy children.

16. When I ftudied to understand this, it was difficult in my eyes.

17. Until I entered into the fanctuary of God, then understood I their end.

18. Surely thou dost set them in flippery places, thou makest them fall from an high station.

19. How are they brought into defolation, as in a moment! they are confumed with utter destruction.

20. As a dream when one awaketh, fo, O Lord,

thou fhalt awake them, and bring to nothing their vain fhew.

21. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.

22. So foolish was I and ignorant, yea even as a brute before thee.

23. But I will always be with thee, thou wilt hold me by my right hand.

24. Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel; and afterwards receive me to glory.

25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I defire befides thee.

26. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

27. For lo! they that are far from thee fhall perish, thou shalt destroy all them that are estranged from thee.

28. But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my truft in the Lord God, that I may recount all thy works.

PSALM LXXIV.

The defolation of Jerufalem, and the burning of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, was the fad occafion af this Pfalm. It feems to have been written about the middle, or rather towards the conclufion of the cap

tivity, because the writer complains, v. 9, that they had no prophet (as there was at the beginning of the captivity, particularly Jeremiah) to tell them how long it should laft. The author of this Pfalm therefore, if Afaph, was not that Afaph who was cotemporary with David; but perhaps fome pious defcendant of his, who was fuffered to remain in the land of Ifrael with the Chaldæans.

1. O God, why haft thou caft us off? For ever fhall thine anger burn against the fheep of thy pasture?

2. Remember thy congregation which thou haft purchased of old; the tribe of thine inheritance which thou haft redeemed; this mount Sion wherein thou haft dwelt.

3. Lift up thy footsteps, and behold the long continued defolations: the foe hath committed all wickedness in the fanctuary.

4. Thine enemies fhout in the midst of thy place of worship; they fet up their enfigns for trophies. 5. They hew it, as a man bringeth down the hatchet on the trees of a thicket; and they break down its gates with axes and hammers.

6. They burn thy fanctuary to the ground, they defile the dwelling place of thy name.

7. They fay in their hearts, let us deftroy them utterly; they fet fire to the tabernacle of God.

8. We no longer fee our figns in the land, there

is no more any prophet, neither is there among us one that understandeth.

9. How long, O God, how long fhall the adverfary reproach? Shall the enemy blafpheme thy name for ever?

10. Why withdraweft thou thy hand? Why is thy right hand restrained in thy bofom?

II. Yet God is my king of old; that worketh falvation in the midft of the earth.

12. Thou didst divide the fea by thy ftrength, thou didst break the head of the dragon in the

waters.

13. Thou didst bruife the head of Leviathan, and gaveft food to the people in the wilderness.

14. Thou didst cause a spring, yea a torrent to burst forth; thou driedft up rapid rivers.

15. The day is thine, the night is thine; thou haft prepared the moon and the fun.

16. Thou haft fet all the borders of the earth thou haft made fummer and winter.

17. Remember this reviling foe, O Lord, and the foolish people that blafpheme thy name.

18. Oh! deliver not the foul that praiseth thee to the multitude, forget not the congregation of the poor for ever.

19. Have respect unto thy covenant, for the obfcure places of the land are filled with the habitations of iniquity.