Psalms 38

REFLECTIONS UPON PSALM XXXVIII.—How tremendous is even God’s fatherly wrath! But how much more his incensed vengeance against the ungodly! Sin makes fearful work even in saints. But much more terrible is its effects in the damned! Yea, where real grace is, sin will be more painful and bitter than all the arrows, strokes, and wounds, of trouble. And, however painful the wounds and groans of the soul are, they are symptoms of life. It is hopeful when outward distempers make men to search out and bewail their sinful causes. But nothing is a more fatal sign than insensibility. No human strength can withstand God’s afflicting hand. No sinews of brass, nor bones of iron, can resist the strokes of fierce disease. And often our worldly friends, who flutter round us in our prosperity, treacherously forsake us in our adversity. But what a comfort it is that we have a compassionate God to trust to, who knows, and can cure, our maladies! How many, how malicious and active, are the enemies of Christ and his saints! Their enmity at God himself, and his image, is the cause of their quarrel. So fixed is their hatred at godliness, that they abhor it, though benefited by it. It is hard, but wise, to imitate Jesus Christ in calm composure under severe provocation;—in silently suffering, and in overlooking manifold unkindnesses done to us. But to take notice of malicious and clamorous enemies is ordinarily to make evil worse. Hope in God will sufficiently support us against every oppression and injury. They, who contentedly leave their cause with him, shall never be disappointed, nor want an advocate to plead for them; and, the more sense we have of our offences against him, the greater will be our penitential grief, and our patience under the provocations of men. 6. 73. Our covenant relation to him, as our Friend, Saviour, and God, improved by the prayer of faith, will quickly bring him to our relief