June 7

Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. - Psalms 116:7.

WHEN Christians call to remembrance their former experience, and review the dealings of God with them, how much there is in the retrospect to excite and to encourage them to return from their backslidings, and to adopt the language of the Psalmist here, and to say, with the church, “I will go and return unto my first husband, for then was it better with me than now.” As the dove returned unto the ark because she could find no rest for the sole of her foot, so it is impossible for the believer to know any true satisfaction till he says, with David, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.” Having tasted that the Lord is gracious, and known the blessedness of nearness to God and communion with him, he looks back, and, as he compares his former state with the present, he says,-

“Where is the blessedness I knew

When first I saw the Lord?

Where is the soul-refreshing view

Of Jesus and his word?

What peaceful hours I then enjoy’d!

How sweet their memory still!

But now I find an aching void

The world can never fill.”

He may have forgotten his resting-place, but he can find no substitute for it. To recover his first peace, and to regain his former happiness, he must draw near to God, his “exceeding joy.” With him is the fountain of life, and there is enough in him to bless us, whatever be our wants or our capacities of enjoyment; and therefore a Christian from whom the Lord has withholden some of the privileges he once enjoyed, instead of complaining of God, should rather say, with the church, “I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him.” Let such with broken hearts and contrite spirits return unto the Lord, taking with them words, saying, “Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously; so will we render the calves of our lips:” until he has done this he must necessarily be miserable. And nothing is so well calculated to induce this return unto God, the resting-place of his soul, as the remembrance of past displays of God’s goodness to him. It is then he is heard to say,-

“His love in time past forbids me to think

He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink;

Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review

Confirms his good pleasure to help me quite through.”

He remembers not only his own folly and wickedness in forsaking the fountain of living waters, but also that with the Lord there is plenteous redemption; and therefore, though greatly distressed, he encourages himself in the Lord his God, whom he addresses in the language of the church:-“Though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me.” “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.”