come and troubles abound, yet these are meant in mercy, for God is Love. Sickness may lay us low, death may remove from us our dear ones, still His grace is sufficient for us, and God is Love. Cares may threaten to overwhelm us, and ruin stare us in the face, still God is Love. Friends may prove treacherous, and loved companions fickle and false, still all is for the best, for God is Love. Let us, therefore, leave the demon of despair to Atheists, and those who have neither faith in God nor confidence in man, but for ourselves we must cling to the eternal truth that God is Love. I cannot always trace the way Where Thou, Almighty One, dost move, That God is love. When fear her chilling mantle throws When mystery clouds my darkened path, That God is love. Yes, God is love; a thought like this GEORGE SEXTON, M.A., LL.D. 165 The Preacher's Homiletical HOMILETIC SKETCHES ON THE BOOK OF PSALMS. OUR PURPOSE.-Many learned and devout men have gone Philologically through this TEHELIM, this book of Hebrew hymns, and have left us the rich results of their inquiries in volumes within the reach of every Biblical student. To do the mere verbal hermeneutics of this book, even as well as it has been done, would be to contribute nothing fresh in the way of evoking or enforcing its Divine ideas. A thorough HOMILETIC treatment it has never yet received, and to this work we here commit ourselves, determining to employ the best results of modern Biblical scholarship. OUR METHOD.-Our plan of treatment will comprise four sections: (1) THE HISTORY of the passage. Lyric poetry, which the book is, is a delineation of living character; and the key, therefore, to unlock the meaning and reach the spirit of the words is a knowledge of the men and circumstances that the poet sketches with his lyric pencil.-(2) ANNOTATIONS of the passages. This will include short explanatory notes on any ambiguous word, phrase or allusion that may occur.-(3) The ARGUMENT of the passage. A knowledge of the main drift of an author is amongst the most essential conditions for interpreting his meaning.(4) The HOMILETICS of the passage. This is our main work. We shall endeavour so to group the Divine ideas that have been legitimately educed, as to suggest such thoughts and indicate such sermonizing methods as may promote the proficiency of modern pulpit aninistrations. -No. CLVI. The Tears of Memory, and the Cry for Vengeance. "BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON," &c.-Ps. cxxxvii. 1-8. HISTORY:-The author of this touching elegy is unknown. Some say it was written during the captivity, and some after. It is clear that the memory of the trials of the exile was very fresh in the mind of the writer. Babylon was taken by Cyrus B.C. 538, two years afterwards the Jews were allowed to return to their own land, and about twenty years after that Babylon was destroyed by Darius Hyspates, and the temple rebuilt. ANNOTATIONS :-Ver. 1. "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." This may mean either the streams within the city, which, according to Herodotus, covered 200 square miles, or the streams that flow in different parts of the empire, such as the Euphrates, the Cheva, and the Uri. "Yea, we wept." As they contrasted the scenes of home with their present position, their tears flowed. Ver. 2.-"We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof," &c. Willows, it seems, abounded on the banks of all the streams. Souls in sorrow hail solitude, and recoil from notes of joyous music. Ver. 3.-" For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song," &c. Was this request made in scorn to tantalise the exile, or that by music the exile might get reconciled to his captive condition? This is uncertain, but it is certain that singing was out of the question. Ver. 4.- "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" It cannot be done. Mirth from a heart black with sad memories cannot proceed. Ver. 5.-" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." The words "her cunning" are no in the original. The words mean, perhaps, "let my right hand forget her skill or her power of motion." "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth (See Job xxix. 10), if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” Jerusalem is higher than all to us. Ver. 7.-"Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem," &c. "From the thought of Israel's sorrows the Psalmist turns to those who had caused them, and calls down God's vengeance, first on the kindred race of Edom, who had malignantly helped the oppressor, and then on the oppressor himself. Lit. Remember to the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, the day of its destruction, in which they rejoiced. Edom's malicious joy in the overthrow of Jerusalem is referred to in Obad. i. 15; Jer. xlix. 7-22; Lam. iv. 21; Ezek. xxv. 8-14." Ver. 8, 9.-"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee," &c. The expression, "Who art to be destroyed" refers, perhaps, to the ruin that Cyrus began, and that Darius completed. 'Happy shall he be." Or, rather, happy he. "The desire for retribution on the incorrigible tyrant and oppressor is natural to the oppressed. The exaction of such retribution belongs as a right and a duty to the law fully constituted authority. "Dasheth thy little ones." The inhumanity of ancient warfare is well known, and well illustrated by this ex ample. The poet draws his phrases from the habits of warfare in his times."Murphy. HOMILETICS: In this Psalm we have two things worthy of attention. I. THE TEARS OF MEMORY. 66 By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; Yea, We wept when we remembered Zion." Observe two facts concerning their sorrow. First Their sorrow had reference to the loss of the highest blessing. What had they lost? Not merely their country, with its pastoral meads, waving cornfields, luxuriant vineyards, majestic trees, and towering mountains, in a "land flowing with milk and honey," but their ZION, where their nation met their God to worship Him, &c. No loss equal to the loss of religion. Secondly Their sorrow was deliberate and all-absorbing. It was not a mere sudden gush of melancholy passion; it was produced by thought, "we wept when we remembered Zion." Their sorrow, too, was all-absorbing. They could do nothing else; they "sat down," they "hanged up their harps." They would do nothing else. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." Now these tears of memory (1) Reveal one of the most wonderful faculties of our nature, the faculty of memory; (2) Reveal a view of retribution opposed to modern scepticism. Modern sceptics say we pay our moral debts as we go on, that retribution for sin is prompt and adequate here. brings up the sufferings of the past. of our mortal life terribly solemn. Not so, memory (3) Reveal a view We do not, as the brute does, finish with life as we go on; we are bound by memory to re-visit the past, and to re-live our yesterdays. (4) Reveal a futurity which must reverse our present calculations. How different do things appear to the eye of memory to what they do to the eye of sense. What we now regard as most desirable memory will regard as the most damnable. * In this Psalm we have II. A CRY FOR VENGEANCE. "Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom. In the day of Jerusalem, Who said, Rase it, Rase it even to the foundations thereof." Here is revenge, the inate sentiment of justice,running into an inordinate passion; for there is in us all an ineradicable instinct desiring the reward of virtue and the punishment of wrong. But when this instinct is so heated into rampant rage as to make us forgetful of our infirmities and deserts, it is revenge, which Lord Bacon calls "wild justice." (1) The inate sentiment of justice is a serene sentiment; it is sublimely calm in the bosom of God. But when it breaks into wild passion it is vengeance, and becomes a lawless thing. (2) The inate sentiment of justice seeks to rectify injuries, but when it breaks into the passion of revenge it seeks the destruction of the offender. (3) The inate sentiment of justice is an element of happiness in the soul, but when it breaks into the passion of revenge it is uneasy. "Revenge is sweet," says Dryden. Not so. "Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That you do singe yourself."-Shakspeare. The words of Jeremy Taylor are worth quoting. "A * For amplification of these points, see "Homilist," Vol. I., p. 180. |