PREFACE. "BLESSED be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and amen. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." Brethren beloved, this precious Scripture has pressed upon us in regard to our again addressing you by way of Preface. The fact of another volume of this work being completed-and that no less than the hundredth has filled us with astonishment, in the recollection of what our God has done. Hence we feel the portion above quoted to be so exactly adapted to our own state of mind at the present time. We see so much ground for magnifying the wisdom and the love and the mercy and the condescension of our God, in that He has so long and so graciously smiled upon this feeble effort to set forth His kindness towards His people in the person and through the work of His own dear Son, that we cannot but ask you to unite with us in seeking to bless and praise and adore Him. The Lord Jehovah having manifestly so early in his eventful life taken the Psalmist in hand, he looks back upon all the way by which the Lord his God had led him with wonder and admiration. It was the fact that he had been raised from obscurity-separated from his brethren-had been the least in his father's house, that caused his after-career to stand forth in the more marked and blessed way. His very changes-his onward and upward progress-caused the Lord's hand in regard to the Psalmist to appear the more conspicuous and blessed. Had there been less change, there would have been proportionately less of the Lord's interposition. Had he had fewer enemies, less dangers, and not so many difficulties, there would not have been nearly so keen a sense of the Lord's guidance and care; but, inasmuch as nearly the whole of the Psalmist's path had been compassed with enemies and snares and besetments of various kinds, his preservation and his perseverance amid all reflected the more strikingly the Lord's wisdom and faithfulness and strength. Hence, in the review, he exclaims, "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things." It was David's being kept in so constant a state of dependence upon the Lord, and, whatever his circumstances, his being of necessity compelled to look to and lean only upon the Lord, that brought him so continuously to a recognition of the hand of the Lord. If he had had less trials or fewer enemies, he would not have been so ready to testify, as at all times he was prepared to do, "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad;" no, nor would he have said, as here he does say, "who only doeth wondrous things." The Psalmist brought this "only" out of the depths out of the failures, the disappointments, the "deaths oft," of which the Apostle, in after-day, speaks. It was his being drawn off from creature helps, and driven out of creature refuges, that brought David to know personally and experimentally the great fact that it is "the God of Israel who only doeth wondrous things." And they are wondrous things, because they are wrought by a wonder-working God, and that, too, in a wonderful way. He is verily "the God that doeth wonders," and His delight is in the same. It gives Jehovah pleasure to please His people by His wondrous acts. It delights Him to pursue a course that shall in due time call forth their wonder, admiration, and gratitude. Hence He conducts them in a pathway both in providence and grace, that bespeaks the wisdom, and the tenderness, and the majesty of a God! His acts and His doings are worthy of Himself. He is a God of love-the very embodiment of love in its own essential nature-so His acts are all acts of love; He is prompted, in all He does, by love-infinite, boundless, unfathomable love. Whatever aspect His acts may bear-whatever construction we, as poor finite creatures, may place upon those acts, still in the light of another day we shall see in them nought but love, and that love a love worthy of its divine Author. As In proportion as by faith, beloved, we are enabled to entertain this, shall we be able also to adopt the further language of the Psalmist, and exclaim, "And blessed be His glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen." Yes, the recognition of the gracious acts of our God-especially as those acts bear upon our own person and circumstances, will, under the Spirit's power, imbue the soul with a holy longing that Jehovah may be glorified and adored. A glow of gratitude will possess the whole soul, and an intensity of desire spring up in the heart, that a God so good and so gracious may be glorified in all His attributes, and for all His loving and merciful acts. It is the fact of His coming down in these acts, and familiarizing Himself and His mercies with His poor and needy ones, that must, of necessity, so endear Him to His people, and bring them heartily to desire that "the whole earth may be filled with His glory." They long to see their own God in covenant acknowledged and adored in His own rightful sovereignity. They would fain see the prince of the power of the air dethroned, and Jehovah recognized as God alone; yea, as the God who "only doeth wondrous things." It is to every true Spirit-taught soul a source of unutterable grief, that whilst "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, [even His] people do not know, Israel doth not consider ;” and, if this applies to God's own professed people, alas! alas! what shall we say of those who desire not the knowledge of His ways, and who, both by word and act, exclaim, "No God-no God"—that is, "We don't want one." Oh, the patience, the forbearance, the long-suffering of Him who "only doeth wondrous things!" But there is one thought more, beloved, in relation to the words, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." What is meant by this? Is it that the prayers of David were now ended? that he had now asked for all he wanted? We know not. Although that time would come in the Psalmist's experience, and it is a sweet thought, both as regarded him and as regards every true spiritual Israelite and wilderness wanderer, that there will come the day and the hour-yea, the precise moment for the last prayer to be offered, when prayer shall give place to eternal and uninterrupted praise. We think, however, in this case it means that "when the whole earth should be filled with the glory of God," then "the prayer of David the son of Jesse would be ended "—then, and not until then, would he have the sum and substance of his desires-all and everything he would wish. Now do mark, beloved, how the Psalmist's heart and will were absorbed in his love to and interest in Jehovah's kingdom. Or, if you take this not as the language of David merely, but of David's Lord, and consider it as the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, desiring that "the whole earth should be filled with Jehovah's glory," how precious is the language, involving, as it does, the salvation and the glorification of the one blood-bought Church, for the glory of Jehovah and the salvation of His redeemed people are identical, blessed be His name! And we know not, beloved, any more suitable words with which to close up our humble labours in respect to the year now drawing to a close; yea, with which to complete the whole hundred years of this work's existence. Amid all the perplexity and discord and sin and abomination that prevail around us, we can from our heart say, "Blessed be His glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with His glory." We are no prophets-we assume not to possessing an insight into what is before us. That great events are near-that a momentous crisis is at hand -we doubt not. What it may be, or the precise manner of its coming, is in His hands and under His control, with whom is the residue of the Spirit. But this we can say, in harmony with the words just quoted, "Let Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven;" Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." 66 Bedminster, Bristol, Dec. 1865. THE EDITOR. |