Psalms 119:144

"Thy testimonies are righteousness unto everlasting: O grant me understanding, and I shall live" (ver. 144). This younger one prayeth for understanding; which if he had not, he would not be "wiser than the aged;" but he prayeth for it in trouble and hardships, that he may thereby understand how contemptible is all that his persecuting enemies can take from him, by whom he saith he hath been despised. Therefore he hath said, "and I shall live:" because if trouble and heaviness reached such a pitch, that his life should be terminated by the hands of his persecuting enemies, he will live for ever, who preferreth to temporal things, righteousness which remaineth for evermore. This righteousness in trouble and hardship are the Martyria Dei, that is, the testimonies of God, for which Martyrs have been crowned.

The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting,.... Or, "for ever" (b).

The principles of God's government are permanent and reliable, and in the deepest distress His people find them a theme of delightful meditation and a source of reviving power (Ps 119:17, 116). law is the truth--It therefore cannot deceive as to its promises. everlasting-- (Ps 111:3), though to outward appearance seeming dead.

"The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting." First he had said that God's testimonies were righteous, then that they were everlasting, and now that their righteousness is everlasting. Thus he gives us a larger and more detailed account of the word of God the longer he is engaged in writing upon it. The more we say in praise of holy writ, the more we may say and the more we can say. God's testimonies to man cannot be assailed, they are righteous from beginning to end; and though ungodly men have opposed the divine justice, especially in the plan of salvation, they have always failed to establish any charge against the Most High. Long as the earth shall stand, long as there shall be a single intelligent creature in the universe, it will be confessed that God's plans of mercy are in all respects marvellous proofs of his love of justice: even that he may be gracious. Jehovah will not be unjust. "Give me understanding, and I shall live." This is a prayer which he is constantly praying, that God will give him understanding. Here he evidently considers that such a gift is essential to his living. To live without understanding is not to live the life of a man, but to be dead while we live. Only as we know and apprehend the things of God can we be said to enter into life. The more the Lord teaches us to admire the eternal rightness of his word, and the more he quickens us to the love of such rightness, the happier and the better we shall be. As we love life, and seek many days that we may see good, it behooves us to seek immortality in the everlasting word which liveth and abideth for ever, and to seek good in that renewal of our entire nature which begins with the enlightenment of the understanding and passes on to the regeneration of the entire man.

YESTERDAY afternoon I was the subject of a somewhat singular circumstance. An esteemed friend and relative came over to my house, evidently laboring under great disturbance of mind and having enquiries to make of a very important order. I was, at the time, walking in the garden, so that I did not see him and he appeared to have great difficulty in mentioning the subject of his concern to my wife. At last it came out that he had seen a gentleman who had informed him that it was generally rumored that I had been taken ill with heart disease and had died in a very short time. My friend came to the point by cautious degrees and asked at length if I was seriously ill. "No," was the joyful reply of my beloved, "he is much the same as usual." Then it was clear I was not dead and the great fear was removed. The question was put, "Would you like to see him?" But my kind friend was perfectly satisfied and was too full of joy to wish to linger—he would go back and answer with certainty the many enquiries which continued to be made at the Tabernacle. How the report originated, I am quite at a loss to tell. It has evoked much kindness, but it is rather odd to feel called upon to assure your friends that you are yet alive! I can but show myself and ask my friends to see for themselves if I look like a dead man! When the peculiarity of the position had given place to other thoughts, it struck me in a solemn manner that the report might have been true and my death will assuredly be a fact one day unless our Lord should come speedily. Only sparing mercy from God's right hand has prevented it being true at this moment. We do not realize our mortality unless we are startled into a recognition of it. We believe others to be mortal and are not much surprised when they fall, but we have a secret notion that no axe will, for the present, be laid at our root.