244 / 514
231
APPEARANCE
ñEFORE
CO
D
CSERffi,
%Tir,
liness found
in the governing parts
of
this
family
!
And
I
am
persuaded,
that
not the
parlour
only,
but the
meaner
rooms
are
witnesses
of
devotion and pious
dis-
course: But
we
are none
of
us
above the need
of
self
-
enquiry;
and
as
we
all
appear
with
our bodies to wor-
ship
God
daily,
methinks
I
would
not
have one
soul
among
us
absent
from
God
in this daily worship.
'Thus
I
have
finished
the
first
general
head
of
my
dis-
course
Secondly,
The
words
of
the
text
discover to us
an
earnest
longing
after
divine ordinances, and the presence
of
God
in
them.
.
This abundantly appears
also in
seve-
-rai
parts of
this
psalm: How
mournfully doth
the
Psalm-
ist
complain, and
what a
painful
sense he expresses
of
-his
long absence from the house
of God
!
verses
3,
4.
What
a
sweet
and
sorrowful recollection
he
makes'of
past
seasons
of
delight
in
worship?
My tears have been
my
meat
day
and
night,
my
soul
is
cast
down
and dis-
quieted,
I
remember
when
I
went
with
the
multitude to
-the house
of
God, with the
voice
ofjoy
and
praise;
but
now
God
seems to
have
forgotten
Inc,
verse 9.
How
earnestly
Both
he
breathe after
the sanctuary
?
Ps.
lxiii
rand
lxxxiv.
to
see
-thy
power,
O God, and
thy glory, as
he
had seen
it
there.
He
borrows
metaphors
and
simi-
litudes
from some
of
t
he most vehement
appetites
of
na-
ture
to
signify his
strong
desires
after God
;
my
flesh'
..thirsteth-
for
thee, even
fainteth
for the
courts of
the
living
God.)
And this
is
the
blessed
temper
of
a
christiarì, when
is
his
right
frame
;
he
is
never
satisfied when
quite re-
strained
from divine ordinances,,
whether
by persecution
by
banishment,
by
the
unreasonable
laws
of
men,
or
by
afflictions
and weaknesses laid
on him
by
the hand
of
God. He
thinks over again those seasons wherein
he
enjoyed
the
presence of
God
in
worship,
and
the recol-
lection of
them
increases
his
desires
of
their return. He
watches
every
turn
of
providence,
and
hopes
it
is
working
towards
his
release: When
he
sees
the doers
of
his prison
begin to
open,
he
is
ready
to
break
out
of
con-
finement, and
seize
the pleasure
of
public-
worship.:
He
thinks it
long
till
he
appears
before
God
again.
"
I
have
chosen
God, saith
hey,
for
my
highest
good,
for
ray
everlasting portion, and
I
would willingly
aft=
resort
to