O come let us worship and fall down before him; for he is the Lord our God. N this pfalm we find holy David taken up with the pious contemplation of God's infinite power, majefty and greatness :-he confiders him as the fovereign Lord of the whole earth, the maker and supporter of all things; -that by him the heavens were created, and all the host of them; that the earth was wifely fashioned by his hands;-he had founded it upon the floods :-that we likewife, the people of his pasture, were raised up by the fame creating hand, from nothing, to the dignity of rational creatures, made, with respect to our reason and understanding, after his own most perfect image. It was natural to imagine that such a con templation would light up a flame of devotion in any grateful man's breaft; and accordingly we find it break forth, in the words of the text, in a kind of religious rapture :— prayer O come let us worship and fall down before him: for he is the Lord our God. Sure never exhortation to and worship can be better enforced than upon this principle, that God is the cause and creator of all things;-that each individual being is upheld in the ftation it was first placed, by the fame hand which formed it ;-that all the bleffings and advantages, which are necessary to the happiness and welfare of beings on earth, are only to be derived from the fame fountain; -and that the only way to do it, is to fecure an interest in his favour, by a grateful expreffion of our fenfe for the benefits we have received, and a humble dependance upon him for those we expect and stand in need of.That we have in heaven, fays the Pfalmift, but thee, O God, to look unto or depend on, to whom fhall we pour out our complaints, and speak of all our wants and neceffities, but to thy goodness, which is ever willing to con fer upon us whatever becomes us to afk, and thee to grant ;—because thou hast promised to be nigh unto all that call upon thee,—yea, unto all that call upon thee faithfully;—that thou wilt fulfil the defire of them that fear thee, that thou wilt alfo hear their cry, and help them. Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.-There are fome duties which may seem to occafion a troublesome oppofition to the natural workings of flesh and blood; -fuch as the forgiveness of injuries, and the love of our enemies;-others, which will force us unavoidably into a perpetual struggle with our paffions, which war against the foul;fuch as chastity,― temperance,― humility.— There are other virtues, which feem to bid us forget our present interest for a while,—such as charity and generofity;-others, that teach us to forget it at all times, and wholly to fix our affections on things above, and in no circumstance to act like men that look for a continuing city here, but upon one to come, whofe builder and maker is God.-But this duty of prayer and thanksgiving to God-has |