Psalm 37:5

Verse 5. Note the double again, Commit and trust. C. H. S.

Verse 5. He shall bring it to pass. When a hard piece of work is put into the hand of an apprentice for the first assay of his skill, the beholders are justly afraid of a miscarriage in his young and inexperienced hand; but when the worker is an old master of craft, none are afraid but his cunning hand can act again what so oft it hath wrought to the contentment of all the beholders. Were our God a novice in the great art of governing the world, and of the church in the bosom thereof; had he to this day never given any proof of his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, in turning about the most terrible accidents to the welfare and joy of his saints; we might indeed be amazed whenever we feel ourselves sinking in the dangers wherein the practices of our enemies oft do plunge us over head and ears; but the Lord having given in times past so many documents of his uncontroverted skill and most certain will to bring about all human affairs, as to his own glory, so to the real good of all that love him, it would be in us an impious and unexcusable uncharitableness to suspect the end of any work which he hath begun. Robert Baylie's Sermon before the House of Commons, 1643.

Verse 5,7.: --

Paul Gerhard (1606-1676), translated by Frances Elizabeth Cox, in "Hymns from the German," 1864.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 5-6. The higher life.