Psalm 78:8

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Verse 8-9. Look carefully to the ground of thy active obedience, that it be sound and sincere. The same right principles whereby the sincere soul acts for Christ, will carry him to suffer for Christ, when a call from God comes with such an errand. "The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." Why? what is the matter? so well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems strange: read the preceding verse and you will cease wondering; they are called there, A generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. Let the armour be what it will, yea, if soldiers were in a castle, whose foundations were rock, and walls brass; yet if their hearts be not right to their prince, an easy storm will drive them from the walls, and a little scare open their gate, which hath not this bolt of sincerity on it to hold it fast. In our late wars we have seen that the honest hearts within thin and weak works have held the town, when no walls could defend treachery from betraying trust. William Gurnall.

 

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 5-8. Family religion.

Verse 5-8.

Verse 7-8. On the deceitfulness of the heart, in disregarding providential dispensations in general. John Jamieson's "Sermons on the Heart,"

Verse 8. Stubbornness not steadfastness, or the difference between a natural vice and a gracious quality.

Verse 8. The false heart (middle clause), with its left hand, "Stubbornness in the wrong" (first clause), and its right hand, "Fickleness in the right" (last clause). C. D.