Psalm 88:3

Hear, therefore, Mistress Brettergh's triumphant songs and ravishments of spirit, after the return of her well beloved: "O Lord Jesus, dost thou pray for me? O blessed and sweet Saviour, how wonderful! How wonderful are thy mercies! Oh thy love is unspeakable, thou hast dealt so graciously with me! O my Lord and my God, blessed be thy name for evermore, which hast showed me the path of life. Thou didst, O Lord, hide thy face from me for a little season, but with everlasting mercy thou hast had compassion on me. And now, blessed Lord, thy comfortable presence is come; yea, Lord, thou hast had respect unto thine handmaid, and art come with fulness of joy, and abundance of consolation. O blessed be thy name, my Lord and my God. O the joys that I feel in my soul! They be wonderful. O Father, how merciful and marvellously gracious art thou unto me! yea, Lord, I feel thy mercy and I am assured of thy love; and so certain am I thereof, as Thou art the God of truth, even so sure do I know myself to be thine, O Lord my God, and this my soul knoweth right well. Blessed be the Lord that hath thus comforted me, and hath brought me now to a place more sweet unto me than the garden of Eden. Oh the joy, the delightsome joy that I feel! O praise the Lord for his mercies, and for this joy which my soul feels full well; praise his name forever more."

Hear with what heavenly calmness and sweet comforts Master Peacock's heart was refreshed and ravished when the storm was over: "Truly, my heart and soul", saith he, (when the tempest was something allayed) "have been far led and deeply troubled with temptations, and stings of conscience, but I thank God they are eased in good measure. Wherefore I desire that I be not branded with the note of a castaway or reprobate. Such questions, oppositions, and all tending thereto, I renounce. Concerning mine inconsiderate speeches in my temptation, I humbly and heartily ask mercy of God for them all." Afterward by little, and little, more light did arise in his heart, and he brake out into such speeches as these: "I do, God be praised, feel such comfort from that, what shall I call it?" "Agony", said one that stood by. "Nay", quoth he, "that is too little; that had I five hundred worlds, I could not make satisfaction for such an issue. Oh, the sea is not more full of water, nor the sun of light, than the Lord of mercy; yea, his mercies are ten thousand times more. What great cause have I to magnify the great goodness of God, that hath humbled such a wretched miscreant, and of so base condition, to an estate so glorious and stately. The Lord hath honoured me with his goodness! I am sure he hath provided a glorious kingdom for me. The joy that I feel in mine heart is incredible." For the third, (namely, John Glover) hear Mr. Foxe: "Though this good servant of God suffered many years so sharp temptations, and strong buffeting of Satan; yet the Lord, who graciously preserved him all the while, not only at last did rid him out of all discomfort, but also framed him thereby to such mortification of life, as the like lightly hath not been seen; in such sort, as he being like one placed in heaven already, and dead in this world both in word and meditation, led a life altogether celestial, abhorring in his mind all profane doings." --Robert Bolton (1572-1631), in, "Instructions for a right Comforting afflicted Consciences."

Verse 3. My life. The Hebrew word rendered life is in the plural number, as in Ge 2:7 3:14,17 6:17 7:15 et al. Why the plural was used as applicable to life cannot now be known with certainty. It may have been to accord with the fact, that man has two kinds of life; -- the animal life, -- or life in common with the inferior creation; and intellectual, or higher life, -- the life of the soul. The meaning here is, that he was about to die; or that his life or lives approached that state when the grave closes over us; the extinction of the mere animal life; and the separation of the soul -- the immortal part -- from the body. --Albert Barnes.

Verse 3. The grave. The word which is rendered "hell" in the Prayer Book translation, and "the grave" in the Bible version, and which is usually translated either as hell or the grave, is in the Hebrew laf and in the Greek "Hades." "Hades" signifies "the unseen world." The word "Sheol" is literally "the Devouring, or the Insatiable." (Compare Habakkuk 2:5 ) "who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied"; and also ( Proverbs 3:15-16 .) "Sheol" seems to have presented itself to the thoughts of the ancient Hebrews as a gloomy, silent, inevitable, and mysterious abode, situated within the earth, whither the souls of the departed were compelled to repair and to dwell, upon their being separated from the body. ( Isaiah 14:9-20 ). They believed that the spirits of all human kind were contained there in a state of waiting, and there especially dwelt the souls of the giants before the flood ( 1 Peter 3:19-20 ), and of the great ones of old, the Rephaim, whom they pictured to themselves as fearful and gigantic spectres (Compare Proverbs 2:18 ). These ideas became modified and developed with the increasing clearness of divine teaching; and they divided the abode of the dead into different states of hope and comfort, which they called Abraham's bosom and paradise ( Luke 16:22-23 23:43); and of misery and suffering, ( Proverbs 3:1 ). Life and immortality were brought to light by the Saviour, and also judgment and Hell -- the Gehenna of everlasting punishment, as distinguished from the Unseen World. (Compare Revelation 20:13-14 ). From these speculations of Jewish Rabbis respecting Sheol the church of Rome appears to have developed the doctrine of Purgatory. It should be added that it was a received opinion among the followers of Rabbinical teaching, that all of the seed of Abraham, though they would be dwellers in Sheol before the general resurrection, would finally escape the Gehenna of everlasting fire. The rich man ( Luke 16:23 ) is in Hades in torments when he calls to Abraham his father. --"Plain Commentary."

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 3.