Is any among you afflicted?
&c.] As the people of God generally are; they are commonly a
poor, and an afflicted people; at least there are many among them
that are so, and many are their afflictions: those whom Christ
loves, as he did Lazarus, are not free from sicknesses and
diseases; and these are rather signs of love than arguments
against it; and when this is the case of any of the saints, what
is to be done?
let him pray;
to God that can save him; in the name of Christ; under the
influence of the Spirit; believing in the word of promise. Times
of afflictions are proper times for prayer; there is then more
especially need of it; and God sometimes lays his afflicting hand
upon his people, when they have been negligent of their duty, and
he has not heard of them for some time, in order to bring them
near to him, to seek his face, pay him a visit, and pour out a
prayer before him; see ( Psalms 50:15
) .
Is any merry?
in good heart and spirit, in a good frame of mind, as well as in
prosperous circumstances, in soul, body and estate:
let him sing psalms;
let him not only be inwardly joyful, as he should be in
prosperity, and be thankful to God for his many mercies, temporal
and spiritual, he enjoys; but let him express it vocally, and
melodiously, by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs: not
that these are the only persons that are to sing psalms, or this
the only time, any more than that afflicted persons are the only
ones that are to pray, or the time of affliction the only time of
prayer; but as affliction more especially calls for prayer, so
spiritual joy, and rejoicing in prosperous seasons, for singing
of psalms: weeping, and singing of psalms, were thought, by the
Jews, inconsistent. Kimchi, on the title of the third psalm,
observes, that their Rabbins say, that when David went up the
ascent of the Mount of Olives, he wept; and if he wept, why is
this called a psalm? and if a psalm, (hkb hml) , "why did he weep?"