Psalm 9:10 And they that know your name will put their trust in you: for you, LORD, have not forsaken them that seek you. By those who know God's name, are meant those who know God Himself and His nature. Trusting in God, does very naturally take in all the expectations we have of what He hath promised, and knowing His name is a raising our minds to a just sense of His nature, by the contemplation of His works of creation and providence. Apply to three points — I. THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN. Men stumble at this, that our weak race, which is hasting to a change that hath all the appearance of ending, should not really die, but live on, and have their share in all the revolutions which the world is to undergo, as long as God Himself shall have His being. Consider what we have in the knowledge of God, and His works, which may further us in the belief of it. There must be an eternity of time and duration. Through it God must surely preserve His being, and He surely will preserve a world. He will always have creatures before Him. Is it most likely that God should choose to continue creatures before Him, by giving eternity to the souls of men: or by letting these die, and end as they do in appearance, and by raising up other new ones in their places? If the souls of men are really abolished, and end at death, I do not know; but we may say that they are the only substances in the whole compass of beings that are so. If the eternal duration be granted, there is — II. THE GREATNESS OF THE GLORY AND REWARD. Descriptions of heaven are but borrowed expressions from such things as we understand, but the happiness itself is something that is greater than we can yet conceive. The fabric of the world, wonderful as it is, is really a thousand times greater, and more wonderful in itself than it is in our thoughts. For we only behold creation through a perspective. III. THE PUNISHMENTS OF THE OTHER WORLD. To their fears of these, unbelieving men oppose the great goodness of God. But consider God's providences and judgments upon us now. Evidently, we ought not to argue that God's goodness will not suffer Him to punish, for it does. (Francis Hutchinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. |
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