This psalm, which comes at the close of the magnificent series of royal psalms, which tell of the reign of Christ Jehovah, has been called their doxology. It seems to have been sung during the thank offering in the temple service (Leviticus 7:12). "Luther would have immortalized his name had he done no more than written the majestic air and harmony to which we are accustomed to sing this psalm, and which, when the mind is in a truly worshipping frame, seems to bring heaven down to earth, and to raise earth to heaven, giving us anticipations of the pure and sublime delights of that noble and general assembly in which saints and angels shall forever celebrate the praises of God." The psalm "is all ablaze with grateful adoration, and has, for this reason, been a great favourite with the people of God ever since it was written." It bids us "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." It means "a glad shout, such as loyal subjects give when their king appears among them." Now, let us consider this subject of thankful praise which it brings so prominently before us. Let us glance at -

I. THE HOLY DUTY TO WHICH WE ARE SUMMONED.

1. Our hearts are to be full of thanksgiving. It is no mere outside worship which is told of here, but such as wells up from the deepest fountains of a grateful and glad heart.

2. We are to openly avow that thankfulness. It is not, though beginning in the heart, to stay there. Openly, loudly, joyfully, we are to let all men know our delight in God.

3. We are to join with others in this service of praise. There is to be no standing aloof or pleading that we can worship God as well at home. We are to go with the multitude to keep holy day.

4. And it is to be all unto the Lord. Choirs and congregations alike are to remember this.

II. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS SUMMONS IS BASED.

1. "The Lord, he is God. Our Jehovah, so good and gracious, is God Almighty also. Not only a Saviour who would fain bless and save us; but who has all power - is mighty to save.

2. He is our Creator, and so responsible for our being. It is he that hath made us," etc. (ver. 3). This is a most blessed fact. When we see what men and women are, so corrupt and evil, we often wonder wherefore God perpetuates the race. But he does so; he takes all the responsibility of it. What treasure store of hope for humanity lies in this act!

3. He is our King and Shepherd. "We are his people, and," etc. (ver. 3.) We are under his wise, holy, strong government; we are provided for by his loving care, led along as his sheep in his pasture.

4. He is good, eternally merciful, and true. (Ver. 5.)

III. THE CULTIVATION OF THIS THANKFUL SPIRIT. Many sadly fail here. They have no song, only a perpetual dirge, and against many the condemnation is written, "Neither were they thankful." Now, how may we cultivate this thankful spirit?

1. We must remove the hindrances. They are such as these: The miserable habit of looking enviously at what other people have, but which we have not, forgetting all the while what of good we nevertheless have. What folly this! and yet how common! and what a fruitful source of unhappiness, and of unthankfulness it is! And many are wont to look habitually on the dark side of their experience, and scarcely at all on the other and bright side. This is why St. Paul bids us, amid our prayers and supplications, to mingle thanksgivings, since this compels us to look at the bright side, in order to find out what we have to be thankful for. And then, too, our sad habit of regarding our ordinary mercies as mere matters of course is another sad hindrance of the thankful spirit. When health is restored after sore illness, how thankful we are! but the months and years of health which may follow give ample time to forget our thankfulness, and to let our gratitude die because we do not see anything extraordinary about our experience of God's goodness. Now, we must set ourselves to get rid of these evil ways if we would be habitually thankful.

2. Then there are positive aids to this blessed spirit. Such as taking right views of life, remembering its brevity and its educational purpose. We are not at home here, and we cannot expect on a journey the comforts of home. And a school - and such is this life - is certainly not as a home, as his father's house, to a child. Then think much of our mercies. Accustom yourself to go over them in your thoughts, and to render thanksgiving for them. And when misfortunes come, make the best, not the worst, of them. Remember bow much worse it might have been. It is told that "when the New England colonies were first planted, the settlers endured many privations and difficulties. Being piously disposed, they laid their distresses before God in frequent days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation on such topics kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and made them disposed even to return to their Fatherland with all its persecutions. At length, when it was proposed to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, a plain, common sense old colonist was in the meeting, and remarked that he thought they had brooded long enough over their misfortunes, and that it seemed high time they should consider some of their mercies - that the colony was growing strong, the fields increasing in harvests, the rivers full of fish, and the woods of game, the air sweet, the climate salubrious, and their homes happy; above all that, they possessed what they came for, full civil and religious liberty. And therefore, on the whole, he would amend their resolution for a fast, and propose in its stead a day of thanksgiving, His advice was taken, and from that day to this the festival has been an annual one." Ah! would that we had men of this spirit, and would make the best, not the worst, of our misfortunes! "The bee when in a flower from which it cannot get nectar, gets the golden farina, out of which it builds its cells, and so it rolls up its little legs against the stamens, till they look large and loaded as golden store, and, thanking the flower as sweetly as if it had been full of honey, gladly humming, it flies home with its wax. Yes, and herein lies God's moral. If our flowers have no honey, let us be glad of the wax." The same writer who gives the above illustrations tells how the good, though self-willed, George III., when he had lost all our American colonies, and thousands of our troops had been slain, and millions upon millions of debt incurred, nevertheless, not to be outdone in piety by the Americans, ordered a day of thanksgiving. He was asked by a pious clergyman what the thanksgiving was to be for - was it to be for any of the above-named facts? He pressed the king for an answer, who replied energetically, "Thank God it is not any worse." Yes; there is something to be thankful for in all circumstances, if we will only be open eyed to note it. Remember, too, that our evils are but blessings in disguise. "Light afflictions" - so St. Paul called them - "which are but for a moment, and which work for us," etc. Above all, let us give our hearts to Christ. Yield them to him, as he bids us do; and as he will by his blessed Spirit fill them with all other good things, so he will shed abroad in them this grace also, the spirit of thankfulness.

IV. REASONS FOR SUCH CULTIVATION.

1. Our circumstances demand it: we have cause for thankfulness.

2. It will greatly bless others. For a glad, thankful spirit is winsome and attractive Christwards, whilst the opposite spirit cannot but repel.

3. For our own sake. It will brighten all our life, whilst if, owl-like, we dwell in darkness, we shall come to love it, and be as dim-sighted and night haunting as they.

4. And does not the Lord our God and Saviour deserve all our praise? Therefore, jubilate. - S.C.

A missionary from Polynesia brought home a "soul trap." It was a series of rings twisted in cocoanut fibre. If a native should commit a great offence, or offend a sorcerer, he proceeds to make a new ring in his chain, so as to form a trap to catch the poor man's spirit. Soon the sorcerer asserts that the soul of the culprit, assuming this form, has passed into the trap. It is immediately known throughout the tribe that a certain man has lost his soul. As a matter of fact, it invariably happens that the soulless man shortly afterwards dies, of course through sheer mental distress at having had his soul thus entrapped. We smile at such traps, but we are all familiar with soul traps of a far more subtle and dangerous character. In the verses before us the Psalmist vividly pictures the crafty schemes of the wicked in order to entrap their victims. They seek by most subtle arts to entangle and destroy.

I. IT IS THUS THAT SELFISH MEN SET WRAPS FOR THE YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED. With lies and enticements the covetous seek to entrap and destroy the young. Soul traps for the young! How numerous they are! How cleverly contrived! The utmost artifice and plausibility. How successful they are (ver. 10). "Crouching down as low as possible, he lies on the watch, and the feeble and defenceless fall into his strong ones, i.e. claws." — Delitzsch. How many thus fall! Our cities are full of fallen young men and women. We have thousands of heartless men in society answering to the vile robber pictured in these verses. For the sake of gain they set traps in which the health, honour, happiness, soul of the youthful perish. The whole civilised world was shocked the other day by the discovery that, by means of an infernal machine, a villain sent ships and their crews to the bottom of the sea for the sake of the insurance money; but thousands of atheistical, covetous men, for the sake of gain, are ingeniously seeking to sink the souls of the people in the gulf of hell.

II. IT IS THUS THAT THE WORLD CONTRIVES TRAPS FOR THE GODLY. The world does not like the godly, and in various subtle methods it seeks to worst them.

1. It has traps for their reputation. "His mouth is full of perjury and deceit." He sets a net of cunningly devised speech, that he may be able to bring their good name into discredit.

2. It has traps for their fortune. It will "privily seek" to damage their circumstances. It will adroitly circulate reports, frame laws, to bring them into financial trouble.

3. It has traps for their character. They know the natural weaknesses of a Christian, and they bait their hook, set their net, accordingly. He is short tempered, and they contrive to put in his way occasions of auger; he is given to levity, and they provoke his mirth; he has strong appetites, and they put drink to his lips; he is feeble in faith, and they press him with scepticisms. The world hates the righteous, and when it cannot injure them openly it will secretly. The devil is a wily destroyer, and his children imitate his tactics and seek to murder the innocent.

III. IT IS THUS THAT SATAN SETS TRAPS FOR US ALL. He is the great bandit pictured in the text; he is the great sorcerer whose soul traps beset us at every turn. What a clever fowler is he! what a politic huntsman! what a subtle angler! The devil hides himself, he disguises his movements, and in an evil hour men are drawn "into the net." Here he betrays by pleasure. Bates tells us of a spider in South America which looks like a blossom, and insects alighting on it for sweetness find death. So the great foe, under the aspect of pleasure, betrays thousands. Here he betrays by honour. One of the Roman emperors used to fish with a net of purple and gold; the devil has used this net largely and taken great prey. And by many other devices does he destroy the unwary. Beware! Beware of those soul traps made of flowers, called pleasure; of those purple-lined ones called greatness; of those gay-painted ones called fashion; of those scientific ones called philosophy; of those jewelled ones called honour; of those golden ones called wealth; of those most plausible ones called morality. "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." The devil will lie, fawn, flatter, and do this patiently for years to ruin us.

1. Let the innocent put their trust in God, and walk circumspectly. The afflicted committeth himself unto Thee; Thou art the helper of the fatherless" (ver. 14). Alas for us if we attempt to stand in our own strength, and take our defence into our own hands! "He that takes himself out of God's hands into his own, by and by will not know what to do with himself." — Whichcote. And in our darkest hours of temptation and trial we may have the fullest, assurance that God has not forgotten us. The wicked say, "God will never see it" (ver. 11). But the Psalmist replies, "Thou hast seen it; for Thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with Thy hand" (ver. 14). "The Psalmist means to say, so far from the assertion of the wicked man being true, that God is forgetful of the poor, He is, on the contrary, observant of their trouble and vexation; and in order not to forget their calamities He places a memorial of them on His hands" (Isaiah 49:26).

2. Let the wicked be assured that God's eye is upon them, and that justice must overtake them (ver 15). "Because the Lord continues to spare them, therefore they go on to provoke Him. As He adds to their lives, so they add to their lusts. Because justice seems to wink, men suppose her blind; because she delays punishment, they imagine she denies to punish them; because she does not always reprove them for their sins, they suppose she always approves of their sins. But let such know that the silent arrow can destroy as well as the roaring cannon. Though the patience of God be lasting, yet it is not everlasting." — Spurgeon.

(W. L. Watkinson.)