I. Its tendency is to make BUSINESS PROSPEROUS (ver. 2). This stands in splendid contrast to the terrible threat which Moses addressed to the Israelites of old, should they break God's law (Exodus 25:35; Deuteronomy 18:40).

II. Its tendency is to make THE FAMILY HAPPY (ver. 3). Ungodly families are stars wandering from their orbits, but a truly pious family, small though it be, is an orb rolling round the eternal Sun of Righteousness, and from it deriving its life, its light, and its harmony.

III. Its tendency is to make THE COUNTRY BLESSED (vers. 4, 5). "Righteousness exalteth a nation."

1. In material wealth. Truth, honesty, integrity, in a people; are the best guarantees of commercial advancement. Credit is the best capital in the business of a nation as well as in the business of an individual, and credit is built on righteous principles.

2. In social enjoyments. According as the principles of veracity, uprightness, and honour, reign in society, will be the freeness, the heartiness, and the enjoyment of social intercourse.

3. In moral power. The true majesty of a kingdom lies in its moral virtues.

IV. Its tendency is to make THE LIFE LONG (ver. 5). There should be a full stop after the word "Children," and the word "and" is not in the original. Genuine piety tends to long life.

1. Long life depends upon obedience be the laws of our constitution, physical, mental, and moral laws.

2. In order to obey the laws of our constitution, those laws must be understood.

3. In order to understand those laws, man must study them. They will not come to him by intuition, inspiration, or revelation. He must study them, study nature.

4. In order to study them effectively he must have supreme sympathy with their Author.

(Homilist.)

I. Not by Socialistic revolution and Communistic confiscation and redistribution. These methods are contrary alike to nature, reason, revelation and experience.

II. Organization, bureau registration, co-operation, arbitration, legislation, etc., are largely empiric and artificial expedients, productive at best of only partial and superficial amendment.

III. The Christian religion will secure whatever is good in the above, and, besides, will produce the only radical and permanent cure.

1. It teaches and realizes a Brotherhood of Humanity, embracing rich and poor, in which, it one member suffer, all suffer.

2. Its golden law strikes at the selfishness of the rich in refusing to consider the poor, secures the immediate relief of Christian philanthropy, and the permanent improvement of "things just and equal" (Colossians 4:1). "A fair day's work, etc., fair day's wage."

3. It gives best promise of regulating the labour-market by checking over-crowding in the easier callings, substituting conscientious choice and providential guidance for the unreasoning selfishness which makes time and means for pleasure the great consideration — e.g. City factory and sewing-room always crowded, farm and domestic service rarely if ever fully supplied.

4. It imparts dignity and self-respect through union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, a brother mechanic, and the only perfect model of what the working-man may be and ought to be. Thus alone can he realize his ideal aristocracy of "industrial and moral worth," instead of wealth and birth.

5. It secures him the best of all help, Self-help, and puts him in the way of working out his own salvation. The fruition of such culture will be, from his own stock, trusty and efficient representatives who "shall stand before kings."

6. It will make his home the scene of highest comfort, purest and most stable domestic happiness and family welfare.

(W. M. Roger.)

I. Piety in PRINCIPLE. The love to God that constitutes piety is characterized by two things: —

1. Predominancy. Most men have a kind of love for the Supreme, that flows through them with other natural emotions, but attains no ascendancy over other sentiments, no control over the other faculties. The love to God that constitutes piety must be the controlling disposition.

2. Permanency. Perhaps, in most minds, the sentiment of love to God, of gratitude, adoration, and even of reverence, arises at times: especially when moving amidst the grand and beautiful in nature, or experiencing the enjoyment of some special blessings. But this sentiment, to become piety, must be crystallized, and settled as a rock. It is the embryo of all excellence in all worlds. It is a seed out of which grows all that is beautiful and fruitful in the Eden of God.

II. Piety in DEVELOPMENT. How is this principle rightly developed? Not in mere songs and hymns, and prayers, and ceremonies, but in conduct. "That walketh in His ways." "His ways," the ways of truth, honesty, purity, and holy love. True piety is not a dormant element sleeping in the soul, like grain buried under the mountains, it struggles into form, and takes action, it walks, and its walk is onward and upward.

III. Piety in BLESSEDNESS.

(David Thomas, D. D.)

II. RELIGION IS PROFITABLE. The very duties which religion inculcates, it cannot have escaped your observation, have a natural tendency to procure the comforts and conveniences of life. Health, honour, riches, and that good name which is better than riches, are, in many cases, part of the recompense of religion. Religion embraces both the temporal welfare of individuals, and the prosperity of states and of empires. "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that walketh in His ways." Blessed are the young; blessed are the aged; blessed are the prosperous; and blessed the afflicted.

(T. Laurie, D. D.)

"Jesus, the very thought of Thee,

With sweetness fills my breast." Samuel Rutherford was steeped in all the rigours of a Calvinism which touches the very springs of awe in the human breast, and yet from him came the love letters of Christianity — letters too sacred for any except our most solitary moods. The moment we cease to tremble before God we cease to know joy.

(W. C. Piggott.)

     5874   happiness
     8117   discipleship, benefits
     8335   reverence, and blessing

Psalm 128:

     7963   song

Psalm 128:1-2

     4438   eating
     8809   riches

"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works

What the Ruler's Discrimination Should be Between Correction and Connivance, Between Fervour and Gentleness.
It should be known too that the vices of subjects ought sometimes to be prudently connived at, but indicated in that they are connived at; that things, even though openly known, ought sometimes to be seasonably tolerated, but sometimes, though hidden, be closely investigated; that they ought sometimes to be gently reproved, but sometimes vehemently censured. For, indeed, some things, as we have said, ought to be prudently connived at, but indicated in that they are connived at, so that, when the …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Epistle Xlvi. To Isacius, Bishop of Jerusalem .
To Isacius, Bishop of Jerusalem [159] . Gregory to Isacius, &c. In keeping with the truth of history, what means the fact that at the time of the flood the human race outside the ark dies, but within the ark is preserved unto life, but what we see plainly now, namely that all the unfaithful perish under the wave of their sin, while the unity of holy Church, like the compactness of the ark, keeps her faithful ones in faith and in charity? And this ark in truth is compacted of incorruptible timber, …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Letter xxxiv. To Marcella.
In reply to a request from Marcella for information concerning two phrases in Ps. cxxvii. ("bread of sorrow," v. 2, and "children of the shaken off," A.V. "of the youth," v. 4). Jerome, after lamenting that Origen's notes on the psalm are no longer extant, gives the following explanations: The Hebrew phrase "bread of sorrow" is rendered by the LXX. "bread of idols"; by Aquila, "bread of troubles"; by Symmachus, "bread of misery." Theodotion follows the LXX. So does Origen's Fifth Version. The Sixth …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament