is incapable of relishing any of the comforts of life, so unable is a soul labouring under a load of unpardoned guilt to draw any satisfaction from the blessings and privileges held out to us in the word of God. The psalmist, we find, makes use of this very image in the last clause of the verse: "Who healeth all thy diseases:" and the prophet Isaiah is still more descriptive to this purpose, "The whole head is sick, and "the whole heart is faint; from the crown of the "head to the sole of the foot there is no sound"ness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putrify

ing sores:" and indeed every one who will be at the pains to look into his own breast, and observe the disorders sin has introduced there, or into the world around, and behold the devastation it has spread over mankind, must be more and more convinced of the justice of these descriptions, and consequently be more deeply sensible of the obligations we are under to that infinite goodness which has found out a way of recovery from all these evils. As a farther ground of thankfulness for the goodness of God, let us observe the extent of it, "Who for

giveth all thine iniquities"-it extends to all sins, however many in number, however heinous and aggravated in their circumstances. Indeed Providence seems to have set up David as a monu

ment of the greatness of divine mercy, that none might despair-few can charge themselves with such aggravated guilt as his, though the most innocent and perfect stand exposed to the wrath of a just God. Mercy is then in our offer: Mercy which makes no exceptions, rejects no object, but only requires of the most guilty sinner to repent, forsake, and live. "Who redeemeth thy life from

destruction, who crowneth thee with loving"kindness and tender mercies." Who redeem"eth thy life" or soul" from destruction." The effect of natural distempers is death; all the maladies we are subject to, tending to the destruction. or dissolution of the body; in like manner sin must necessarily, at last, produce the death and destruction of the soul.

To conceive aright, therefore, of the blessing which the psalmist here praises God for, let us reflect, in the first place, on the vast worth and importance of our souls; and, secondly, on the dreadful import of the word destruction.

Let us first, I say, reflect on the vast worth of our own souls. The soul is a spiritual, immortal being: the breath of God himself, which must necessarily exist for ever. It is a being susceptible to the highest degree of joy

and grief, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery its faculties boundless, extending themselves through the immensity of space and time; rising up to the throne of God himself, the great sovereign of heaven and earth, and descending to the lowest abysses of hell; recalling past ages, and subjecting them to a present review, and stretching forward to those which lie buried in the womb of futurity; making them as though they were; in a word, comprehending heaven, earth and hell, time and eternity. Such is the nature of that spirit in man, which the almighty Creator "breathed into his nostrils," when he made him " a living soul." From which, let us turn our eyes to a view of that terrible destruction which threatens it, and in which, did not mercy prevent, we must all be involved. But what tongue of man, angel, or damned spirit is able to describe all the terrors of that wrath and fiery indignation which God hath laid up for sinners as the portion of their cup?-This destruction of the soul is not mere annihilation, the reduction of its powers to a state of non-existence. No, this prospect, gloomy and shocking as it is, were a paradise, to the misery which must be the lot of every unrepenting sinner. The scripture holds it out to us under every image that can convey dread and horror to the mind. It is called

.

"the second death," that killing death which rends the soul from God for ever. It is termed a prison, a dark and gloomy prison, where peace and rest can never dwell, where hope never comes, from which no possibility of escape is left for the wretched prisoner, and where nothing is to be heard but the voice of "weeping, and wail"ing, and gnashing of teeth." To convey the most frightful ideas, it is called "the lake that "burneth with fire and brimstone for ever," a "bottomless pit," into which the guilty wretch is still sinking deeper and deeper in misery. But even such representations as these convey but a faint idea of the inexpressible horrors of this dismal state; all the enlarged powers and faculties of the soul above described being made subservient only to the purpose of adding to its misery. And is not redemption from this an endless ground of praise and thanksgiving? especially if we consider the infinite price that was paid for it, which was no less than the precious blood of the eternal and only begotten Son of God. "Herein," indeed," was love, not that we loved "God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to "die for us, that whosoever believeth in him "might not perish, but have everlasting life." Let us here again therefore take up the words of the psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O our souls,

"who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and "crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender "mercies." If ever there was expressive language this is it: every word is full of the most transporting meaning. The pardon of sin, and redemption from that misery which is the consequence of it, great as they are, do by no means exhaust the plenitude of the love of God, which is no less graciously expressed in the positive blessings he confers upon us; he not only saves from death and hell, but likewise crowns with immortal glory and happiness, bestows a competent portion of the good things of this life in advance, as an earnest of his love, and a pledge of much greater and better spiritual blessings be, yond death and the grave; nay, is graciously pleased frequently to give his people, even in this life, a foretaste of those rivers of pleasure which flow at his right hand for evermore. These are, in a peculiar sense, the good things the psalmist mentions in the next verse: "Who satisfieth thy "mouth with good things, so that thy youth is "renewed like the eagles." Man, in his natural state, has no desire after spiritual good things, does not see the value, nor feel his need of them; hence we are apt to imagine ourselves" rich, and "increased in goods, and standing in need of "nothing," and see not that we are "miserable,