GOOD REASONS

A SERMON

Preached on Sunday Morning, April 24th, 1870

By Mister JAMES WELLS

Volume 12 Number 598

“And my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.” Psalm 35:28

DAVID was raised up to work out the national and social liberty of Israel, and also to establish the worship of God, and to prepare for the glory that should follow in Solomon’s day. The enemy well knew these were the ends for which David was raised up; and consequently, stirred up the mind, not only of king Saul, but of thousands of others who sought to cut David off and prevent his working out this freedom, establishing this pure, divine service, and preparing for the glory which should follow. Take this view of it, and you will understand his intercessions against his enemies; they were not enemies in the mere common sense, but in this especial sense; so that either they must be defeated and overturned, or else the purpose of God in raising up David must be overturned. Therefore, David prayed against his enemies, and the Lord dealt with them as you see; see how the Lord cut off the Philistines, the Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, and others around, that would have cut Israel off. Thus, David interceded against them. And you will see in all the three ends for which David was raised up, that he was a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ. The mission of the Savior was to work out the freedom, the liberty of poor sinners; to open the prison doors to them that are bound, to proclaim liberty to the captive, the delivering of those that are bruised, and also to establish the pure service of God. It is “not in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem,” not ceremonial; “but they that worship the Lord must worship him in spirit and in truth.” David prepared for the glory that was to follow in Solomon’s day; and Christ in his humiliation prepared and did all that that should bring about the glory of his exaltation. He was obedient unto death; that is the way he brought about his exaltation, the glory that shall shine forever, eternal salvation, and the eternal glorification of all for whom he died. “He became obedient unto death. Wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”

Our text, I think, contains three things. First, the righteousness of God, “My tongue shall speak of your righteousness.” Secondly, the praise of God, “and of your praise.” Thirdly, the continuation of the service of God, “all the day long.”

First, the righteousness of God. I shall assign three reasons for this decision of the Psalmist, “My tongue shall speak of your righteousness;” and we know how most of us have been brought for many years into this decision and have not been and never shall be moved away from it. The first reason is this, because it is by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ that our eternal salvation is as much a matter of right as it is a matter of mercy, because the mediatorial work of the Lord Jesus Christ makes eternal life and everything that is to be enjoyed a matter of right as much as it is a matter of mercy. The apostle is very beautiful upon this when he says, to proclaim this substitutional work of Christ, “that God might be just, and the justifier of him that believes.” What does that mean? Why, here is a sinner believes that nothing but the atonement, the blood, the redemption, the ransom, the substitution, the sufferings, the death and wondrous victory of Christ, can deliver him from the wrath to come, that nothing else can form him for heaven, that nothing else can give him the victory, that nothing else can really and truly bring him to God. The promise is unto faith; “that God might be just, and the justifier of him that believes.” Now, says the apostle in Romans 5, we are “justified by his blood.” The word “justification” does not always mean what we habitually attach to it; it sometimes means exemption from evil. “Justified by his blood,” that is, as by the paschal lamb the Israelites were exempted from the sword, so being justified by his blood means that we are exempted from all sin, and guilt, and wrath, curse, threatening, danger, and evil, by his precious blood. God is hereby just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. This is one reason, then, why David should make mention of his righteousness; and here our confidence is to be; we cannot have too much confidence here. The promise is unto faith; to a poor sinner that has nowhere else to go. When the blind man was brought to Christ, the Savior said, “Believe you?” oh, what a sweet question! “believe you that I am able to do this?” You can clearly see that the dear Savior might easily have put some questions that would have sent the man away from him. If he had said, “Believe you that you are worthy for whom I shall do this? believe you that you are by any merit, or goodness, or righteousness, or excellency, or works, or doings of your own, entitled to this favor you are asking?” the poor man’s countenance would have fallen, and he would have gone away and taken his blindness with him; and if anyone had asked him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, “Does he receive sinners? Does he receive those that believe?” he would have said, “No, he does not.” But mark the question. “Believe you that I am able to do this?” When Satan comes into the mind sometimes, and stirs up our infidelity, and tries to make out that we are too sinful, that our sins are too numerous and great for us to have any hope in God, there comes the question, “Believe you I am able to do this?” Hereby the great God, in pardoning us, exempting, blessing, and saving us, is as just as he is merciful; “it is God that justifies.” Is not this one good reason for naming the righteousness of Jesus? Unrighteous in yourself, unrighteous in a vast variety of ways, but righteous in him; all is square in him, all settled in him, no spot, no wrinkle there. “Thus, says the Lord, The people that escaped the sword found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.” And when the Lord brings a sinner into a wilderness state of experience and gives him to see the sword that stands against him, then, as the Israelites escaped by the paschal lamb, so does such a one escape by the Lord Jesus Christ. We talk of justice asking no more, and of Christ being the end of the law, and having magnified the law; but very few of us seem favored to live as though we really believed what was done. The law has no more to do with me than as though it did not exist; the threatening’s of the Bible, in a way of destruction, have no more to do with me than as though they did not exist, but only in a way of instruction; and my sins have no more claim upon me than as though I had never had a sin; “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.” According to the way in which most of us live, it is almost a pity that Solomon’s Song was ever written. But when we are really in our right minds, and recognize really what we are by Christ Jesus, and what he is to us and for us, then we can rise a little into the liberty of the gospel, and see that sin is dead to us as we stand in Christ, and we are dead to that; that the law is dead to us, and we dead to that; that death itself is dead to us, and we dead to that; that hell is dead to us, and we dead to that; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear in glory with him. David knew ten times more of this substitutional righteousness than I know of it; perhaps some of you may go a little further than I do into the matter; but I do not wonder at his speaking as he does: “My tongue shall speak of your righteousness”, as though he should say, I disdain the thought of having any of my own; as he says in Psalm 71, “I will make mention of your righteousness, even of your only.” Under these circumstances, then, Jesus Christ wrought the work that he wrought in faith; that is, he did it believing that God would be faithful to him and give him all the glory to which that work entitled him. He did the work and believed that the promises God had given him on the ground of his doing that work would be fulfilled. I will mention one promise, for it must be looked at as a promise, though it is the language of the Savior: “You will not leave my soul in hell,” nor did he: the Savior went into the hell of our sins and God’s wrath: “you will not suffer your Holy One to see corruption,” nor did he: “you will show me the path of life”, and did he not? “in your presence is fulness of joy,” and did he not come into all this? and is he not enjoying now pleasures for evermore at God’s right hand? And just as the Lord dealt with his own dear Son, that substitutional work being imputed to the people, he will deal with him that believes. David must have been a firm believer. “That God might be just, and the justifier of him that believes.” Oh, this mysterious faith, to lay hold of such a righteousness as this, and to see that God was faithful to his dear Son! He first trusted Christ all through the Old Testament age and saved perhaps millions of sinners; there God the Father was trusting Christ; and now Christ comes and does the work and trusts God. And as Christ (I almost tremble to express the word, but I do it for the sake of the idea), as Christ did not deceive God, but came and did the work, so God will not deceive Christ; therefore, mercy and truth are met together.

Only mind this, although it is a matter of right as well as mercy, still it is a matter of right entirely by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It all comes to us in the shape of grace, mercy, and loving-kindness. Hence, we are said to be justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. But the Lord has so ordered it that he has made it a matter of right that he should be our refuge. We are to go to God for refuge, but by this righteousness it is right that he should receive us, it is right that he should hide us, it is right that he should defend us, it is right that he should take care of us; the Savior expects it, and the Father has promised it and undertaken it in the greatness and eternity of his wonderful love. God therefore is, as a matter of right by the work of Christ, as well as a matter of grace, our refuge and strength, and present help in trouble; no wonder, therefore, the people should say, “We will not fear.” Well, but, David, suppose you rebel tomorrow, and sin the next day, and make a stumble the next, how then? Oh, that won’t destroy faith. I am a poor sinner, every day I feel that; but the promise is not to the poor creature that supposes he is good in the flesh, for there always was, and is now, a generation pure in their own eyes, but the Holy Ghost says they are not washed from their filthiness. David’s confidence was entirely in Christ. There is a river, what can dry up that river? there is a city, God is in the midst of her, he shall help her, and that right early: the heathen may rage, the kingdoms may be moved, but he utters his voice, and the earth melts. It is a blessed theme, this wonderful work of the Lord Jesus Christ. “He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.” This is one reason why David spoke, and why we also speak, of his righteousness. I can hardly enter here into the blessedness of the soul as it enters heaven. When you die, you leave this world and go to heaven in all the perfection of Christ, the Holy Ghost having regenerated the soul and united it to Christ. You do not go in your own name, for you are named after him, nor in your own righteousness, but in his; nor in your own holiness, but in his; nor in your own strength, but in his; nor in your own right, but in his; nor in anything of your own, but in his goodness. What a complete transplantation it is! The soul is entirely rooted up, and thrown down, and pulled down and destroyed in its old Adam standing; it is brought to stand in Christ Jesus; and says the apostle, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” “Do we then make void the law? yea, we establish the law.” We glory, then, in this eternal righteousness that is in Christ, because by it, God is just, and the justifier of him that believes. Hence by this righteousness the cause of God is called a righteous cause, in the preceding verse: “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause.” Bring anything else in to make it righteous, and then it is not a righteous cause, but let the mediatorial work of Christ be brought in, then the cause of God is a righteous cause. And what does the cause of God mean? Perhaps, as they are to shout for joy, and to be glad, that favor his righteous cause, I ought to say a word here as to what the cause of God is.

The first principle of the cause of God is salvation. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. See the piece of silver; see the lost, or rather the found sheep; see the returning prodigal. “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause.” Can we look upon this branch of the cause of God without rejoicing in the thought that many precious souls within these walls shall yet be born of God; that in years to come, when your humble servant shall be on earth no more, these walls may not only still resound with the same blessed truths, but that many precious souls shall here find mercy and salvation? So that in doing; what you have done, and still are doing, you are favoring God’s righteous cause, the ingathering of precious souls. Christ has bought them, and it is right he shall have them; he has loved them, and it is right he shall have them; he has chosen them, and it is right he shall have them; he has constituted them one with himself, indissolubly one, and it is right that he shall have them; he has gone to prepare mansions for them, and it is right that they shall have them. And those that have thus favored God’s righteous cause, when in their right minds, instead of grudging what they have done, will say, Thanks to God that he put it into my heart to do it; thanks to God for what he has done; thanks to God for his mercy towards me in this matter. I have often thought (for we shall want encouragement sometimes, no doubt, in the future) of one of the German rulers in Luther’s time when he was dying; he was very distressed in his mind as to what would become of him, fearing he should be lost. This same man was at Worms with Luther on that tremendous day, and he favored Luther, sympathized with him, and sent him a cup of wine in the evening to his lodgings; and when he came to die, fearing, as I have said, he should be lost, he asked his servant to read some portion of the word of God to him; and he was directed to Matthew 10, especially the latter part; “He that receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.” Oh, I did receive Luther, and loved him. “He that receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward.” Oh, I did receive Luther, and loved him. “And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” Oh, I sent poor exhausted Luther a cup of wine, and I suppose in substance that’s the same; oh, I can die now; because he saw his evidences brightened that he belonged to the Lord, and so he fell asleep in that peace that passes all understanding. How did he bless the Lord for what he had thus done in times past, not in a way of merit, but in a way of evidence! “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause.” Ah, ministers that labor in God’s cause are a very highly honored class of men; deacons that are employed in God’s house are a very highly honored class of men; members, that form a part of the church, at least, that come into the church, are a highly honored class of people; and so those that do not see their way clearly to join, but help forward the cause, they do all they can. It is true, then, notwithstanding all the different circumstantials, it is true and will be true, “Happy is the people whose God is the Lord,” the people whom he “has chosen for his own inheritance.” So, then, “I will make mention of your righteousness, even of your only.” “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause.” Oh, we ought to do and to suffer anything rather than in any way injure the cause of God. he that touches the people of God touches the apple of God’s eye. And this Psalm shows that David’s enemies were seeking his destruction. His prayers reached the skies with mighty eloquence; his prayers reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth in a way that overcame, as it were, God himself. “You have power with God and with men and have prevailed.” Some of you that are mothers know the power with which the agonizing cries of your infants have come when you have recognized in them sickness and pain; whether it be morning or night, you know what power their little voices had over you. And so, friends, we are little.

“Great God, how infinite are you!

What worthless worms are we!”

Yet the feeble cry of little faith, pleading Jesus’ righteousness, reaches the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and prevails with an almighty power; for there is an omnipotency in the name of Jesus by which the feeblest desire reaches the throne of God; and that man, though weak in faith, contracted in knowledge, and ten thousand trembling’s, doubting’s, and fearing’s, does thereby with infallible certainty engage on his behalf the omnipotency, the eternal power, of the great God. “What people has God so nigh unto them in all they call upon him for?” “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause.” So, by the work of Christ his cause is a righteous cause.

The next reason why the Psalmist would make mention of Christ’s righteousness would be because there is no prosperity without it. Hence the preceding verse says, as though it would explain our text, “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: yes, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.” Then says David, “My tongue shall speak of your righteousness;” why? Not only because it makes our eternal welfare a matter of right as well as of mercy, but because prosperity is there; “which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.” We may take the servant there first to mean the Lord Jesus Christ. He was God’s servant and all the servants of God, those that were types of Christ, all showed some weakness somewhere or another; they all had their drawbacks, even that great and wonderful man of God, Elijah, that had such wonderful power with God. What does the apostle Patil say of him? He accounts for how it was he fled from Jezebel, how it was he manifested those weaknesses which he did: “Elijah was a man of like passions with ourselves;” that is the secret of it all. Not so with the Lord Jesus Christ, in his life there was not a drawback. If he wanted to preach a sermon, he always preached just such a one as he meant to preach; and when he wanted to work a miracle, he always succeeded; there was no failure; whatever he attempted to do he did do and prospered. It is said that “a king shall reign and prosper.” Go to Deuteronomy 17 and see how beautifully the dear Savior answers to the king who was to prosper. They were to set a king over them whom the Lord their God should choose; not one that was not their brother, but one that was their brother, “one from among your brethren,” Christ Jesus; and he was to continue in the commandment of the Lord, that he might prosper, and prolong his days, he and his children, in the land of Israel. So, he has done this. “The prosperity of his servant;” let us look at this relatively.

Ask a brother how does he get on? Pretty well, by faith in Christ Jesus. That is how you prosper. You do not get on without that. Give me Christ Jesus; I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me; by him I am sure to prosper; by him I am sure to live; by him I am sure to go from strength to strength; by him the light shall shine more and more unto the perfect day. Let us prove this. Here is an assembly, and what are you? Why, in your old nature you are infidels, and especially are you legalists, every one of you; you are Arminians, that is what you are in your old nature. It is no trouble to convert a man to Arminianism, for every man is an Arminian by nature, a free wilier and a work monger by nature. The Wesleyan parson says he has converted so many. I don’t see so much in that. The man is just what he was before; he makes a profession now; but he is the same man that he was before; he has got the same blindness and enmity to God’s truth. Now you come to the house of God; sometimes thinking. There is nothing for me; I am that hardhearted, wretched, wandering, miserable creature. I cannot think what I have come for; I fear I am deluded altogether. If I could but pray and love, and stretch, as it were, a pair of good wings, and rise with wings as eagles, then I should think there was something for me. Well, it is a great mercy to be concerned at all. Perhaps at that very time the minister comes and sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ in what he has done; and you say, What a silly thing I have been! there is my peace, it is in him; there is my holiness, in him; there is my righteousness, in him; there is my strength, my confidence, my hope, my standing, in him. Why, these very things I have been grieving over, just prepare me for such a Jesus Christ; and I should not have liked this sermon half so well if I had not been the poor creature that I am. That minister would find it hard work if he had to preach to a congregation of Laodiceans, saying they were rich and increased in goods, and had need of nothing, knowing not that they were at the same time poor, and blind, and naked, and wretched, and miserable. How then are such poor creatures to prosper? By Christ Jesus the Lord, he is the king that shall reign and prosper, and his reign is a reign of grace.

We sometimes sing the words, and I dare to say some of you Pharisees, some of you may be Pharisees, not only in your old nature, but altogether, if you have your hymn-book open when we come to that part, perhaps you shut your book, and cannot join in it,

“Grace reigns to pardon crimson sins;

It matters not how black their cast;

And O, my soul, with wonder view, For sins to come here’s pardon too.”

Ah, say you, I cannot sing this; this is a very dangerous sort of thing. But if you were convinced of what you really are in your old nature, you would find nothing else would do. But what will people think of me if I hold such a doctrine as that? If you are concerned about your state, it will not be your question what people will think of you, but what the Lord thinks of you, what the truth thinks of you, and what the word of God says of you; and the word of God declares you as helpless to change your state by your own doings as the Ethiopian is to change his own color or the leopard to get rid of his spots; and you must be indebted to the God of grace for that change indicated in the beautiful words of the Church when she says, “I am black, but comely, O you daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.” Oh, the mighty change brought about! So, then, all prosperity is by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Just look at one thing, it is tangible and open to you all, beyond all dispute, there is no room for the slightest disputation or argument, or a single word. When the Israelites abode faithfully by their covenant, and by their God in that covenant, was not their prosperity all but unbounded? What was the good of Sennacherib coming? He came with a hundred and eighty-five thousand men, and if he had brought a hundred and eighty-five million, they would have been as a handful of chaff in the hands of the great Jehovah. It is a great thing to be kept faithful. So with the martyrs of the Old Testament that you read of in Hebrews 11; so with the martyrs of the New Testament dispensation; they all succeeded and prospered by faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore make mention of your righteousness, because therein we shall prosper. I think that some of our little causes would prosper more if the people would take better care of their minister. I speak now after the manner of men. They are very grudging to the minister; give him about nine shillings and three pence three farthings a week; and there is a deacon doles it out to him as though he was a parish boy; and there is an old hypocrite there, and another there, Pharisees, make him a present of ten pounds now and then, only they hate the truth. I would not make you this present, only I find you are a little more moderate than you were. The devil does not mind what he pays if he can get rid of the truth. The people of God should come forward and say, Let us take our minister out of the hands of those hypocrites, and take care of him, and then he will not have this temptation and trial. Ah, when you come to have a wife and family dependent upon you, and one thing and another to try you, it is all very easy for others to talk; let them come into the same plight; you hardly know what you would do. There is a good man, who has it in his power, and gives nothing; there is an enemy, who has it in his power, and gives what the good man ought to give. I know some ministers have been kept in bondage, and wounded, and twisted in this way. The people should pluck the minister somehow or other out of the hands of these enemies and set him free; for if the minister be not free, the people cannot be free. I am persuaded that if there be great joy in a church, it must be just as there was great joy in Samaria, they went and preached Christ unto them, and there was great joy in the city; and Philip preached Jesus to the Ethiopian, and he went on his way rejoicing. It is this that does it. Just, therefore, as the Israelites abode by their God, and prospered unboundedly, so in abiding by the truth our souls shall prosper. When John saw the people of God in his day walking in the truth, he said, “I wish that you may be in health;” of course every minister sympathizes with the people in every sense, as to the poor body, and circumstances, and all the rest. I rejoice to see the people of God well in health and prospered in circumstances; there is no harm in getting on in the world, not a bit; get on as fast as ever you can; but John says, “I wish that you may be in health and prosper, even as your soul prospers.” Ah, you must connect that with another expression, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth.” All our prosperity is by Christ Jesus the Lord; therefore “my tongue shall speak of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.” So, then, if we would prosper personally, and would have the Lord on our side in every sense, “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added.” You must succeed; there is no fatal failure in faith. You know that little piece of sarcasm which the dear Savior gives to his disciples upon this subject in the parable of the unfaithful steward; for the Savior did deal in sarcasms sometimes, the same as the prophets and apostles did. The Savior said, “I say unto you”, you see how crafty this man of the world was; how wise this steward was in his own way, “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” “But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.” So, when would they fail? When God failed them, not before. When the Savior sent them, what did he say? “Lo, I am with you always:” not an if, not a but, not a condition in the matter. “Lo, I am”, the matter is settled, decided, “with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Peter, “I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not;’ nor did Peter’s faith fail fatally, nor shall the faith of any Christian fail fatally: “He that has begun the good work will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.” So “when you fail but then they never did fail. The apostle Paul, I was going to say, like a great many thousands of others, had enough tribulation to make him fail, if anything could; and yet, after looking round at the many troubles he had gone through, and the more he would have to go through, for the Holy Ghost bore him witness that in every city bonds and afflictions awaited him, he said, “None of these things move me,” that is, not away from God’s truth, “neither count I my life dear unto myself.” What is this world but a shadow, a dream, an empty show, compared with the bright world to which we go? “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

These, then, are two reasons for keeping to Christ’s righteousness; first, because by it God is righteous in being all that he is unto us, as well as merciful; secondly, because by it we have prosperity; we can have it in no other way; he is the end of our adversity. The third reason is that every blessing comes to us by the righteousness of Christ. There is not a yea and amen promise in the Bible that does not come to us by him; there is not a blessing in the everlasting covenant that does not come to us by him, by faith. The Lord enable us to have unbounded confidence in the ability of Christ. There are hindrances with us that hinder us from being what we would, and from finding God, and coming to God, and from so glorifying God as we would glorify him; but then there is nothing that can hinder him; Christ has taken the hindrances out of the way. “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain.” The Lord could not justly come to the old covenant people, when they apostatized, until they returned to him, because that covenant was conditional; but in Christ Jesus matters are very different; he comes to us independently of what we are, or of what we are not. Is it any wonder that David should keep to this blessed truth, seeing that every blessing of the everlasting covenant and every promise is by Christ Jesus the Lord? Another reason why he would speak of this righteousness is because by this work of Christ the great God himself is to be our portion forever, our exceeding joy forever; by this work of Christ all our springs are in God; by it is our eternal glory; “whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

Secondly, the praise of God, “My tongue shall speak of your righteousness, and of your praise.” The little word “and” in this verse, which the grammarians call a conjunction, is in italics, and is not in the original; and if we may take the liberty of putting that word out, it will read, “I will make mention of your righteousness, of your praise;” then the meaning will be that this righteousness is God’s praise. And it is a remarkable thing that David in Psalm 71 says, “My mouth shall show forth your righteousness and your salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof;” the little word “and” there is also in italics; and so I should prefer to leave that little word out, and then it would be “My mouth shall show forth your righteousness, your salvation, all the day.” That which in one clause is called his righteousness is in the other clause called his salvation, in entire accordance with Isaiah 62:1, “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burns.” So, then, Christ is God’s praise. Who are the people that shall praise the Lord acceptably? Jeremiah 9, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories, glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord.” The apostle says, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” We must not misunderstand that. Does it mean that we are to confound the commercial, political, mechanical, and scientific wisdom of the world? No.

Does it mean that we are to confound our kings and rulers, for whom we are commanded to pray? It means no such thing. Does it mean that we are not at all to respect the bounties of Providence in making us rich, and so on? No such thing. Go to Matthew 23, and there you get the explanation. See how wisely the Pharisees had contrived, like the Pope, and the priests, to make themselves everything.