Psalm CXLVI. 5884
1. …Behold the Psalm soundeth; it is the voice of some one (and that some one are ye, if ye will), of some one encouraging his soul to praise God, and saying to himself, “Praise the Lord, O my soul” (Psa. 146.1). For sometimes in the tribulations and temptations of this present life, whether we will or no, our soul is troubled; of which troubling he speaketh in another Psalm. 5885 But to remove this troubling, he suggesteth joy; not as yet in reality, but in hope; and saith to it when troubled and anxious, sad and sorrowing, “Hope in God, for I will yet confess to Him.”…
2. But who saith it, and to whom saith he it? What shall we say, brethren? Is it the flesh that saith, “Praise thou the Lord, O my soul”? And can the flesh suggest good counsel to the soul? However much the flesh be conquered, and subjected as a servant to us through strength which the Lord imparteth, that it serve us entirely as a bond slave, enough for us that it hinder us not.…For the body, inasmuch as it is the body, is even beneath the soul; and every soul, however vile, is found more excellent than the most excellent body. And let not this seem to you to be wonderful, that even any vile and sinful soul is better than any great and most surpassing body. It is better, not in deserts, but in nature. The soul indeed is sinful, is stained with certain defilements of lusts; yet gold, though rusted, is better than the most polished lead. Let your mind then run over every part of creation, and ye will see that what we are saying is not incredible, that a soul, however blameable, is yet more praiseworthy than a praiseworthy body. There are two things, a soul and a body. The soul I chide, the body I praise: the soul I chide, because it is sinful; the body I praise, because it is sound. Yet it is in its own kind that I praise the soul, and in its own kind
3. “In my life.” Now what has it? It might answer thee, “My death.” Whence, “My death”? because I am absent from the Lord. For if to cling to Him is life, to depart from Him is death. But what comforteth thee? Hope. Now thou livest in hope: in hope praise, in hope sing. Thy death is from the sadness of this life, thou livest in hope of a future life. And how wilt thou praise thy Lord? “I will sing unto my God, as long as I have my being.” What sort of praise is this, “I will sing unto my God as long as I have being”? Behold, my brethren, what sort of being this will be; where there will be everlasting praise, there will be also everlasting being. Behold, now thou hast being: dost thou sing unto God as long as thou hast being? Behold, thou wast singing, and hast turned thyself away to some business, thou singest no longer, yet thou hast being: thou hast being, yet thou singest not. It may be also thy desire turneth thee to somewhat; not only dost thou not sing, but thou even offendest His ears, yet thou hast being. What praise will that be, when thou praisest as long as thou hast being? But what meaneth, “as long as I have being”? Will there be any time when he will not be? Nay, rather, that “long” will be everlasting, and therefore it will be truly “long.” For whatever hath end in time, however prolonged it is, is yet not “long.”…
4. “Put not your trust in princes” (Psa. 146.3). Brethren, here we receive a mighty task; it is a voice from heaven, from above it soundeth to us. For now through some kind of weakness the soul of man, whensoever it is in tribulation here, despaireth of God, and chooseth to rely on man. Let it be said to one when set in some affliction, “There is a great man, by whom thou mayest be set free;” he smileth, he rejoiceth, he is lifted up. But if it is said to him, “God freeth thee,” he is chilled, so to speak, by despair. The aid of a mortal is promised, and thou rejoicest; the aid of the Immortal is promised, and art thou sad? It is promised thee that thou shalt be freed by one who needeth to be freed with thee, and thou exultest, as at some great aid: thou art promised that Liberator, who needeth none to free Him, and thou despairest, as though it were but a fable. Woe to such thoughts: they wander far; truly there is sad and great death in them. Approach, begin to long, begin to seek and to know Him by whom thou wast made. For He will not leave His work, if He be not left by His work.
5. …“His breath shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth: in that day shall all his thoughts perish” (Psa. 146.4). Where is swelling? where is pride? where is boasting? But perhaps he will have passed to a good place, if indeed he have passed. For I know not whither he who
What then must we do, if we are not to hope in sons of men, nor in princes? What must we do? “Blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob” (Psa. 146.5): not this man or that man; not this angel or that angel; but, “blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob:” for to Jacob also so great an Helper was He, that of Jacob He made him Israel. O mighty help! now he is Israel, “seeing God.” While then thou art placed here, and a wanderer not yet seeing God, if thou hast the God of Jacob for thy Helper, from Jacob thou wilt become Israel, and wilt be “seeing God,” and all toil and all groans shall come to an end, gnawing cares shall cease, happy praises shall succeed. “Blessed is he whose Helper is the God of Jacob;” of this Jacob. Wherefore is he happy? Meanwhile, while yet groaning in this life, “his hope is in the Lord his God.”…Who is this, “Lord his God”?…“To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” 5888 Therefore let Him be thy hope, even the Lord thy God; in Him let thy hope be. His hope too is in the lord his god, who worshippeth Saturn; his hope is in the lord his god, who worshippeth Neptune or Mercury; yea more, I add, who worshippeth his belly, of whom is said, “whose god is their belly.” 5889 The one is the god of the one, the other of the other. Who is this “blessed” one? for “his hope is in the Lord his God.” But who is He? “Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Psa. 146.6). My brethren, we have a great God; let us bless His holy Name, that He hath deigned to make us His possession. As yet thou seest not God; thou canst not fully love what as yet thou seest not. All that thou seest, He hath made. Thou admirest the world; why not the Maker of the world? Thou lookest up to the heavens, and art amazed: thou considerest the whole earth, and tremblest; when canst thou contain in thy thought the vastness of the sea? Look at the countless number of the stars, look at all the many kind of seeds, all the different sorts of animals, all that swimmeth in the water, creepeth on the earth, flieth in the sky, hovereth in the air; how great are all these, how beautiful, how fair, how amazing! Behold, He who made all these, is thy God. Put thy hope in Him, that thou mayest be happy. “His hope is in the Lord his God.” Observe, my brethren, the mighty God, the good God, who maketh all these things.…If he mentioned these things only, perhaps thou wouldest answer me, “God, who made heaven and earth and sea, is a great God: but doth He think of me?” It would be said to thee, “He made thee.” How so? am I heaven, or am I earth, or am I sea? Surely it is plain; I am neither heaven, nor earth, nor sea: yet I am on earth. At least thou grantest me this, that thou art on earth. Hear then, that God made not only heaven and earth and sea: for He “made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them.” If then He made all that is in them, He made thee also. It is too little to say, thee; the sparrow, the locust, the worm, none of these did He not make, and He careth for all. His care refers not to His commandment, for this commandment He gave to man alone.…As regards then the tenor of the commandment, “God doth not take care for oxen:” 5890 as regards His providential care of the universe, whereby He created all things, and ruleth the world, “Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast.” Here perhaps some one may say to me, “God careth not for oxen,” comes from the New Testament: “Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast,” is from the Old Testament. There are some who find fault and say, that these two Testaments agree not with one another.…Let us hear the Lord Himself, the Chief and Master of the Apostles: “Consider,” saith He, “the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them.” 5891 Therefore even beside men, these animals are objects of care to God, to be fed, not to receive a law. As far then as regards giving a law, “God careth not for oxen:” as regards creating, feeding, governing, ruling, all things have to do with God. “Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing?” saith our Lord Jesus Christ, “and one of them shall not fall to the ground without the will of your Father: how much better are ye than they.” 5892 Perhaps thou sayest, God counteth me not in this great multitude. There follows here a wondrous passage in the Gospel: “the hairs of your head are all numbered.” 5893
6. “Who keepeth truth for ever.” What “truth for ever”? what “truth” doth He “keep,”
7. “Who giveth food to the hungry.” Behold, from thee I look for nothing: “God giveth food to the hungry.” Who are “the hungry”? All. What is, all? To all things that have life, to all men He giveth food: doth He not reserve some food for His beloved? If they have another kind of hunger, they have also another kind of food. Let us first enquire what their hunger is, and then we shall find their food. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” 5895 We ought to be God’s hungry ones.…“The Lord looseth them that are fettered; the Lord lifteth up them that are dashed down; the Lord maketh wise them that are blind” (Psa. 146.8). Perfectly hath he by this last sentence explained to us all the preceding ones: lest perchance, when he had said, “the Lord looseth them that are fettered,” we should refer it to those fettered ones, who for some crime are bound in irons by their masters: and in that he said, “He lifteth up them that are dashed down,” there should occur to our minds some one stumbling or falling, or thrown from a horse. There is another kind of fall, there are other kinds of fetters, just as there is other darkness and other light. Whereas he said, “He maketh the blind wise;” he would not say, He enlightened the blind, lest thou shouldest understand this also in reference to the flesh, as the man was enlightened by the Lord, when He anointed his eyes with clay made with spittle, and so healed him: that thou mightest not look for anything of this sort, when He is speaking of spiritual things, he pointeth to a sort of light of wisdom, wherewith the blind are enlightened. Therefore in the same way as the blind are enlightened with the light of wisdom, so are the fettered set free, and those who are dashed down are lifted up. Whereby then have we been fettered? whereby dashed down? Our body was once an ornament to us: now, we have sinned, and thereby have had fetters put on us. What are our fetters? Our mortality.…“The Lord loveth the righteous.” And who are the “righteous”? How far are they righteous now? Just as thou hast; “the Lord, guardeth proselytes” (Psa. 146.9). “Proselytes” are strangers. Every Church of the Gentiles is a stranger. For it cometh in to the Fathers, not sprung of their flesh, but their daughter by imitating them. Yet the Lord, not any man, guardeth them. “The orphan and widow He will take up.” Let none think that He taketh up the orphan for his inheritance, or the widow for any business of hers. True, God doth help them; and in all the duties of the human race, he doeth a good work, who taketh care of an orphan, who abandoneth not a widow: but in a certain way we are all orphans, not because our Father is dead, but because He is absent. 5896 …
8. “And the way of sinners He shall root out.” What is, “the way of sinners”? To mock at these things which we say. “Who is an orphan, who a widow? What kingdom of heaven, what punishment of hell is there? These are fables of the Christians. To what I see, to that will I live: “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 5897
Beware lest such men persuade you of aught: let them not enter through your ears into your heart; let them find thorns in your ears: let him, who seeketh to enter thus, go away pierced: for “evil communications corrupt good manners.” 5898
But here perhaps thou wilt say, “Wherefore then are they prosperous? Behold, they worship not God, and commit every kind of evil daily: yet they abound in those things, through want of which I toil.” Be not envious against sinners. What they receive, thou seest; what is in store for them, seest thou not?…Wilt thou not believe even the Lord thy God, who saith, “Broad and spacious is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that walk by it”? 5899
This “way the Lord will root out.”
Lat. CXLV. Sermon to the people.
661:5885 662:5886 663:5887 663:5888 663:5889 663:5890 663:5891 663:5892 663:5893 664:5894 664:5895 664:5896[But compare (Greek) John xiv. 18.—C.]
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