Psalms 39:8

While I was musing the fire burned.

The place of feeling in religion

David was one who felt, thought and acted strongly. There were no neutral tints about him. And he felt that he needed to restrain himself, lest his strong feeling should hurry him into sin. Hence he said, “I will take heed to nay ways that I sin not with my tongue,” etc. But feeling is a thing to be desired. As with David, thinking often prompts it: the two should ever be in just proportion. But it is better to have too much than too little feeling. We cannot love an unfeeling man. Tim feeling heart is the most human as well as the most humane part of our humanity. But we admire it only when it leans upon a clear judgment, and is thereby controlled. But it is difficult to say which is the stronger force. Both should be found in religion. But we are to remember that some natures have small capacity for emotion, and we do wrong in that account to doubt their Christianity. It is a sad misconception to look upon emotion as salvation. Salvation rests upon our willing Lord. God forgives, although a man may never weep. (J. B. Aitken.)

Quiet musing

I. Let us say something in praise of musing. We do not do much of this in these days. We prefer what is amusing to musing, by a great deal. But--

1. It is well to muse on the things of God because thus we get the nutriment out of them. Mere hearing or reading without this will not serve.

2. It fixes the truth in the memory. If we would have truth photographed upon our hearts, we must keep it long before the spiritual lens.

3. It lends us into the secrets of truth.

4. It ministers joy. “My meditation of him shall be sweet.”

5. And it becomes easier by practice. A man has never a slack hand or a cold heart who is much in meditation. It is a blessed art.

II. Put some fuel on the fire of meditation, How many are the topics which might be suggested. Eternal love. Dying love. Salvation. Heaven. Hell. And to you who are unregenerate I would urge your musing on your present state. What your end must be if you continue as you are. Of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beware lest the day come when thou wilt have to muse without hope. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Man musing, burning, speaking

I. The dignity of human nature.

1. Thought. “While I was musing.” What a wonderful power is the power of thought!

(1) By thought man can turn the universe to his service.

(2) By thought man can rise to the Creator, rise to some knowledge of Him, resemblance to Him, fellowship with Him.

(3) By thought he can regulate his own destiny. By it he can change his character. Thought is the helmsman of the soul.

2. Moral emotion. “The fire burned.” It was the fire of moral feeling. All the sentient existences we know of have some kind of feeling, but man alone has moral feeling--feeling in relation to sin, to duty, and to God. This feeling is kindled by thought.

3. Speech. “I spake.” What a wonderful power is the power of speech. By it we reveal ourselves, we achieve conquests over souls, and win them to our wishes and our ways. How great is man!

II. The process of repentance. But how is this fire to be kindled? Here is the method. By musing. Upon the inconvenience of sin, its consequences, or its punishment? Thought must dwell upon God’s mercy, not merely in nature and providence, but in the mission, sufferings, and death of God’s only begotten Son.

III. The philosophy of true eloquence. “While I was musing the fire burned, then spake I with my tongue.” When is the tongue eloquent?

1. When it is used as a relief to the soul.

2. When it is used as a vehicle of strongest moral emotions. Moral emotions are electric. (Homilist.)

Motives

When we witness the performance of a noble deed, when we become acquainted with a noble character, when we read the life of a great and good man, we are tempted to ascribe his superiority, in great measure at least, to a difference of circumstances. “He has had facilities, incentives, motives,” we are apt to say, “such as have not fallen to the lot of most men. Give us the same facilities, give us the same incentives and motives to virtue, and we should be glad to do as he has done.” Undoubtedly there is a sense in which this is true. He has felt motives which we have not. But why has he felt them? To answer this question, we must begin by answering several others on which it depends. What are motives? The motive, externally considered, is the reason for acting or not acting, in a particular way; which, of course, will be attended to very differently by different persons, and so affect them very differently. Let us next consider what gives efficacy to one motive over another in particular cases? It is not enough that the quality exists; the individual must feel, must perceive that it exists, or else to him it does not exist. And now we are prepared to take up the third question, Why is it, that while one man is alive to the higher motives of human conduct, another is alive only to the lower motives? Something doubtless is attributable to difference of organization and temperament, but not the whole. If it were, how should we be able to account for material and essential changes in moral and religious sensibility, which the same individual often undergoes? In the case of repentance, involving a real change of heart, it will hardly be pretended that this alters a man’s organization or temperament; and yet how entirely it alters his sensibility to moral and religious motives. These motives were always before him; but he did not see them, or at least he did not feel them, as he does now. In this respect he differs from his former self, just as all good men differ from all bad men; nevertheless, organically considered, he is the same man he always has been. So likewise of acquired habits, considered as predisposing men to be affected by certain motives. Why is it that motives have more influence over the mind in proportion as it is in any way predisposed to be affected by them? The chief, if not the sole reason, is, that such a mind gives them more attention and thought, enters into them more fully and entirely as realities, returns to them more frequently, and dwells upon them to the exclusion of other things. Hence it follows, that earnest attention to the highest motives of human conduct awakens the best affections of the soul; and again, it is only by renewing this attention from day to day that these affections are kept alive and rendered more and more intense. In the words of the text: “While I was musing the fire burned.” For this reason the Scriptures everywhere lay great stress on meditation and holy contemplation, on communing with God and our own souls, and having our conversation in heaven, as the conditions of “newness of life.” Taking this principle along with us, we shall not find much difficulty in explaining some of the greatest perplexities of the Christian life. In the first place, it will help us to define, with sufficient distinctness at least for all practical purposes, the office of free will. Whatever may be true in theory, there can be no doubt that, in practice, we are generally disappointed, when we expect a great deal from man’s self-determining power. The reason is, not that this power does not exist, but that it is not applied at the right time, and in the right place. Again, the same principle will help to explain why it is, that when men become decidedly religious it is often in consequence of some startling or impressive event--the death of a friend, a remarkable escape, a pungent discourse, a striking remark, a dream, a thought. It may be said that such an occurrence does not add one iota to the number or the strength of the motives to a Christian life which these persons had, and which they knew they had, before. And this is true; but it calls attention to those motives; and this, as we have seen, is all that was wanted. Once more, the view here taken of the manner in which men become alive to the highest motives will also account satisfactorily for local and temporary excitements in morals and religion. These are sometimes referred to sympathy and imitation, and even to causes less pure. Much of what is transient in them, and many of the attendant circumstances, are doubtless to be explained in this way; but not the whole. What is real and lasting in these movements has its origin in the general attention to the subject which, somehow or other, has been awakened. It is not pretended that any new motives are discovered or invented. Let me, then, revert once more to the plea so often set up by the undevout, the indifferent, the worldly-minded: to wit, that they do not feel the motives to virtue and piety which good men do. The fact is admitted; but when we come to analyze it, we find that, in most cases at least, it turns out to be, not an excuse, but a part of the wrong. As we have seen, they do not distinguish, they do not believe, they do not feel because they do not attend. But attention is pre-eminently a voluntary act, and one, therefore, in respect to which all are pre-eminently free and responsible. (J. Walker, D. D.)

The uses of solitude

The subject of solitude has been a favourite theme for romantic declamation and sentimental insipidity; and, on this account, many sensible people are inclined to avoid it. It will but be doing justice to its real importance and dignity, to state its connection with some of our highest duties, and its influence over our most spiritual affections; to speak of it in seriousness and simplicity, as a necessary discipline of the mental faculties, as a valuable monitor of our real situation and destiny, as a choice opportunity for impartial self-examination, profitable reflection, and heavenly communion.

I. As a preparative for society and for action,

1. It is so, in one respect, simply as it furnishes repose to weariness. We return to our work with more vigour when our flagging forces have had time to recover their spring, and our ebbing spirits have received a new supply of sustenance and force. The attractions of deserted things are renewed; a fresh impulse is given to the race, and a fresh beauty to the prize.

2. But our capacity of duty is not merely animated by an addition of power; it is enlarged by the acquisition of knowledge. We see the world at an advantage, as it were, when we see it as spectators, and not as actors. We can observe with more exactness the passions which agitate the bosoms of men when we ourselves are without the reach of their influence. We can trace with more precision their actions to their motives, when we are standing aloof, and can take in, as from an eminence, both the fountain and the stream.

3. Yet in another way are we fitted by solitude to go back again into society, better qualified than before for its duties and demands. We are made more kind, more gentle, more forbearing.

4. We are taught, also, in the seasons of occasional solitude, a more correct knowledge of ourselves than we should otherwise possess. We are thus in the way of exercising more candour in the scrutiny of our neighbour’s opinions, feelings and actions, and more diffidence in the defence Of our own.

II. As favourable to the most exalted feelings of devotion.

1. Man holds the most intimate communion with his Maker when no being but his Maker is near him. The most fervent aspirations of his heart rise up from the temple of solitude; for they rise up without witness, without restraint, and without contamination.

2. Solitude is favourable to devotion because its tendency is to render devotion consistent, rational and ennobling. When we are alone with God, we see Him with a clearer vision, and seem to be endowed with a more intimate perception of His character. We draw nearer to His presence, and drink more directly and copiously of His Spirit.

III. Its tendency to inspire serious reflections on the great concerns of existence--life, death, eternity.

1. There is something in the essential vigour, and the regenerated freshness, and the long duration natural objects, which often impresses us most forcibly with a feeling of the shortness and uncertainty of our own earthly existence. No sentiment offers itself more naturally to him who meditates alone among the silent works of God, than that they are renewing their strength while he is wearing away, and that they will remain when he is gone. The sun seems to say to him, I shall rise in splendour, and set in glory; and the moon, I shall walk on in my brightness; and the hills, We shall abide in our majesty; and the streams, We shall flow in all our fulness--when thou shalt be no longer known to us, nor numbered with us. The intimation is melancholy, hut it is not unkind, nor is it received unkindly--for the voice of Nature is not as the voice of men. It is always a sound of soothing and sympathy, and never of contempt or indifference.

2. It remains to point out a connection between thoughts of this nature, and a source still higher. When we are engaged in secret communion with that eternal Being in whose hands our life and breath are, and whose are all our ways, we are necessarily reminded of our own frailty and dependence, of the brevity of our mortal term, and of our deep responsibility. (F. W. P. Greenwood.)