ful courses, he will have his way, though ever so tiresome to himself, and vexatious to others; he travails with pain in his wicked courses, and yet his pride makes him wilful and obstinate in them. God's judgments (what he commands, and what he threatens for the breach of his commands) are far above out of his sight; he is not sensible of his duty by the law of God, nor of his danger by the wrath and curse of God. Tell him of God's authority over him, he turns it off with this, that he never saw God, and therefore does not know that there is a God; he is in the height of heaven, and Quæ supra nos nihil ad nos—We have nothing to do with things above us. Tell him of God's judgments, which will be executed upon those that go on still in their trespasses, and he will not be convinced that there is any reality in them; they are far above out of his sight, and therefore he thinks they are mere bugbears.
(5.) He proudly despises all his enemies, and looks upon them with the utmost disdain; he puffs at them whom God is preparing to be a scourge and ruin to him, as if he could baffle them all, and was able to make his part good with them. But as it is impolitic to despise an enemy, so it is impious to despise any instrument of God's wrath.
(6.) He proudly sets trouble at defiance, and is confident of the continuance of his own prosperity; (v. 6.) He hath said in his heart, and pleased himself with the thought, I shall not be moved; my goods are laid up for many years, and I shall never be in adversity: like Babylon, that said, I shall be a lady for ever, Isa. xlvii. 7. Rev. xviii. 7. Those are nearest ruin, who thus set it furthest from them.
2. They are persecutors, cruel persecutors: for the gratifying of their pride and covetousness, and, in opposition to God and religion, they are very oppressive to all within their reach. Observe, concerning these persecutors:
(1.) That they are very bitter and malicious; (v. 7.) His mouth is full of cursing. Those he cannot do a real mischief to, yet he will spit his venom at, and breathe out the slaughter which he cannot execute. Thus have God's faithful worshippers been anathematized, and cursed, with bell, book, and candle. Where there is a heart full of malice, there is commonly a mouth full of curses.
(2.) That they are very false and treacherous. There is mischief designed, but it is hid under the tongue, not to be discerned, for his mouth is full of deceit and vanity; he has learned of the Devil to deceive, and so to destroy; with this his hatred is covered, Prov. xxvi. 26. He cares not what lies he tells, nor what oaths he breaks, nor what arts of dissimulation he uses to compass his ends.
(3.) That they are very cunning and crafty in carrying on their designs. They have ways and means to concert what they intend, that they may the more effectually accomplish it. Like Esau, that cunning hunter, he sits in the lurking places, in the secret places, and his eyes are privily set to do mischief; (v. 8.) not because he is ashamed of what he does, (if he blushed, there were some hopes he would repent,) nor because he is afraid of the wrath of God, for he imagines God will never call him to an account, (v. 11.) but because he is afraid, lest the discovery of his designs should be the breaking of them. Perhaps it refers particularly to robbers and highwaymen, who lie in wait for honest travellers, to make a prey of them and what they have.
(4.) That they are very cruel and barbarous. Their malice is against the innocent, who never provoked them; against the poor, who cannot resist them; and over whom it will be no glory to triumph. Those are perfectly lost to all honesty and honour, against whose mischievous designs neither innocence nor poverty will be any man's security. Those that have power, ought to protect the innocent, and provide for the poor; yet he will be the destroyer of those whose guardian he ought to be. And what do they aim at? It is to catch the poor, and draw them into their net, get them into their power, not to strip them only, but to murder them; they hunt for the precious life. They are God's poor people that they are persecuting, against whom they bear a mortal hatred, for his sake whose they are, and whose image they bear, and therefore they lie in wait to murder them: he lies in wait as a lion that thirsts after blood, and feeds with pleasure upon the prey. The Devil, whose agent he is, is compared to a roaring lion, that seeks not what, but whom, he may devour.
(5.) That they are base and hypocritical; (v. 10.) He crouches, and humbles himself, as beasts of prey do, that they may get their prey within their reach. This intimates, that the sordid spirits of persecutors and oppressors will stoop to any thing, though ever so mean, for the compassing of their wicked designs; witness the scandalous practices of Saul, when he hunted David. It intimates likewise, that they cover their malicious designs with the pretence of meekness and humility, and kindness to those they design the greatest mischief to; they seem to humble themselves, as if to take cognizance of the poor, and concern themselves in their concernments, when it is in order to make them fall, to make a prey of them.
(6.) That they are very impious and atheistical, v. 11. They could not thus break through all the laws of justice and goodness toward man, if they had not first shaken off all sense of religion, and risen up in rebellion against the light of its most sacred and self-evident principles; He hath said in his heart, God has forgotten. When his own conscience rebuked him for his wickedness, and threatened him with the consequences of it, and asked, how he would answer it to the righteous Judge of heaven and earth, he turned it off with this, God has forsaken the earth, Ezek. viii. 12.—ix. 9. This is a blasphemous reproach, [1.] Upon God's omniscience and providence, as if he could not, or did not, see what men do in this lower world. [2.] Upon his holiness and the rectitude of his nature, as if, though he did see, yet he did not dislike, but was willing to connive at, the most unnatural and inhuman villanies. [3.] Upon his justice and the equity of his government, as if, though he did see and dislike the wickedness of the wicked, yet he would never reckon with them, nor punish them for it, either because he could not, or durst not, or was not inclined to it. Let those that suffer by proud oppressors, hope that God will, in due time, appear for them; for those that are abusive to them, are abusive to God Almighty too.
In singing this, and praying it over, we should have our hearts much affected with a holy indignation at the wickedness of the oppressors, a tender compassion for the oppressed, and a pious zeal for the glory and honour of God, with a firm belief that he will, in due time, right the injured, and reckon with the injurious.
12. Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thy hand: forget not the humble. 13. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it. 14. Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto
