Psalms 138:10

And although the heavenly Scripture often turns the divine appearance into a human form, as when it says, “The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous;” or when it says, “The Lord God smelled the smell of a good savour;” or when there are given to Moses the tables “written with the finger of God;” or when the people of the children of Israel are set free from the land of Egypt “with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm;” or when it says, “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things;” or when the earth is set forth as “God’s footstool;” or when it says, “Incline thine ear, and hear,”, we who say that the law is spiritual do not include within these lineaments of our bodily nature any mode or figure of the divine majesty, but diffuse that character of unbounded magnitude (so to speak) over its plains without any limit. …

So will He bestow on us whatever pleases Him, that if there be anything displeasing to Him in us, it will also be displeasing to us. “He will,” as the Scripture has said, “turn aside our paths from His own way,” and will make that which is His own to be our way; because it is by Himself that the favour is bestowed on such as believe in Him and hope in Him that we will do it. For there is a way of righteousness of which they are ignorant “who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” and who, wishing to frame a righteousness of their own, “have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;” and He has said, “I am the way.” Yet God’s voice has alarmed those who have already begun to walk in this way, lest they should be lifted up, as if it were by their own energies that they were walking …

9. Now listen who may bring us thither. The very same One whose face in wrath we wish to flee from. For what followeth? “Even thither shall Thy hand conduct me, and Thy right hand lead me” ( ver. 10 ). This let us meditate on, beloved brethren, let this be our hope, this our consolation. Let us take again through love the wings we lost through lust. For lust was the lime of our wings, it clashed us down from the freedom of our sky, that is, the free breezes of the Spirit of God. Thence dashed down we lost our wings, and were, so to speak, imprisoned in the power of the fowler; thence “He” redeemed us with His Blood, whom we fled from to be caught. He maketh us wings of His commandments; we raise them aloft now free from lime.…Needs then must we have wings, and needs must He conduct us, for He is our Helper. …

6. For such an indication of God’s infinity the words ‘ I Am that I Am ’ were clearly adequate; but, in addition, we needed to apprehend the operation of His majesty and power. For while absolute existence is peculiar to Him Who, abiding eternally, had no beginning in a past however remote, we hear again an utterance worthy of Himself issuing from the eternal and Holy God, Who says, Who holdeth the heaven in His palm and the earth in His hand , and again, The heaven is My throne and the earth is the footstool of My feet. What house will ye build Me or what shall be the place of My rest ? The whole heaven is held in the palm of God, the whole earth grasped in His hand. Now the word of God, profitable as it is to the cursory thought of a pious mind, reveals a deeper meaning to the patient student than to the momentary hearer. …

But, on the other hand, the insincere are to be admonished to learn how heavy is the labour of duplicity, which with guilt they endure. For, while they are afraid of being found out, they are ever seeking dishonest defences, they are agitated by fearful suspicions. But there is nothing safer for defence than sincerity, nothing easier to say than truth. For, when obliged to defend its deceit, the heart is wearied with hard labour. For hence it is written, The labour of their own lips shall cover them ( Ps. cxxxix. 10 ). For what now fills them then covers them, since it then presses down with sharp retribution him whose soul it now elevates with a mild disquietude. Hence it is said through Jeremiah, They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity ( Jerem. ix. …