The expressions contained in the Psalms, then, as I have said, are uttered under the true and real feelings of the heart; and the greater part of them contain the pathetic and ardent utterances of the heart under every kind of affliction and temptation. But wherever the feelings of joy are described, you will never find the sensations of a heart, filled with gladness and exultation, more significantly and expressively described, than in the Psalms of thanksgiving, or the Psalms of praise. There you may look into the hearts of the saints, as into paradise, or into the opened heaven; and may see, in the greatest variety, all the beautiful and flourishing flowers, or the most brilliant stars, as it were, of their upspringing affections towards God for his benefits and blessings. On the other hand, you will never find the straits, the sorrows, and the pains of a distressed mind any where described in a more expressive manner than in the Psalms of temptations, or of complaints; as in Psalm vi. and the like; where you see all dark and gloomy, all full of anguish and distress, under a sight and sense of divine wrath, and the working of despair. And so again, where the Psalms are speaking of hope or fear, they so describe those feelings in their true and native colours, that no Demosthenes or Cicero could ever equal them in liveliness, or descriptiveness of expression. For, as I have before observed, the Psalms have this peculiarity of excellence above all other books of description,—that the saints, whose feelings and sensations are therein set forth, did not speak to the wind, under those their exercises and conflicts, nor to an earthly friend, but unto, and before, God himself, and in the sight of God. And it is this that above all things gives a seriousness, and reality to the feelings,—it is this that affects, as it were, the very bones and the marrow,—when a creature feels itself speaking in the very sight and presence of its God! But when we are speaking otherwise, and complaining to a friend, or to a man only, our necessities are not so keenly and really felt; our feelings are not so ardent, real, and poignant. The Book of Psalms, therefore, as it contains these real feelings of the saints, is a book so universally adapted and useful to all Christians, that whatever one that truly fears God may be suffering, or under what temptation soever he may be, he may find, in the Psalms, feelings and expressions exactly suited to his case; just as much so as if the Psalms had been indited and composed from his own personal afflictions.