Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy; and they which hate us spoil for themselves. Thou hast given us like sheep _appointed_ for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen. Thou sellest thy people for nought, and dost not increase _thy wealth_ by their price. Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people. My confusion _is_ continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me, For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger. All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands, to a strange God; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Awake, why sleepest thou, O LORD? arise, cast _us_ not off for ever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, _and_ forgettest our affliction and our oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake. This is a prayer of the whole people of God; and it is offered up in the person of all the saints; especially of those under the New Testament, whom you here find to be complaining that they are cruelly slaughtered and slain by the wicked nations, by the ungodly men, and by tyrants. For God delivers his saints into the hands of men, as if he had rejected them, or utterly forgotten them. Whereas, he glorified the patriarchs of old, and all those his people from the beginning, by mighty works and miracles in the sight of the nations that opposed them. And indeed all the saints maintain, not their own cause, but God’s; and seek, not their own glory, but his: and yet for this very just and holy cause, and for no other reason, nor any other crime, they are thus torn and slaughtered by exile, by the spoiling of their goods, and, in a word, by death; and are as cruelly treated in the world, as if they were the most wicked of all men, and a mere set of vagabonds and murderers. In a word, this Psalm is a sighing and groaning of spirit against the weakness of the flesh; which flesh, even in the saints, murmurs against God, because he governs the world with such an appearance of injustice; and is in appearance, an unjust judge, permitting the saints to be afflicted whom he ought to support and comfort, and promoting and exalting the wicked whom he ought to overthrow. PSALM XLV. _The majesty and grace of Christ’s kingdom.—The duty of the church, and the benefits thereof._