"Let Thy loving kindness come unto me, O Lord; Thy salvation, according to Thy promise." v. 49, "Remember Thy word unto Thy servant; for Thou hast caused me to hope." v. 57, "Thou art my portion, O Lord." v. 64, "The earth is full of Thy mercy, O Lord." v. 68, "Thou art good and doest good." v. 75, "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are righteousness, and that in faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me. Let Thy loving kindness be for my comfort, according to Thy promise unto Thy servant. Let Thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live." v. 90, "Thou hast established the earth and it abideth. They stand this day, obedient to Thine ordinances; for all beings are Thy servants." v. 132, "Turn Thou unto me, and have mercy on me; as Thou usest to do unto those that love Thy name." And v. 176, "I am like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant." These are only a few of the characteristic phrases of the Psalmist. He evidently feels towards God reverence, trust, and hope; and, no less evidently, does not feel that God is far off and unapproachable, an abstraction rather than a living presence. God was, for the Psalmist, the creator of the world; but He was also the guide and protector of those that know Him and keep His commandments. And it was the privilege of such that they should have been allowed to know Him, and hold communion with Him. The Torah was the means by which that privilege was made available to Israel; and the "precepts," "ordinances," etc., were the particular occasions on and through which that privilege might be realised and enjoyed, and the devout worshipper might come into communion with God. The Psalmist never lost sight of the purpose of the precepts, in the mere doing of what they enjoined. For him the doctrine of the _opus operatum_ would have been a frivolous and mischievous perversion of the truth; in modern phrase, a "soul-destroying heresy." There is nothing of the taskmaster in the Psalmist's conception of God; he does not indeed call Him the Father in Heaven, but that term would more truly express his thought than any phrase of bondage and compulsion. And we can see how naturally the term Father in Heaven would take its place in the language of devotion, when once it had occurred to someone so to use it.