"If the Book of Psalms be, as some have styled it, a mirror or looking-glass of pious and devout affections, this Psalm, in particular, deserves as much as any one Psalm to be so entitled, and is as proper as any other to kindle and excite such in us. Gracious desires are here strong and fervent; gracious hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, are here struggling. Or we may take it for a conflict between sense and faith; sense objecting, and faith answering."[6] [6] Matthew Henry. In these few words, the Father of commentators, with his wonted discernment, has given us the key to the true interpretation of this sacred song. It may be regarded, indeed, as the Old Testament parallel to the 7th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, in which another inspired writer truthfully and powerfully portrays the same great struggle between corruption and grace, faith and sense, "the old and the new man." There are two antagonist principles in the heart of every believer, corresponding to the great forces which act in the material world. The tendency of his new nature is to gravitate towards God--the Divine Sun of his being--the centre of his fondest affections--the object of his deepest love. But "there is a law in his members warring against the law of his mind;"[7]--the remains of his _old_ nature, leading him to wander in wide and eccentric orbit from the grand Source of light, and happiness, and joy! "_What will ye see in the Shulamite?_" asks the Spouse in the Canticles, personating the believer (at a time, too, when conscious of devoted attachment to the Lord she loved). The reply is, "_As it were the company of two armies_." (Sol. Song vi. 13.) Sight on the one hand, Faith on the other. The carnal mind, which is enmity against God, battling with the renewed spiritual mind, which brings life and peace. Affections heaven-born, counteracted and marred by affections earth-born. The magnet would be true to its pole but for disturbing moral influences. The eagle would soar, but it is chained to the cage of corruption. The believer would tread boldly on the waves, but unbelief threatens to sink him. He would fight the battles of the faith, but there is "a body of death" chained to his heavenly nature, which compels him to mingle denunciations of himself as "a wretched man" with the shouts of victory.[8] [7] Rom. vii. 23. [8] Rom. vii. 24, 25.