yet, in the strength of God, and, I hope, with a single eye to His glory, I set about it, that I may endeavour something and spend my time to some good purpose, and let the Lord make what use He pleaseth of me. I go about it with fear and trembling, lest I exercise myself in things too high for me. The Lord help me to set about it with great humility." Yes -"fear and trembling" and "many prayers"-these are the secret of its success. All the author's fitness, and all his fondness for the work, would have availed little, had not the Lord made it grow. In September 1706, he finished the Pentateuch, and on the 21st of November that year he writes: "This evening I received a parcel of the Exposition of the Pentateuch. I desire to bless God that He has given me to see it finished. I had comfort from that promise, 'Thou shalt find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.'" That volume came out separately, and, though near her eightieth year, his mother lived to see it, and, scarcely hoping to read all the volume, the good old lady began with Deuteronomy. Every second year produced another volume, till April 17, 1714, he records, "Finished Acts, and with it the fifth volume. Blessed be God that has helped me and spared me. All the praise be to God." Two months thereafter he ceased from all his labours, and Dr Evans and others took up the fallen pen. They completed a sixth volume, but did not continue "Matthew Henry."

The zest with which he began lasted all along. So dear was the employment that it was not easy to divert him from it, and each possible moment was devoted to it. Even when roused from slumber by illness in the family, his eye would brighten at the sight of it, and he would draw in his studyingchair “to do a little at the exposition." What he says in the preface to the Prophecies-his least successful volume-will awaken the fellow-feeling of the reader, and remind him of Bishop Horne's touching farewell to the Book of Psalms. "The pleasure I have had in studying and meditating on those

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parts of these prophecies which are plain and practical, and especially those that are evangelical, has been an abundant balance to and recompense for the harder tasks we have met with in other parts that are more obscure. In many parts of this field the treasure must be digged for, as that in the mines; but in other parts the surface is covered with rich and precious products, with corn and flocks, and of which we may say, as was said of Noah, 'These same have comforted us greatly concerning our work, and the toil of our hands,' and have made it very pleasant and delightful. God grant it may be no less so to the readers."

It would be easy to name commentators more critical, more philosophical, or more severely erudite; but none so successful in making the Bible understood. And the question with sensible readers will always be, not, What did the commentator bring to the Bible? but, What has he brought out of it? And, tried by this test, Henry will bear the perpetual palm. His curious inferences, and his just, though ingenious practical observations, are such as could only have occurred to one mighty in the Scriptures, and minute in the particular text; and to the eager Bible-student, they often present themselves with as welcome surprise as the basket of unexpected ore which a skilful miner sends up from a deserted shaft. Nor must we admire them the less because detected in passages where our duller eye or blunter hammer had often explored in vain. On the other hand, it is possible to name some who have commented more fully on particular books; but most of them are something more than expositions. They are homiletic notes and expository dissertations. In the language of quaint old Berridge, a preacher is a "gospel-baker." In the same idiom, a commentator should be a Bible-miller." Bread-corn must be bruised; and it is the business of the skilful interpreter to enucleate the meaning, and make it palpable to every reader. This was what Matthew Henry did, and he left it to "gospel

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bakers" to add the salt and leaven, or mayhap the spice and the exotic condiments, and make a sermon or an essay as the case might be.

To its author the exposition was a blessed toil; but he could not foresee the wide acceptance and growing favour which awaited it. He could not anticipate that the most powerful minds of after ages should be its most ardent admirers, or that the panegyrics should be passed on it which we know that Ryland, and Hall, and Chalmers have pronounced. Still less could it occur to him that the kindness with which contemporaries received it should be a hundredfold exceeded by a generation so fastidious and book-surfeited as our own. But could its subsequent history have been revealed to his benignant eye, the circumstance which would have elicited the gladdest and most thankful sparkle would have been to behold it in thousands of Christian families, the Sabbath-companion and the household-book.

It is not only through the glass doors of stately book-cases that its gilt folios shine, nor on the studyshelves of manses and evangelical parsonages that its brown symbol of orthodoxy may be recognised; but in the parlour of many a quiet tradesman, and the cupboard of many a little farmer, and on the drawers'-head of many a mechanic or daylabourer, the well-conned quartos hold their ancestral station, themselves an abundant library, and hallowed as the heirloom of a bygone piety. In the words of a beloved relative, who has done as much as any man to promote the modern circulation of Henry's Commentary, "It has now lasted more than one hundred and forty years, and is at this moment more popular than ever, gathering strength as it rolls down the stream of time; and it bids fair to be The Comment for all coming time. True to God, true to nature, true to common sense, and true to the text, how can it ever be superseded? Waiting pilgrims will be reading it when the last trumpet sounds, Come to judgment !"

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44

SPECIMENS.

"E will direct my prayer unto Thee."

When I pray unto Thee I will direct my prayers; and then it denotes a fixedness of thought, and a close application of mind, to the duty of prayer. We must go about it solemnly, as those who have something of moment much at heart, and much in view therein, and therefore dare not trifle in it. When we go to pray we must not give the sacrifice of fools, who think not either what is to be done, or what is to be gained, but speak the words of the wise, who aim at some good end in what they say, and suit it to that end; we must have in our eye God's glory, and our own true happiness; and so wellordered is the covenant of grace, that God has been pleased therein to twist interests with us; so that, in seeking His glory, we really and effectually seek our own true interests. This is directing the prayer, as he that shoots an arrow at a mark directs it, and with a fixed eye and steady hand takes aim right. This is engaging the heart to approach to God, and in order to that, disengaging it from everything else. He who takes aim with one eye shuts the other; if we would direct a prayer to God we must look off all other things, must gather in our wandering thoughts, must summon them all to draw near and give their attendance, for here is work to be done that needs them all, and is well worthy of them all; thus we must be able to say with the Psalmist, O God, "my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed.":

When I direct my prayer, I will "direct it to Thee." And so it speaks

We

1. The sincerity of our habitual intention in prayer. must not direct our prayer to men, that we may gain praise

and applause with them, as the Pharisees did, who proclaimed their devotions as they did their alms, that they might gain a reputation, which they knew how to make a hand of: "Verily they have their reward," men commend them, but God abhors their pride and hypocrisy. We must not let our prayers run at large, as they did who said, "Who will shew us any good?" nor direct them to the world, courting its smiles, and pursuing its wealth, as those who are therefore said not to " cry unto God with their hearts," because they "assembled themselves for corn and wine" (Hosea vii. 14). Let not self, carnal self, be the spring and centre of your prayers, but God; let the eye of the soul be fixed upon Him as your highest end in all your applications to Him; let this be the habitual disposition of your souls, to be to your God for a name and a praise; and let this be your design in all your desires, that God may be glorified, and by this let them all be directed, determined, sanctified, and, when need is, overruled. Our Saviour has plainly taught us this in the first petition of the Lord's prayer, which is, "Hallowed be thy name;" in that we fix our end, and other things are desired in order to that; in that the prayer is directed to the glory of God in all that whereby He has made Himself known-the glory of His holiness; and it is with an eye to the sanctifying of His name that we desire His kingdom may come, and His will be done, and that we may be fed, and kept, and pardoned. A habitual aim at God's glory is that sincerity which is our gospel perfection; that single eye which, where it is, the whole body, the whole soul, is full of light. Thus the prayer is directed to God.

2. It speaks the steadiness of our actual regard to God in prayer. We must direct our prayer to God-that is, we must continually think of Him as one with whom we have to do in prayer. We must direct our prayer, as we direct our speech, to the person we have business with. The Bible is a letter God has sent to us-prayer is a letter we send to Him; now