Psalm 25
In singing this psalm, let me observe, (1.) What serious work prayer is; what lifting up of soul, what directing of eyes to God, and fixing them on him, must be in it! ver. 1-15. (2.) What mercies ought to be prayed for Pardon of sin, ver. 6, 7-18; direction in duty, ver. 4-5; familiar intimacy with God, ver. 10; deliverance from trouble, ver. 17-18; preservation from adversaries, ver. 20-21; and, in fine, safety and deliverance to the church, ver. 22. (3.)What pleas are proper to be used in prayer; as, the trust we have reposed in God, ver. 2-3, 5-21; our own divinely affected sincerity in the Lord's way, ver. 21; our distress, and the malice of our enemies, ver. 2, 16-19; but chiefly, the mercy that is in God, and the glory which redounds to his name from his bestowing of new-covenant favours, ver. 6-11. (4.) Strong encouragements to prayer taken from the perfections of God's nature; from his promises of instruction and direction; from the fulness and grace of his covenant; and from his delight in allowing men familiar intimacy and fellowship with himself, ver. 8-14.
Let these things, my soul, be the object of thy strictest care and attention, in all thy addresses to God.
Read or sing this psalm in the Scottish Psalter or the Bay Psalm Book.