I. In all the changes of this mortal life, the psalmist sees no real chance, no real change, but the orderly education of a just and loving Father, whose mercy endureth for ever, who chastens men as a father chastens his children, for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness, in which alone are life and joy, health and wealth. It seems at first the worst of news, that which the Ninth Article tells us: that our original sin, in every person born into this world, deserves God's wrath and curse. And so it would be the worst of news if God were merely a Judge, inflicting so much pain and misery for so much sin, without any wish to mend us and save us. But if we remember the blessed message of the Psalm; if we will remember that God is our Father, that God is educating us, that God hath neither parts nor passions, and that therefore God's wrath is not different or contrary to His love, but that God's wrath is His love in another shape, punishing men just because He loves men, then the Ninth Article will bring us the very best of news. If our sin had not deserved God's anger, then He would not have been angry with it; and then He would have left it alone, instead of condemning it and dooming it to everlasting destruction as He has done; and then, if our sin had been left alone, we should have been left alone to sin and sin on, growing continually more wicked till our sin became our ruin. But now God hates our sin and loves us; and therefore He desires above all things to deliver us from sin and burn our sin up in His unquenchable fire, that we ourselves may not be burned up therein.
II. If these words seem strange to some of you, that will only be a fresh proof to me that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Ghost. Nothing shows me how wide, how deep, how wise, how heavenly, the Bible is, as to see how far average Christians are behind the Bible in their way of thinking, how the salvation which it offers is too free for them, the love which it proclaims too wide for them, the God whom it reveals too good for them, so that they shrink from taking the Bible and trusting the Bible in its fulness and believing honestly the blessed truth that God is love.
C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermonsp. 446.