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Pro_15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked [is] an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright [is] his delight.
Ver. 8. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination.] Their very incense stinks from the hand that offers it. {Isa_1:13} Good words may be uttered, but we cannot hear them, because uttered with a stinking breath: and good meat may be presented, but we cannot eat of it because it is cooked or brought to the table by a nasty sloven. Works materially good, may never prove so formally and eventually - viz., when they are not right quoad fontem, et quoad finem. (1). When they proceed not from a right principle, "a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned"; {1Ti_1:5} (2). When they tend not to a right end, the glory of God in our own or other men’s salvation. Christus opera nostra non tam actibus quam finibus pensat. {a} The glory of God must consume all other ends, as the sun puts out the light of the fire.
But the prayer of the righteous is his delight.] His music, his honey drops, {Son_4:11} his sweetest perfume, {Psa_141:2} his "calves of the lips," {Hos_14:2} with which, when we cover his altar, he is abundantly well-pleased. For as all God’s senses, nay, his very soul is offended with the bad man’s sacrifice {Isa_1:13-15} - his sharp nose easily discerneth, and disgusteth the stinking breath of his rotten lungs, though his words be never so scented and perfumed with shows of holiness-so the prayer that proceeds from an upright heart, though but faint and feeble, doth come before God, "even into his ears," {Psa_18:6} and so strangely charms him, {Isa_26:16, marg.} {b} that he breaks forth into these words, "Ask me of things concerning my sons, and concerning the works of my hands command ye me." {Isa_45:11} Oh that we understood the latitude of this royal charter! then would we pray always with all prayers and supplications in the Spirit; then would we watch thereunto with all perseverance, and not faint or shrink back. {Eph_6:18 Luk_18:1, åêêáêåéí }
{a} Zanchius.
{b} ìçשׁ Incantamentum.