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The psalmist's idea of God, as herein expressed, is broad and spiritual, and indicates high spiritual development. It is an ennobling one for man. To have a covenant with God, to be partner with Him in a bond, is to make us, to a certain extent, equal with Him. Covenant-making is one of the earliest instincts in man, and intrinsically one of the noblest. The bargain-making spirit is not necessarily a low one, nor a selfish one, nor a worldly one. We have degraded it by our use of it, by our desire to over-reach, to get the better of our neighbours in our bargains. The first condition of existence is the establishing of relationship between self, and that which is outside self. During the early years of our life we are largely dependent on others for the fulfilling of that condition for us. When we grow older we realize that for a rich and full and strong life we still are dependent on others, but as they in their turn are also dependent on us, we make covenants with them to fix and regulate the mutual help which we are prepared to render and receive. This covenant-making denotes the recognition, conscious or unconscious, of the incapacity of our own resources to satisfy our own needs and desires. But it indicates also that the true nature of man is not that little portion which he has within himself, but is that great nature, of which each one of us has in himself but a little share. And such is the nature of man, that with all his own resources, and all he can draw from others, he is left still unsatisfied. He craves for a yet fuller life, to be filled out of the infinite nature. This leads us to think of the nature of the covenant between God and man, involving the duty of man. Our part of the agreement is that we sacrifice to God. The only true sacrifice is the one which is prompted by love. Love and sacrifice are a twin growth, and each loses its purity when severed from the other. The act of sacrifice is contemplated oftentimes when we are still in the enjoyment of comfort and peace and light, but the sacrifice itself is carried out when all our comfort has declined, when our peace has been turned into maddest strife, and when the light by which we entered the narrow path of self-surrender has been turned into a darkness deep as death. If we love God, we shall delight in every sacrifice which is a manifestation of love, and we shall rejoice to offer our dearest and best gifts to Him. In poverty and weakness we may now make such offering, but it will continue to complete itself. "And, at last, as the righteous will of man gains the final victory, as it unites itself in entire acquiescence with the all-righteous will of God, sacrifice will at once be perfected and abolished, immersed in one infinite ocean of joy and love." What we are vitally concerned to know about God is that He is perfectly just, and true, and loving. And this we can never learn from any revelation to our outward senses, but by quick prophetic insight, by the intuition of the Spirit. When we realize that God and man are one in a covenant of eternal life, we shall have incentive sufficient and worthy for all noble effort; for we ourselves shall have then become "sons of God."

(A. H. Moncur Syme.)

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KJV: Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

WEB: "Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice."