A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XII.
_David, destitute of human comfort, craveth help of God.—He comforteth himself with God’s judgments on the wicked, and confidence in God’s tried promises._ To the chief Musician upon Sheminith, a Psalm of David. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: _with_ flattering lips _and_ with a double heart do they speak. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, _and_ the tongue that speaketh proud things; Who have said, with our tongue will we prevail; our lips _are_ our own: who _is_ lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set _him_ in safety _from him that_ puffeth at him. The words of the LORD _are_ pure words: _as_ silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
This is a prayer containing a heavy complaint against them, who, introduce human doctrines instead of the word of God, and who, afterwards, by various new traditions and forms of worship disturb the church, and fill all things with a white-wash show of religion, and with the outward daubing of pharisaism and hypocrisy, so that wicked men and hypocrites reign on every side, as the last verse complains. For when human doctrines have once invaded the church, they go on to rage far and wide, and spread in all directions like a cancer; there is no end to their corruption and destructive influence; they take possession of all things and wonderfully vex and torment consciences: so that the number of the true saints and of those that truly fear God is few and small indeed: of this the infinite variety of papistical hypocrisy affords a manifest example. But we are consoled and comforted under all these afflictions by the consideration that God always raises up in his church, sometimes in this place and sometimes in that, his salvation; that is, his word and gospel; which, while the prophets, apostles, and other ministers throughout the world, boldly and plainly teach against all heresy, they detect and bring to light false doctrines, and overturn all false worship; for where the salvation of God is, (that is, the saving word of Christ and his gospel) it burns up and consumes, like a suddenly-kindled fire, all the chaff and straw of human traditions, and delivers oppressed consciences.
This, however, never takes place without afflictions, and the cross in various forms. But as gold and silver are proved by the fire, so the true knowledge and purity of the word is not preserved in the church but by means of the truly spiritual and godly, who for the word’s sake are exercised without and within by Satan, with various temptations: for these, like gold, are proved in the fire, and thus grow daily and flourish in the knowledge of the gospel, and the great things of God. This Psalm refers to the second and third precept of the Decalogue, and to the first and second petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.