Psalm 119

Charles Bridges, one of the outstanding evangelical writers in the Church of England in the nineteenth century, issued his Exposition of Psalm 119 in 1827 when he was 33 years of age. The popularity of the work may be judged by the fact that it passed through at least twenty-four editions before his death in 1869. It is pre-eminently a book of the heart. In its original Preface, Bridges tells us that his main design in writing it was to ‘furnish a correct standard of Evangelical sincerity for the habitual scrutiny of his own heart’, corresponding to ‘the several graces of the Christian system’, which the psalm itself describes. Not surprisingly, a magazine of a century ago told its readers that the Exposition’s ‘appeals to the heart are such as to approve themselves to the experience of every devout believer in Christ.’ C. H. Spurgeon goes so far as to say that the Exposition is ‘worth its weight in gold.’ Psalm 119–’twenty-two pearls upon one string’, as Bridges calls it–has ever retained a strong fascination for exercised souls. Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Cowper, Henry Venn, Henry Martyn, William Wilberforce–to name but five–have testified to its charms. Luther said that he would not exchange one leaf of it for the whole world. Philip Henry told his children that to love it would ‘bring them to be in love with all the rest of Scripture.’

Bridges uses this psalm, structured according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, to teach both the ABC of Christian experience and the maturity to which that experience must lead. He does so, says Spurgeon, ‘with surpassing grace and unction.’ Isaac Watts, in his paraphrase of the psalm, sums up what might well be called the spirit in which Bridges wrote his book, in the words:

‘When nature sinks and spirits droop, Thy promises of grace Are pillars to support my hope, And there I write Thy praise.’