Ver. 1. O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust] Or, I betake me to thee for safety. David found it always best to run to the old rock, Isaiah 26:4, and to cry, “O Lord my God,” pleading the covenant. This no wicked man can do; but, being beaten out of earthly comforts, he is as a naked man in a storm, and an unarmed man in the field, or as a ship tossed in the sea without an anchor, which presently dasheth on the rocks, or falleth upon the quicksands. Saul, for instance, who, being in distress, and forsaken by God, ran first to the witch, and then to the sword’s point. Save me from all them that persecute me] Where the prince is a persecutor (as in the primitive times, and here in the Marian days) many will be very active against God’s people. O sancta simplicitas, said John Huss, martyr, when at the stake he observed a plain country fellow busier than the rest in fetching faggots.
Ver. 2. Lest he tear my soul like a lion] i.e. Put me to a cruel and tormenting death; exercising against me both cruelty and also craft, by taking me at such a time as there is none to deliver me.
Ver. 3. O Lord my God] [See Trapp on “Ps 7:1”] If I have done this] i.e. This treachery and treason, whereof Saul doth causelessly suspect me, and wherewith his pick thank partisans unjustly charge me. As for sedition, saith Latimer, for aught that I know, methinks I should not need Christ, if I might so say. But where malice beareth mastery the doing of anything or of nothing is alike dangerous (Serm. 3, before K. Ed. VI). If there be iniquity in my hands] Heb. in the palms of my hands, where it may be concealed. If I have secretly acted against my sovereign.
Ver. 4. If I have rewarded evil, &c.] If I have broke the conditions of our reconciliation, or betrayed my trust. Yea, I have delivered him that, &c.] This was true Christianity, to overcome evil with good, Matthew 5:44, &c.; Romans 12:17, &c. O quam hoc non est omnium! O how few can skill of this! Elisha made the Syrians a feast who came to make him a grave. David spared Saul, and delivered him, not without the hazard of his own life. Bradford conducted Bourn from the pulpit at Paul’s Cross (where he had cried up Popery at the coming in of Queen Mary) safe to his lodging. A certain gentleman said unto him, Ah, Bradford, Bradford, thou savest him that will help to burn thee. I give thee his life; if it were not for thee I would run him through with my sword. And it proved as the gentleman had prophesied. There he sits, I mean my lord of Bath, Mr Bourn (said Bradford in his third examination before Stephen Gardiner), which desired me himself for the passion of Christ, I would speak to the people. Upon whose words I, coming into the pulpit, I had like to have been slain with a dagger which was hurled at him, I think, for it touched my sleeve, he then prayed me I would not leave him, and I promised that as long as I lived I would take hurt before him that day. And so went I out of the pulpit, and entreated with the people, and at length brought him myself into a house. Besides this, in the afternoon I preached in Bow Church, and there, going up into the pulpit, one willed me not to reprove the people; for, quoth he, you shall never come down alive if you do it. And yet in that sermon I did reprove their fact, and called it sedition at least twenty times. For all which my doing I have received this recompense, prison for a year and half and more, and death now, which you (my lord of Bath among the rest) go about. Let all men be judge where conscience is. Thus Master Bradford, like another David, in his own defence.
Ver. 5. Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it] Thus he cleareth himself by a holy imprecation (the Spanish Bible hath the Shiggaion Davidis, in the title, Purgatio Davidis, as the same Hebrew word א שׁ ח signifieth both sin and purification from sin, Psalms 51), taking God to witness his innocence and good conscience, and wishing evil to himself if it were otherwise. This he did from a good cause, in a good manner, and for a good end. And not as many profane ones do today, who, taxed, though never so truly, with some evil they have done, seek to justify themselves by appealing to God, and calling for his curse upon them if guilty; who, therefore, striketh such impudent imprecators immediately, as Anne Averies and others. See Mr Clark’s Mirror. And tread down my life] Heb. my lives; so usually called, saith an interpreter, for the many faculties and operations that are in life, the many years, degrees, estates thereof. And lay mine honour in the dust. Selah] Let him brand me for a most treacherous, ignominious wretch, and let me lie buried in a bog of indelible infamy.
Ver. 6. Arise, O Lord, in thine anger] Here David repeateth and reinforceth his suit, filling his mouth with arguments for that purpose, such as he well knew would be of avail. Lift up thyself &c.] Wherein they deal proudly be thou above them, to control and topple them over. And awake for me] Sometimes God seemeth to be asleep, we must awake him; to forget, we must remind him; to have lost his mercy, we must find it for him. “Where is thy zeal and thy strength?” &c., Isaiah 63:15 To the judyment that thou hast commanded] That is, promised, viz. that thou wilt command deliverances out of Zion. Or, which thou hast commanded to men in case of wrong done, to relieve the oppressed: and wilt not thou for me, great Judge, much more do it?