Psalm 95

"Let us prevent His face by confession" [Psalm 95:2]. Confession has a double meaning in Scripture. There is a confession of him who praises, there is that of him who groans. The confession of praise pertains to the honour of Him who is praised: the confession of groaning to the repentance of him who confesses. For men confess when they praise God: they confess when they accuse themselves; and the tongue has no more worthy use. Truly, I believe these to be the very vows, of which he speaks in another Psalm: "I will pay You my vows, which I distinguished with my lips." Nothing is more elevated than that distinguishing, nothing is so necessary both to understand and to do. How then do you distinguish the vows which you pay unto God? By praising Him, by accusing yourself; because it is His mercy, to forgive us our sins. For if He chose to deal with us after our deserts, He would find cause only to condemn. "O come," he said therefore, that we may at last go back from our sins, and that He may not cast up with us our accounts for the past; but that as it were a new account may be commenced, all the bonds of our debts having been burnt....The more therefore you despaired of yourself on account of your iniquities, do thou confess your sins; for so much greater is the praise of Him who forgives, as is the fullness of the penitent's confession more abundant. Let us not therefore imagine that we have receded from the song of praise, in understanding here that confession by which we acknowledge our transgressions: this is even a part of the song of praise; for when we confess our sins, we praise the glory of God.

What does the Psalm add? "In His hand are all the corners of the earth" [Psalm 95:4]: we recognise the corner stone: the corner stone is Christ. There cannot be a corner, unless it has united in itself two walls: they come from different sides to one corner, but they are not opposed to each other in the corner. The circumcision comes from one side: the uncircumcision from the other; in Christ both peoples have met together: because He has become the stone, of which it is written, "The stone which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner.". ..

"For the sea is His and He made it" [Psalm 95:5]. For the sea is this world, but God made also the sea: nor can the waves rage save only so far as to the shore, where He has marked their bounds. There is therefore no temptation, that has not received its measure...."And His hands prepared the dry land." Be thou the dry land: thirst for the grace of God: that as a sweet shower it may come upon you, may find in you fruit. He allows not the waves to cover what He has sown. "And His hands prepared the dry land." Hence also therefore let us shout unto the Lord.

"O come, let us worship, and fall down to Him; and mourn before the Lord our Maker" [Psalm 95:6]....Perhaps you are burning with the consciousness of a fault; blot out with tears the flame of your sin: mourn before the Lord: fearlessly mourn before the Lord, who made you; for He despises not the work of His own hands in you. Think not you can be restored by yourself. By yourself you may fall off, you can not restore yourself: He who made you restores you. "Let us mourn before the Lord our Maker:" weep before Him, confess unto Him, prevent His face in confession. For who are you who mournest before Him, and confessest unto Him, but one whom He created? The thing created has no slight confidence in Him who created it, and that in no indifferent fashion, but according to His own image and likeness.

"For He is the Lord our God" [Psalm 95:7]. But that we may without fear fall down and kneel before Him, what are we? "We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." See how elegantly he has transposed the order of the words, and as it were not given its own attribute to each word; that we may understand these very same to be the sheep, who are also the people. He said not, the sheep of His pasture, and the people of His hand; which might be thought more congruous, since the sheep belong to the pasture; but He said, "the people of His pasture." The people are therefore sheep, since he says, "the people of His pasture:" the people themselves are sheep....He praises these sheep also in the Song of Solomon, speaking of some perfect ones as the teeth of His Spouse the Holy Church: "Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which come up from the washing; whereof every one bears twins, and there is none barren." What means, "Your teeth"? These by whom you speak, for the teeth of the Church are those through whom she speaks. Of what sort are your teeth? "Like a flock of sheep that are shorn." Why, "that are shorn"? Because they have laid aside the burdens of the world. Were not those sheep, of which I was a little before speaking, shorn, whom the bidding of God had shorn, when He says, "Go and sell that you have, and give to the poor; and you shall find treasure in heaven: and come and follow Me"? [Matthew 19:21] They performed this bidding: shorn they came. And because those who believe in Christ are baptized, what is there said? "which come up from the washing;" that is, come up from the cleansing. "Whereof every one bears twins." What twins? Those two commandments, wherefrom hang all the Law and the Prophets. [Matthew 22:40]

Therefore, "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts" [Psalm 95:8]. O my people, the people of God! God addresses His people: not only the people of His which He shall not cast off, but also all His people. For He speaks in the corner stone [Ephesians 2:20] to each wall: that is, prophecy speaks in Christ, both to the people of the Jews, and the people of the Gentiles. For some time ye heard His voice through Moses, and hardened your hearts. He then, when you hardened your hearts, spoke through a herald; He now speaks by Himself, let your hearts soften. He who used to send heralds before Him, has now deigned to come Himself; He here speaks by His own mouth, He who used to speak by the mouths of the Prophets.

"Forty years long was I very near unto this generation, and said, It is a people that do always err in their hearts; for they have not known My ways" [Psalm 95:10]. The forty years have the same meaning as the word "always." For that number forty indicates the fullness of ages, as if the ages were perfected in this number. Hence our Lord fasted forty days, forty days He was tempted in the desert, [Matthew 4:1-11] and forty days He was with His disciples after His resurrection. [Acts 1:3] On the first forty days He showed us temptation, on the latter forty days consolation: since beyond doubt when we are tempted we are consoled. For His body, that is, the Church, must needs suffer temptations in this world: but that Comforter, who said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," [Matthew 28:20] is not wanting. For this was I with them forty years, to show such a race of men, which always provokes Me, even unto the end of the world: because by those forty years He meant to signify the whole of this world's duration.