Remember

Verse 5. Remember. How others may be affected I do not ask. For myself, I confess, that there is no care or sorrow, by which I am so severely harassed, as when I feel myself guilty of ingratitude to my most kind Lord. It not seldom appears to be a fault so inexplicable, that I am alarmed when I read these words, inasmuch as I consider them addressed to myself, and others like me. Remember, O ye forgetful, thoughtless, and ungrateful, the works of God, which he hath done to us, with so many signs and proofs of his goodness. What more could he have done, which he hath not done?—Folengius.

From the additional notes to Psalm 105 in The Treasury of David, by Charles Spurgeon.  

The following entry about Folengius' life seems to have been translated from another language (his books were on the Index of books that Catholics were prohibited from reading for a time):


Jean Baptist F O L E N G I O 
entered into a Benedictine monastery in his native city, 

where his talents and industry obtained for him a high re

putation for proficiency in literature and sacred criticism, 

while the excellence of his disposition rendered him an 

object of general esteem. He was selected to fill the most 

important and distinguished stations in his order, and he 

was afterwards chosen by Pope Paul IV. as visitor of the 

Benedictine foundations in Spain. When he had per

formed this task, he returned to his native country, 

and devoted himself almost wholly to theological studies, 

in the course of which he conceived the hopeless project 

of uniting Catholics and Protestants in one communion. 

After a life spent in the service of his fellow creatures, he 

died in 1559, in his seventieth year. He left behind him 

many theological writings, of which the principal were "Com

mentaries upon the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and 

the first Epistle of St. John," published in 1551, in 8vo; 

also a "Commentary upon the Psalms." These works 

must have had more than common merit in respect to libe

rality of sentiment, as they were prohibited by his church. 

His "Commentary on the Psalms" indeed was reprinted 

in 1585, but revised and abridged. Dupin says that he 

"writes purely and nobly," and Thuanus had reason to say, 

"that no man will ever repent the reading of his Commentaries."