down before his face, believing in him and adoring him, all mortals will serve him, in which, in fine, the full operation of Christ's work of redemption is to consist."

31. Et anima mea illi vivet, &c.

"The Psalmist goes here, in conclusion, as in most of the Psalms about the Messiah, back to himself; sees his own soul live through the grace of redemption in Christ, and sees entranced in spirit his seed, his posterity, the Juda who is converted to the Lord in the new covenant of grace, serving in holiness and justice."

32. Annuntiabitur Domino generatio ventura, &c.

"This race to come, then, will receive the joyous message of salvation, the gospel of grace: the heaven, through its messengers, will make known the justice we have through Christ to the people, which shall be born again through water and the Holy Ghost, which the Lord has created, has acquired for himself, an acceptable people to him, which pursues good works, as the Apostle writes."

This is rather a long quotation, but it is useful when we speak about anathemas to bring out the meek and gentle spirit of suffering displayed in the passion with somewhat of detail, in order to allay any harsh and unchristian feelings, in which possibly some people might be tempted to indulge, if they looked at the anathematizing side of the Christian character only. However, it so happens, that there are passages in the Psalms, in which these two features of the Christian temper stand side by side. Specimens of this shall be furnished presently, but previously to doing so, it will be advantageous to notice a passage in the history of David, in which the forgiving temper of our Lord is strongly brought out, although this same anathematizing spirit also finds its place close beside it.

When David went up by the ascent of that very Mount Olivet on which the agony took place afterwards, he was told that Achitophel, the type of Judas, was in the conspiracy against him, and he said, "Infatuate, O Lord, I beseech thee, the counsel of Achitophel." This is an imprecation; a little while after, when Simei, the type of faithless Judah, cursed David and threw stones at him, we find the exiled king forbidding the sons of Sarvia to hinder him; "let him alone," he says, "and let him curse, for the Lord hath bid him curse David......perhaps the Lord may look upon my affliction, and the Lord may render me

good for the cursing of this day." There is not in the whole Old Testament a more striking lesson of forbearance, and one might have thought that David was lifted above the ordinary attainments of an Old Testament saint, in order to make him on this one occasion a more marked type of Christ, were it not that his whole history furnishes so many instances of a like forbearing temper. Whatever, therefore, be thought of some actions which seem of a piece with the imprecatory or anathematizing spirit, it is certain that these coexist with a number of others which are of a spirit apparently contradictory to it. But we take it that the truth is, the more really mindful a man is of his own frailty, the more he will find that uttering an anathema, so far from tending to make him proud or contemptuous of others, really is the most humbling task which can well be put upon him. What pleasure can it give a christian to feel that Christ's blood has been shed in vain for any single soul? what certainty can he who is humble have that he may not some day himself fall into the heresy which he is now taught to anathematize? Nay, if he anathematizes in a self-sufficient, haughty spirit, is he not likely to fall through pride?" By that sin fell the angels," says Shakspeare," how can man then, though the image of his Maker, hope to win by it?"

The xxxiv. Psalm, the lxix., and cviii., will furnish specimens of the way in which the humble spirit of one who trusts in God may be blended with the strongest imprecations against the wicked. From the latter we may cite the following words: "Let it [cursing] be unto him like a garment which covereth him, and like a girdle with which he is girded continually......But thou, O Lord, do with me for thy name's sake, because thy mercy is sweet. Do thou deliver me, for I am poor and needy, and my heart is troubled within me.”

But it would be endless to pursue the subject of these imprecations further. Enough, it is hoped, has been done to bring before the reader the possibility of these personal imprecations not being wrong or unchristian, so to speak, in David or in any one who was inspired to use them against individual enemies, nor even in any one who, without being inspired, used them in submission to the authority of God and His Church, against the enemies of these. Christ is spoken of in Esaias as slaying the wicked with the breath of his lips: this function He has

exercised by His Church, giving her power to bind on earth by her anathemas those whom He also in some cases enables her to discern to be heretics. In the controversy about the Tria Capitula, it was discussed whether Theodorus of Mopsuesta could be condemned after his death: upon which occasion Pelagius the Second remarked, "That if Theodorus condemned our Lord and God after His death, why is Theodorus, who by so many blasphemies became the enemy of our Redeemer, himself to be exempted from anathema after his death?" No orthodox mind can fail to see the dignity and loyal charity to Christ contained in this sentiment, delivered as it was from the mouth of Christ's vicegerent upon earth. Indeed, the whole of Christ's kingly power which has hitherto been displayed, has been displayed chiefly through His Church. What prophecy declares, that we have seen fulfilled in the Church, and nowhere else."Sicut audivimus, sic vidimus in civitate Dei nostri." David's life, whether of suffering or of glory, is a prophecy fulfilled in Christ and in the Church; and David's thoughts, and temper, and tone, are the Church's also.

We have said so much about the first main point we proposed to consider, that we must be very brief indeed about the other two. In regard to the first of these re maining two, hardly anything need be said in the way of principle: it is plain that if one kingdom be typical of the other, that there will be some kind of analogy between the rites and ceremonies used by either, such that one will speak covertly and under a veil of what belongs to the other openly and in the spirit. This we might almost imagine to be so, without supposing David to be under divine inspiration while writing, but merely assuming that the two systems, the Christian and the Jewish, were divine, that the former was a divinely appointed type of the latter, and that he who spoke about the one must needs say things which could be applied to the other. But when David's tongue is the "pen of a scrivener that writeth swiftly"-when he is the organ, as it were, of that Spirit of the living God who suddenly writes upon the fleshy tablets of the heart-when, in fine, we take in the notion of divine inspiration, then we shall see that the Psalms may have been designedly so framed by God as to express christian feelings, and harmonize with christian devotion and ceremonies, as well as with Jewish.

"We learn," says St. Gregory Nyssen, Vol ii. p. 605, "from the Lord himself, that it was not as abiding in himself, that is, not as speaking with the power of human nature only, that David discourses of heavenly mysteries. For how could any one, as man, know the heavenly language of the Father to the Son? It was in the Spirit that he said that, the Lord said to the Lord:' for if David, in Spirit, it says, calleth him Lord, how is he then his Son? It was by the power of the Spirit, therefore, that the sacred writers, guided by God, were inspired: and this is why the whole of Scripture is called divinely inspired, because it is the teaching of divine inspiration. If the corporeal covering of the words is removed, then what remains is Lord, and Life, and Spirit, according to the great Paul, and according to the language of the Gospel. For Paul says, that to him who turns from the letter to the spirit, it is no longer a bondage that killeth, but the Lord that is laid hold of who is the quickening Spirit: and the sublime Gospel says, The words which I speak to you are Spirit and Life, as being words bared of the corporeal covering."

According to this view of St. Gregory's (and it is the common view of all antiquity) the Psalms would convey under a corporeal covering, under the letter, another and spiritual meaning, viz., the realities with which christians have to deal, as opposed to the unsubstantial figures with which the Jewish system, as it were, beguiled the time of those who waited for the reality to come. Hence their contemplations on outward things, whether of the material world or of the law, might readily be so shaped by the Holy Ghost as to suit our wants. A passage or two from our author shall now be added in illustration of this. His commentary on the Psalm (xcii.) "Dominus regnavit, runs (in part) as follows:

"This Psalm has the inscription, Laus Cantici ipsi David in Die ante sabbatum quando fundata est terra.'* For it was on the sixth day that God finished the work of creation, and that man,

*This title occurs in the Septuagint, not in the Hebrew. (See that useful book, the Hexaplar Psalter, London, Samuel Bagster, 1843.) St. Paul speaks of St. Timothy knowing the Scriptures from his infancy, 2 Tim. iii. 15, and in the next verse speaks of all Scripture as inspired of God, which surely means the same Scripture as St. Timothy knew from his infancy. But St. Timothy was a Greek, and not even circumcised till late in life, (Acts. xvi. 1-3), therefore he only knew the Septuagint; therefore what is in the Septuagint, cannot be made light of as if uninspired, even if we go by the New Testament only and let Tradition alone.

who was to inhabit it, was created. The Church, however, uses this Psalm at the dawn of Sunday, because Jesus Christ appeared by his Resurrection, as the restorer of the human race and the author of a new creation, clothed with might and glory."

Dominus regnavit, &c.

"Through the creation of the world, the omnipotence and majesty of God became visible and cognizable to his rational creatures, so that God began as it were to appear great and mighty with it. He 'ruled' when the world was subjected to him, and he became great and glorious' because the greatness and grandeur of his creation reflected its brightness upon him: God appeared, who, as the Apostle says, dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no man hath seen as he is, clothed with light and brightness, and visible through the works of his hands, since the creation of God is, as it were, the garment in which the invisible, unapproachable, and eternal God being enveloped, appears to us, as the Apostle writes, the invisible things of God, his eternal power and also divi. nity is become manifest in that which is in time. The kingdom of grace, the new creation of God in Christ, was entered upon by the Redeemer, when, after accomplishing the offering of humility and obedience, and overcoming the sting of death, he rose glorious as conqueror over sin and hell, clothed with humanity in its highest dignity, clothed with that power through which all things are subjected to him, with which he is, as it were, girded, he, the King of truth!"

Etenim firmavit orbem, &c.

"The omnipotence and wisdom of God created a world which, in its smallest creatures, is full of wonder; and the same omnipotence and wisdom upholds the structure of the same: and if a conclusion about the power of the Author can be drawn from the stability of the work, then the continuation of a creation so immensely great, the marvellous inter-penetration of all the parts, and the generative power which keeps it in being, are the greatest proof of the omnipotence and wisdom of its Creator. And thus will the structure of this world remain unshaken, until a new heaven and a new earth shall form an eternal dwelling-place for the children of the new kingdom in Christ."

Parata sedes tua en tunc, &c.

"Though it was through the creation, that the majesty of God first became visible, and with the same that his Lordship over the world was established, yet the being of God did not first begin with the same, but was from eternity. Just so Christ, through his incarnation, through his suffering and death, and through his resurrection, made himself Lord and God over a new creation, and took