from every corner of the earth; that a new people of God should be thus created, the true spiritual seed of Him who had been once brought so low; this is no less matter of history, and shows that if this Psalm be regarded as breathing the language of a true child of God, He in whom this language was in all its parts fulfilled, must be the child of God perfectly.

The 40th Psalm may next be noticed. Now here we meet with an instance of the necessity of paying a critical attention to the text of the Old Testament. The feelings of the first and last parts of this Psalm, as it now stands, do not agree together the former expresses sentiments of thankfulness and rejoicing; the latter is the language of distress, and earnest prayer for deliverance. But the five last verses, 13--17, occur again as a distinct psalm, Ps. lxx., and it is probable that they were added to the 40th Psalm to suit its language to the circumstances of the Jewish people after their return from the captivity. I should be tempted to think also, that the Psalm originally ended with the 11th verse, and that the 12th verse was also an addition, adapted to other circumstances, and made up in great part from the language of Psalm xxxviii. 4, and other similar passages. If this be so, the psalm will be found to have one uniform character, that of thankfulness and devotion. But its date and occasion, as is so often the case in the Psalms, cannot be determined. The language might well be that of a king, who felt that the outward service of God was of little value when compared with the inward; that his keeping up the sacrifices of the Temple service was of small importance, in comparison with his doing God's will. But it is plain that this language, when ascribed to the great King of Israel, the Messiah, gains a propriety greater than it could ever have had before. Messiah, the King, could truly say that God had delivered Him from the pit, and had put a new song in His mouth, even praise unto His God. He could say that many should see it and fear, and should trust in Jehovah; that the tidings of His resurrection should bring thousands and thousands

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to draw near to God through Him. He could express the insufficiency of common sacrifice, knowing that He had done it away for ever by the sacrifice of Himself. He could say that God had opened His ears; had forced, as it were, a way into them, that He should not be deaf to His words, but hear them and do them; for it was His meat to do the will of Him who sent Him, and in all things He was a perfect pattern of obedience. So, again, how truly was it written concerning Him a in the volume of the book of the law, inasmuch as the earliest Scripture records prophecies of Him, and the law itself, by its practices, as well as by its words, had reference to Him. And who, as He did, has ever so declared God's righteousness to the great congregation, when it was His last command that His disciples should go into every land, to declare the tidings of God's forgiveness of all sins for His name's sake? It appears then, that here also, whilst we are ignorant of the name, age, and circumstances of the human writer of the Psalm, we can fully understand the mind of its Divine Author, and can see that by whomsoever and on whatsoever it was first written, it is now the thanksgiving of the triumphant Messiah, who is declaring His Father's name to the heathen, and who to the end of the world will still declare it.

Examples might be multiplied from the Book of Psalms; but those already given will be sufficient to explain the general principle. Let us now proceed to notice some of the prophe

ten on me;" or, as Gesenius interprets it, comparing 2 Kings, xxii. 13, "Commands are laid on me," "I am the object of the writing, its meaning falls on me, that I may do it." If the Psalm was written by a king, the passage would have especial reference to the part of the law which enforced the duties of a King of Israel, Deuteronomy, xvii. 18-20. But if it were written by a private person, it would then relate only to the general commands to obedience which it contains. The same notion of the superiority of obedience over sacrifice is brought forth in 1 Samuel, XV. 22

cies of Isaiah.

The fifty-third chapter will immediately occur to every reader. Here the Christian meaning is so clear and so complete, that it has been doubted whether the passage has any other sense than this. Yet it seems to me, that as the language of so many of the Psalms which, in its fulness, is applicable only to Christ, had yet a subordinate and human meaning referring to some lower persons and events; such is likewise the case with most, if not all, of the prophecies of the Book of Isaiah.

The latter part of Isaiah, however, from the fortieth chapter to the end, deserves a more particular consideration, because it seems one of the most complete exemplifications of St. Peter's statement, where he describes the Prophets as " searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." It is precisely with regard to the time of the fulfilment of his prophecies, that we may conceive the Prophet to have been most left to his own impressions. All the things of which he speaks are connected in his mind with the immediate event which is the nearest object in his view, namely, the return of Israel from captivity in Babylon. But the language which he uses goes to such a high measure of blessing, that he may well have doubted whether there was not some greater deliverance behind than that which more immediately engrossed his attention. In this case, then, the human and historical meaning of the words of the prophecy may have appeared insufficient even to their human author. Even he may have felt that his language required a higher fulfilment than that deliverance of Israel from the power of Babylon, to which, according to the usual economy of prophecy, his predictions were in their form and outward construction limited.

Still it cannot be denied that the first and obvious subject of the whole prophecy, is the return of Israel from his cap

tivity in Babylon. The point, so to speak, from which the whole picture is taken, is the period of the captivity. From thence the Prophet looks forward to the deliverance and return of Israel, to the utter overthrow of his conqueror; and then when the enemy should be put down, and Israel restored to his own land, his after state should be more worthy of his title of God's chosen people; his portion should be one of greater holiness, and therefore of greater prosperity and happiness than he had ever before known. In the midst of this view one distinct particular object presents itself to the Prophet's mind ;an Israel, so to speak, within Israel,-a servant of God afflicted like the people of God, and destined like them to be finally delivered and triumphant; but differing from the people of God in this, that whereas their suffering was the consequence of their own sin, his was not so: he suffered not only with them, but for them,-innocent himself, but bearing in his own person the iniquities of the people. In what degree the prophet had here a distinct image before his mind, it is impossible for us to know; whether he thought of any individual prophet, or rather personified the whole prophetic order; representing their faithful remonstrances with their countrymen, their sharing the common exile and captivity, and their greater authority hereafter in the restored Israel, under the image of one single man disregarded at first by the people, suffering for their fault only, and in their behalf, and at length rewarded with the highest success and glory. As Israel was to the rest of the world, long a disregarded witness to God's truth, innocent as far as other nations were concerned, yet suffering at their hands, and his sufferings designed by God to work out good both for them and for himself,-such exactly was the relation in which the Prophet, or the order of Prophets, described in the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters, was to stand towards Israel itself.

Now the actual evil, for the comfort of which this prospect

of the future was vouchsafed, was, it should be remembered, the captivity in Babylon; and therefore the whole tone of the prophecy bears in its obvious form upon the relief of this evil; that is, on the destruction of Babylon, and on the restoration and prosperity of Israel. But if God's people have any worse enemy than Babylon, any worse captivity than that in Mesopotamia, any better home than that of Jerusalem in Palestine, then the full language of comfort and of hope will relate to this worse enemy, to this more grievous captivity, to this better and dearer country.

Accordingly, while the return of Israel to his own land, and the greater honours paid outwardly at least to God's Prophets, was a fulfilment of more than the ordinary hopes which a captive Jew in Babylon could, humanly speaking, have ventured to entertain for his country; yet inasmuch as the Prophet's language, while speaking of the return from Babylon, had risen far higher than the measure of earthly prosperity dealt to any earthly people compassed about with so much sin, so it was provided that this language should find its fulfilment. in a manner that could not be foreseen in the writer's own time; that the real abiding objects of the highest hope and fear should come into the place of such as were merely earthly, local, and temporary; and contrary to the almost proverbial issue of the prophecies of human fraud or folly, the word of promise should be kept not to the ear, but to the hope; not according to the letter of an earthly Israelite's expectation, but according to the spirit of the expectation of an Israelite of God.

And then that Prophet or personification of the Prophetic order, who had been described as suffering for the sins of the people, and afterwards exalted with complete triumph, finds in a most extraordinary manner his exact antitype in Him who, though man, was not man merely. The Prophet of the earthly Israel was a man with the sins of our common nature,