within him. Of his family we can only judge by what we do not see: we see them advancing on from childhood to manhood; but we see not any outward and visible signs of their having been brought up in the way they should go. In his dependants, whether domestic or others, we may observe a striking contrast in their observances of the Sabbath only. The Christian master, who does not profess to belong to our Church, influences his family and servants in favour of his own creed; and not being infidels, they do not, because they are gradually prejudiced against the Church, renounce all religious profession. No-they are influenced by example, perhaps by persuasion, and they become in their practice faithful professors of their particular creed. Let the same persons engage in the service of an infidel master, a scorner of the religion of the Gospel; and mark the influence of his example upon their conduct. I need not enlarge upon it. Laxity and indifference end in a total disregard of all outward observances of religion, and of inward misgivings of conscience. But let us look to the infidel himself, and the influence of his own cherished perverseness upon his own happiness only in this life. If he be a prosperous man, and it is in this class that infidels are mostly found, his heart is contracted to the circumference of every coin that may float within his grasp, the better to secure it from escape or flight. He has renounced the easy yoke of a Divine Master for the galling service of Mammon, the most tyrannous of all the imaginary deities of the earth; who exacts from his worshippers a seven days' service throughout every week of their lives. To his ear the Sabbath chimes bring only the remembrance of a change in his cares and laboursthe permission to wander over his acres unobserved,* to calculate his probable gains or losses on the passing season, and to meditate on the effects of corn-laws upon his elastic purse, the altar of his idolatry. And it may be that he is pursuing these trou* These Lectures were addressed to a rural population.

blous visions under the consciousness of advancing feebleness or approaching old age; or he may experience in every movement the pangs of some incurable malady

Those silent pangs, that in their silence say

More to the heart than thunder to the ear:

Though all in vain for him: his evil heart of unbelief is impenetrable alike to the warnings of nature and to the calls of grace. Yet will the example of this man have its influence on those around him. As many as share his confidence, his hospitality, or his patronage as an employer, are exposed to the danger of contamination, in proportion to the frequency or closeness of their intercourse with him. Against all these several characters the Psalmist enters his protest as dangerous persons; and it behoves the Christian, in the discharge of his duty to his own soul, to keep aloof, as much as in him lies, from the poison of their example; not heedlessly to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor to stand in the way of sinners, nor to sit in the seat of the scornful:-O my soul, come not thou into their secret: unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united! We began by speaking of human happiness, and of its universal pursuit by mankind, as the true end and aim of their being but how diverse soever the paths in which it is sought after, there is only one straight and narrow way which leads to its certain attainment. The tree of life is in the midst of the Paradise of God. The eternal Word of Truth has guaranteed our enjoyment of its fruit. But it is still guarded by the flaming sword of the Law; not to exclude us from entrance, but to direct us to the strait gate of admission; while the Cherubims, the ministering spirits of the glad tidings of salvation, cease not day and night to proclaim, This is the way -walk ye in it! Of these ministering spirits the inspired Psalmist belonged to the highest earthly order: and he pronounces the blessedness of the man, who shunning the contagion of "folly, vanity, and vice, and every low pursuit,"

delights himself in the Law of the Lord, therein exercising himself day and night. For his experience shall be rich in the blessings of time as well as those of eternity-that perfect state of bliss in which not even a leaf of the righteous man's verdure shall wither.

Ver. 5-7. Behold here the awful contrast: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish! The doom of the ungodly is equally sealed for time as for eternity. The just Judge of all, in his comparative estimate of his creatures, hath weighed them in the balance of his Sanctuary, and finding them deceitful upon the weights, and altogether lighter than vanity itself, He disperses them by the blasting of the breath of his displeasure; He scattereth them like chaff from the face of the earth. And when the awful trump of the Archangel shall recal the ungodly, the sinner, and the scorner, from their sleep of death, to give account of the deeds done in the body; they shall not be able to stand in the judgment, nor to lift up their heads in the presence of the righteous by whom they will be surrounded. For they are already prejudged by their own conscience; and one glance from the eye of the Omniscient Judge will pronounce the everlasting destinies of the righteous and the wicked. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

PSALM 2.

This Psalm is plainly prophetical of what would befal Christ's Church and kingdom upon the earth, and of their final triumph over the violence and treachery of heathen foes. As such, it is adopted in our Service for Easter Day. In its primary sense, a portion of it applies to the position of David, when the Philistines, on hearing that he had been anointed King of Israel, (2 Sam. v, 17,) became impiously moved for his destruction. The opening of this admirable effusion of faith plainly shews that the Psalmist's mind was then under some extraordinary influence, which stirred up the prophetic spirit within him, even to embrace a far higher subject than that of his own confidence in the divine protection of himself, his throne, and his people.

Ver. 1-3. These verses are alike descriptive of the opposition of the heathen to the rule of David and that of Messiah. Furious as they were on each occasion, they imagined a vain thing, when trusting to human strength and subtlety for the overthrow of either. The one was about to be established by God's special appointment; the other had been ordained from before the foundation of the world, or ever the earth and the world were made. The kings of the earth, in their pride of place, encouraged each other in the blind presumption which was common to them all, that by their united strength they could overmaster the hosts of Omnipotence; for they could imagine no greater power than their own boasted will:-Let us! Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us! This scene was presented to David's imaginative mind, as a prelude to that divine inspiration (afflatus Numinis) to which he now gives utterance :

Ver. 4-6. This is not the language of an earthly potentate, relying upon the courage and faithfulness of his people for triumph in the day of battle: but an ebullition of faith, that evidence of things not seen, which enables the believer to trample upon the objects of time and sense, and to realize the things which are afar off. David, not trusting in his own might, nor in the loyalty or warlike prowess of his subjects, seems to ridicule the threats of his enemies, in the sole confidence that God, who had so manifestly sustained him through a thousand dangers, till he had reached the throne of Israel, would still be his helper and defender. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: the Lord shall have them in derision. And they shall feel his wrath; they shall taste of the fruits of his displeasure; they shall know that He alone hath set a king upon his holy hill of Zion; and that by no earthly power shall his kingdom be removed. In this passage Jehovah Himself is introduced as the speaker. In what immediately follows we discern the voice of the Son of God, proclaiming that

great truth which in his own Person He preached unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel for their conviction and conversion.

Ver. 7-9. We must interpret these verses as the prophetic annunciation by David of that law, which God the Son should in due time preach to the world; and of the promise by God the Father of that universal sovereignty, which should be established in the Person of the Messiah, God manifest in the flesh. After this, the Psalmist in his own name exhorts the kings of the earth, whom he had so severely rebuked at the commencement, to reflect, and to learn, and to practise their duty, as creatures, equally with their subjects, dependant on the divine government.

Ver. 10-12. The second of these verses contains an exhortation of a similar purport with that of the Apostle to the Philippians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling; not recommending the abject fear which is only debasing, but the reverential feeling that may be cherished with the spirit of rejoicing, and is the evidence of holy love. For the concluding verse carries out this idea to its full extent: In eastern countries the kiss is the sign of humility from inferiors towards their superiors, and is there carried so far as to be considered an act of servile adoration. But here the Psalmist employs the term only as a figurative recommendation to the heathen people to be reconciled to the One True God and to Messiah his Son, lest He should finally and utterly cast them away; for that in the day of his anger they only shall be blessed who put their trust in Him.

PSALMS 3, 4, 5.

These three Psalms, like several others that fall in their order, are supposed to have a reference to the rebellion of Absalom, and to the suffering which that event inflicted upon his pious father. They can be considered, indeed, only as one effusion, consisting of complaint, and prayer, and expostulation, such as we find repeated in several of the subsequent Psalms. All the beauty of the composition is,