that wherein the offence was committed against the command of the Most High. The Divine Nature must be humbled to the level of sinful human nature, in order that the image of God in man might be cleansed of its contracted filthiness, by the descent of God Himself into the image or form and nature of man; and in that nature to make the one acceptable atonement to otherwise inexorable justice. This explains why the language of our Saviour on the cross should be and was such as is expressive of mortal agony and doubt in the extremity of human suffering. And the quality (so to speak) of all the language ascribed to our Redeemer in this Psalm, is throughout alike. O my God, I cry in the day time, but Thou hearest not: and in the night season also I take no rest. And Thou continuest holy, O Thou Worship of Israel. In corroboration of this view of the language of the God-man, we have the testimony of the Evangelists to his practice of retiring to a mountain apart, and in the night season, to pray; and we have also the more impressive picture of his agony in the garden, accompanied by the express words used by Him in the presence of three of his disciples. Jesus cometh with them (all) unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto them, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder: and taking with Him the three, He began to be sorrowful and very heavy. My soul, said He, is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. And He went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done! And He went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. The Psalmist's language presents therefore at once a prophecy and a picture—I cry in the day-time, and rest not in the night season. The few words which follow this passage are full of matter for deep devotional meditation. And Thou continuest holy, O Thou Worship of

Israel! The Lord our God is made known to us as full of compassion, and loving-kindness, and tenderness, even towards us his wandering and offending creatures: for as his own most holy Word assures us, God is Love. It would seem then, even to our dull feelings and faculties, that the cries of his onlybegotten and beloved Son must have tempted God (which is a warranted expression) to forego his just wrath against mankind; to annul the sentence which required so precious a sacrifice as the prolonged agonizing sufferings and death of Him, who had left the bosom of the Father to endure them for the sake of sinful rebels, the work of his own hands, the children of his own care! But no-the attributes of God are unchangeable: as is his love, so is his justice and the Son of God, to whom belongs the glory of our redemption, must bear the penalty of our transgression: He must suffer, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, whose sins had for a season expelled Him, as it were, from the throne of his co-equal glory in heaven. That which had been decreed from all eternity must be accomplished: the cries, the tears, the prayers of the suffering victim, the Lamb of God, must pierce the heavens in vain, until the propitiation be consummated: for, (as the Redeemer is here made to express his meek submission; for,) Thou continuest holy, O Thou Worship of Israel! Again-the man Christ Jesus is brought forward by the Psalmist, as pleading, or reasoning, in his human character as the son of David, as of the seed of Abraham-Our fathers hoped in Thee they trusted in Thee, and Thou didst deliver them. They called upon Thee, and were holpen: they put their trust in Thee, and were not confounded. We all know that in many passages of the New Testament our Lord speaks of Himself as the Son of Man. There can therefore be no impropriety in the Psalmist's imputing this language prophetically to the Saviour, in the extremity of his suffering as a man. Nor is even the expression of deeper humiliation in the verses which follow, to be deemed inappropriate; as they contain a prediction which

was fulfilled to the very letter; as was that of our Saviour's exclamation on the cross-My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? St. Matthew, in the 27th chapter of his Gospel, tells us what was the language of our Lord's revilers, as He hung upon the cross; and it was precisely that which is here predicted: As for Me, I am a worm, and no man: a very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people. They that see Me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him, if He I will have Him! The Jews who witnessed our Lord's crucifixion must have become extremely ignorant of the only Scriptures in their possession; or they must have employed these terms of reproach in the most hardened spirit of derision of those very Scriptures, on which they professed to found all their belief of God's partiality towards them as his chosen people. The fact, however, is wonderful, that David had written these words more than a thousand years before they were recorded by the Evangelist as the very expression of the mockery of Christ's murderers. Surely this fact offers a strong reproof to the professing Christians of the present day, who crucify the Son of God afresh, by tearing asunder his body, the visible Church on earth; and attempt to justify their schisms, by rejecting all such parts of the inspired truths of Revelation, as do not accord with the rebellious spirit which they cherish under the plea of liberty of conscience! But in this Psalm the Incarnate God is made to acknowledge his manhood in yet more precise terms: Thou art He who took me out of my mother's womb: Thou wast my hope when I hanged yet upon my mother's breasts: I have been left unto Thee ever since I was born. The simple history given by St. Matthew of the warning from God, and of the flight into Egypt, to avoid the murderous jealousy of Herod, is the best illustration of this passage; and where, as the Evangelist states, the infant Jesus, with his Virgin Mother and her espoused husband, remained until the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord

by the Prophet Hosea, saying-Out of Egypt have I called my Son. This brief sentence is remarkable, as establishing the doctrine of Christ's divinity, when taken in conjunction with the natural expressions of his suffering humanity, as ascribed to Him by the Psalmist. In the remaining verses of the division which I have read, we find only a continuation of those pleadings and complainings, so natural to the weakness of mere human nature in the hour of affliction. These which follow indicate the certainty of the Redeemer's glorious resurrection, and the effects which shall follow, by the establishment of his kingdom upon earth, until all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Ver. 22-32. This hymn of his approaching triumph may well be ascribed to our crucified Lord, as descriptive of those visions of eternal glory, which presented themselves in his agonies, to cheer, though not to dispel, their bitterness. He saw of the travail of his soul, and was satisfied: that is, He knew the work He had undertaken, namely, the atonement for universal guilt, must be wrought out under much tribulation: but that work was now on the eve of its accomplishment; the moments of his suffering were successively passing away; the children had come to the birth, and there had not been strength to bring forth, but for the consolation of those bright visions of immortal bliss, which should crown the Redeemer's labour of love. In confirmation of this view of Christ's foretaste of his approaching reward, let us take a glance at the immediate assurance of bliss granted to the penitent thief on the cross-the believing penitent-Lord, remember me when Thou comest into thy kingdom! Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. Stronger evidence than this cannot be imagined nor desired, that the glories of the Redeemer's triumph were then opened to his view; that He was about to resume the dignity and the bliss, which for our sakes He had resigned; and that He foresawthrough the vista of uncounted ages, how cordially and univer

sally the name of the Most High God should be reverenced by his purchased and adopted brethren; and his praises resounded in the great congregations of the redeemed children of Adam ; that at the annunciation of the glad tidings of salvation to be sounded throughout the earth by the Gospel trumpet, all the ends of the world should remember themselves, and be turned unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations should worship before Him; that they should look to his bounteous hand alone for all their temporal blessings; that they who in his good Providence had received a larger share of earthly treasures, they who had eaten and were fat, should fall down and worship Him, acknowledging Him to be the Author and Giver of all their good; that all they who go down into the dust should kneel before Him, imploring his final acceptance through the all-perfect merits of their Redeemer; and that his own seed, the fruits of the blood of the great Sacrifice, shall more especially and devotedly serve the God of their salvation, and be accounted by Him as his chosen generation for they above all others shall come before his Presence, shall fall down low on their knees before his footstool; shall adore their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; until the heavens, the opening and embracing heavens, shall declare unto them his righteousness; even unto successive generations of a people who shall be born anew unto the Lord; them whom the Lord hath made the heirs of grace and glory.

PSALM 23.

This Psalm, following immediately upon that which we have just concluded, is so rich in its expression of thankful feelings, so beautiful in the imagination of appropriate images, that we can consider it only an effusion of devout gratitude, under David's contemplation of the wonders of grace, which God had wrought for him among the myriads of the ransomed who it was foretold should come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. He speaks in his own person throughout, and revels as it were in the fertile and sunny landscape, which his contemplative genius had created for its own enjoyment. It can be regarded only as one brief hymn of overflowing joy and gratitude.