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Yet in the transfer of this passage there is less inherent fitness, and more fanciful play of words, than in many others. " The eighteenth song is difficult. For the Hebrew title makes it sung by David when he was delivered from the power of Saul, 490 EIGHTEENTH PSALM. or perhaps from imminent death, and there is no fair room to doubt that it speaks of some temporal deliverance*. Yet it is conceived in so lofty a strain of poetry that some think its images too grand for any human appUcation. The terrors of death encompass the speaker, and the bands of the sepulchre come about him. But earthquake and storm, with wind, and hail, and lightning, attest the presence of God as his Deliverer : so that he comes forth into freedom, and is rewarded for his righteous dealing, by strength in battle, and by victory over enemies, with submission even of strangers who dwelt in distant fortresses. Thus it would seem that David in his latter days gathered up into one poetical description the scenes of his event- ful life ; and as many years crowded on his memory, his deliver- ance from so many perils seemed a stooping of the most High to deliver him with His right hand. Perhaps, in recounting the guidance of their souls into the way of peace, men are apt thus to group in imity, and concentrate in an hour, what were really many steps of growth or of time. When, however, the first Christians had chosen Christ's empire over their hearts instead of a national triumph, they naturally transferred to this diviner object of their homage, whatever expressions had been femiliarly used of David, or of the chosen line of princes which had in- herited his throne. Such a transfer from outward dominion to the realm of thought requires often a translation of the language from history or poetry into parable and hymn. But in this case, as in some others, what had been poetically said of David may be literally applied to Christ, who is first encompassed by the grave, and then having its bands loosed, comes forth into free- dom. This application to Christ was not probably intended by the original writer; but many Christians conceive that the natural play of his thoughts may have been overruled by the unseen inspiration of the Almighty, so that what he spoke * This will remain true, even if for SatU in the title we read Sheol, the gnve, as the contents of the Psalm may incline us. Death surrounds, when the " fear of death comes oyer" a man, and ** the archers follow hard after him." THE PSALMS HOW FAR MESSIANIC. 491 poetically of things human should come out after the lapse of ages as prophetic of things divine*. Such interpreters apply this kind of notion to the greatest part of the Old Testament, and especially to the Psalms. Thus many ancient doctors of the Church said, that * David only sustained the character of Christ,* and that ' Christ is in every book of Scripture.' According then to this viewf, which differs from the nakedly predictive, in that it does not require us to violate the natural interpretation of the Old Testament, but frankly admits its evident reference to Hebrew history, we are to consider that all the Old Testament predicts the New, and * David sings Psalms of Christ ;' yet not nakedly, so much as by parable, or by a spiritual sense, which underlies the literal, and is implied in the words rather than expressed. But again others, and perhaps the most thoughtful, and the best skilled in tongues among us, would say that the praises of the Old Testament are not so much predictive of Christ as applicable to Him : for they are predicative of truths which find the highest ideal expression in Him ; and whatever is spoken of a thing after its kind may be applied with some- times more and with sometimes less of force, to whatever is highest in that kind. Such interpreters take the moral affinity in prophecy as a weightier element than the external circum- stance, which they think not of the essence, but of the accident. They often say that the correspondence between the worldly history of the Hebrews and the spiritual life of Christ is very wonderfdl, and points to a certain providential unity of design repeating itself. Nor does it surprise them, since the world has one eternal Governor, that His dealings with men in earlier ages should be so repeated in later instances, that whatever things were written of old, should turn out written for the learning of * Compare Pascal's Thoughtt, with Lowth's PrelecUons, and Bishop Kidder's Boyle Lectures, called '* A Demonstration of the Messiah." f The English reader may consult, for a view of this subject) Bishop Home's Preface to the Psalms, and his Comments on the iSth; also, Davison's Lectures on Prophecy, and Dr Arnold's Sermons on the same subject, with the discourses which touch upon it in BtUional Ocdliness, hj Rowland '\^^lliams, B J). 492 ANALOGY OF PROPHECY. men under a larger dispensation, which we may conceive of as tlie last trial Almighty God can give to mankind. If then they are asked, whether such applications of the ancient Hebrew writings as Christians now make to the ruler of their hearts, and priest of their lives, and prophet of their best thoughts, may not, though unforeseen by the original writers, have been foreseen in the mind of the Eternal Spirit who wields men and nations at His will, they fairly answer that such a question opens again the same doubt as I have now been discussing in various rela- tions between a Providence governing all things by general law, or one arranging each thing by a succession of special inter- ferences. Those who take either the broader or the narrower view in the course of the world, and in life, and in religious revelation, and in sacred record, will do so again in prophecy. You may judge from what I have said, to which of the two alternatives my own mind leans, in prophecy, as elsewhere. You can also understand how a new bearing or relation, which an- cient words may acquire in virtue of new events happening to which they become applicable, may appear to some as if it was a part of the original sense. Yet the prophecy may lie in the parallel of the events, and in the speaker's right apprehension of the first, rather than in his foresight of the second. Perhaps the question is not one of practical religion so much as of the mode in which we shoidd apprehend the Divine dealings. But yet the larger view may not only explain many difficulties to thoughtful men, but may turn out, as the highest truth always does in freedom, the most wholesome practically to simple peo- ple, so far as they are able to receive it. " I need hardly go on to shew, with many more of the Psalms, how each of the songs will admit of being taken up and applied to Christ, or to the life which now is, as well as to that which is of old. Many may innocently think, that even in every man's personal life there arc stages of growth answering to the de- velopment of the Hebrew people. They may perceive how from an infancy of guileless unconsciousness we fall into a sense of PARALLEL OP HUMAN LIFE. OTHER PSALMS. 493 evil, as we apprehend the distinction between it and good ; and how we pass into a childhood or youth of wandering and dim- ness, with glimpses of something better awaiting us, to which we stretch forward ; how again we become subjected to the hard lessons of life, and the necessities of obedience, yet feel that we cannot obey so as to obtain happiness by an iron law ; then how we grow into a perception that by external rules no man finds peace, or is acquitted either before his own conscience, or before God who is its author ; and how at last we are delivered firom corroding fears and from the sin which causes them, by passing into a higher atmosphere, in which we feel the truth as if we saw it, and love it, and are reconciled to the Grod who has led us all along, and has predestinated lower things to work out a higher good as the eternal will of His fatherly love. So men seem to grow out of unconsciousness, through fear, into a faith which is made perfect in love. But I will not here wander into such thoughts. Let me return rather to the Book of Psalms, pointing out only a few. In the 72nd song we have the bless- ings pronounced by some pious priest upon a young prince, to whom he wishes a happy reign. *May all kings,' he prays, * fall down before him. May he deliver the poor when he crieth. May he deliver their lives from falsehood and wrong.