English
May his name remain imder the sun among the posterities, and may they be blessed through him.' Now all these good wishes were im- perfectly fulfilled in Solomon, but come eminently to pass in Christ. So in the 89th song we have a man of prayer remind- ing the eternal God of the promise to David, which is recorded in the 2nd Book of Samuel, that his son and his son's sons should reign after him. Whereas in the Babylonian exile and the distress under Antiochus these promises appeared to have failed. The sweet singer therefore prays that they may be ftil- filled. Accordingly in Christ, whose reign is to that of David what a kindred to Abraham in heart and faith is if compared to a descent by blood, the better kingdom of God comes forth be^ cause His will is done. So His dominion is from sea to sea ; 494 OTHER PSALMS. TYPICAL HISTORY. and He stands fast as the faithful witness in heaven. Again, in the 110th song we have a king of Israel mentioned, who goes forth to battle, and whose young men glisten in armour like the dew of the morning. He is not subject to any arrogance of the priesthood forgetting their ministration for God, and magnifying their own power over men; but He reigns, like Melchisedec, alike King and Priest, and the people willingly obey Him. Even the singer, whether priest or not, owns Him as his Master {Adonatjy and paints Him in pious imagery as sitting, vicegerent, at the right hand of the Eternal Lord (Jehovah). So Christ delivers men &om the need of human mediators, when He places them in His own spirit face to face with God, giving a pledge of being heard to all who worship the Eternal Spirit in spirit and in truth. So He reigns over men by persuasion, and receives from them for God the freewill offering of their hearts. He sits at His Father's right hand until all evil is put under the feet of goodness, and proud imaginations are cast down with the persuasive weapons of the heart before the spirit of meekness. But it is especially the songs which tell of suffering innocence, in which we recognise a lively likeness of our Lord suflFering, and rejected, and triumphant through patience. When the poor and needy cry, and the Lord heareth them, when the ploughere plough long furrows upon the back of captive Israel, and when God delivers the afflicted, so that not one of his bones is broken, we see painted beforehand in men who had something of His spirit, the Man of sorrows striving in prayer in the garden, and beaten with scourges, and pierced upon the cross, yet * quickened in spirit*,' and rising above all extinction, so that not a fragment of His doctrine is lost, nor any member of the Body which the Father has given Him perishes for ever. There is something immense, and passing speech, in the vision thus opened to us of the Eternal God throwing many forecasts by anticipation in His chosen people of those strange dealings with the faith and patience even of His best beloved, which He was going to re- • I Peter iii. i8. HEBHENEUTICS. CHRISTIAN FREEDOM. 495 present with the highest Mfihnent in the person of His dear Son, With what awful sadness these things recur, or answer to what happens, in the history of the purest teachers, and re- formers, and martyrs for truth in all nations, I need only here remind you. Again it is natural for poetry, with its deep tones of the heart, to sound spoken for all time ; and if the inherited volume supplies the daily language of the Church, she will in- evitably transplant into it whatever feelings are strongest in her own living experience; and thus men, in whose thoughts the central vision is the great Deliverer of their souls from evil, may seem to find His figure equally prominent in places where it was never intended. Nor is there any great injury to religious truth in such a process so long as fancy remain the servant of faith, and not her mistress. But if fjEmciful interpretations should have been laid down in past ages by men not only ignorant of one or both of the languages in which the sacred volume was written, but otherwise utterly unfit for every critical work ; and if these are so made a law that men who know better must repeat as arguments the mistakes of men who know worse, then not even the sacredness of Divine truth will save us from such complica- tions as are apt to attend everything involved in the passions of men. " It must now have become clear to you that when the Church adopts the writings which express the narrower consciousness of a growing time, she must do so without detriment to that larger life, into which she is brought by the same eternal Spirit as animated her ancestors in the faith of old. She reads them for their history, and imbibes from them a kindred tone of senti- ment, (so that in a way she is built up by them,) but she is neither bound by the rude manners of ancient Syria, nor sees a virtue in repeating the modes* of speech involved in them. * The scriptural terms for husband and wife are merely man and woman ; and a primitiye nakedness on all kindred points pervades strongly the Hebrew lan guage, as in a less degree the Greek. The Romans, with deeper reyerence for law and for human sanctities, brought out such words as mariiua, uxor, conjux, Ac* It was religion which Ixmnd such things ; though the word rdigio means rather observance, or reverence : from re-Ugert=dUiffcre, 496 THE CHUKCH AN INSPIRED BODY. Bather she asks guidance from the living Spirit of God, both by whatever direct vision He gives of the truth, and through reason and feeling, and all their instruments, among which history is one. Hence the greatest teachers of Christian truth have ever been apostles of the spirit* rather than of the letter; for the spirit enlivens, but the letter deadens the soul. The whole assembly of Christ's Church is the temple in which the Holy Ghost dwells, pervading men's minds with right instincts and pure sympathies. In all our prayers f we pray often that this inspiration may never fail the Church, but always prevent and follow us, cleansing our hearts, and pouring into them love, and in all things directing and ruling them. Nor are such prayers unreasonable ; for we are ever taught that the eye of the Only Wise is not blinded, nor the arm of the Almighty shortened ; nor again, on man's side, is there anything in the lives and circumstances of the ministers of the Christian Church which should make them less fit for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, if they duly seek it, than prophets and priests of old. Oa the contrary, we have the unfailing word of Christ J, that John the Baptist was greater than all the prophets before him ; because, I suppose, he saw more clearly the significance of the law and the subordination of its letter to the principles involved in it, as, for instance, the meaning of any one's being a child of Abra- ham's : but yet the word of Christ goes on, that even the least and humblest Christian may have a light beyond that of the Baptist ; that is, I suppose, we have written in our hearts the * See St Paul, i Cor. ii. xii. 2 Cor. iii. Luther, On the GaUUiaru. Bandy's Apology for the people called Quakers. Hooker's £ccl. Pol. Books I. and 11. + See Collects before and after the Communion Service, 5th after Blaster, 1 7th and 19th after Trinity, Quinquagesima, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Very strikiDg are the words of the Rev. Frederic Robertson : "Love God, and He 'wiU dwell with you ; obey God, and He will reveal the truths of His deepest teaching to your soul. Not perhaps — but as surely as the laws of the spiritual world are irreversible — are these things prepared for obedient love : an inspiration aa true, m real, and as certain, as that which ever prophet or apostle reached^ is yours if yoa will." — Sermon on God*s Revelation of Heaven, pp. 15, 16, X St Matthew xi. 1 1 ; iii. 9. THE BIBLE THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. 497 truths, or apprehend by conscientious reason the principles, which are the will of Gt)d, and our way of peace. If then a question is raised between the Church and the Bible, we may say that each side has a truth not to be despised. The Bible has the element of fixity as an imchangeable record. The Church has the element of fireedom as a living society.