SECTION XVII.

THE LORD; THE IMMORTAL PRIEST AND CONQUEROR.

Psalm cx.

1. "Jehovah saith to my Lord [Adon,] Sit thou at my right hand, "Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

2. "Jehovah out of Zion shall send the sceptre of thy strength: "Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

3. "Thy people [shall present] voluntary offerings, in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness:

"From the womb of the morning, thine shall be the dew of thy youth.

4. "Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, "After the constitution of Melchisedek.

5. "The Lord [Adonai] is on thy right hand: [The address is now turned to Jehovah.]

"He smiteth kings in the day of his wrath;

6. "He will execute judgment on the nations, filling them with the bodies of

the slain;

"He smiteth the chieftain over a great country:

7. "He will drink of the stream by the path,

"And will therefore [triumphantly] lift up his head.”’1

THE most scrupulous critics agree that it is impossible to apply these descriptions to any other than to the Messiah. He is introduced as the Lord, the Sovereign, of David; undoubtedly that great descendant to whom his faith had been so often directed

by the divine inspiration. This Sovereign is here represented as a then existing person, as distinct from Jehovah, and as receiving from him a dominion the most extensive, a dominion the exercise of which is described in characters which we cannot, without See Note [A], at the end of this Section.

VOL. I.

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difficulty, conceive as inherent in any merely created and dependent being. He is represented as a King to reign, no less than a Priest to make the sacrificial propitiation; as receiving the homage of his devoted subjects; and as employing irresistible powers in discomfiting and punishing his persisting opposers. He is also called, in the second instance, Adonai; the name appropriated to the only living and true God.

These descriptions may, indeed, after undergoing considerable qualification, be considered as a symbolical picture of the progress and efficacy of Christian doctrine, declaring the favourable regards of the Most High to those who dutifully receive it, and his displeasure upon those who reject and resist it. But it would remain to be considered, whether the abatements and reductions necessary for such a purpose, could be vindicated on the grounds of fair and just interpretation. Perhaps an impartial and cautious inquirer, supposed to know nothing of the prophetic characters of the Messiah except what is here declared, would think it expedient to suspend his judgment, and to pursue his investigation in the hope of finding some RECONCILING PRINCIPLE, which might show the compatibility of these vast extremes in the same subject, and thus rationally unite the dependence and the supremacy.

Jesus certainly proposed this passage, as involving his enemies in a difficulty, out of which they could not extricate themselves. "How, then, doth David, by "the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, Jehovah said to

my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make "thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call

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"him Lord, how is he his son ?" This difficulty is not removed by saying, with Mr. B., that David in prophetic vision saw things future as if they were actually present. For such an answer proceeds on a wrong assumption of the point under consideration. Had the question been, How could David speak of the Messiah, many ages before he had existence? this supposed answer would have been appropriate. But it is evident that the perplexity, which Jesus put upon his opponents, lay in the fact of David's having represented the Messiah, who was confessedly his own descendant, as being his Superior, his Sovereign. I cannot perceive that it would have been "the proper answer," or any answer at all, to the question founded on this statement, to say, "that the Psalmist was transported in vision to the age of the Messiah, and speaks as though he were contemporary with Christ." Yet this is all that the writer advances to nullify whatever argument might be deduced from this passage, in favour of the supposition of a superior nature in the Messiah of whom David prophesied. Jesus here in the clearest manner affirms that the royal prophet, a thousand years before, under the highest communication and direction of the Holy Spirit, had a knowledge of the Messiah, the glory of Israel and the hope

2 Matt. xxii. 43-45.-Impr. Vers.

3 "If this Psalm is a prophecy of Christ, and if our Lord is not merely arguing with the Jews upon their own principles, as in the case of demoniacs, Matt. xii. 27, the proper answer to this question seems to be, that the Psalmist was transported in vision to the age of the Messiah, and speaks as though he were contemporary with Christ. This mode of writing was not unusual with the prophets. See Isaiah liii. David, like Abraham, was permitted to see the day of Christ. John viii. 56."-Calm Inquiry, p. 271.

of the world; that he viewed this Messiah as at the time a living and acting person, and that thus inspired he attributed to the Messiah the honours and dominion of DEITY. If this be not contained in our Lord's argument, I do not see how we can acquit him of seeking only to perplex his adversaries, and for that purpose making ambiguous and evasive representations. There are men who scruple not to deal so in their arguments; but there is no Christian who would not shudder to bring this charge against the Holy One and the True, the Faithful Witness.

There are other Psalms and parts of Psalms which contain either direct predictions of the Messiah, or incidental and collateral descriptions of his office and work. But as we should draw no conclusions from them that would be contested, in relation to the immediate subject of this inquiry, I pass them over with this general remark; that the PRINCIPLE of their interpretation lies in the designed symbolical character of the office to which David had been anointed, as the act of consecration; and in the promise, so often before referred to, of the glorious and universal King who should spring from him. In his calamities and sorrows, the sweet Psalmist of Israel, beheld a figure and anticipation of the sufferings of that future Personage. In his deliverances, exaltation, and triumphs, he saw an emblem of the glories which should adorn the far distant reign. Undoubtedly, like the other prophets, he was not able to form definite ideas of the

specific Person in whom the predictions would be fulfilled, or of the time when he would be manifested, or of the precise manner and circumstances of his mysterious sufferings, or of the glories that were to follow. But the Spirit of Christ in him testified" of these things. It would be absurd to suppose that the mind of David was insensible to the importance of these astonishing visions, that they were not the subject of his most interesting meditations, and that he did not often interweave them in his prayers and praises. Must it not be thought a proper, and even a necessary accompaniment of this announced intention of the divine will, that the disposals of providence should be modelled according to it; so that the peculiar circumstances of the royal prophet's sufferings and deliverances should bear such an analogy to those of the Messiah, as that the language of his feelings should often be even more appropriate to the remote and secondary, than to the proximate but inferior subject? This principle is clearly consonant with the plan of the successive dispensations of God's revealed mercy, with the harmony of the parts composing them, and with the integrity of the whole divine scheme. It is, also, a preventive of an arbitrary and dangerous use of what is called accommodation. According to this principle, there is no legitimate application of an Old Testament passage which does not rest upon a foundation of solid reason, though that may be sometimes far from obvious, and may exist under limitations. Perhaps there are no instances that may be regarded as more completely accommodations than Matt. ii. 15, 18, and John xix. 36. But when it is considered that "Israel, called out of Egypt," con