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form his best writings on practical divinity. But as the present article has grown so large, and as the writer designs an article on Mr. Wesley's preaching, they will be reserved for the future occasion, when some observations on his style will also be appropriate.

1. The series of articles which is now concluded does not mention all the works of Mr. Wesley. Besides those classes of original and selected works-works of Music and Poetry, religious Tracts, the edited works, (comprising the Christian Library,) the various compilations (including the Arminian Magazine,) the elementary books, the Commentaries on the Old and New Testament, the political tracts and pamphlets, the numerous works on controversial divinity, on eleven disputed points, (at least,) the Journals, the epistolary correspondence, and the excellent writings on practical divinityanother class of tracts and papers could be reviewed under the head of miscellaneous writings. Still nothing is omitted which would add much to the fame of the writer as a literary man.

2. Considering the active life of Mr. Wesley, it is astonishing that he wrote and published so much, on such variety of subjects, and so well. Most of his works were written after he was forty and before he was seventy years of age. Strange that amid incessant preaching and traveling, and constant oversight of the rising ministry and societies, he could have written so many works, and on so many and diversified topics! The quality of the writings too is not to be forgotten in estimating this literary man. All the works may not

have equal merit for style; and yet all show great care, the purity of the English tongue, neatness in the sentences, and a finish and polish which a scholar only can give. He was so perfect in the English style when he began to write as to be susceptible of little or no improvement. (See Journals, Sept. 1, 1778.) He was a very slow writer, (letter to Mr. Richard Thompson, 1756,) and little needed to revise his sentences. The slowness in writing sprung from the desire, and generated the habit, of great carefulness.

3. Considering the numerous literary works of Mr. Wesley, it may be supposed that he derived therefrom a large income. He was not dependent on his works or on the Methodists for his living, “Your lordship cannot but know, that my fellowship and my brother's studentship afford us more than sufficient for life and godliness, especially for that life which we choose." (Letter to Bishop of London.) The fellowships in the English colleges entitle to a share in the revenues, varying generally from £30 to £250 a year, with the right of apartments and board. The first eighteen years of his authorship he does not seem to have gained anything, but rather lost. Having settled his temporal business, after some sickness, he

says: "It is now about eighteen years since I began writing and printing books; and how much in that time have I gained by printing? Why, on summing up my accounts, I found that on March 1, 1756, I had gained, by printing and preaching together, a debt of £1,236. Seventeen years after the income of the London Society was bad, but, says he, "My private account I find still worse. I have labored as much as many writers, and all my labor has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred pounds." (Journal, 1773.) Mr. Wesley kept printing presses of his own, and he might have lost in carrying on the business. Some of his works were very profitable; others, as his Commentary on the Old Testament and the Christian Library, did not pay. Another cause of debt was the cheap mode in which he published, for the sake of usefulness. His works, with his brother's, must have yielded much profit. Before Charles Wesley married, his brother gave security to the parents of the young lady for the yearly payment of £100, on the profits of their books. The mother (Mrs. Gwynne) wrote to Mr. Perronet to know whether the sale of the books would be likely to continue before she consented to the marriage. The good clergyman wrote her:

"The writings of these gentlemen are, even at this time, a very valuable estate; and when it shall please God to open the minds of the people more, and prejudice is worn off, it will be much more valuable. I have seen what an able bookseller has valued a great part of their works at, which is £2,500; but I will venture to say that this is not half their value. They are works which will last and sell while any sense of true religion and learning shall remain among us."

published prior Charles Wesincome of the

Here we have an estimate of the value of the books to 1749. The after works were also of great value. ley appears to have had his £100 a year from the books. And his brother, especially after he gave up his fellowship, doubtless drew yearly from the same source. These books were not only profitable to the writers, but to the English Methodist Conference, for Mr. Wesley in his will gave all his books on sale to the body of preachers. The books are still on sale, and yield, especially the hymn books, a large sum every year to the English Conference. The works are useful, too, to the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, who also derive pecuniary assistance from the same source. And in Canada, the Wesleyan Book Room sells and profits by the hymn books and other works of the founder of Methodism. These books, now a hundred years are passed away, "last and sell," as Mr. Perronet said, and doubtless will "last and sell" to the end of the world.

ART. VII.-EXPOSITION OF THE EIGHTH PSALM.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. Subject of this Psalm.

"THE subject of this psalm," says Hengstenberg, is "the greatness of God in the greatness of man." We would say that it is man in his primitive condition, made in the image of God, "a little less than God," and the ruler over the works of God; man as fallen, yet blessed with the divine visitations of mercy; and man by impli cation, as redeemed by the Son of God.

This prevailing topic is prefaced by an ascription of praise to Jehovah :

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Who hast spread thy glory upon the heavens;

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,
Because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger.

The psalmist then introduces the prevailing subject of the fol lowing verses, namely, man as frail and mortal, but yet originally almost divine, crowned with glory and honor, and ruler over the works of the Divine hand; and the last verse closes with a second ascription of praise in precisely the same terms as those of the first

verse.

§ 2. Is this psalm Messianic?

It is plainly not Messianic in the sense that Messiah is the exclusive subject. The Messiah is, however, an included subject, as man is the general subject, and Messiah, as possessed of human nature, is therefore included.

Hence the apostle, Heb. ii, 5-9, applies this psalm to Christ: "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come [the Gospel dispensation] whereof we speak; but one in a certain place [the Eighth Psalm] testified saying:

What is man that thou art mindful of him,

Or the Son of man that thou visitest him?

Thou didst make him [originally] a little lower than the angels;
Thou didst crown him with glory and honor;

Thou didst put all things under his feet.

For in that He [God] did put all things under him [man]; he left nothing which was not put under him. But we see Jesus [in human nature] made a little lower than the angels for the reason that he must suffer death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for every man."

Jesus, therefore, as man, is crowned with glory and honor. His earthly glory was great, but his heavenly glory is greater. We see, indeed, not yet all things put under him actually, but they are prospectively put under him. In the purpose of the Father he is the Ruler over all.

We do not, therefore, call this psalm Messianic in the same sense as the second, twenty-second, twenty-fourth, fortieth, forty-fifth, seventy-second, and one hundred and tenth. These psalms we take to be exclusively Messianic; and it is not necessary to understand the apostle's quotation of the eighth Psalm, as implying its exclusive Messianic character; only that Jesus is referred to and included in human nature; and as God gave to man originally the government of the world, made him ruler over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, (Gen. i, 20-25,) so all things shall be subject to Jesus as the head of human nature.

§ 3. What is the meaning of in ver. 5?

We make this a matter of distinct inquiry, because our translators, following the Septuagint, Vulgate and Chaldee, have rendered it by the term "angels" a very doubtful signification, and a rendering which, so far as we remember, is not followed elsewhere by our version. The following are the only passages to which this signification has been thought to belong, namely, Psa. lxxxii, 1; xcvii, 7, and cxxxviii, 1, and verse 5 of this Psalm.

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"angels;"

De Wette and Bleeke, following Syrus, render but if we compare verses second and sixth, it would seem that we are rather to understand princes of the land, who are hence called, gods, because they, as judges who stand in the

place of God, are administrators of justice. Compare especially the sixth and seventh verses, where God thus addresses them :

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Which we may paraphrase thus: Though I said ye are gods, highly exalted and standing in the divine place as judges in the land, yet on account of your unjust verdicts, oppressive to the poor and the needy, ye shall die as one of the common herd, ye shall fall by sudden and violent deaths. Death temporal, and that by violence, could not be predicable of angels; and hence the translation of Syrus, De Wette, and Bleeke is untenable.

The next passage in which it is supposed by means angels is found in the ninety-seventh psalm, seventh verse:

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Septuagint: προσκυνήσατε αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι ἀυτοῦ.
Worship Him, all ye his angels.

So the Vulgate and the Syriac. But the context plainly obliges us to refer it to false gods, and by metonomy those that worship them. Hence Hengstenberg: "The false gods are called upon to worship through the medium of their servants. The idol gods are also in other passages frequently viewed poetically, as gifted momentarily with life and feeling, only for the purpose of exhibiting the Lord as triumphing over them; compare Exod. xii, 12; Num. xxxiii, 4: "And upon their gods has the Lord executed judgment;" Isa. xix, 1: "Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and cometh to Egypt, and the gods of the Egyptians are moved at his presence." The Septuagint could not understand this representation, and substituted angels instead of gods, to whom what was said could apply only by an inference, as a majore ad minus; if the proud gods of the heathen cannot measure themselves with the Lord, how much less may the angels. Heb. i, 6. As decisive against the direct

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