union with rite and ceremony, and type and figure, with allusion to passing occurrences, and appeals to national feeling, so that it becomes difficult to trace the footsteps of prophecy through the strain of inspiration, or to mark the limit between what is merely literal and what is strictly prophetical. In the first species of composition, the mode of interpretation which the Apostle to the Galatians applies to History, may fairly be extended to the sacred poet, nor "is there" says Bishop Horseley, “a single page in which the pious reader will not find his Saviour, if he read to find him." "David's complaints, are those of the Messiah-David's afflictions, are Messiah's sufferings-David's penitential supplications, are the supplications of Messiah in agony-David's songs of triumph and thanksgiving, are Messiah's songs for victory over sin, and death, and hell"—and under the public history of Israel, its reverses, its sufferings, its final elevation, the fortunes, the persecution, the glories of the Church of God, are not obscurely intimated. In the latter species, when the Prophet rises with his mighty theme, he throws off the encumbrance of type and figure, and in that drama, which in its period includes all time, and in its place the illimitable universe, he introduces with mighty daring as the specta

tors and the actors, the eternal Godhead, the incarnate Son, the Church militant on Earth, the Church triumphant in Heaven, and Angels, the ministers of his will, who wait to do his bidding. Of this sacred and unambiguous style, the second, the forty-fifth, parts of the twentyfourth and sixty-eighth Psalms, and the Psalm before us, are splendid specimens; unequalled, perhaps, but by the strains of the evangelical Isaiah, or the sublimer visions of the Apocalyptic prophecy. Among the more involved examples of direct prediction, other parts of the twenty-fourth and sixty-eighth Psalms may be enumerated, which in addition to the difficulties inherent in the nature of prophecy, present others, from the guise in which the Holy Spirit has been pleased to clothe its visions; seizing on the occurrences of a great religious solemnity, and rendering it not easy to mark the boundary between the scene present to the Prophet's eye, and that which was but impressed upon his enraptured fancy. It may, indeed, be said in general, that the prophetic is in its nature more obscure than the historical Psalm, as resulting from immediate inspiration, which presents to the eye of the Prophet, shifting and varying visions, whose change is not always perceptible, or succession always to be traced; but it may be re

marked that this difficulty is diminished, and the unity of these sacred songs, their connexion and coherence then best observed and made apparent, when the reader or the commentator seeks in them for the development of the Divine attributes in the dealings of God with his people, and sees in the intellectual and moral creation, Jesus Christ "who filleth all in all."

The Psalm to which I would now call your attention, has long been the source of joy and edifying to the Christian world.-Consecrated by the Church to the solemn service of the Nativity, by it have the pious for ages solemnized their devotions, and addressed as their God the Lord of David-none of the sacred collection seems to have been so frequently quoted by the inspired writers of the New Testament; by its well-known application to the Messiah, were the Pharisees confounded by our Lord; by it were the fears awakened and the faith confirmed, of the multitude to whom Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, and from it did the Apostle to the Hebrews draw his decisive proof, that the Messiah was far exalted above the Angelic host, for "to which of the Angels said he at any time, sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" That the

Psalm then alludes to the Messiah, we professing Christians can have no doubt, or that the Author of it is the son of Jesse-and although the modern Jews, seeing the advantage gained to the Christian cause by this application of prophecy, have endeavoured to pervert its meaning, we have the Ancient Jewish Church symbolizing on our side, and the ancient commentators, with but few exceptions, unanimous in declaring the "Adon" of David to be the Messiah. That such was the prevailing opinion at the time of our Lord, is manifest from the reception which his question met with-had a different application prevailed or even been suggested, how eagerly would the Pharisees have availed themselves of its shelter to evade the force of our Lord's reasoning; or could they have used the refuge of modern commentators, that of making David its primary object, they might have denied. its secondary meaning. Many modern Jews, indeed, compelled by the language of the Prophet, confess its meaning to be fulfilled in the Messiah, though they deny the Messiahship to Jesus of Nazareth; but others make Eleazar the Steward of Abraham, author of the Psalm, and suppose it addressed to that Patriarchwhile some suppose David, others Solomon, Hezekiah, or Zerubbabel to be its object. The

wildness of these conjectures effectually disprove them-to which of these personages did the regal, prophetic, and sacerdotal characters so peculiarly belong? Which of them in conjunction with unbounded rule could be denominated a priest for ever? Which, as St. Peter argues, could without blasphemy, be said to sit down at the right hand of God? We have in the Psalm, the accession of some great potentate to his throne-we have unlimited rule promised, an everlasting priesthood conferred, and the utter destruction of his enemies denounced; the number of his people compared to the dew drops, which from the womb of the morning spangled and brightened the early grass,-thé downfall of his enemies declared, and blessings and elevation promised to his followers; and round all this, by the magnificence of the subject, the severe sublimity of the expressions, and the awful grandeur of the dialogue, there is a superhuman halo thrown, which would make it profanation to apply it to a lower than the Messiah. Who but he was David's Lord, and in such strict communion with Jehovah, as is described by "sitting at his right hand ?" who but he, a conqueror reigning at Jerusalem, King to all eternity, having an everlasting priesthood, Judge of all