BR 45 .B35 1876 Bampton lectures THE BAMPTON LECTUEES, 1876 LONDON : PRINTED BY SrOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET 8QUAKE AND PARLIAMENT STREET The Bampton Lectures, 1876. THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHEIST AND CHRISTIANITY. EIGHT LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR 1876 ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. CANON OF SALISBURY. By WILLIAM ALEXANDEE, D.D., D.C.L. BRASENOSE COLLEGE : BISHOP OF DERRY AND RAPHOE. LONDON : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1877. The right of translation is reserved. TO CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER, IN REMEMBRANCE OF TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF HELPFUL LOVE AND HOLY EXAMPLE— WITH FULL ASSURANCE THAT HIS OWN ESTIMATE OP HER HYMNS AND SACRED SONGS IS THAT OF THE CHURCH AND OF ENGLISH - SPEAKING CHRISTIANS GENERALLY— THIS ATTEMPT TO INTERPRET THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HIGHEST OF ALL SACRED SONGS BY HER HUSBAND. Palace, Derry : Februai^ 1, 1877. EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE EEV. JOHN HAMPTON, CANON OF SAXISBUEY. ' I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chan- cellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said Univer- sity, and to be performed in the manner following : ' I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the after- noon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year fol- lowins:, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of viii EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTONS WILL. the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. ' Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the writings of the primi- tive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Chris- tian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. ' Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and the expenses of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. ' Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Univer- sities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.' ^"u wVwVVvr'*'''^"'^ ^ J A Xi SYNOPSIS LECTURE I, Subject stated ,,,,.,... Its fitness for the Bampton Lectures. .... Witness of the Psahns to Christianity inchides : — i. Witness to the Christian Character (Lecture IV.) . ii. ,, Christian Worship (Lecture V.) ill. „ Christian Church (Lecture V.) iv. ,, Christian r/ieo%y (Lectures VL, VII.) PAGE 3 4 6 iS 6 IL Witness of the Psalms to Christ (Lectures I., II.) . . . 6 Predictive element in Prophecy essential, but not exclusive . . 7 Messianic Prediction in Psalms sufficiently i)erspicuous — The main difficulty lies in disengaging Messianic facts from theories about them ........ Psalm xxii. proposed for special consideration . . . .8-10 III. Two previous considerations 1, Criteria for testing the superhuman origin of single Prophecies ; 1. Known prior promulgation. ..... 2. Sufficiency of correspondence . 10 ]0 10 X SYNOPSIS. VAGE 3. Remoteness, chronological and moral .... 10 4. Non-isolation . . . . . . . . .11 5. Parsimonious but characteristic, particularity ... 11 6. Worthiness of spiritual purpose .... 10-12 11. Schemes of interpretation of Psalm xxii. (1) Rationalistic, (2) Christian : — 1. Rationalistic — represented by Reuss . . . 13-15 2. Christian — represented by Bossuet ..... 16 Presuppositions for Christian interpretation. Who is the For- saken One of verse 1 ? ....... 17 Particular traits in the delineation ; special discussion of verse 16 17-18 Constructive answer to the question ...... 20 The general view satisfies the criteria proposed . . . 16-22 lY. The establishment of the Prophetical character of one Psalm makes it unlikely that it will stand alone .... 23 Principle of coUigatio7i of Messianic coincidences in the Psalter. Divided into two classes : — 1. Those which delineate His character .... 23 2. Those which delineate His life ..... 24 This mode of interpretation is not fanciful .... 28 Illustrations from Satire and Allegory of the coll'ujating power of a known general purpose or scheme ..... 28 Swift and Spenser ........ 28-30 Y. Current depreciation, I. Of the 'Christ Ideal' 30-31 II. Of emotional contemplation of it . . . . 31-32 Answered — (I.) By an appeal to facts. (II.) By the analogy of the ' Duty-IdeaV 32-33 Christ our Interpreter of Psalm xxii. ..... 33 Moral Force of that interpretation ..... 33-34 SYNOPSIS. XI LECTURE II. PAGK General divisions of Messianic Psalms ..... 37 I. Suhjectively Messianic Psalms ....... 37 Antecedent psychological objections of no weight . . 37-38 Subjectively Messianic Psalms to be explained by the characte- ristics of our Lord's humanity . . . . . 40-41 Two questions of great importance suggested by this classifi- cation : — i. How are we to understand passages which speak of sin in connection with Messiah ? . . . . . .41 Answered 42-44 ii. How are we to understand the imprecatory portions of these Psalms? ........ 44 Bishop Home's explanation insufficient ..... 45 We must first consider the Character of our Lord ... 45 The appreciation of that character involves the reception of the Incarnation ......... 45 The imprecatory Psalms express the more awful side of that character .......... 48 Evil in Scripture represented as concentrated ]n successive prin- ciples, persons, systems ....... 49 No other solution meets obvious objections .... 51 {a) Not that which regards ' enemies ' as spiritual foes — though valuable, and partially true .... 51 (6) Not that which explains imprecation as the utterance of a low and legal spirit . . . . • • .52 1. It is unjust to David .... ... 53 2. To the elder Dispensation 53-54 3. Fatal to reverence for Scripture 54 General point of view ....... 50-57 II. Historico-typically Messianic Psalms ....■- ^^ Principle of Reversion .....-■■ ^^ xii SYNOPSIS. III. PAGE Mystically Messianic Psalms .59 This kind of interpretation admissible ..... 59 IV. Objectively Messianic Psalms ....... 61 Psalm ii - . 61 „ xlv 61 „ ex 61-62 Objection to the entire view of Messianic Prophecy — from sup- posed failure in result ....... 62-63 Psalms and Prophecies had done their work when Messiah came .......... 64-65 Two consequences : — 1. Prophecy must be taken into account in constructing a Life of our Lord 66 2. A general principle of interpretation is gained . . 66 The life of the Psalter bound up with its association with Christ 67-68 LECTURE III. I. Two objections to the use of the Psalter as a Christian Manual. (A) From the Character and History of David. (B) From the indistinctness of the Hope of Immortality in it . . 71 A. Moral objection from the character of David .... 71 Question of the Davidic authorship of a large portion of the Psalms .......... 71 Evidence of the Titles of the Psalms ; how far to be used . 72 Fanciful conjectures from internal evidence .... 73 Denial of Davidic authorship of — 1. Psalm li 74 2. Psalm xxxii. ........ 74 SYNOPSIS. xiii ii. PAGE Moral objections to David ........ 76 Considerations suggested. ........ 77 Illustrative parallel of Charles the Great. ..... 78 Contradiction between David's life and the tone of many of the Psalms attributed to him apparent and superficial , 79-80 Witness of Mr. Carlyle 81 The Psalms wonderful in proportion to the severity of our esti- mate of David ... ...... 82 B. Second objection to the fitness of the Psalms to witness for Christ and Christianity, from alleged indefiniteness or negation of the Hope of Immortality .... ... 85 Judaism must have had that hope, or its later developments could not have been harmonised with its first rudiments . 85 Two general considerations before studying Texts in detail . 85 i. Peculiar reasons for reserve in the case of Moses . . 85-86 ii. The sanction of immortality not to be expected in the portion of Mosaism which consists of legal enactment ... 86 3- Alleged silence or denial of the Psalter ; Klostermann's conclu- sion . . . . . 90 Two general considerations ....... 91 i. Psalter would be incomplete without an expression of the sad- ness which comes with the prospect of Death ... 91 ii. One peculiar aspect of the solemn mystery of death is thus impressed upon us ........ 92 xiv SYNOPSIS. PAGE The intermediate state, and the Hebrew feeling about Sh'ol 9 J -93 Death not, per sc, a state of Joy. ..... 93-94 Psalm CXXX. 3- Indications of the Idea of Man's Immortality in earlier portion of the Old Testament 95 i. In its teaching about God ........ 95 1. God's Omnipotence. The Sacrifice of Isaac. 2. God's Love. ii. Its teaching about Man ........ 95 Death, so to speak, an after-thought iii. Particular passages 96-98 LECTURE IV. The predelineation of the Christian character in the Psalms is a standing prophecy of the Gospel ...... 105 I. The Christian character viewed in relation (i.) to God, (ii.) to the Church, and (iii. ) to self 106 i. In relation to God ......... 106 1. Religion is a present joy for the Psalmists . . . 106 This feature in the Psalms answers an objection -©f Mr. Mill— Aristotle's ai^Spelosr 109 2. A deep sense of sinfulness . . . . . . Ill The Penitential Psalms ........ Ill Richness of the Psalms in words for sin and pardon . . .112 SYNOPSIS. XV 11. The Christian character in relation to the Church Equipoise of rubrical and spiritual elements .... Use and abuse of ivill, sentimentj reason, imagination, in religion. — Abuse of imagination, forraalism. — Religious character for which Psalmists provide is not formal, but spiritualises forms Psalmists are Church poets ....... And Evangelical poets. — The 132nd Psalm, as well as the 110th, a Psalm of Messianic priesthood ..... Lesson in dealing with formalism ...... PAGE 112 112 113 115 116 117 m. Christian character in relation to self . . . . . . 11 8 Regulation of thought distinctively Christian .... 118 Emphasised by the Psalms ....... 118 (^ther traits of Christian character in the Psalms — The ' broken spirit ' ; the childlike soul in the 131st Psalm ; the Beati- tudes 119 Summary ........... 121 II. Providential fitness of the various experiences of David to suit the various phases of the Christian life .... This characteristic pressed as an argument against their Davidic origin .......... The Psalter a rare and precious gift ..... Prayers rare and precious ....... Thus, in the Psalms we have a prophetic Manual of Prayer The Psalms a spiritual test ...... 121 123 124 124 128 129 LECTURE V. Our Lord came to gather His people into a community Is this community prepared for in the Psalter ? . 133 133 Three great images of the Church in the Psalms — (i.) a City, Sion or Jerusalem, (ii.) a Kingdom, (iii.) a Bride . . 134 xvi SYNOPSIS. i. PAGE A City 134 Psalm Ixxxvii. discussed — Sion a prophetic word for the Church 134 Prophecy of the Church's Catholicity, and of entrance into her by a new birth ......... 137 The City — Sion or Jerusalem — the type of the Church in her objectivity in the Psalter ....... 139 Calvin upon the 48th Psalm 140 ii. The Church a Kingdom in the Psalms 140 Psalm Ixxii. ; delineation of the influence of Christianity in it . 141 The Church an organised body — David's kingdom ennobled and transformed ......... 141 Psalms of Israel's National History are thus not effete or superannuated in the Christian Church .... 142 1. The National History of Israel marked by facts which become typical and predictive, and pass with a fixed significance into the spiritual language of the Christian Church • . 143 Hence the Psalms, as being Divinely pre-arranged, allow a considerable space for the History of the elder Dispensation — Psalm cxiv.: — Rosen- iniiller and Dante ...... 144 2. Transfer to Christianity of permanently valuable elements of Judaism ........ 145 iii. The Church a Bride in the Psalms ...... 140 II. This view contrasted with current theory of the Church . . 147 The Evangelical Alliance ; its mistake, its better and nobler side 149 Our hope of unity ......... 151 III. Witness of the Psalter to the Church . . . . . .152 Psalms cxxxii., cxxxiii., cxxxiv. ...... 152 The idea of the Church needful for full appreciation of the Psalter .155 SYXOPSIS. xvii LECTURE VI. PAGK Inscription over Cathedral at Damascus proves that 145th Psalm was addressed to our Lord by those who reared the Church ] 59 Is this interpretation tenable ?....... 159 Witness in Psalms both to the adoration of our Lord, and to the general system of the Church's worship .... IGO I. Preliminary witness of the Psalms to the reality of the spiritual world, and of religion in the more general sense of the word IGO IL Witness of the Psalms — (i.) to the worship of Christ, (ii.) to worship in forms specifically Christian . . . .164 1. Worship of Girist in the Psalter recognised in the New Testa- ment, Hebrews i. ........ 164 The Psalter leads to the worship of Jesus, (1) by way of general preparation, and (2) by a special provision .... 165 1. The general preparation — condescension in speaking of God 165 2. The special provision — the so-called Adonaic style in the Psalms . 166 ii. Witness of the Psalms to worship in forms specifically Christian — Christian seasons provided for by anticipation . Christian thought in the order of the Psalms The Gospel — what is it ? . The Psalms recognise it ..... • Canonical Hours — Antiphons In the fitness of the Psalms for Christian worship we have a Prophetic fact ....... The coincidence completed by the form of the Psalms Parallelism, or ' Thought-metre ' . . . . a 168 169 171 171 174 17<> 177 177- xviii SYNOPSIS. PAGB Hebrew poetry fitted for translation into all languages, and therefore, for a universal religion ..... 181 A preparation in the Psalter for the Music and Cathedrals of the Church 182-187 LECTURE VII. Witness of the Psalms to Christian Theology .... 191 I. Preliminary consideration of the contemplation of Nature in the Psalter .......... Humboldt's view ; the Psalmists serious ..... 191 Psalm xxix. ; not pervaded by ' wild exhilaration.' Psalms xxxvi., Iviii., &c 193-194 Contemplation of Nature in Psalms has three characteristics : — 1. Grandeur ......... 196 9 Spiritual transparency ....... 19C Psalms cii., cxlvii., Ixv 197-198 3. Direct reference to God ........ 199 Classical writers not serious in connecting Nature with the gods. The ' Psalmist of Eleusis ; ' ^ Cicero ' De Naturd Deorum ; ' Hindu Pantheism colossal rather than sublime . . 199-201 II. Great Ideas of Christian Theology in the Psalter . . . 201 i. Theistic ' . . . .202 Republication of Natural Religion in the Psalter, and its value . 202 The Psalms are capable of Theological construction . . . 202 An omission in the Psalter ....... 207 ii. Christological ideas in the Psalms . . . . _ . . 208 Athanasius . . . • ... . . . 208 iii. Anthropological ideas in the Psalter ...... 209 Argument from Design in Nature and History :— 1 Grote. SYNOPSIS. XIX 1. Nature 210 2. History 211 Historical coincidence between men and circumstances leads to question of Traducianism (or Generationism) and Crea- tionism .......... 212 Creationism (with due allowance for the other hypothesis, Psalm li. 5) is the Psalmist's Creed ...... 213 Psalm cxxxix. ....... . . 214-216 IV. Theological ideas of Justification and Sacramental Grace witnessed to by the Psalter 217 Justification, Psalms xxxii., cxxx., cxliii. ..... 217 Atonement, Psalm xl. ........ 217 Grace, Psalm Ixiii. ......... 218 New Birth, Psalm Ixxxvii. . . . . . . . 218 Eucharistic Grace, Psalm xxii. 26, 29, &c. ..... 218 Summary of the argument ....... 220-222 LECTURE VIII. Recapitulation of the argument 225-229 Practical aj)plications : — i. The use of the Psalter a test of the Church's spiritual life 230 ii. The Psalter can only really be used as in our own service 231 Compensation for the Psalms cannot be found in Hymns . . 233 Love of early Christians for the Psalter ..... 235 Two means of restoring the Psalter to its proper place in the affections of the Church : — 1. Educating and catechising the young into intelligent knowledge of it . . . . . . . . 238 2. Seeing Christ, His Church, and Christianity in it . . 239 Enthusiasm for the Psalter at Hippo under St. Augustine . . 239 Can it be revived ? 239 Two other forms of Witness to Christianity in the Psalms : — Their Witness to individual Christianity 242 x^ SYXOPSIS. Iiistaiices . Conclusion from this PAGE 242 246 Their Witness to iinfuliilled promises 1. To the gathering in of Israel Psalm cxviii, 2. To the times of restitution Psalms xcvi., xcvii., xcviii, 3. Principle of intensity Instances Spiritual use in ministering to Hope Conclusion .... . 247 . 247 . 248 . 248 . 249 . 249 . 250 . 252 LECTUEE I. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. /f V T Psalm xxii. 15. B Bampton Lectures. THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. LECTUEE I. In this series of Lectures I shall attempt to present, in a systematic view, the varied Witness to Christ and Christi- anity which is afforded by the Book of Psalms. Independently of its proper interest and instruction, this subject has a special claim to be considered as coming within the range of those which were contem- plated by the founder of the BauLpton Lectures. The other books of the Old Testament may, for the most part, be kept at a convenient distance. It was said by the most popular Christian Apologist of the last genera- tion, that it is an artifice of unbelieving controversy to 'attack Christianity through the sides of Judaism,' and to ' make the New Testament answerable with its very life b2 4 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. for the Old.' ^ When the attack is pressed in the extrava- gant forms which Paley proceeds to mention, his defence is worthy of serious consideration. There is, however, a sense in which those who adva.nce along: this line towards the citadel of the faith are not guilty of artifice. There is a sense in which the responsibility must be borne. But, then, as regards a great part of the Old Testament^ it is an ultimate responsibility of the logical faculties. It lies, even for thoughtful minds, at a practically un- defined distance. But the Psalms are interwoven with the texture of the New Testament. They are so, indeed, to a de- gree which can scarcely be imagined by any one who has not •directed his special attention to the subject,^ and marked down, not only certain palmary passages, but literally hun- dreds of at first unsuspected hints, allusions, and expres- sions. But, over and above this, the echoes of the Psalms rather multiply than decrease even in the !^ineteenth Cen- tury. The words of Aristotle did not become more com- pletely stamped upon the language of the world in the Middle Ages than the words of the Psalms upon the language of devotion and Theology in the Church of every age. It is not merely that preachers occasionally quote the magnificent encomium of Hooker. It is not merely that an enormous literature of criticism and devotion has accumulated round the Psalter, so that a competent scholar, many years ago, reckoned up six hundred and thirty separate commen- taries on the subject.^ The Psalms occupy about a fifth ' Paley 's Evidences, Part III. suit {Bihllothcca 8. Pat. 1723. II. chapter 3. 1098), exceptis iis qui in universam ^ See Appendix. Note A. S. S. commentati sunt.' — Dank, Hist. ^ 'Le Long, sedulus si quis alius Bev. Biv. i. 287. et exactus perscrutator, ad 630 recen- LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 5 of our English Prayer Book. They are more familiar than the words of Ken or Cowper. Of the many aspects presented by an English Cathedral, there is one which is often overlooked; it is a shrine for the Psalter. The Great Teacher, who saw into the depths of Scripture with such penetrating insight, once spoke of it as a chain of which no link can be broken without rupture or disloca- tion of the whole, ov hvvarai XvOrjvai i) 'ypacf)^.^ But that may be in the ultimate consequences of things ; in the way of remote, and sometimes unsus23ected deductions from premisses not distinctly formulated. It may be in the long run, in the lifetime, not of an individual, but of a community or of a nation. For instance ; a disbelic^f in the Bible account of the creation of man, however ex- plained, may co-exist — it is to be feared, illogically — with a reverence for the supreme authority of Christ. It can scarcely be so with the Book which we propose to examine. The Psalmists cannot be put away from us, with an impatient shrug, to a more convenient season. At marriages and funerals, by sick-beds and in stately ceremonials, in churches and homes, they make their voices heard at every turn. They are as near to us as the Evangelists themselves. Christianity is responsible for the Psalter with its very life. The second division of our subject — the Witness of the Psalms to Christianity — has, less frequently than the first,, been distinctly contemplated by Christian preachers. Under the complex term Christianity,. I shall include four sejDarate conceptions : • St. John X. 35. 6 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. i. That whole tendency of heart and mind which leads those who are under its influence to feel, act, and pray in a particular way — in a word, the Christian Character. ii. The outward expression in appropriate utterance of this prevailing tone or life — in a word, Christian WorshiiJ. iii. The enunciation, at least in pregnant germs, of those primary intellectual conceptions which give form and consistency to the spiritual life — in a word. Christian Theology. iv. That great organisation — the community of souls which is stamped with that peculiar character, which utters the adoration of its heart in that peculiar worship, which frames its intellectual conceptions in that peculiar mould — in a word, the Christian Church. The contemplation of a Character, which, under the elder dispensation, was not yet perfected ; the provision for a Worship, which did not yet exist ; the anticipation of a Theology, which was not yet elaborated ; the delineation of an organised Body, which was not yet established ; are proj)hecies, which may be submitted to the most stringent tests. II. It will be understood that he who speaks of the Witness of the Psalms to Christ can scarcely belong to the school of those for whom the predictive element in Prophecy is secondary and unessential. There are many who con- ceive the word to have little significance beyond that which it bears in the title of Jeremy Taylor's famous book.^ For them the Prophets are preachers of a reli- ' It should be remembered that the 'Liberty of Prophesying' does not represent the maturity of Taylor's intellect or convictions. LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 7 gion, tolerant, unritualistic, and unsectarian. They are incorruptible political Pmitans. They are, in a degree, prelusive echoes of the voice of a Free Press. After making the necessary allowances, they resemble the young and eloquent chief of the Eclectic philosophy, v^hen in 1820 his burning words, delivered from a Professor's chair in the Sorbonne, stirred the mind and spirit of the youth of France. They may be thought of as chiefs of a Hebrew Liberal party, as writers of a kind of glorified Leading Arti- cles at once sublime and obscure. But their special func- tion as pre-announcers of the Historical Christ is denied, or ignored. It will generally be found that those who wish tu remove or minimise the predictive are impatient of the miraculous — for the predictive is the written form of the miraculous. It is, indeed, never to be forgotten that the utterances of the Prophets are not merely predictive. The English Divines of the last century often used language which might seem capable of such a construction. The general tendency to this partial view was, probably, increased by a misapprehension of the limits which the context implied to Bishop Butler's apparently unguarded statement — ' Pro- phecy is nothing hut the history of events before they come to pass.' On the contrary, the Hebrew Prophets enunciate those great moral and even political axioms, which, as Coleridge says, ^are permanent prophecies because they are at the same time eternal truths, predictions which in containing the grounds of fulfilment involve the principle of foresight, and teach the science of the future in its perpetual elements.' Invectives against superstition and 8 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. sin ; words of comfort to the weary and heavy-laden ; occasional warnings about the political relations of the Theocracy ; are mingled with vaticination. Above all, and that more especially in the Psalms, the principles of a higher spiritual life are developed, in a line of progress which runs parallel with the development of the image of Him who was to be the Author of that life. To the importance of this whole side of Prophecy, more espe- cially in its political relations, the attention of English- men was first prominently called by the great thinker just quoted. His once famous Lay Sermon owed its origin to this. From this part of the Prophetic Office arose one great characteristic of the history of Israel. In other Eastern countries, two iron hands have been laid upon the moral and intellectual life of man, the hand of the Priest and that of the Despot. Among the Jews, des- potism and priesthood existed. An order of Prophets was recognised in Egypt, but it was absolutely identified with the Sacerdotal Caste. The Priesthood of Israel was prevented from becoming Egyptian or Brahminical ^ by the independent existence of the Prophets. They saved the plant of spiritual religion from dwarfing and dying, under the cultivation of a caste in the enjoyment of a monopoly. In the worst of times there was not wanting a mysterious voice which spoke the accents of conscience and liberty in the ear of despots. But if we are to be on our guard against the exaggeration which has been, not without injustice, attributed to Bishop Butler, we ' Ewald. History, i. 563. LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 9 must, in the present conditions of thought, be still more careful to avoid that which may be derived from Mr. Coleridge's writings. To forthtell (etwas weissagen) is, no doubt, a main characteristic of the Prophet. But the t^^lp is not the demagogue who scatters his burning words among the masses. He is not the rational and philoso- phical Divine who speaks a sublime and sanctified common sense. He is the man who rebukes, utters, or predicts ; — but the essential idea is that he does so under the influ- ence of another and higher power than his own, that he obtains and announces a Divine Eevelation. It has been remarked by Bishop Horsley that predic- tion in its highest form, the Messianic, is nowhere more perspicuous than in the Psalms. Yet nowhere is it more overlooked. One cause of the feeble impression produced by these passages is, certainly, the enormous mass of criticism and speculation which has overlaid and buried the text. Nowhere has the preacher more emphatically to lament the barren superfluity of his materials ; the often thin and shadowy substratum of result under gigantic layers of books. What Psalms are objectively, what sub- jectively, what typically, what mystically Messianic ; — how far we are to recognise an ideally Pighteous Man sufi'ering and glorified, whose features, projected in the mirror of the Psalms, assume a strange and touching like- ness to the King of Sorrow and of Glory ; — whether, and how far, the thought and personality of the Psalmists were protended to, and absorbed by, the Divine Object of their contemplation ; — these are speculations of great interest and importance, but they are speculations after all. I 10 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. desire to lay hold, in the first place, if possible, of one solid Messianic fact, apart from all theories about the mode in which it may have been presented to the Prophet. We may then hope to proceed with better assurance of success ; for truth emerges from error itself more readily than from confusion. Let us then begin by considering the Twenty-second Psalm. Let us see what witness it gives to a sincere enquirer, possessed of the ordinary means of investi- gation. IIL But it will lead us more directly to our object, if, before entering upon this enquiry, we provide ourselves with tests, or criteria, by which to examine whether ' single examples of prophecy ' may reasonably be referred to a higher than human origin. i. Three such tests were many years ago laid down by a venerated divine of this University in his ' Discourses on Prophecy.' ^ They are briefly these : (1) Known promulgation prior to the event. (2) Sufficiency of correspondence between the predic- tion and the result. (3) Chronological, or moral remoteness, in the date or in the nature of the event. The first excludes forged or manipulated prophecies ; the second, equivocal coinci- dences ; the third, random forecasts, felicitous guesses, sagacious anticipations, predictions in the form of uni- versal principles, which, as Mr. Coleridge says, ' contain ^ Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, riii.-ix., 374-426. LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 11 the grounds of their own falfihnent.' Gibbon speaks of a prophecy which was affixed to an equestrian statue in Constantinople, about a.d. 955, to the effect that Russia in the last days should be mistress of Constantinople. He goes on to mention that there are writers who witness to this fact about a.d. 1100. 'Perhaps,' he adds, 'the present generation may yet behold the accomplishment of this prediction — a rare prediction, of which the style is unambiguous and the date unquestionable.' ^ Gibbon's lan- guage implies that a style sufficiently unambiguous and a date sufficiently certain would be enough to establish a species of vaticination inexplicable upon ordinary prin- ciples. And it would occur to most persons at once to cite the prophecies which relate to the fall and dispersion of the Jewish people. But those who believe in the Divine origin of prophecy can afford to be more exacting, and to give additional stringency to the tests proposed by Mr. Davison. They may claim beyond those — (4) That the prediction, though capable of being con- sidered separately, shall not in itself be detached and iso- lated, but part of a connected and systematic whole. (5) That the sufficiency of correspondence shall be en- hanced by a prediction not absolutely general and colour- less, but enriched with a certain number of particular adjuncts. (6) On the moral side — That the prediction shall not be of a nature merely to gratify private feeling, or stimu- late an otiose curiosity, but shall have some reference to an end worthy of a Divine Author. * Chapter Iv. 12 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. That tliese tests are necessary will readily be under- stood. Very extraordinary forecasts may be made by sagacious men, from the application of historical analogy, or from the possession of general principles ; — every general principle being a species of prophecy pregnant with repeated fulfilments. Of this kind was the anticipation of Polybius that Rome would become imperial, because he had observed that democracies and aristocracies end in empires. A less well-known illustration is afforded by Archbishop Browne's sermon, preached in Christ Church, Dublin, on Easter Da}^, 1551, in which he said of tlie Jesuits that ' the Society shall be cut off by the hands of those who most succoured them ; that at the end they shall become odious to all nations, having no resting-place upon earth., and then shall a Jew have more favour than a Jesuit.' In such cases there is a want of that moral remoteness which has been laid down as necessary to give us a conviction of a superhuman origin. Examples might be multiplied of men, who, under an intense feeling of righteous indignation, have been led to give utterance to sayings which have been accepted by their contemporaries as the sentence of the Judge of all the earth. IN'ational wickedness has elicited from men of fervent piety im- passioned invectives which have been strangely fulfilled, as in the case of the marvellous prediction of the French Revolution delivered by Beauregard in Notre Dame, thir- teen years before that event. But none of these can submit to be confronted with all the tests which have been laid down, in order that our interpretation of the Twenty-second Psalm may be compared with them.^ * Appendix. Note B. LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHltlSTIANITY. 13 11. Let us now proceed to contrast the Eationalist and Christian interpretations of that Psahn. The former may fairly be represented by Professor Renss, of Strasburg, whose exposition is as follows : ^ — ' Here is a Psalm, simple, transparent, without any grammatical difficulty, confining itself to generalities, making no allusion to particular facts which can only be discovered by critical combinations more or less ingenious ; which yet has caused heated controversies and incredible divisions among commentators, who have been misled by the necessity of finding imaginary traces of an individual history. ' The piece is composed of two parts. In the first, the person who speaks deplores his misfortune, speaks of mortal dangers which menace him, describes the state of humiliation and misery to which he is reduced, and implores with cries the succour of a God who seems to have abandoiied the suppliant. This fervent prayer, from the very fact of its maintaining the relation between the faithful and his God, gives him the hope of being heard. Thus, the second part of the poem places itself at the stand-point of this perspective, and passionately im- plores the aid of Divine Grace, so as to forget the present situation. More than this — the horizon is enlarged, and the glory of the future aj^pears brilliant in proportion to ^ La Bihlc. Traductinn NonveJle rUniversite de Strasbourg:. Cinquieme avec Introductions et Commcntaircs. Partio, pp. 115-121. Par Edouard Reuss, Prcfesseur a 14 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. the darkness and sorrow of tlie momentary abasement. The main question is to know who speaks in the Psahn? The inscription tells us that it is David, and, of course, the pursuit of Saul forms the stock of the exegesis which feels constrained to subscribe to the conjectures of the Eabbis. We shall not amuse ourselves by discussing an impossible interpretation. ' But the subject of the Psalm, the person who speaks in it, is it really an individual ? He consistently speaks in the singular. The third and fourth strophes aj)pear to exclude all doubt on the subject. ' I am a worm and no man,' ' Thou art He that took me out of the womb,' and the rest. In spite of all this we are of a different opinion. The second strophe, in speaking of ' our fathers,' already puts them in relation to the present situation. And this allows us to see a more perfect parallelism between the two epochs of the history, no matter of what epoch t]^^ poet thought in speaking of the times when the prayers of Israel were more promptly heard. Again ; unless my feeling of the passage greatly deceives me, the * long list of ferocious beasts places us in presence, not of individuals, but of assembled enemies, hostile peoples. But the four concluding strophes absolve us from the necessity of further hesitation. In them, the deliverance of this so-called individual becomes the subject of thanks for all Israel present and future. The Unhappy Otie changes into the unhappy ones. Finally, in view of this deliverance, the entije Pagan world will be converted. The Psalm depicts and deplores the profound misery of the people of God under a Pagan tyranny. . . Every LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 15 one knows that Jesus, nailed to the cross, pronounced the first words of this Psahn. That circumstance con- strained Christians from the first to recognise their Lord Himself in the person who speaks in it. The partition of the garments of the crucified, and the lot cast upon his coat, were immediately made out, and later on it was discovered that the LXX had translated, " They dug my hands and my feet," instead of " as a lion." Not only did they see a direct allusion to the punishment of the cross in changing dig into pierce, but they concluded that the feet also were pierced, contrary to the custom. And so the Crucifix is represented to this day. But all this system of interpretation reposes upon a notion of Prophecy to which science can no longer adapt itself, viz., that an ancient poet, David, completely forgetting his person and his age, could have transported himself in spirit into the soul of a Personage belonging to a distant future, and could have described the destinies of tl^ person in an anticipatory picture of accidental details.' In spite of all the gifts and acquirements of the ac- complished writer, it will appear obvious from his own statements (1) that the Psalm does not paint a general situation of undefined distress, but one crowded with par- ticular facts ; (2) that the Sufferer contemplated in it is, upon any ordinary construction of words, an individual; (3) that the learned author struggles against facts which he himself admits, for the purpose of defeating a principle of interpretation which he dislikes. 16 . THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. 2. But it seems to me a better course to put face to face with this another exposition of the Psahn.- It is, in sub- stance, that of the early fathers, of the Apostles, of our Lord Himself. The form in which it is cast may give it some interest. I shall follow the main lines of Bossuet's interpretation. I have been unable to find that it has been seriously affected by the long succession of Rationalist critics. But I have not followed Bossuet without the liberty of occasional amendment, from a careful study of the Psalm itself, and from the results of later research. The pre-suppositions from which we need to start are but few. In default of evidence to the contrary, we hold that the title, which refers it to David, may safely be as- sumed ; though even this is not necessarily bound up with the Messianic interpretation. We require, then, but two postulates : (1) That, whatever be the psychological expla- nation. Psalmists, as a matter of fact, speak, from time to time, in the Person of Messiah ; (2) That Jesus on the Cross attributed it to Himself — or, at least, cited its opening words, and thus leads us to do so. That He uttered the ' Eli, Eli,' scepticism itself can scarcely doubt. It is the one Last Word of the seven which has been preserved by the two first of the synoptical Evangelists. Its record is an instance of fearless candour. There have not, as we know, been wanting those who, in days of rougher blasphemy, spoke of this utterance as weakness or cowar- dice. There are those living who write, in lower but LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 17 not less bitter tones, of the cry wrung from a heart broken by the sense of a mission misunderstood ; of the wail of a young life made for the sunshine of Galilee, as it felt the last golden drops pouring out on the dust of Golgotha. ' That voice of utter loneliness in the death-struggle,' exclaims the noble-hearted Rationalist, Schenkel, ' that entirely credible utterance, because it could never have been invented.'^ The question before us is — Who is this Forsaken One ? To answer it, we must observe what are the traits of His position, circumstances, and character, as they are here delineated. They are these : — He is abandoned, scorned, and abject. His anguish shows itself by broken cries. We ask for the construc- tion of the words immediately after the first line, but who can construe a sob ? My God ! My God ! why hast Thou forsaken me ? Far from Thy salvation. . . . Words of My complaint. . . So abject is He, and so scorned, that that strange word translated ' reproach of men '^ is applied to him. He is surrounded by enemies typified by wild beasts. Bisons have compassed Me, many a one. Strong* ones of Bashan have surrounded Me. They have opened upon Me their mouth, As a lion roaring and ramping. His suffering involves fierce thirst. ' Charakterh. p. 308. See Appendix. Note C. ^ D^^< nsnn (cher'path adam) 18 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. Is dried as a potsherd My strengfcli, My tongue is cleaving to My palate. Death is the consequence ; laying or setting out for the sepulchre.^ The sixteenth verse brings us very close to the Cross. We must pause upon the words rendered, ' They pierced My Hands and My Feet.' The choice lies between three renderings : a participle (Kddrey) ' piercing ' ; a form {Kidri) ' like a lion ; ' a preterite {Kddrit) ' they pierced.' Not only does Justin Martyr quote the text against Trypho as translated by the LXX (copv^av ')(^upas /jlov koI irohas). The impos- sibility of giving any satisfactory sense or construction to Kidri — 'like a lion My hands and My feet' — and other reasons, have induced scholars like Ewald and Fuerst, without the slightest dogmatic prepossession, to" adopt Kddru as the true reading, though not strongly supported by MSS. But even then, it is said, if it be so, this is no true picture of the Crucifixion, for Crucifixion did not involve piercing of the feet. But the slave, in the lines from the 'Mostellaria' of Plautus, so often quoted since the days of Bynceus, expressly mentions the affixing of the feet as well as the hands in the slave's punishment of the cross. TertuUian, who lived before Crucifixion was abolished, speaks of the double x^iercing as forming the peculiar a.trocity of the cross. Two martyrs, Marcus and Marcel- lianus, remained a day and a night, tied to a beam, to ^ ^^nSEJ';^ ri1D""lDy.^1 (velayaphar-maveth tisli'p'tlienl.) LECT. I. TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. 19 which their feet were nailed. The impartial industry of "Rosenmliller supplies another instance from a crucifixion in Arabia. Above all, let us remember His own words, ' Behold ! My Hands and My Feet ! ' ^ The Sufferer's hands and feet, then, are pierced. If not, a mysterious something is done to them. Those who have remarked the passages from ancient writers, which describe the extension of those who were crucified, will read with a fresh meaning the words in the seventeenth verse, I may tell all my bones. ^ His garments are parted, and ' upon His clothing they cast a lot.' But then this agony has a strange, yet real and most powerful influence, in bringing the nations of the earth to God. Not only will He declare His name unto His brethren. 'AH the ends of the earth shall remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord. All the families of the Gentiles shall bow down before Thee.' ^ The kingdom becomes the Lord's, and He is ruling and reigning among the Gentiles.'* A great procession comes to worship. A mystic Feast is spread. There pass before us the forms of strong men in lusty pride, fed and sated with life's richest fare. ' All the fat ones of earth have eaten and bowed down.' •'' For these strong men feel that, after all, there is One who ' brings together all the far-stretched pride and * St. Luke xxiv. 39, Appendix. » D?iJ3 h^^D (mosliel bagojira.) Note D. * V 28 ' nspX^ (asapher. 'I will dili- . ^^^ '^^^m'h} (kol-disli'nei gently note down,' as one carefully 'erets.) writing in a book.) c2 20 THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS lect. i. ambition of man, and covers it with these two narrow words, 'Hicjacet.' They who are in one view 'earth's strong ones,' are in another ' goers down of dust.' ^ But the poor and humble shall so eat that a new thrill of imperishable life shall pass into their souls. ' Your heart shall live for ever.' Any one in whom these traits do not meet cannot supply us with an answer to our question. Of course, by allegorising, by denying that any particulars are described, critics may close their eyes to Christ. But with Him, and Him alone, we obtain an answer which is unforced, natural, and connected. It is easy to refer to David, to Jeremiah, to collective Israel. But unless these positive facts can be asserted of each or all of them ; unless death, preceded by these particulars, or most of them, can be justly, and without palpable absurdity, af&rmed of them ; we have not found the object of our search. How can the conversion of the world, as the reward and consequence of suffering, lie hidden in some obscure nook of history ? ' If you deny it,' cries Bossuet, ' the world itself is a wit- ness against you.' We may now give, in a constructive form, the Church's answer to the question which we have put. Loaded with the sins of the world, Jesus began the Psalm upon the Cross to show that it was His. Four out of the last Seven Words certainly are taken from, or refer to, this portion of the Psalter. From the first verse on, there is scarcely a line which might not have come from the pen of an Evangelist. Instead of a colourless scene, ' ISy n.li'' (yor'