John the Baptist, having to be used for rough work, was trained in the desert.

Every one hath been disciplined by the providence of God, as well as furnished in the fountains of his being, for that particular work for which the Spirit of God designed him."

The literal and historical sense is in the highest degree profitable; as Calvin, and Venema, and Matthew Henry, and others, have shewn. But our principle is, that having once found the literal sense, the exact meaning of the terms, and the primary application of the Psalm, we are then to ask what the Holy Spirit intended to teach in all ages by this formula. Bishop Horne speaks of such study as being like a traveller's ascent to an eminence, "neither unfruitful nor unpleasant," whence he gets an extensive prospect lying beyond, and stretching away to the far distance. Bishop Horsley quotes 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" --and adds, "If David be allowed to have had any knowledge of the true subject of his own compositions, that subject was nothing in his own life, but something put into his mind by the Holy Spirit of God." This is so far true; but at the same time let us hold (as stated above) that what the Spirit put into David's mind, or the mind of any other writer, was done not abruptly, but in connection with the writer's position. Even as our Lord's sayings for all ages were not uttered at random in any circumstances, but were always connected naturally with some present passing event or incident.

"Jesus answered and said," is true of them all he strang his pearls on the thread of passing occurrences or conversations. And even so is it with the Psalms. They take their rise in things local and temporary, but they pass onward from the present into the ages

to come.

Now, in the early ages, men full of the thoughts of Christ could never read the Psalms without being reminded of their Lord. They probably had no system or fixed theory as to all the Psalms referring to Christ; but still, unthinkingly we might say, they found their thoughts wandering to their Lord, as the one Person in whom these breathings, these praises, these desires, these hopes, these deep feelings, found their only true and full realization. Hence Augustine (Psa. lviii.) said to his hearers, as he expounded to them this book, that "the voice of Christ and his Church was wellnigh the only voice to be heard in the Psalms"-" Vix est ut in Psalmis inveniamus vocem nisi Christi et Ecclesiae;" and on another occasion (Psa. xliii.), "Everywhere diffused throughout is that man whose Head is above, and whose members are below. We ought to recognise his voice in all the Psalms, either waking up the psaltery or uttering the deep groan-rejoicing in hope, or heaving sighs over present realities." Tertullian (quoted by Horne) says, "Omnes pocne Psalmi Christi personam sustinent."

We set out with laying down no other principle of interpretation in regard to the speakers in these sacred

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songs, than this one,-viz., we must consider this book as not of private interpretation," (2 Peter i. 20). Its utterances did not originate with the authors themselves. It is one of those writings which "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" and therefore it is decidedly erroneous to suppose, that because David, or any other, was the author, that therefore nothing is spoken of, or sung, but matters in which they were mainly or primarily concerned. "Not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister," is true here also, (1 Pet. i. 12). We cannot err far, therefore, if with Amyrauld we keep "our left eye on David, while we have our right eye full on Christ." In some instances, the Head exclusively speaks, or is spoken of, and in a few others the Members alone; but generally, the strain is such in feeling and matter, that the Head and Members together can use the harp and utter the song. And so important are these holy songs, that nearly fifty of them are referred to in the New Testament, and applied to Christ.

Hengstenberg has evidently felt, in spite of his dread of admitting Messiah into the Psalms too often, that one individual was very generally present to the writer's mind. He is constrained to admit that reference is made to some ideal perfect one, or some ideal righteous one, who is the standard.* Unwittingly he thus

* Another German writer, Baehr, treats the Cherubim somewhat in the same manner. He says that the cherub is "the image of the creature in its highest form- —an ideal creature." What is this ideal of perfection in the creature, but

grants the fact, that none can read those songs of Zion without being led to think upon some one individual as the ever-recurring theme. And as the Scriptures do not speak in the style of philosophy, we may safely say, that the reference in all these cases is not to any abstract ideal person, but to the real living One, in whom all perfections meet, and against whom all the plots and malice of hell have ever been directedMessiah, the Righteous One.

There is in almost every one of all these Psalms something that fitted them for the use of the past generations of the Church, and something that fits them admirably for the use of the Church now; while also there is diffused throughout a hint for the future. There is, we might say, a past, a present, and a future element.** Few of them can be said to have no prophetic reference, no reference to generations or events yet to arise,a circumstance that gives them a claim upon the careful study of every one who searches into the prophetic records, in addition to the manifold other claims which they possess.

just the Redeemed Church? And why are men reluctant to leave the abstractions of philosophy for the realities of revelation?

* Dr Allix does not hesitate to apply them very specially to the Church in these latter days. Thus he says of the first Psalm, "It containeth both the description of the happiness which the faithful Christians who apply themselves to their duty shall enjoy, as also those who with patience wait for the promises made unto them when Jesus Christ will come to reign upon the whole earth; and the misery of those who are of Antichrist's side, and who laugh at his coming "

The substance of these Notes (for they are no more than notes) appeared originally in the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy." They are meant to help those who delight to search the Scriptures. There are also gleanings from many fields here and there presented to the reader; for the Author has consulted writers on the Psalms of all different shades of opinion, even where he simply states the conclusion at which he has arrived to the true sense of the passage.