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Nor will thou give thine Holy One
Corruption to see.

agree in applying them to Christ, though in a way that come not up to their obvious import, and rational interpretation.

Does not the Psalmist, speaking in the person of Messiah, say that not only the sorrows of death compassed him, but also, that the pains of hell got hold upon him, or found him, as on margin? Ps. cxvi. 3. From these he prays the LORD would deliver his soul, not his animal frame surely, ver. 4. Peter's reasoning, Acts ii. 25-32. necessarily leads to the same conclusion; for confine it to our Lord's body, and we destroy his argument. He sums it up in this conclusion, He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. To make his soul here to intend his flesh, and so the last clause to be the petition of the first in different terms, is absurd. As his resurrection must import the re-union of soul and body, to exclude the former from the passage, as distinct from the latter, is to countenance the material system, that denies him, and all men, any intelligent, distinct conscious principle different from organised matter, or the animal frame.

Paul resumes the same subject, Acts xiii. 27-38. and perfectly agrees with his brother Peter in the inference he draws from the whole, ver. 35. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shall not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. As this refers to our Lord's resurrection, it is evident the language must include his soul or spirit, which the Psalmist and Peter declare would not be left in hell, and by which, in union with his body, and both with his Deity, he was, by way of eminence, God's holy One, and his Anointed.

Does not David thank God, in a solemn prayer-Great is thy mercy toward me; and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell, metrical version" out from the lowest hell!" Psal. lxxxvi. 13. David had never been in any state that could properly, or even by metaphor, be so described. To him therefore the passage can by no means apply; and to exclude the true and proper sense, as it refers to Christ, is to offer violence to divine truth to serve a purpose. The term rendered in this verse soul, is the same that occurs Psal. xlii. six times, and in ciii. 1, 2, 22. and civ. 35. and many other texts. But how absurd and subversive of the obvious sense, - would it be to render it in these places body or animal frame, as commentators do in this verse of our psalm! In what consistent sense can the body be said to bless God, and not forget, or gratefully to remember his benefits?

Was not Jonah, when buried alive in his supposed hell, capable of despondency, and fear, and of prayer, faith and hope? but could our Lord's body or animal frame be so exercised in the grave? or could his grave be said to be in the heart of the earth? The Psalmist makes Messiah to say, Ps. xl. 2. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit. Bishop Horne renders it a pit of confused tumultuous noise, and thus comments upon it; 'The sufferings from which our Redeemer was delivered, are here described under the image of a dark subterraneous cavern, from which there was no emerging, and where roaring cataracts of water broke in upon

him, overwhelming him on every side; till, as it is expressed in the x psalm, God sent from above, and took him, and drew him out of mar great waters.

Does not the apostle Peter assure us, that Christ, after his crucifi went and preached to the spirits in prison, and inform us of the co quence, so honourable to him, and so beneficial to them? 1 Pet. iii That he ascended in his disembodied spirit at death to that paradis which he promised the believing thief would be with him that day, not hinder his visiting the other region of sheol, or proper state o dead, before his resurrection. The solemn scene described, Ps. xviii. mentators explain as taking place at that interesting event, when was a great earthquake; and admit that his blessed Spirit was then as ing to heaven through the territories of Satan. But we view him a ing from the lower regions or nether parts of the earth, (Eph. iv. 10) thus viewed, what additional solemnity does that scene acquire! are led to think that he descended to these parts in his disembodied also in his embodied state, and that his first descent in both was most painful kind, by which he learned to sympathize with the pris in that state; though the subsequent ones would be triumphant. Th mitted, what was endured by Jonah in figure would be fully realiz our Lord as the Antitype, which on the common view was not. Wh view the scene of his sufferings and death in this latitude, we see with increasing propriety he exclaimed at their near approach,-My soul ceeding sorrowful, or, more literally, encompassed with sorrow even death a death infinitely more awful than the human mind can con

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Thus we consider our blessed Lord as having drunk of every cup the sins of men had mingled, even to the dregs, and by so doing, l as the great High Priest of our profession, to sympathize with all b fering subjects, whether on this, or on the other side the grave; t divine wisdom requires the serers should reap no benefit from t fitted to receive it. Thus we account for leading captivity captive, ascension, or a multitude of captives, as on margin, Eph. iv. 8. thus also he fulfilled what he says in the psalm from which the quotes, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea, Ps 32. Let the Reader consult Job xi. 8. Prov. xv. 11. Ps. ix. 17. will there find proofs, to mention no other, that the Heb. word she dered in our psalm hell, is used to denote the state of the damned. Beveridge on the Creed adduces no fewer, I think, than twelve fathers of the church to vouch for the early opinion, that Christ de ed to the local hell alone, but brought thence a great multitud which article of the Creed he himself strenuously contends.

As Christ's soul could not be left where it had never been, and expresses his faith that his Father would not leave his soul in hel go about to deny a truth so clearly revealed, and so fully attested, a at the expence of absurdly making the soul here to mean the body mal frame; while that is mentioned as distinct from what was not corruption. This being an important article of the faith delivered saints, it is worth contending for in the spirit of the truth.

The corresponding terms in Heb. Greek and Latin, that are usua dered Hell, are allowed primarily to intend the receptacle of righte wicked souls after death, that of the former on the right hand, called

11 Thou wilt me shew the path of life: Of joys there is full store

Jews Paradise, and Abraham's bosom; and that of the latter, a dismal dark region on the left hand, below the site of the former, yet so as to admit a view of the state of its inhabitants, though separated from them by an impassable gulf. In this Paradise the spirits of good men are supposed to have resided till our Lord's ascension, and some would prolong their continuance there till the resurrection. In both these states he is supposed repeatedly to have preached during the six weeks that preceded his ascension, and not without glorious effects. This hell, in which Dives was seen, is allowed to be quite distinct from that Gehenna into which wicked men and fallen angels shall be cast at the day of future judgment. The Reader that hath access to consult the Hon. A. Campbell's treatise on the Middle State between death and the resurrection, will find there much information on this point, and authorities produced from the primitive fathers.

Though this note hath already extended too much, yet can I not dismiss it without adding a few remarks that may serve as a key to this, and some other parts of Scripture. As death admits of a three-fold leading import in the sacred writings, expressive of these progressive degrees of misery, which it brings on mankind; so the relative term grave includes a three-fold corresponding state where such misery is endured. The loss of God's image favour and enjoyment in this life, is called death, and the state herein which a sinner is subjected to that loss, a grave; the dissolution or separation of body and spirit, and the consequent misery of the latter, are also called death, and the place or state where both are confined, their grave; or hell in regard of the latter; the future punishment of the wicked in their embodied state is also called death, and the second death in relation to that previously endured by the separate spirit, and the place or state in which that awful punishment shall be endured, is termed the grave or hell, in the most emphatic sense of the word; and the burning lake in allusion to that of Sodom, and as distinguished from the intermediate death of the spirit; which second death, or everlasting destruction, carries misery to the highest climax. Owing to this threefold import of these terms, much obscurity is cast on these subjects, to accommodate the views given of them to received systems. In nothing does this perhaps more appear, than in the sense usually affixed to the terms soul, and hell in this psalm; whence the real sense of the passage is hid, and that also of many other texts, in order to exclude every idea of deliverance from the destruction of the second death, and, indeed, of every death but these which are endured in the present state.

For further proof of the position urged in this note, if further proof be necessary, let the reader consult Ps. Ixix. 15.-lxxi. 20. Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me-Thou shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth, in which David was only in figure, but Christ in reality. Verse 11. Thou wilt shew me the path of life; &c. Here our Lord expresses his assured faith and hope of the resurrection, not only of his na

Before thy face; at thy right hand
Are pleasures evermore.

PSALM XVII.

THE Royal Psalmist, confiding in the justice of his cause, and consci ous of his own integrity, prayeth for a gracious audience, the decision of that cause in his favour, and protection from the power and malice of his enemies. He describes their dispositions and behaviour; and with confidence of hope intreats God would disappoint their expectations, by his deliverance from their snares. In contrast with their possessions and enjoyments, he concludes by expressing his lively hopes of that happiness which remained for him beyond the boundary of this transient life.-As David was a figure of our Lord, in whom these things were realized; so all his people are to be conformed to him by sufferings from the hand of wicked men &c. and by their behaviour under such treatment.

I LORD, hear the right, attend my cry,

Unto my pray'r give heed,

That doth not in hypocrisy

From feigned lips proceed.

tural body which so soon followed his crucifixion; but also of his mystical body, down to the heel that treads in the mire. This is promised him, Ps. cx. and he is said to expect it, Heb. x. 13. while what he saw and did, between the period of his death, and ascension, as first fruits, gave the fullest assurance of his possessing in due time the whole harvest. As the Church is the fulness of Him that filleth all in all; so his unbounded presence will produce a fulness of joy, and pleasure for evermore at his right hand, or for a duration that will exceed the evers or ages of Scripture.

In this note, and not in the provision of common systems, we see a path of life manifested to and in the Lord, the glorious Representative of mankind-the Resurrection and the life, commensurate to every death, and grave, through every dark valley of death, to climes of life, light, and joy, as he declares in this verse.-So often as we commemorate Christ's death in the Supper, and his resurrection on the first day of the week, let us cherish a lively believing hope of these things; and our observance of both will not be devoid of sacred joy. May the Lord bless the above note as the mean of reviving a long buried truth! and then this feeble effort will not be in vain.

Notes on Psalm XVII. Verse 1. Hear the right, O Lord, or, Hear, 0 righteous Lord, attend unto my cry, &c. The petitioner's sincerity in prayer is here urged as a plea for an answer of peace. Such as thus pray in faith and hope shall not cry in vain. Luke xviii. 7, 8.

کلام

2 And from before thy presence forth,
My sentence do thou send:

Toward these things that equal are
Do thou thine eyes intend.

3 Thou prov'dst mine heart, thou visit❜dst me
By night, thou did'st me try,

Yet nothing found'st; for that my mouth

Shall not sin, purpos'd I.

4 As for men's works, I, by the word
That from thy lips doth flow,
Did me preserve out of the paths.
Wherein destroyers go..

5 Hold up my goings, Lord, me guide,
In those thy paths divine,

So that my footsteps may not slide

Out of those ways of thine.

་་་་་་་

Verse 2. Let my sentence &c. Here an appeal is made to God, whose eyes behold the things that are equal, and from whose equity therefore, the injured may ever expect protection and redress.

Verse 3. Thou hast proved mine heart, &c. When our own heart, enlightened by the word of truth, does not condemn us, then have we confidence towards God. Dávid, and Messiah were visited and tried in the night of adversity, as all the godly are; but though they may in certain. cases appeal to God, respecting the falsehood of charges brought against them, our Lord ́alone could do so absolutely and universally. One fruit of sanctified trouble is, to purpose not to offend with our lips, whether in the service of God, or in converse with men. May divine grace enable us to form the resolution, and to reduce it into daily practice!

Verse 4. Concerning the works of men, &c. These works to which unrenewed men have recourse in the season of distress, as a ground of confidence, he rejects; and expresses his experience of the happy effects of God's word, in the season of affliction, in preserving him from the temptations of Satan, that destroyer, or whatever might draw away from the path of duty. A similar use of God's word he expresses, Psal. cxix. 11.

Verse 5. Hold up my goings, &c. Grace to enable us to follow the directions of Divine truth, must be sought by daily prayer, and then shall not our footsteps slip from his paths, into those of the destroyer, to which they are here opposed.

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