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mouth, and fay to Jehovah, glorying in itself and its own deferts, Judge me, and try me-Examine heart and reins, O God-Preferve me, becaufe I am holy-Thou wilt prolong my life from genera. tion to generation-Let them fhout for joy who love my righteoufnefs-The world is diffolved; but I hold up the pillars thereof?' How do these things agree to any but the holy One of God, of whofe years there fhall be no end? Who upholdeth all things by the word of his power; who obtained through his own righteoufnefs power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him. If with this key we open the i. and cxix. Pfalms, we will be admitted into the fecrets of a perfect heart; and behold our Lord made under the law, exercifed, panting and wrestling under the curfe, till at length, through his own obe dience, he attain to the everlasting joy, his own due reward, which he gives to his people who rejoice and delight with him in all the perfection of the law only as fulfilled in his blood.

To pursue this important point through all the variety of examples which might be adduced, till they amounted to a full and particular proof with regard to every fingle Pfalm, would make a confiderable volume of itfelf: and good fervice it would be for any one who had time and ability equal to the task, that there might remain no fhadow of hesitation, where the fcriptures, were fpiritual things compared with fpiritual, would appear to fpeak fo plain.

Thofe directing paflages in the Pfalms may be confidered as so many erected poles in the corners of a highway, afcertaining, not only that thofe remarkable places where they ftand are in the courfe thereof, but also all the intermediate fpaces from one to another Sɔ that, it is apprehended, the whole number of the Plalms are comprised in this fcheme of interpretation. For we have no other direction left

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us whereby we may interpret them; seeing it is manifeft, there is not a Pfalm, or portion of a Pfalm, applied in the whole New Teftament as expreffive of David's ftate, but all of Chrift's, who is the way, the truth, and the life; fo that, if we expound any thing in the Pfalms as relating to David, we do it without his leave who hath the keys of the house of David. It would not, perhaps, be much beyond the fact, if it' were affirmed, that there are more references to the Pfalms as speaking of Chrift, than to the whole writ ings of Mofes and the prophets taken together.

How careful are the apoftles to caution their hearers to beware of thinking of David at all as the perfon fpoken of in the Pfalms! See Acts ii. and Acts xiii. The manner of their quotations is alfo remarkable, having foreseen, through the Spirit, no doubt, the abuse that was to happen of that book. Thus they fay, David being a prophet faith-David in Spirit faith-God faith in David-Chrift faith in David

The Holy Ghost faith by the mouth of David; but more frequently, when any quotation is brought from the Pfalms, David is not mentioned at all, but only Chrift fpeaking in David; thus, Chrift faith when he cometh into the world-It is • written, I will confefs to thee among the nations I believed, therefore have I spoken."

It was owing to the mistakes the Jews entertained about the Pfalms, and other lively oracles which were delivered to them, that they rejected and crucified the Lord, even because he interpreted them in another manner than they: and yet the guilt and danger of misinterpreting them now must be greater than theirs, according to our greater proportion of light for as the light, fo is the condemnation to them that walk in darkness.

Now it may be proper to confider a few of the most common objections which are brought against this method of interpreting the Pfalms; fome of them

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frivolous enough, it must be confeffed, but not the lefs infifted upon because, of that circumftance, and therefore not the lefs needing, however little deferving,. to be anfwered..

Objection 1. If your scheme muft hold, what fhall become of all thofe books, devotional, practical, and trying, and of preachings innumerable; lectures, and lecture-books, which are full, and fome of them full of nothing elfe but of David's own exercises and experiences? What a foolish figure, in particular, would the moft of our celebrated treatifes on regeneration, and cafes of confcience make, if you were to deny them their own ufe of their own grand magazine of frames and foul-poftures, wherewith they tell us David, Heman, and Afaph, were exercised in their day? Moreover, what would you do with the contents at the top of the Pfalm in every Bible which reprefent almost all of them as descriptive of the penman's own ftate?

Anf. We would have nothing to do with them at all. And would you have any more, if they be not for the truth, but against it? What shall become of them then? As the chief priests faid to Judas when. he came and told them, he had finned in betraying innocent blood, Sec thou to that.' So let every man* fee to his own work. And whether it be better to give ear to the fond imaginations of men all brim-full of their own fenfe, or to the infallible dictates of the Holy Ghost concerning his own meaning, let the objector judge. But who are you to oppofe fo many? Anf. And who are many enow to oppofe the Holy Ghoft? Do we maintain any thing about the Pfalms on our own authority?

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Obj. 2. Many of the Pfalms have a title fhewing: the occafion of their being compofed, which title: being a part of the infpired text, plainly determines them to the very occafion there mentioned, from which occafion and its circumftances, as to the pro

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phet's ftate, you must feek the meaning of thofe Pfalms.

Anf. If you allow the text to be infpired, is it to be imagined the Holy Spirit would infpire men to utter their own experiences, and never once give the leaft hint of the matter in all the New-Teftament revelation, where alone we are commanded to look for the interpretation of all the foregoing infpirations? But waving this, and alfo that controverfy, whether the title be indeed a part of the text, and not rather, like the dates of fome of the Epiftles, only a note perhaps of fome ancient commentator; it is alledged, that the title, however true and exprefs, can never more or lefs determine the fenfe of the Pfalm to the occurrences therein mentioned, more than the date of a letter can determine the sense of the contents. That the feeming, or even real occafion of an ancient prophetic writing is no mark at all to direct the interpretation to that occurrence, but rather quite the reverse, will appear from Ifaiah vii. If you ponder well the occafion and circumftances, never occafion seemed to bid fairer for determining the whole of the prophet's meffage to itself, and prefent things; yet then and there, on an occafion looking quite the other way, (were human wildom the judge), and in the midft of a very mingled unlikely-like affemblage of things, was uttered that ever-memorable prophecy faid to be fulfilled when Jefus was born of Mary the virgin. Fix the meaning to a fon of Ifaiah's, and you mock the Holy Spirit, who tells us (Matth. i. 21.) nothing of Ifaiah's fon, but of Chrift, when he explains the prophecy. If you fay Ifaiah's child, in his conception, birth, and infancy, was a type of Chrift, and that the prophecy was literally fulfilled in him, the type, being applicable only in a very remote and figurative way to the Meffiah; it is enquired of you, How could Shear-Jafhub, or any fon afterwards born d

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to Ifaiah of the prophetefs, be a figure, in his conception, birth, infancy, of one who was to be born of a virgin, through the power of the Highest overfhadowing, &c.

The truth is, the carnal people were always blinded, but never enlightened by the times and occafions wherein the prophecies were uttered: fo that the time and occafion (as might be made appear by a hundred inftances) are fo far from being a guide to find out the meaning of the Pfalm or prophecy, that, if we follow them, they will land us into the very midft of falfehood; and we will find ourfelves in fuch a fituation, as the Affyrians, who, feeking the prophet, found themfelves in the midft of the streets of Samaria. Would to God we may all escape as well! It was not Ifaiah's prophecies alone that blinded, ftopped, fupified the eyes, the ears, the hearts of the people; but thofe alfo of Mofes, David, Jeremiah, and all as many as fpake in the name of the Lord: therefore, if we have eyes to fee, ears to hear, and hearts to understand, let us fee, hear, and underftand the Spirit of God fhewing the confolations, tenderness, and meaning of his own heart, by the apostles, that we may drink in the fincere milk of the word, and grow thereby; instead of fucking at the dead breafts of titles, occafions, and carnal things of carnal times: what can we receive in this way, but wind, putrefaction, and death? Truly it is the one thing needfal for us, to fit with Mary at our Lord's feet, and hear his word! Obferve, on every occurrence, how the Lord takes occafion from thence immediately, to draw away the attention of his hearers from prefent things and occafions, to fomething quite different from thofe in hand, even as different as heavenly from earthly. The man would appear crazy, who fhould affirm, that the Lord came down from heaven to inftruct the world in thofe things which they knew well before as fince; fuch as the nature of bread,

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