HORE PSALMODICÆ;

OR

A POPULAR VIEW OF THE PSALMS OF DAVID,

AS

Evidence for the Divine Origin of the

Jewish and Christian Keligions.

HORE PSALMODICÆ.

THOUGH, to render complete justice to any given proposition, it is generally expedient to collect into one point of view, the whole of the evidences in its favour, in order to bring their accumulated weight to bear with the more effect upon the conviction of the reader, yet it may not be wholly useless, sometimes to limit the enquiry to a single branch of the collective proof: and, while superior abilities are employed in the combination and display of the golden chain of Truth, the humbler artist may be profitably occupied in adding somewhat to the strength or brightness of a single link; for, besides that some are too indolent, and others too busy, to be prevailed upon seriously to enter on the investigation at large of the proofs of the Divine origin of their Faith, it is often found conve

venient even to those who have made themselves most fully acquainted with the subject, to select one or two insulated topics of evidence, to which they may promptly refer, when the particular train of aggregate testimony, which at the time of examination produced conviction, has faded from the memory.

Of this kind is, I think, that part of the argument for Revelation derived from prophecy, which is to be found in the Book of Psalms; for though by no means forming the most prominent portion of the proofs for Christianity arising from Prophecy alone, yet they afford, in my opinion, testimonies in its favour, of a nature obvious to common understandings, and open to the mere English reader. - This topic has also the further advantage of being peculiarly familiar to the generality of Christians, as it forms a part of the daily Service of the national establishment.

I would briefly premise the review of this portion of Scripture, by assuming (what will be denied by none,) that these Psalms were written partly by David, and partly by others, about one thousand years before the Christian æra;