1

to bring other nations into the pale of their own religion. Our Lord, indeed, seems to speak of the attempt as arising from self-will. Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte.' No doubt later Prophets tell of a marvellous attraction which turns the full tide of humanity to Sion. 6 All nations shall flow unto it.' 2 It is not a compression like that of a mailed grasp; it is the magnetic drawing of love. The 87th Psalm marks a turning-point in Revelation. It stands possibly alone up to its own time, and almost unsurpassed even afterwards, in one important particular. It shows that the unification of nations is to be effected by the welding power of a spiritual influence hitherto unknown. And it becomes more remarkable if we attribute it to the times of Hezekiah, and (with the inscription) to the sons of Korah. The Korahite author of the Psalm, himself a chief singer in the sanctuary,' writes the Bishop of Lincoln, does not grudge the admission of foreign nations into its sacred choir, but with generous and large-hearted sympathy rejoices in the prospect.' It was from this Psalm that the Jews learned to teach-‘A stranger who becomes a proselyte is like a little child that is newly born.' It is important to observe that our Lord was developing its central thought when He said, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' 3

And thus the Psalmist here touches one distinctive peculiarity of the Christian Church. This is a great Missionary Psalm. St. Luke possibly had it in his mind in St. John iii. 3, 5.

1 St. Matt. xxiii. 15. 2 Isaiah ii. 2, 3; Micah iv. 1.

the list of nations mentioned upon the day of Pentecost in the 2nd chapter of Acts. This is the distinction between the Church and the communities of other religions. Much is said, for instance, of the beauty and liberality of the Indian systems. The eye of him who enters the Parsee burial-ground at Bombay is struck by the triple coil in the white cotton girdle of the Parsee. The stranger looks at it enquiringly, and the wearer tells him that it is a symbol to remind every one who bears it, every hour of the day, to aim at pure thoughts, good words, holy deeds.' But a man must be born a Parsee or a Brahmin. The devotee knows of no new birth by which a stranger can be brought within his fold. Neither religion can make proselytes." 'Nothing,' says De Maistre, 'strikes me more than the vast ideas of the Psalmists in matters of religion. The religion which they professed, though locked up in a narrow point of the globe, was distinguished by a marked disposition and tendency to universality.'

Thus the City' stands out in the Psalms as the type of the Church in her objectivity. Sometimes the City is termed Sion, sometimes Jerusalem. Many of the ancient Fathers drew a very beautiful distinction between the two names, holding that Sion was the standing type of the Church Militant, Jerusalem of the Church Triumphant. No doubt this distinction gives an admirable fulness of

meaning to many passages, but it has been shown-and

by none more cogently than by Dr. Neale-that it is a key which often fails.' As Messiah is termed David, so His

earth is called by the old The New Testament leads Ye are come unto Mount

visible and organised polity on names of Sion and Jerusalem. the way in this application. Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.' 'I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion.' 2

Three Psalms, the 46th, 47th, 48th, (bound together by the royal clasp of the 45th) are the great hymns of the City of God. They speak of the security, the victory, the stability of that City. Conjecture has busied itself in vain in attempting to discover a historical point to which the 46th may be precariously attached. A tradition of mysterious dangers, of a storm gathering in the distance, hung over the elder Church, as it hangs over the Church of Christ. To this the strain has been referred by Aben Ezra and Kimchi.3

The commentary of Calvin upon the 48th Psalm, which has received the highest praise from Jackson, brings out the prophetic type of the Church with much clearness. 'The Prophet,' says Calvin, 'commends the situation and beauty of Jerusalem. "Walk about Sion, mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces." Estimate them according to their dignity.

City is Divinely elected.

So it will be seen that the But the Prophet, by marking as

a definite end that the beauty and splendour of the

See Psalm cxxxvii. 5, 7; lxxix. 1, where Jerusalem must mean the literal city, or the Church Militant.

2 Heb. xii. 22. Apoc. xiv. 1. See Rosenm., Arg. in Psalm xlvi. Cf. Ezekiel xxxviii., xxxix.

Holy City should be related to posterity, seems tacitly to hint that a time was one day coming when these glories would no longer be seen. Why tell of that which was before every one's eyes? For, though he had spoken of "God establishing Sion for ever,”—now he hints that this perpetuation was only to be until the time of the renovation of the Church. We, we are that posterity, that "generation following," of whom it is said, "Mark well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generations following.'

(ii.) The Church is also spoken of in the Psalter as a Kingdom, and the Psalms of the Kingdom are the Psalms of Christ as King. Of these the 72nd is the principal. All which we read in it points to Solomon as its author; the rich images from nature, the mention of Sheba and Tarshish, the prominence of peace as a blessing, the many coloured and yet translucent parabolic form.2 In any other [than the Christian] sense,' wrote Mr. Coleridge, 'it would be a specimen of more than Persian or Moghul hyperbole and bombast, of which there is no other instance in Scripture.' If the type of that glorious Kingdom were originally taken from Israel, it was miserably marred and broken. The fulfilment is in the Church as the Kingdom of Christ. The ideal King must have an ideal Kingdom of righteousness and peace. M. Guizot has been aptly quoted, in illustration of the Character of the King and kingdom as painted in the Psalm. Through all the differences and contests of the modern world, a

Jackson's Works, viii. 450. 2 Bishop Lowth, Prælect. xi.

Calvinus in Ps. xlviii. 12.

3

Coleridge, Miscellaneous Picces, p. 207.

deep and dominant unity lies in its moral life, as in its destinies. Let us call it Christianity. This great fact has produced the formation of a public maxims of which are few in number.

law; the essential Among the principal

of these are the following:- Peace is the normal condition of nations and governments. War is an exceptional fact which requires a distinct justification.''

But that which is most to our present purpose is to observe what is directly involved in the notion of the Church as a Kingdom. The people of the New Birth by the Messiah are not destined to remain in isolation. An institution is prepared for their reception. That institution is not merely a school with a set of accidental teachers. It is not merely a method' of piety remarkable for its sweet reasonableness.' It is an organised body, in which the redeemed are knit together; it is a community, ordered by social laws and defined subordinations, in which each subject has his own place. Above all, it is guided and directed by one royal Will and purpose, which pervades and animates the whole. It is a Kingdom, not a democracy or a school. From the very nature of the case, it must in some respects present the appearance of an earthly institution. The truths which are seen by philosophers dwelling apart in their transcendental world' may content themselves with that realm of shadows. But the Truth of God is not satisfied with so little. It will take visible possession of the world. The Kingdom which the Psalms mention so often, and which

Guizot, Memoirs of his own Time, vol. iv., quoted by Dr. Kay, on Psalm lxxii. 4.