Its force and bearing upon those who do not receive the Divine 257 authority of Scripture 261 II. Practical applications : i. The use of the Psalter a test of the Church's spiritual life 265 266 268 . 270 271 Can the Psalter be restored to its proper place in the affections Two means to this end: 1. Educating and catechising the young into intelligent 2. Shewing Christ, His Church, and Christianity in it New life to the Church from such revival 1. In quickening her own Services 2. In attracting devout Separatists III. Two other forms of Witness to Christianity in the Psalms : i. Their Witness to individual Christianity Instances. Conclusion from this. Page 60, note 5; for v. 3, read v. 2 61, note 5; for Index, read Indexes 65, note 2; for My father and my mother, read My father and My mother 66, note 3; for i. 67, read i. 57 279, line 7 from foot, for 1668, read 1608 292, line 2, before Eph., insert 1 Cor. ii. 3; 2 Cor. vii. 15; 300, (note 1 to p. 299); for xviii. 41, read xviii. 4 321, note 1; for read b 347, note 3; for кovтáρia, read Kovтákia 383 (opposite to Gen. III. 22); after 100, insert 110 n.1 Note.-Throughout this book the numbering of the Psalms, and of their BAMPTON LECTURES. THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. In this series of Lectures I shall attempt to present, in a systematic view, the varied Witness to Christ and Christianity which is afforded by the Book of Psalms. Independently of its proper interest and instruction, this subject has a special claim to be considered as coming within the range of those which were contemplated by the founder of the Bampton Lectures. The other books of the Old Testament may, for the most part, be kept at a convenient distance. It was said by the most popular Christian Apologist of the last genera B tion, that it is an artifice of unbelieving controversy to ' attack Christianity through the sides of Judaism,' and to make the New Testament answerable with its very life for the Old.' When the attack is pressed in the extravagant forms which Paley proceeds to mention, his defence is worthy of serious consideration. There is, however, a sense in which those who advance along this line towards the citadel of the faith are not guilty of artifice. There is a sense in which the responsibility must be borne. But, then, as regards a great part of the Old Testament, it is an ultimate responsibility of the logical faculties. It lies, even for thoughtful minds, at a practically undefined distance. But the Psalms are interwoven with the texture of the New Testament. They are so, indeed, to a degree which can scarcely be imagined by any one who has not directed his special attention to the subject,2 and marked down, not only certain palmary passages, but literally hundreds of at first unsuspected hints, allusions, and expressions. But, over and above this, the echoes of the Psalms rather multiply than decrease even in the Nineteenth Century. The words of Aristotle did not become more completely stamped upon the language of the world in the Middle Ages than the words of the Psalms upon the language of devotion and Theology in the Church of every age. It is not merely that preachers occasionally quote the magnificent encomium of Hooker. It is not merely that an enormous literature of criticism and devotion has accumulated round the Psalter, so that a competent scholar, many years ago, reckoned up six hundred and thirty separate commen2 See Appendix. Note A. 1 Paley's Evidences, Part III. chapter 3. taries on the subject.' The Psalms occupy about a fifth of our English Prayer Book. They are more familiar than the words of Ken or Cowper. Of the many aspects presented by an English Cathedral, there is one which is often overlooked; it is a shrine for the Psalter. The Great Teacher, who saw into the depths of Scripture with such penetrating insight, once spoke of it as a chain of which no link can be broken without rupture or dislocation of the whole.' But that may be in the ultimate consequences of things; in the way of remote, and sometimes unsuspected deductions from premisses not distinctly formulated. It may be in the long run, in the lifetime, not of an individual, but of a community or of a nation. For instance; a disbelief in the Bible account of the creation of man, however explained, may co-exist-it is to be feared, illogically—with a reverence for the supreme authority of Christ. It can scarcely be so with the Book which we propose to examine. The Psalmists cannot be put away from us, with an impatient shrug, to a more convenient season. At marriages and funerals, by sick-beds and in stately ceremonials, in churches and homes, they make their voices heard at every turn. They are as near to us as the Evangelists themselves. Christianity is responsible for the Psalter with its very life. Our subject naturally falls into two main divisions: 'Le Long, sedulus si quis alius et exactus perscrutator, ad 630 recensuit (Bibliotheca S. Pat. 1723. II. 1098), exceptis iis qui in universam S. S. commentati sunt.'-Dank, Hist. 2 οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι ἡ γραφή. St. John x. 35. |