years, in the Roman and Greek empires, subject to Arian annoyance, before the tares grew up and utterly choked it, leaving only a wilderness of poison weeds, then have we not reason to infer that the like words, when applied to the sixth trumpet and seventh vial, will have but the like modified fulfilment, and that, after all, the spiritualising interpreters will take advantage of our own admissions? I hold that breaking the seventh seal, sounding the seventh trumpet, and pouring out the seventh vial, all occur at the same moment; that at the sound of the last trumpet, the elect, and Christ at their head, appear visibly on earth; but that, as the great day of the Lamb's wrath comes under the sixth seal, as during that tribulation Antichrist and the Roman Beast from the bottomless pit are alike allowed to war down the Church, we are told that the great tribulation shall be shortened for the elect's sake. The opening of the seventh seal will probably occur suddenly, when least expected, the sixth being by this time cut short by Divine interposition.

We have before noticed that the strength, both of Mr Elliott's and the Bishop of Cashel's objections to Mr Cunningham's theory, lies in the details, and that most of them equally apply to Mr Elliott. Protestant students now for the most part disbelieve that the witnesses have yet been slain. Many doubt if the explanations of the fifth and sixth trumpets have a single fact to support them. A feeling has sprung up amongst some that the trumpets and vials must be yet future, whilst others, thinking their performance would postpone the coming of the Lord indefinitely, consider them to synchronise with the seals. Without entering into the latter opinion, we would suggest, that, if the seventh trumpet sound, and the seventh goblet is poured out, on completion of the sixth seal, the whole of these trumpets and goblets may have their place in it-may be the very last jubilee allotted to the sixth, or the first seven years of the seventh, and that there is no necessity for us to suppose that they must, although they undoubtedly may, take up more than seven years, or two periods of 1260 and 1290 days altogether. Scripture has nowhere interposed anything before the coming of Christ, save the reign of Antichrist.

273

Notes on Scripture.

NOTES ON THE PSALMS.

PSALM LXXI.

THE Third Part of the Book of Psalms (according to Jewish division) begins, not inappropriately, with a plaintive yet pleasant song for the time of our sojourning here, embracing both prospect and retrospect. Our Head could sing it too, when in all our affliction he was afflicted. It will be asked, however, how Christ could use such verses as ver. 9th and 18th, since these look forward apparently to the frailty of age. The reply to this felt difficulty is, that these expressions are used by Him in sympathy with his members, and in his own case denote the state equivalent to old age. His old age was ere he reached three-andthirty years, as John vii. 39 is supposed to imply; for “ worn-out men live fast." Barclay seems to give the right sense in the following lines:

"Grown old and weak with pain and grief

Before his years were half complete,
He calls on God to send relief,

Presenting him with mercy sweet."*

This is a view that conveys precious consolation to aged ones, who might be ready to say that Christ could not altogether enter into their feelings, having never experienced the failing weakness of age, the debility, the decay, the bodily infirmities so trying to the spirit. But this Psalm shews us that in effect he did pass through that stage of our sojourning, worn out and wasted in bodily frame and feeling, by living so much in so short a time. The aged members of his Church may find his sweet sympathy breathed out in Isaiah xlvi. 3, 4; and here we may almost see him learning the lesson as he bends under the weight of our frailties.

Such expressions as ver. 6, "continually," ver. 8, "all the day," ver. 15, "all the day," may be illustrated by Augustine's comment :"In prosperis, quia consolaris; in adversis, quia corrigis; antequam essem, quia fecisti; quum essem, quia salutem dedisti: quum peccâssem, quia

* Parkhurst (apud Fry), remarks, that "old age," expresses the effect that age has on the body, rather than the time of life. Gesenius gives "decrepit, the chin hanging down," as the radical meaning, and compares it with the Latin "senex," which is "seminex," half dead. In ver. 18, also, the head grown white.

is

ignovisti, quum conversus essem, quia adjuvisti: quum perseverâssem, quia coronâsti."

It

We are to understand ver. 16 a little differently from our version. may read thus

"I will go forward (thinking) upon the mighty deeds of the Lord Jehovah.

I will celebrate thy righteousness (in working these mighty deeds);
Thee alone!"

Giving no glory to human skill and valour (Psa. xliv. 3), and finding in Jehovah himself alone a sufficient theme for praise, the Head and every member journeys on. His trust and theirs look to the power and wisdom and love of Him who guides the vessel, not boasting of the frail vessel's strength to buffet the billows of a convulsed ocean.

There are precious glimpses given us of Messiah's childhood in vers. 5, 6, 17, when we listen to this Psalm as sung by his lips. And then in the close, from ver. 20 to 24, resurrection-deliverance is the theme. The Head has enjoyed all that he anticipated; the members as surely will. Do we not see (vers. 22-24) the ransomed company-the hundred and forty-four thousand with the Lamb-on Mount Zion, and hear the harpers harping with their harps in that day's unclouded bliss

"I, too [as well as angels], praise thee with the psaltery,
Thy truth, O God!

I chant thee with the harp,

O Holy One of Israel!

My lips rejoice when I sing of thee,

And my soul which thou hast redeemed!

Yea, my tongue [as well as that of angels] all the day speaketh of thy righteousness (see ver. 16):

For put to shame, sunk in confusion, are they who sought my hurt!" Antichrist and all foes are for ever ruined; Christ and his Church triumph and reign. This is the anticipation that leads to these closing strains of rapturous exultation.

We may refer to Hebrews iii. 6, as suggesting the substance of the whole Psalm; for what else is it than

The Righteous One's confidence of hope to the end?

PSALM LXXII.

The title, is by many (such as Hengstenberg)' rendered, "A Psalm of Solomon." We would have agreed to this, but for ver. 20, which seems to leave just one alternative;-if it be not David's Psalm directly, uttered, perhaps, in connexion with 2 Sam. xxiii. 1–5, it must be David's indirectly; dictated to Solomon, though given forth from his father's chamber. It would not ill suit the events of 1 Kings

i., and it may be that the Holy Spirit gave this song to David's harp, as he resigned it to Solomon along with his crown, on occasion of his coronation in the valley of Gihon, so near that upper pool where Isaiah afterwards stood foretelling the birth of Immanuel, the true Solomon.

In ver. 1 the subjects pray for their King, the Church for her Head, as in Psa. xx. They ask that their anointed King, who is the Son of the King of kings,* may be sent forth to govern them. They ask this by requesting that all regal authority may be intrusted to him, and all regal qualifications. They are referring, in this request, to the Lord's revealed will, to his decree given forth in Psa. ii. 6, 7, 8. It is as if they said,

"Put thy statute-book into the hands of Him who is our King;

Clothe Him, thine own Son, with righteousness, that royal robe!" And then follows the glowing picture of anticipated blessedness, when this King begins his reign of righteousness. Israel's poets and prophets know of no golden age of which the very centre and life is not Messiah, God incarnate. Restored paradise has streams; Messiah is their fountain-head. Restored paradise must have an Adam that cannot fall, that its scenes may never suffer blight, nor its bowers be invaded by the old serpent the devil.

Dr Allix rightly speaks of this Psalm being that of "the church and synagogue concerning the glorious kingdom of Messiah at his second coming." But how intensely tranquil, and yet intensely glowing, are all its scenes! If it be true that the mediæval hymn, "Dies iræ, dies illa," &c., a hymn of mere man's composition, exerted a solemnising and overawing influence upon thousands in whose ears it was sung, should not this glorious burst of song leave its never-effaced impressions of noon-bright hope, soon to be realised, on every saint who has a heart to feel?

The hills and mountains (ver. 3) prominent in Israel's land, the hills and mountains, too, of earth at large, generally so barren, hills and mountains on which the feet of other messengers have often stood (Isa. xl. 9), but never any so blest as now, these hills and mountains display the signs of peace, abundant produce, "because of righteousness because the Righteous One has come to dwell in this new earth. Antichrist and all oppressors are overthrown (ver. 4); earth's thick-peopled regions fear Him, and shall go on fearing him in peace, so long as sun and moon remain, that sun and moon which at creation's dawn were appointed to light up earth and guide men to keep holy festivals to the

Lord (Gen. i. 14). The Lord Jesus is there, like "plenty-dropping showers" that reach the very roots of the mown grass (ver. 6); so, after earth has been shorn by the scythe of war and every form of ruin and wrath, He revives it, as summer's genial rains cause grass to spring up in new vigour, clothing the soil with a richer and thicker mantle of verdure than before. As Layard † tells us how in one night the dusty * On Turkish coins, says Philipps, we find, "Sultan, son of the Sultan." + Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 273 and 301.

soil of Mesopotamia will change its aspect in the season of spring; in one night the tame plains turning to a bright scarlet, or to deepest blue through the burst of flowers, while the meadows put on the emerald green of the most luxuriant pastures, causing even the wild Bedouin, as he riots in the rich herbage and scented air, to exclaim, "What delight has God given us equal to this!"

The wealth of opposite nations, Sheba and Seba (Meroe and Arabia), is consecrated to Him :

"The swart Sabeans and Panchaia's king

Shall cassia, myrrh, and sacred incense bring;
All kings shall homage to this King afford;

All nations shall receive him for their Lord." (Sandys.)

He is the true Job (see xxix. 12) who delivers the poor (ver. 12); "he looks with pity upon " (Fry), or sympathises with" (Horsley) the poor and needy (ver. 13). He redeems them from Satan's craft and cruelty, from Satan as the serpent, and Satan as the lion, “from deceit and from violence."

We agree with Keble's hint in his metrical version of this book, that ver. 15 refers to the well-known salutation offered to kings, “O king, live for ever." It runs thus

“Yes, let him live!

And the gold of Sheba be given him!

And let him pray for every one continually."

The pronoun of the third person is used to express "every one," viz., every one of his subjects. They adore him and worship; he intercedes and acts as mediator to them for ever.

And what sights of strange fertility and beauty shall be seen, as indicated by ver. 16!-corn to the summit of the hills, rustling like the cedar boughs on Lebanon; while the city, the metropolis (Psa. lxxxvii.), flourishes in population like the numberless blades of grass, all holy, all praising their King, presenting the spectacle of a model city to the world.

And now is fulfilled to the utmost the promise to Abraham, In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. xxii. 18), so oft repeated; for Messiah's name (ver. 17) " produces posterity,” i. e., renovates itself, acquiring fresh vigour, "for ever' (Hengst.) All nations are blessed in him, and all call him blessed.

Sing, then, as ver. 18, 19, sing with heart and voice for evermore

"Blessed be Jehovah!

God (without a rival), God of Israel!

Who alone doeth wondrous works.

And blessed be his glorious name for ever and ever!

Yea, let the whole earth be filled with his glory!

Amen, and amen !”

The prospect of this consummation fills the heart of the Sweet Singer of Israel; it leaves him nothing more to wish for. He has reached the