But does the gospel curse the fearful and unbelieving less bitterly than the law? or, had we ever heard a word of the law, but for the sake of the gospel? or of the gospel but for the sake of the law? Are these two contrary the one to the other? or is there any curse in Moses, the Psalms, the prophets, but in as far as there is gospel in them unbelieved? Was there ever any condemnation, but because light was come, and the darkness comprehended it not? Where is the ground, then, for any person acknowledging the New Testament, in singing the Psalms in churches, families, or by themselves, to pass by any passage, because of the curse therein? seeing the curses and blessings are both by the same Spirit, and equally essential eternal parts of the same plan, wherein is manifested the character of God and glory of his love, guarded and defended by the sanction of all his infinite power and wrath, whose name, even our God in Christ, (for no where else was he ever seen, either in creation, preservation, or redemption, but in Christ), is a consuming fire.'-He that would shew his zeal for the love and blessings of God, by being against the wrath and the curses, is like a man who should pull up the hedges for the beauty and defence of the garden. It is the universal voice of the New Testament, speaking as expressly as ever the old did, That he who believ⚫eth shall be saved-that he hath life, and shall not come into condemnation;' but that he who believeth not shall be damned,-nay, is

condemned already; and (while this is his character, that he believeth not) he shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth upon him: and, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.' So saith the Lord, the Spirit, to the churches: Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

6

5thly, and lastly, If it be objected, that the other prophets introduce their prophecies by Thus saith the Lord;' but David in the Psalms never useth that form; therefore, he speaks not of the Lord, but of himself.

Ans. The apostles have obviated this objec tion, by assuring us, that the Lord speaks, and not David, where no such form is used, as in Psalm xl. 16. But if there were any thing in your objection it would destroy, not only the inspiration of the Psalms, but of the whole New Tes tament, wherein no such form is used in the manner of Moses and the prophets, by the Lord or his apostles; God being in them all in all, issuing out his own mandates as a King, immediately of himself. And this is a proof in comparing the Lord with his prophets, who were faithful in all things as servants, that in himself, as in the Son over his own house, dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily: and that the apostles were not, like the prophets, moved only at times by the Spirit of Christ, but always, and without intermission; so that they needed not say, Thus saith the Lord; the Lord himself being always personally, or, as it were personally, pre

sent by his Spirit, without intermission, giving his own testimony with his own mouth through them: and so, after the same manner, in the Psalms; even as a person of authority, personally acting and present, speaking immediately with his own mouth, or writing with his own hand, shews himself by his speech or writing; and the manner thereof.

After all, 6thly, if it be asked, Why are we so zealous for the right interpretation of the Psalms? and where is the great harm of mistaking the meaning of any part of the Old Testament, seeing the New is so full and clear about Christ?

Ans. This zeal is shown for the sake of the truth, even that full and clear truth in the New Testament about Christ. And the harm of mistaking the meaning of the Psalms, as has been already made appear, lies in a great measure in this, that of however little importance those mistakes are supposed to be in themselves, yet they have been employed to hide the light, and eat out the spirit of the New Testament: so that, taken along with those errors, it turns out to be not only a dead, but a killing and destroying letter, instead of a ministration of life; every member thereof being, as it were, disjointed and broken; as, if you let an error escape you in the first figures of a calculation, it will cause the whole sum to turn out a falsehood, however painfully the operations are carried on after.

H

wards; or, as the physicians say, an error in the first concoction cannot be rectified in any after process of digestion. But when the Psalms are considered as spoken of Christ, or as Christ speaking in them, we behold the love of God, surrounded and guarded with all the terrors of his wrath, blazing forth in the face of Jesus; in whom we see God all light, and no darkness at all, even perfectly well pleased through the blood of the atonement; so that we may come boldly forward, and worship with enlarged hearts.

were

Had our critics and commentators laboured with equal diligence, to find out and shew the relation the Psalms have to the New Testament, as they have done to edify us with the penmen, and particular occasions and times when they written, and the sense which either ancient or modern Jews, and those called primitive fa thers, have put upon them, the church might. have rejoiced in their labours; but, as they now stand forth so many maskers (alas! there are few exceptions) of the face of Jesus, if you have got a glimpse of that face, how can you look up on those who have been endeavouring to hide the glory thereof from your view, by casting on the ancient vails- but with the greatest thanke fulness to him, who, commanding the light to shine out of darkness, hath enlightened your own mind with his glory! while, at the same time, you cannot but look upon them with the same.../ kind of emotion, as if you had stood in the days

of Solomon in the court of the temple, at the dedication thereof, beholding the offerings accepted, and the glory of the Lord filling the whole house; and then beheld a band of drunken priests, running, raking, and scavenging together, with might and main, all the ashes about the place, with the filth and dung of the slain beasts, and then throwing them all in a heap upon the altar, smothering the heavenly fire, and polluting the sacrifices! Their design perhaps was to feed the fire with fuel, and lay on more sacrifices according to the law; but what of that, if in their madness and wine they cast on dung? Let God be true, and every man a liar. If this method of interpretation hold, which atlows only the apostles to give their sense of the Psalms, holding every other sense whatsoever foreign and spurious, as many as hold it, not to speak of many obvious advantages they may enjoy, will be delivered from two great evils; 1st, That countenance and authority alledged from the Psalms to establish the righteousness of a sinful creature, where the Holy Ghost had established the everlasting righteousness of God. 2dly, They will be delivered from that manifold kind of confusion which has been established on a false view of the Psalms, where the Holy Ghost had established that faith which is of his own gift and operation, which he defines and manifests where it is, the evidence or assurance of things not seen, the substance of things hoped