Church he has been ascribing to him ever since, namely, that it was through him alone that he prevailed on the cross against sin, Satan, and the world.

VERSE 26. The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

Messiah's flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed, to all those who look to him for the pardon of their sins and everlasting life: the Bread from heaven, of which if a man eat, he shall never hunger; the Living Water, of which if a man drink, he shall never thirst. To this fact he refers here. The atonement he has made for their sins is, to all penitent recipients, a feast indeed. It inspires them with continual praise and thanksgiving to God. To such the Saviour says, "your heart shall live for ever. His grace in their hearts is a source of perpetual peace and joy to them. It is the water of which he elsewhere says, "whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John iv. 14. The heart lives indeed when its life-principle is the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit.

VERSE 27. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

Here, in prophetic vision, the at last triumphant Sufferer beholds the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, sharing in the blessings of his redemption. This began to be fulfilled when the gospel was preached to Cornelius, its first Gentile convert, (Acts x. 34, 35,) and has been fulfilling ever since, in nation after

nation of the heathen world casting their idols to the moles and the bats, and turning to the living God. We ourselves constitute a part of the fulfilment of this verse.

VERSE 28. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and he is the governor among the nations.

These words describe the impression made upon the mind of the heathen world, by the story of "God manifested in the flesh." That story exhibited love and mercy, truth and justice, in such a light to their minds, that they were convinced that the God of Abraham was the only true God, the only God whose kingdom ruleth over all, and deserves to rule over all. Multitudes, therefore, that no man could number, became the willing and rejoicing subjects of his kingdom.

VERSE 29. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

"All they that be fat," they that abound in every good that earth can bestow, shall find a good in Christianity that the world cannot give, and rejoice in that good. "All they that go down to the dust," they that are descending into the dust of the grave, and unable to retain the soul in the body, even they shall be strengthened, rescued, and saved, even there, by partaking in faith of the feast prepared for the soul by Messiah. It is a feast that gives strength in weakness, life in death.

VERSE 30. A seed shall serve him; and it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

A prediction that the gospel of Messiah's salvation would perpetuate itself from age to age, and from generation to generation; would embrace not

only the whole world, but also all time, in the circle of its blessings, and that the Lord would never want for a generation of holy ones to serve him in the gospel of his Son.

VERSE 31. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it.

That is, the Lord Almighty, the deliverer of the Sufferer upon the cross, shall never want for witnesses to proclaim the salvation he thereby wrought out for the world. The first witnesses of the great fact were the apostles on the day of Pentecost; and other witnesses have borne the same testimony in every age since, and are bearing it now.

Here ends the bright panorama of blessings which Christ foresaw that his obedience unto death would procure for the world: blessings for all, and all-sufficient for all, in time, and in eternity. All these blessings, as flowing from his death, he foresaw when he said, "thou hast heard me:" and now, having seen them, he turns to his Father, saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." Luke xxiii. 46. His body has been wounded, torn, tormented; his soul agonized; his heart broken; little does he care for all that now. Man is redeemed, the Divine law magnified, his Father glorified, and he dies content. The grave has no terrors for him, and he descends into it assured that his abode there will be of brief duration. His first cry on the cross was, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" His last, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit." How fearful was the first cry! how glorious the last!

And now, beloved reader, do you desire that your whole passage through the dark valley of the shadow

of death may be as bright as Messiah's was from the time his Father heard him, until he gave up the ghost? Your desire can be realized. He died for the express purpose of rendering the whole passage thus bright for you. He is no longer suffering Mercy, dying Mercy, Mercy dead-but risen Mercy, ascended Mercy, Mercy at the right hand of infinite power on high, and wielding that power to secure the eternal salvation of all those who seek it in his name. Go to him in faith and prayer, and he will give you the victory-enable you at your last hour to say, in loving confidence, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and to depart hence, singing, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

LECTURE ON PSALM XXIII.

VERSE 1. The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. How different the opening of this psalm from that of the twenty-second! That opens with the agonizing cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That was the cry of our Surety, of the sinner's substitute, drinking off the cup of wrath against sin, and in the sinner's stead. It was the cry of the Shepherd himself, suffering the fulfilment of the words, "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the Man that is my Fellow, saith the Lord of hosts; smite the Shepherd." Zech. xiii. 7. This psalm, however, describes the fulness of the grace and mercy which our Surety thereby purchased for

us. Its whole strain, therefore, from beginning to end, is a strain of joy and triumph.

"The Lord is my Shepherd." The first thing that arrests the attention is the name of the Being whom David affirms to be his Shepherd. It is the Lord, Jehovah—that is, the Living One, for such is the import of the word "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." Isa. lvii. 15. This Living One, however, to whom eternity of existence is ascribed, is not a cold, abstract, isolated being. He has a heart, even the heart of a Shepherd. And how tender a Shepherd he is, we learn where it is said of him, "He shall feed his flock like a Shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young." Isa. xl. 11. In what captivating colouring does this one word, Shepherd, invest the character of him whose presence fills immensity! It exhibits him as one whose love for his people never tires. The affection of the eastern shepherd for his flock, and especially for the lambs of his flock, is remarkable. He treats them as tenderly as he treats his children. Hence Nathan says of the little ewe-lamb, of which the poor man had been robbed by his rich neighbour, "it grew up together with him and his children; it did eat of his own food, and drink of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." 2 Sam. xii. 3. Such is the eastern shepherd; and such is David's understanding of the word, when he says, "the Lord is my shepherd." David himself had been a shepherd, and knew what it was to feel a shepherd's love for his flock, and to exercise a shepherd's care. He risked his life in rescuing a lamb from the mouth of a lion, and when the lion turned