acts convict him of being as unmindful of another life as the beasts for which there is no such life. Strange that such a noble creature as man is by native endowment, should thus degrade himself: a creature made in the moral and intellectual image of God, and capable, if he choose God as a portion of his soul, of advancing in the glory of that image till neither angel, nor archangel, shall stand higher than he. And yet, endowed with the honour of possessing a nature kindred to the Divine, and capable of sharing for ever in all its bliss and glories, it avails man nothing, if he "understandeth not," if he allow reason to slumber, and sense to control. Nor is the worst yet told. The man who lives not for immortality, dies not altogether as the brute dies-it would be well for him if he could so die-a death that ends at once all thought and all feeling-but he dies a living death, a death wherein thought and feeling are, without ceasing, intensely active, and work the soul at every moment a deeper wo. Read the dialogue between Abraham in heaven and the rich man in hell, and you will need no other proof that the death which the lost soul endures, robs thought of none of its power, and feeling of none of its intensity. Luke xvi. 19-31. May God, for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ, save us all from the fearful doom of having our immortal powers work us immortal wo.

LECTURE ON PSALM L.

VERSE 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun even unto the going down thereof.

MANY commentators have interpreted this psalm as a description of the final judgment; others, as a description of what would take place at the Advent and during the personal ministry of the Messiah. Neither of these interpretations can be received as the right one. The right interpretation seems to be the following, viz. "The mighty God, even the Lord, who appeared in such power and majesty on Sinai, while giving the law to his people, has appeared in equal power and majesty on Mount Zion, to explain it to them, and teach them its spiritual import and uses." This seems to be the one great aim of the psalm; and to the explanation of the law and ritual about to be given, the whole "earth, from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,” is summoned to listen.

VERSE 2. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

It is not in a physical and geographical, but in a theological sense, that Zion is here called "the perfection of beauty." It is so called because it was the mountain of God's holiness: because God shone there in a light more softened and effulgent than anywhere else on earth. He shone there in the law, in the ceremony, and in the sacrifice, and in each manifests himself as the One Being in whom all excellence

dwells. It was there that he did continually what he promised Moses he would do, made all his goodness. pass before his people, and proclaimed the name of the Lord, (Exod. xxxiii. 19,) a name in which, whether read in the revelation or the ritual, "truth, mercy, and justice, blend in infinite and indissoluble harmony." Exod. xxxiv. 5–7.

VERSES 3, 4. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

"Our God," he who made a covenant with Abraham, and delivered the law from Sinai, shall come, "that he may judge his people;" subject their conduct to the tests of his law, in the presence of the whole universe beside, cited to attend, not as attesting, but as listening witnesses to the trial. And if needs be, in order to convince them that He who is now about to speak to them from Zion, is the same who spake to their fathers from Sinai, the same phenomena shall attend his appearance here as there. His voice shall be heard, "he shall not keep silence; a fire," too, “shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him." The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken. What hath he spoken? All that follows, beginning with the fifth verse and extending to the end of the psalm. His own first direct words are:

VERSE 5. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

God calls his people saints-his holy ones--because he calls them to be such; their covenant obligations to him bind them to holiness and pureness of living. Saints, then, as the word is here used, indi

cates a covenant relation, rather than a moral quality. It is, then, those who knew and had assumed the vows of the law whom God here cites to trial for their manner of observing it in their worship of Him.

VERSE 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is Judge himself. Selah.

When God exercises the office of Judge in his own person, the heavens-celestial intelligencescan safely declare his righteousness; proclaim, even beforehand, the rectitude of his every judicial decision. The Selah, following the words "for God is Judge himself," is thought to indicate a solemn pause in the proceedings at this point, a brief, significant silence observed by the Judge, in order to give greater emphasis to his words that follow; which read,

VERSE 7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

This verse may be regarded as the exordium of the trial. It gives us the names and relations of the parties. And although about to test them so severely by applying his law to their conduct in its broad spirituality, nevertheless God still calls Israel his people, and himself their God. This he no doubt does both by way of rebuke and of encouragement. It is always so; even in testifying against us, God still calls himself by some name that inspires hope. If in one breath he startles the soul with the words, "I will testify against thee," he soothes it in the next with the words, "I am God, even thy God." There is a blending of light in every aspect of his character.

The first class of delinquents in his Church to

whom God explains and applies his law in its spirituality, were those who, while offering every sacrifice required by the ritual of the tabernacle, were nevertheless formalists, wanting in piety to God. Vs. 8-15. The second class are those who, while quite as full and uniform in their sacrifices as the first, were nevertheless not only formal, but immoral; wanting not only in piety to God, but also in justice to man. Vers. 16-21. The first class seem to be arraigned for having violated the precepts of only the first table of the Decalogue; the second class for having violated the precepts of both. Addressing the whole first class as an individual, God says:

VERSES 8-12. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds: for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

It is not the offering of sacrifices continually that God reproves here; laws of his own enacting required it (Deut. xii. 5, 6;) and if it had been omitted, the omission would have received his severe condemnation. What he reproves here is something else—is the pagan, materialistic idea which seems to have crept into the Jewish mind, that God himself needed, and was in some way benefited by these continual sacrifices and offerings. To this gross misconception of the Divine nature, and the purpose of sacrifices, God indignantly replies, that if such things could in any wise promote his happiness, he needed not the help of the Jew to accomplish the desires of his heart, since everything that the Jew could bring