of salvation to himself in a risen body), he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." The Lord had predicted of Him, "Thou shalt be my salvation unto the end of the earth;" but He must first, in His own person, experience Him to be His own salvation (and this in the way of the human actings of faith and hope, as truly as in the case of any believer). In Psalm lxix. (which has, perhaps, more than any other in the collection, a greater number of direct references to it in the New Testament touching the sufferings and death of Messiah) we see "the deep" yawning to "swallow" Him, and "the pit" to "shut its mouth" upon Him. His language is, "As for me, my prayer is unto thee in an acceptable time... hear me in the truth of thy salvation;" a prayer which thus meets its answer, "In an acceptable time have I heard thee, in a day of salvation have I helped thee."" Again, "Let thy salvation, O God, set me on high; save me, for the waters are come in unto my soul." "He was heard," says the apostle; "He inclined His ear unto me, and heard my prayer." (He is made to say of himself in Ps. xl., stamped in the New Testament with a character as

4 Heb. v. 7-9.

5 Isa. xlix. 6.

6 Let the language of the quotation at the head of this section be analyzed, and the humanity of Christ, as well as that of His Church, will appear remarkably set forth. "Christ" the risen Head no less included in the term 66 every MAN" than "they that are His," the members of His Body. 7 Isa. xlix. 8. 8 Heb. v. 9.

66

Messianic as any other Psalm.) "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, and set my feet upon a rock; He hath put a new song into my mouth, even praise unto our God." Mark the expression, "our God," here growing out of the threefold appropriation of Him as His own God. My God," we hear from His lips in verses 5, 8, 17. "I ascend unto my God, and your God," were among the first words of the risen Saviour, placing the Church in exactly the same relation to God as He himself in resurrection occupied. To this may be added the word "usward,” in verse 5, as identifying with Himself His Church, in His triumph over the grave.

"CHRIST THE FIRSTFRUITS; AFTERWARD THEY THAT ARE CHRIST'S, AT HIS COMING."

The victory of Messiah over death was to result in consequences no less glorious to His people than to himself. "Many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord," was the language of His rejoicing Spirit, as He contemplated "the travail of His soul, and was satisfied;" or, as we read in Ps. cxix. 74, "They that fear thee will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in thy word"-a prophecy which met a literal fulfilment, when, as is recorded of them, "the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord," as He presented to them, in His risen person, His realization of the hope of Ps. xvi. 9. (Compare John xx. 20.) Again, to the same effect is His prayer, resulting in

His song of praise, in resurrection-"Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low; bring my soul out of prison (the prison of the grave), that I may praise thy name (in resurrection): the righteous shall compass me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me," (the echo of what we find in Ps. cxvi., "I was brought low, and He helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with me; for thou hast delivered my soul from death"). The risen Saviour in the light of Heb. v. 9, and of numerous passages just quoted, we may designate Him the saved Saviour-then reaches forth His hand to take the first draught from "the cup of salvation" himself; and, joyously and complacently contemplating the interest of His Church in the life which He had taken up out of death, and in the glory into which He had entered through suffering, He puts this cup to the lips of His Church, inscribing thereon, " Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," God's "thoughts to usward" no more stopping short at the tomb of believers than they did at that of Jesus; "thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give an expected end," in resurrection, to them as surely as to Him. "God's thoughts to usward, in our deep poverty and need, were the result of His thoughts to Jesus in His, who "emptied himself" and "became poor, that we through His poverty might be

9 Ps. cxlii.

1 Ps. cxvi. 13.

2 Jer. xxix. 11.

If

rich." "I am poor and needy, but the Lord thinketh on me," are the concluding words of the exercises of His soul in Ps. xl. If these "thoughts," His "marvellous works," "cannot be reckoned up in order" unto God; if, being "more than can be numbered," Divine arithmetic fail here, and we can only exclaim, "How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand." God's "thoughts to usward" are thus "more than can be numbered;" if, when our "mouth" doth "shew forth all the day" the "righteousness" and the "salvation" which give expression to them, we are yet obliged, each admiringly, to exclaim, "I know not the numbers thereof;" if they be thus innumerable, we may let the agonizing pleadings of the Man of Sorrows assign the reason. "Innumerable evils have

compassed me about; mine iniquities (imputed, 2 Cor. v. 21) are more than the hairs of mine head." In a world of sinners, man has forfeited every blessing from God, as his Creator; and these must be redeemed at a costly price from the wreck and ruin of the fall. We must pass from creation to redemption, to find ourselves in the sphere of blessing; and there invariably applicable is the sentiment of Hart,—

"There's not a gift His hand bestows

But cost His heart a groan."

8 Phil. ii. 7, 8; 2 Cor. viii. 9.

5. Ps. lxxi. 15.

4 Ps. cxxxix. 17, 18.

He that spared not His own Son" gave to His Church resurrection at the cost of the groan of Calvary; and, without this expenditure of grace, which exhausted the resources of Deity itself, the Spirit never could have recorded that word, which is the "staff" of the believer's hope in Christ, in his passage out of time into eternity: "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept."

We may, for a moment, recur to Ps. lxix., to see how entirely human was the experience of the Messiah, when, in agonizing anticipation of the curse of Calvary, and, intent on the blessing to His people involved in the successful issue of His mighty enterprise on their behalf, He cries, "Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed for my sake." That shame and confusion should not be their portion, it was needful that He should set an example to them of victorious faith in His own experience, to extricate himself out of the circumstances of wrath and condemnation into which He had entered, as the sinner's Surety. When He "gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair," the language of His faith was, "The Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore ...I know that I shall not be ashamed; He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me ?...Who 6 1 Cor. xv. 20.