public life. We have numerous examples of the sigh of penitence and contrition, the chastened meekness of resignation, the holy importunity of prayer, the sustaining confidence of faith, the energetic shout of thanksgiving; descants on the attributes of God and the general course of His Providence and Grace; the peaceful quiet of pastoral life; the terrors of the mariner when in danger of shipwreck; the calamities that pressed upon David on his entering into public life, and during his proscription by Saul; the wonderful series of his triumphs; the inauguration of Solomon into the regal dignity as his successor; occasional interpositions of miraculous power in several periods of emergency, especially during the reigns of Jehosaphat and Hezekiah; penitential cries during the Babylonish captivity; festals and eulogies on the marvellous deliverance from the humiliated state; and anthems of exulting praise on the rebuilding and re-opening of the Temple, and the reestablishment of the walls of Jerusalem.'

We can only select a thought or two on this matter of experience. The application of these Psalms to Christian pilgrims in all time is quite remarkable. Set as they are in the middle of our Bibles, they seem intended for all believers under both dispensations. It is common ground, and we suppose no part has been so often trod and resorted to. Speaking for modern times, we can say that no part of the Word has been so individualized and appropriated. For instance, the 23rd Psalm may be called Bishop Hooper's Psalm, for he wrote a commentary upon it. The 33rd was used by the early Church at the conclusion of their Communion Service. The 40th was a favourite among the converts at the Irish Revivals. To Luther's memory the 45th seems consecrated. The 51st was found, after his death, to have formed a part of the evening devotions of the late Bishop of London. The 99th is called Ridley's Psalm; the 91st, the Traveller's Psalm. When we hear of the 119th, who is not reminded of our own excellent Bridges? and the 145th was a special favourite with the gentle Foster, the essayist. Besides this, how hallowed have some of these portions of Scripture become by personal association. One has led to a quickening of our own or another's soul. Another has been read by a dying parent's couch. Yet another has served for years as the sacred treasury whence we have drawn materials for ejaculatory prayer or midnight meditation. Another lesson is derived from the juxtaposition of Psalms expressive of joyful or sorrowful experiences. Man is always trying to bring religion down to a system, and make a special experience the rule for all experience. But God's commandment is exceeding broad in this respect. See here, side by side, Psalms of a very different complexion. We are far from thinking this arrangement of the Word accidental. It answers

too closely to the events of life, and all that alternation of feeling which usually chequers the believer's path. David had

his " changes. "Adhesit pavimento anima mea;" "De

profundis clamavi," he exclaims in one place; and presently, "Exaltabo te Deus meus rex." And thus we learn, that if only the man be a converted man, he may expect great varieties and contrasts of condition within certain limits. He shall never be forsaken, but he may be deeply tried. The fullest assurance may be succeeded by seasons of darkness and blasts of adversity; or as suddenly light may spring up, and "though weeping endure for a night, joy come in the morning." We do think that no Christian, however tried, need sink into despair, whilst he observes, and can himself use, those touching pleadings of David in the 6th, 13th, 38th, and 42nd Psalms; or his exulting strains in the 116th and 118th Psalms.

(4.) Once more, we must notice the Gospel in the Psalms. This is really their chief and undying charm. One of our divines says:-"Many Psalms are throughout prophecies of Christ; various passages in others must be interpreted of Him; and David himself was so eminent a type of the Saviour, that his very name, in some instances, is given to his most illustrious descendant." To the same effect Locke, Bishops Horne, Horsley, and Reynolds, write. Indeed, this is the uniform testimony of the Church in respect of the Messianic Psalms.

But we appeal to the Scriptures themselves. St. Paul quotes the 2nd Psalm as prophetical of our Lord. The Saviour Himself, when proposing a question to the Scribes, refers to the 110th Psalm as relating to the final exaltation of Messiah. The 22nd Psalm is supposed to have been appropriated by Himself on the cross, the first verse audibly, and the rest inwardly, after the manner of the Jews. St. John quotes the 20th verse of the 34th Psalm as literally fulfilled at the Crucifixion. In the 45th Psalm, we find not only Christ set forth, but the psalmist declaring that it was only when he began to speak of the things touching the King, that his tongue became the pen of a ready-writer-that king being Christ. Of this reference we are left in no doubt, since the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes whole verses of this same Psalm, applying them (as also other verses from the 102nd Psalm) to the Lord Jesus, Jehovah Himself.

It is very much from lack of an insight into this fathomless depth of many of the Psalms, that some amongst us just now are indulging themselves in the most disparaging views of this portion of God's inspired Word. Utterly unaware of the presence of David's King and Lord consecrating these Psalms, they approach them with all the temerity and freedom of literary criticism, and venture to speak of what God has com

mitted to His Church as a mysterious treasure full of glorious prophecy, as nothing but "an ancient collection of ballads and war-songs, like Bishop Percy's 'Reliques."" Language is inadequate to describe the abhorrence with which we regard such profane handling of God's Word. But the quickened soul, that begins to hunger and thirst after a Saviour's righteousness, will not fail to find it here, and his meditation of Jesus will be sweet accordingly. David is not forgotten indeed, nor his literal history overlooked. The cave of Macpelah, and the hill Mizar, and the throne of Zion, are still there. But they are viewed as steps up to that higher throne of David's royal seed, even the right hand of the Majesty on high. With what double power, therefore, does it come home to the believing soul! It is not I who pray and toil, and suffer or rejoice; but the Lord and Master, who has been in all this path before me, and left His fragrance here. Christ prays for me, Christ praises for me, feels for me, dies for me, and makes my prayer and praise and service acceptable to God the Father. So that I can look up with hope and courage as I read, and say in the language of these very Psalms, "Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord;" and understand some of the fulness of their significance when they add, "Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, upon the Son of man whom Thou madest so strong for Thyself; so will we not go back from Thee.”

W. J. B.

THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR 1864.

The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, considered in Eight Lectures, preached before the University of Oxford, 1864. By Thomas Dehany Bernard, M.A., Rector of Walcot. London: Macmillan and Co.

THE Bampton Lectures have, from the time of their foundation, held a high position in our theological literature, on account of the learning, the perspicuity of thought, and cogency of reasoning, which they usually exhibit. We have accustomed ourselves to regard them with more than common interest; not only on account of their merits as literary productions, but still more from the great influence they are calculated to exercise on the youth about to occupy the pulpits of our National Church.

In the present instance, we thoroughly concur with the Lecturer's doctrinal views as here expressed, and trust that his main object--to establish the Divine authority of all the doctrines contained in the New Testament-may be acknowledged by all his readers to be securely gained.

With the view of confirming these, Mr. Bernard shows that the New Testament Scriptures exhibit a sequence of thought and a scheme of progressive Christian doctrine suitable for permanent and universal use; and that four distinct stages of divine teaching may be clearly discerned in the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. He also draws particular attention to these stages of teaching as so many continuous parts of a divinely-originated plan, prepared and carried out under the direction and guidance of the Spirit Himself; and thus dissipates the opinion entertained by some, that the Epistles express rather the individual opinions of their respective writers on the Gospel revelation, than form component parts of one great scheme of progressive teaching. Although Mr. Bernard does not affirm that each distinct part of the New Testament in every instance holds such a position as to revert to the preceding, and preface the subsequent one, and thus form a link connecting the one with the other, yet that, on the whole, the four stages above alluded to are obvious and definite, and have a natural fitness to occupy the relative places they hold.

With this explanation we will proceed to notice somewhat fully each Lecture separately. Our apology for doing so being the vast importance of the subject.

The first Lecture is an introductory one, and requires a careful perusal, or those Lectures which succeed it will be imperfectly understood. With the observation that by doctrine is here meant divine teaching, or truth as communicated by God, we will at once briefly state the several positions it is here intended to secure; and we may add, that they all appear to us to be satisfactorily attained. They are the following:

That the text, "I have given unto them the words that Thou gavest Me," is the foundation and origin of all Christian creeds, doctrine, and instruction, and also the source from which they derive their power.

That there are words (nuara), separate, articulate, definite communications, each as truly divine as is the whole word which they compose, of which it is said by the Lord Jesus, "the words which Thou gavest Me I have given them." That these words are not only those which He spake with His lips in the days of His flesh, but that they also include other words afterwards given through man in the Spirit, during the period of time which is represented to us by the books of the New Testament. And further, that those words were finished in that period, and have received no subsequent additions.

In speaking, therefore, of the progress of doctrine in the New Testament, the Lecturer speaks of a communication from God, which reaches its completion within those limits, constituting a perfect scheme of divine teaching, open to new eluci

dations and deductions, but not to the addition of new materials ; or, in other words, that such a thing as a new Christian doctrine does not and cannot exist without a distinct Divine communication.

The Lecturer then goes on to show that the New Testament contains not only the substance of divine teaching, but that, when considered as a whole, it exhibits the plan on which that teaching was progressively matured, and leaves upon the mind the impression of unity and design; and that consequently the student of the New Testament finds himself educated as by an orderly scheme of advancing doctrine. And, moreover, that this scheme was designed and prepared by One presiding mind.

Again; the progress of doctrine, is capable of being traced either as it is unfolded in the pages of Scripture, in the relative position which those pages have assumed and now occupy, or its development may be traced in a strictly chronological and historical order. In these Lectures the former course is adopted, as being the most natural and suitable for conveying to the mind an outline of its progress considered as a whole. Had the latter method been pursued, it must be apparent that it would have been necessary to trace separately the consecutive development of each distinct doctrine, and thus much of the same ground would have had to be again and again retraversed on account of so many of the doctrines being closely interwoven one with another.

That the progress was real is beyond all question. A comparison of the Old with the New Testament teaching abundantly proves a great and marked stage of advance. Mr. Bernard points out the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, as the four chief and generally recognized stages of advance in the New Testament. Here we have, first of all, the Word which was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth)." He, the Word, was not merely the source, but the very subject, of doctrine; next follow His words and works, which were the substance of all subsequent doctrine; then the Gospel of St. John, which contains not merely a history in addition to the three previous synoptic Gospels, but unfolds, and presents more clearly to the mind and heart, the meaning and character of our Lord's own teaching. Then follow the three other great stages of advance already pointed out; in each of which, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, the principles or summaries of doctrine, which had been enunciated by Christ, are more and more fully unfolded and interpreted, and the mysterious parts of His teaching expanded and defined. Thus the progress of doctrine is developed. The truth and permanency of those