never less belonged to any monarch than to Solomon.

Another circumstance of distinction in the great personage celebrated in this psalm is his love of righteousness and hatred of wickedness. The original expresses that he had set his heart upon righteousness, and bore an antipathy to wickedness. His love of righteousness and hatred of wickedness. had been so much the ruling principles of his whole conduct, that for this he was advanced to a condition of the highest bliss, and endless perpetuity was promised to his kingdom. The word we render " righteousness" in its strict and proper meaning signifies" justice," or the constant and perpetual observance of the natural distinctions of right and wrong in civil society; and principally with respect to property in private persons, and, in a magistrate or sovereign, in the impartial exercise of judicial authority. But the word we render "wickedness" denotes not only "injustice," but whatever is contrary to moral purity in the indulgence of the appetites of the individual, and whatever is contrary to a

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principle of true piety towards God. Now the word "righteousness" being here opposed to this wickedness, must certainly be taken as generally as the word to which it is opposed in a contrary signification. It must signify, therefore, not merely justice," in the sense we have explained, but purity of private manners, and piety towards God. Now Solomon was certainly upon the whole a good king, nor was he without piety; but his love of righteousness, in the large sense in which we have shown the word is to be taken, and his antipathy to the contrary, fell very far short of what the psalmist ascribes to his great king, and procured for him no such stability of his monarchy. Solomon, whatever might be the general worth and virtue of his character, had no such predominant attachment to righteousness nor antipathy to wickedness, in the large sense in which the words are taken by the psalmist, but that his love for the one and his hatred of the other were overpowered by his doating fondness for many of his seven hundred wives, who had so much influence with him in his later years, that they turned away his heart

to other gods, and prevailed upon the aged king to erect temples to their idols.

Another circumstance wholly inapplicable to Solomon is the numerous progeny of sons, the issue of the marriage, all of whom' were to be made princes over all the earth. Solomon had but one son, that we read of, that ever came to be a king- his son and successor Rehoboam; and so far was he from being a prince over all the earth, that he was no sooner seated on the throne than he lost the greater part of his father's kingdom.

Upon the whole, therefore, it appears, that in the character which the psalmist draws of the king whose marriage is the occasion and the subject of this song, some things are so general as in a certain sense to be applicable to any great king, of fable or of history, of ancient or of modern times: And these things are indeed applicable to Solomon, because he was a great king; but for no other reason: They are no otherwise applicable to him than to King Priam or Agamemnon, to King Tarquin or King

Herod, to a king of Persia or a king of Egypt, a king of Jewry or a king of England. But those circumstances of the description which are properly characteristic are evidently appropriate to some particular king, not common to any and to all. Every one of these circumstances, in the psalmist's description of his king, positively exclude King Solomon; being manifestly contradictory to the history of his reign, inconsistent with the tenor of his private life, and not verified in the fortunes of his family. There are, again, other circumstances, which clearly exclude every earthly king,— such as the salutation of the king by the title of God, in a manner in which that title never is applied to any created being; and the promise of the endless perpetuity of his kingdom. At the same time, every particular of the description, interpreted according to the usual and established significance of the figured style of prophecy, is applicable to and expressive of some circumstance in the mystical union betwixt Christ and his church. A greater, therefore, than Solomon is here; and this I shall show more particularly in the sequel. It is certain, there

fore, that this mystical wedding is the sole subject of this psalm, without any reference to the marriage of Solomon, or any other earthly monarch, as a type. And it was with great good judgment, that upon the revision of our English Bible, in the reign of James the First, the Calvinistic argument of this psalm, as it stood in Queen Elizabeth's Bible, was expunged, and that other substituted which we now read in our Bible of the larger size, in these words: "The majesty and grace of Christ's kingdom; the duty of the church, and the benefits thereof;" which indeed contain a most exact summary of the whole doctrine of the psalm. And the particulars of this it is my intention in future discourses to expound.