displayed in the scheme of man's redemption,--points to the cross, where man's guilt was expiated, -bids the contrite sinner rely on the Redeemer's intercession, offers the daily supply of grace to confirm him in his resolutions, and assist him in his efforts to conform himself to the precepts and example of the Saviour,-and promises victory and glory to them that persevere : thus turning despondency into hope, and fear into love.

The first, the word of terror, is the sword girt upon Messiah's thigh; the second, the word of persuasion, is the arrow shot from his bow.

For the sense of the first metaphor, we have the authority of the sacred writers themselves. “ The sword of the spirit,” says St. Paul to the Ephesians,“ is the word of God.” And in the epistle to the Hebrews, the full signification of the figure is opened, and the propriety of the application shown: “For the word of God,” says the inspired author, “is quick and powerful (rather, lively and energetic), and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the parting of soul and spirit, and to the joints and marrow;”-that is, as the soldier's sword of steel cuts through all the exterior integuments of skin and muscle, to the bone, and even through the hard substance of the bone itself, to the very marrow, and divides the ligaments which keep the joints of the body together; so this spiritual sword of God's awful word penetrates the inmost recesses of the human mind pierces to the very line of separation, as it were, of the sensitive and the intelligent principle-lops off the animal part-divides the joints where reason and passion are united-sets the intellect free to exert its powerskills sin in our members-opens passages for grace to enter and enrich the marrow of the soul, and thus delivers the man from his body of death.

Such are the effects for which the powerful word of terror is compared to a two-edged sword.

The comparison of the word of promise to the arrow is more easily understood; being more familiar, and analogous to those figures of speech which run through all languages, by which, whatever makes a quick and smart impression on the moral feelings, is represented under the image of a pointed missile weapon,—as when we speak of “ the thrilling darts of harmony,” or “ the shafts of eloquence.” The psalmist speaks of these arrows of God's word, as sticking in “ the hearts of the King's enemies,”—that is, of the enemies of the King Messiah; for he, you will remember, is the only king in question. His enemies, in the highest sense of the word, are those who are avowedly leagued with the apostate faction,--atheists, deists, idolaters, heretics, perverse disputers,—those who, in any manner, of set design oppose the gospel—who resist the truth by argument, or encounter it with ridicule--who explain it away by sophisticated interpretations, or endeavour to crush it by the force of persecution. Of such hardened enemies there is no hope, till they have been hacked and hewed, belaboured, and all but slain in the strong language of one of the ancient prophets), by the heavy sword of the word of terror. But, in a lower sense, all are enemies till they hear of Christ, and the terms of his peace are offered to them. Many such are wrought upon by mild admonition, and receive in their hearts the arrows of the word of persuasion. Such, no doubt, were many of those Jews who were pricked to the heart, by St. Peter's first sermon, on the day of Pentecost: and even those worse enemies, if they can be brought to their feeling by the ghastly wounds and gashes of the terrific sword of the word of threatening, may afterwards be pierced by the arrow, and carry about in their hearts its barbed point. And, by the joint effect of these two weapons, the sword and the arrow, the word of terror and the word of persuasion, "peoples,” says the psalmist --

that is, whole kingdoms and nations in a mass, shall fall under thee," --shall forsake their ancient supersti. tions, renounce their idols, and submit themselves to Christ.

So much for the offensive weapons, the sword and the arrows. But the defensive armour demands our atten. tion; for it has its use, no doubt, in the Messiah's war. His person, you will remember, is clad, in the third verse, “ with refulgent dazzling armour.” This may be understood of whatever is admirable and amiable in the external form and appearance of the Christian religion. First, the character of Jesus himself; his piety towards God-his philanthropy towards man-his meekness, humility, ready forgiveness of injuries, patient endurance of pain and death. Secondly, the same light of good works shining, in a less degree, in the lives of his disciples, particularly the apostles and blessed martyrs. Thirdly, whatever is decent and seemly in the government, the discipline, and the rites of the church. All these things, as they tend to draw the admiration and conciliate the good will of men, and mitigate the malice of the persecutor, are aptly represented under the image of the Messiah's defensive armour, and had a principal share in the effect of making “peoples fall under him."

It yet remains to be explained, what is meant, in the psalmist's detail of the Messiah's war, by those "wonders" which “his own right hand was to show him:

“Thy own right hand shall show thee wonders.” Our public translation has it “terrible things.” But the notion of terror is not of necessity included in the sense of the original word, as it is used by the sacred writers: it is sometimes, indeed, applied by them to frightful things; but it is also applied, with great latitude, to things extraordinary in their kind-grand, admirable, amazing, awful,- although they should not be frightful. We have no right, therefore, to take it in the strict sense of “ frightful,” unless something in the context points to that meaning, which is not the case in this passage. And accordingly, instead of “terrible,” we find, in some of the oldest English Bibles, the better chosen word“ wonderful.”

Now the “wonderful things” which Messiah's “own right hand” showed him, I take to be the overthrow of the Pagan superstition, in the Roman empire, and other great kingdoms of the world, by the mere preaching of the gospel, seconded by the exemplary lives and the miracles of the first preachers, and by their patient endurance of imprisonment, torture, and death, for the sake of Christ. It was, indeed, a wonderful thing, wrought by Christ's single arm, when his religion prevailed over the whole system of idolatry, supported as it was by the authority of sovereigns, by the learning of philosophers, and most of all, by the inveterate prejudices of the vul. gar, attached to their false gods, by the gratification which their very worship afforded to the sensual passions, and by the natural partiality of mankind in favour of any system, however absurd and corrupt, sanctioned by a long antiquity. It was a wonderful thing, when the Devil's kingdom, with much of its invisible power, lost at once the whole of its external pomp and splendour,—when silence being imposed on his oracles, and spells and enchantments divested of their power, the idolatrous worship which by those engines of deceit had been universally established, and for ages supported, notwithstanding the antiquity of its institutions, and the bewitching gaiety and magnificence of its festivals, fell into neglect, when its cruel and lascivious rites, so long holden in superstitious veneration, on a sudden became the objects of a just and general abhorrence, when the unfrequented temples, spoiled of their immense treasures, sunk in ruins, and the images, stript of their gorgeous robes and costly jewels, were thrown into the Tyber, or into the common receptacles of filth and ordure.' It was a wonderful thing, when the minds of all men took a sudden turn; kings became the nursing fathers of the church,-statesmen courted her alliance,-philosophy embraced her faith,---and even the sword was justly drawn in her defence.

These were the “ wonderful things” effected by Christ's right hand; and in these, this part of the psalmist's prophecy has received its accomplishment. Less than this his words cannot mean; and to more than this they cannot with any certainty be extended : since these things satisfy all that is of necessity involved in his expressions.

If his expressions went of necessity to “ terrible things,” or were determined to that meaning by the context, insomuch that the inspired author could be understood to speak not of things simply wonderful, but wonderful in the particular way of being frightful, an allusion, in that case, might easily be supposed to what is indeed the explicit subject of many other prophecies, -the terrible things to be achieved by the Messiah's own right hand, in the destruction of Antichrist, and the slaughter of his armies, in the latter ages. The word of prophecy forewarns us, and we have lived to see the season of the accomplishment set in, that the apostate faction will proceed to that extreme of malice and impiety, as to levy actual war against the nations professing Christianity: and after much suffering of the faithful, and bloody struggles of the contending parties, our Lord himself will come from heaven, visibly and in person, to effect the deliverance of his servants, and with his own arm cut off the antichristian armies with tremendous slaughter. This is represented in the prophecies under images that can be understood of nothing but the havock of actual battle. “The indignation of