T

AND

EXPOSITION

ON PSALM VIII.

HIS is a triumphant Pfalm, and is thought to have been composed by David, upon his victory over Goliak, that mighty man of Gaib For which conjecture I muft refer the curious reader to the very learned Dr. Hammond's first note upon this Pfalm. It is used, with great propriety, by our church upon Afcenfion-day.

Ver. 1. O Lord, our governor, how excellent is thy name in all the world! (a) thou that haft fet thy glory above the heavens !

2. Out of the mouths of very babes and fucklings haft thou ordained ftrength, because of these thine haughty enemies, the Philif rines; (b) (for I'am but a child,

(a) Ver. 1. How excellent is thy name. .] The name of God in Scripture phrafe, is often used to fignify the glory and majefty of God, or fometimes God himfelf. So we find, to call upon his name; to blafpheme his name; to fwear by his name; to build a temple to his name; to believe in the name of Christ; and in our daily prayer, to hallow God's name, is ufed to hallow, and reverence him, and whatsoever relates to him.

(b) Ver. 2. Out of the mouth of babes and fucklings, &c.] The fenfe of this verfe, fo far as it relates to David, is given above: but our Saviour applies it to himself, Matt. xxi. 16. And it may very fitly be applied to the first preachers of the Gofpel, who though they were in general, ignorant and unlearned

men; yet they confounded the wisdom of thofe that were deemed more wife, and made vaft numbers of willing converts to Chriftia nity. See 1 Cor. i. 25, &c.

Our Saviour and his Apoftles fubdued their enemies, not by force of arms, but by the power of God's word. And I the rather mention this, becaufe, as Mr. Mede has well obferved, this quotation is generally mifunderttood, and fuppofed only to mean, that children thould glorify Chrift, whilst the great ones of the world despised him.

But it is plain enough, that the Scribes and Chief Priefts were not offended at the people who faid it, but at that which they said. When they [the people] cried Hofanna to the fon of David, they [the Scribes, &c.] were difpleafed, and faid unto him, heareft thou WHAT THESE SAY? How they afcribe the power of Salvation unto thee, who art a man only? Is that folemn acclamation, Hfanna, or fave now, where with we are wont to glorify God, fit to be given to thee? Our Saviour anfwers, yes; for have ye not read, out of the mouth of babes and fucklings thou haft ordained ftrength? Though I appear as a man, in this low and humble ftate, and feem in my prefent fituation to be no more equal to, fuch a work, than a child is to the greatest undertaking, yet I am to fave my faithful followers, and fubdue mine, and their enemies, according to that prophecy.

Mr. Mede obferves further, that though the Evangelift records it according to the Septuagint reading, thou haft preferred praife; yet, it is very probable our Saviour might ufe the Hebrew phrafe, which fets the meaning clearer. And though the perfons crying Hosanna are called children, they were the fame children, the fame multitude which brought him to Jerufalem ; ard they are called children, juft as Herod's courtiers, or fervants are called children in the Greek, Matt. xiv. 2. See Mede's Difc.

of

of him? or the ¡fon of man (c) the greatest of men, that thou vifiteft him?

5. This is he of whom that may truly be faid, which cannot be applied to me his unworthy type, but in a very reftrained and qualified fenfe: namely, that thou madeft him lower than the Angels, to crown him with glory and worship. (d)

6. Of him, likewife, it is true in an unlimited fenfe, which in a reftrained one, I may say, of mankind in general, viz, that thou makeft

(c) Ver. 4. Or the fon of man.] Bishop Patrick, in the preface to his paraphrafe on the Pfalms, has made a remark, which as it gives light to this and feveral other paffages of fcripture, I will give it at large,

The fon of man, and the fons of men, are phrafes which often occur, and which I have good ground to think, belong in fcripture language to princes, and fometimes the greatest of princes. So Pf. lxxx. 17. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, and upon the fon of man, whom thou madeft fo ftrong: Here it means King Hezekiah. And Pf. cxlvi. 2. O put not your trust in princes, nor in any children or fon of man, i. e. how great a prince foever he be, though of never fuch dignity and power, for there is no help in them. And thus the counfellors of Saul, are called the fons of men, Pf. lviii. 1. And fo I understand If. li. 12. who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that fhall die, and of the fon of man, i. e. a prince, who fhall be as grass.

The original of which language, I con

him to have dominion of the works of thy hands; and thou haft put all things in fubjection under his feet.

7. All sheep and oxen; yea, and all the wild beafts of the field.

8. The fowls of the air, and the fishes of the fea, and whatsoever walketh, or moveth through the paths of the fea.

9. Is it not moft fit, therefore, that we adore thy divine Majefty, and fay? O Lord, our governor, how excellent is thy name in all the world!

ceive, is to be fetched from the common manner of fpeech among the Hebrews, who call the chief of any kind, by the whole kind. As they call man, creature, Mark xvi. 14. becaufe, he is the prime creature here below, fo a king, or eminent perfon, they call the Son of man, because he is the prime or chief among the fons of men.

And by the way, from hence we may learn, what to understand by that title, which our bleffed Saviour fo often gives himself, the fun of man, or rather that fon of man, i. e. the Meffiah, the Lord's anointed, that great prince God promised to blefs them with. It can have no other meaning in John v. 22, 27. (where he faith, God hath committed all judgment unto him, because he is the fon of man, or that fon of man) than this, that he is that great perfon, whom God defigned to be the Lord, and governor of all things.

(d) Ver. 5. Thou madeft him lower than the Angels, &c.] This is applied to our Saviour, by the Apoftle, Heb. ii. 7. as is the following verfe likewife. See alfo, 1 Cor. xv. 27.

At the fame time, that these learned men declare how difingenuous, bafe and wicked it would be, how much beneath the dignity of philofophy, and contrary to the precepts of chriftianity, to utter falfhoods or forgeries in the fupport of a caufe, though never fo juft in itself, they confidently affert this miraculous power, which then fubfifted in the church, nay tell us that they themselves had been eye-witneffes of it at feveral times, and in feveral instances; nay appeal to the heathens themfelves for the truth of feveral facts they relate, nay challenge them to be prefent at their af femblies, and fatisfy themselves, if they doubt of it; nay we find that Pagan authors have in fome inftances confeffed this miraculous power.

The letter of Marcus Aurelius, whofe army was preserved by a refreshing fhower, at the fame time that his enemies were discomfited by a ftorm of lightning, and which the heathen hiftorians themselves allow to have been fupernatural and the effect of magic: I fay, this letter, which ascribed this unexpected affiftance to the prayers of the chriftians, who then ferved in the army, would have been thought an unqueftioned teftimony of a miraculous power, had it been ftill preferved. It is fufficient in this place to take notice, that this was one of those miracles which had its influence on the learned converts, because it is related by Tertullian, and the very letter appealed to. When thefe learned men faw ficknefs and frenzy cured, the dead raised, the oracles put to filence, the dæmons and evil Spirits forced to confefs themfelves no Gods, by perfons who only made. ufe of prayer and adjurations in the name of their crucified Saviour; how could they doubt of their Saviour's power on the like occafions, as reprefented to them by the traditions of the church, and the writings of the evangelists?

We cannot omit that which ap

pears to us a standing miracle in the three first centuries, namely, that amazing and fupernatural courage or patience, which was fhewn by innumerable multitudes of martyrs, in those flow and painful torments that were inflicted on them. We cannot conceive a man placed in the burning iron chair at Lyons, amid the infults and mockeries of a crouded amphitheatre, and ftill keeping his feat; or ftretched upon a grate of iron, over coals of fire, and breathing out his foul among the excruciating, fufferings of fuch a tedious execution rather than renounce his religion or blafpheme his Saviour. Such trials feem to me above the ftrength of human nature, and able to over-bear duty, reason, faith, conviction, nay, and the most abfolute certainty of a future ftate. Humanity, unaffifted in an extraordinary manner, must have shaken off the prefent preffure, and have delivered itself out of fuch a dreadful diftrefs, by any means that could have been fuggefted to it. We can eafily imagine, that many perfons, in fo good a cause, might have laid down their lives at the gibbet, the ftake, or the block: but to expire leifurely among the most horrid tortures, when they might come out of them, even by a mental refervation, or an hypocrify, which was not without a poffibility of being followed by repentance and forgivenefs, has fomething in it, fo far be. yond the force and natural ftrength of mortals, that one cannot but think there was fome miraculous power to fupport the sufferer.

of God, (which is the great foundation of all religion) than any other religion or inftitution in the world: that it gives us a more certain and perfect law for the government of our lives ;-that it propounds to us more powerful arguments to perfuade men to the obedience of this law;-and that it furnishes us with better motives and confiderations, to patience and contentednefs, under the evils and afflictions of this life. Now these are the greatest advantages which any religion can have, to give men right apprehenfions of God; a perfect rule of good life, with efficacious arguments to perfuade them to be good, and patiently bear the evils and fufferings of this life.

And these are advantages, we are bold to fay, only to be had from the Chriftian religion. From the heathens, every man, the leaft acquainted with their theology, is well affured, that no fatisfaction can be attained. Ignorant of God, they wandered in the thickest darkness; and he, who wants to be convinced of their perfect uncertainty, refpecting this first principle in religion, may receive complete information from Cicero's Treatife, Of the nature of the Gods; one of the most ufeful remnants of antiquity. Nor will the Koran of Mahomet afford the rational fearcher after truth a much better account of the Deity, or a more perfect rule of life, than the schools of the old heathen divinities. Mahomet, it is true, dif claims idolatry, and avows the unity of God; but he reprefents him, and his attendants, in fo ridiculous a light; gives fo childish a reprefentation of future punishments, fo voluptuous and fenfual a view of future pleasures, that no man who believes himself poffeffed of a rational foul, as well as an animal frame, would even with to pafs eternity in gratification fo completely beftial.

The modern Infidel, and refined

deift, we know, will ftep in, and join iffue with us in exploding at once the Heathen and Mahometan, and all pretenders to revelation and fupernatural intercourfe; while they will urge, that with them felves, and them only, truth is to be found; and that their fyftem is the most rational, as poffeffing every mark of excellence which we mention. But before we proceed to examine your claim, we must enquire whence you obtained this excellent and rational fyftem; how you came into poffeffion of this valuable truth?" Why, from our own reafoning powers, from the exertion of our own intellectual faculties !"-This indeed is ftrange, and paffing all belief; for furely you will not deny that human reafon was as ftrong before the coming of Chrift, as it hath ever been fince? Surely you will not deny that Socrates, and Plato, and Cicero, &c. &c. were men of parts as bright, of understandings as elevated, as yourselves? How then(untie the gordian knot we beseech you!) how then came it to pass, that they never arrived at this wif dom, at this truth ?-How came it to pafs, that no human reafon ever arrived at it before the coming of Jefus Chrift; that before his coming, no man was able to delineate with precision the religion of nature-This question, difficult as it may be for the Deift to anfwer, is eafy and obvious to the Chriftian; who rejects with the contempt it deferves the fyftem propofed by thofe, who have robbed the facred treafury of the Gospel to enrich themselves; and with the most daring and facrilegious impiety, oppole the idol, they have made of his own divine materials, to the ark of the true God. Their pretenfions therefore merit no anfwer, and should claim no regard.

Much lefs fhould theirs, who, defirous to fhake the foundation of a religion fo excellent as the Chrif

tian,

tian, have nothing to offer in its stead, but Atheism or Libertinism; the doctrines of Epicurus or Spi

noza.

And while the better to engage the attention of mankind, and to fpread their poifon, they are continually reviling the teachers of the established faith, as wolves and deceivers,as nuisances tofociety, and enemies to mankind; it may be eafy for the fober and thinking to try who are the deceivers, who the true enemies to mankind"They who teach a religion moft worthy of God, moft friendly to fociety, moft helpful to government, and moft beneficial to individuals, upon as great certainty at least, as men are wont to require before they engage in any important affair of life; or they, who on pretence of little difficulties, incident to the nature of the doctrines, or upon fome kinds of proofs, which they unreasonably aggravate, deny truth and certainty in all the rest, and would artfully conduct their followers into a ftate of distrust, fear, confufion and war, without leaving them the comfort of God's wife and good Providence, and the hope of his retribution hereafter to fupport them under it.”

For fuch a religion indeed is the Chriftian. We challenge the wit and malice of its enemies to say, whether it be not most holy and pure in its precepts; and gives not the moft exalted thoughts of God, and the most abafing opinion of ourfelves; whether it places perfection in any thing lefs than refembling God, and living up to the dignity of our beings; whether its worship be not a reasonable fervice, adapted to the spiritual nature of God, and

the mixt compofition of men ; whether the gospel terms of acceptance upon fincerity, and pardon upon repentance, be not fuited to the precondition of human nature; and its rewards proportioned to mens innate strong defires of immortality: whether tranquillity be to be had out of the way it recommends of reftraining inordinate defires, and ruffling paffions, of following the dictates of confcience, of reconciling ourselves to God, by amendment, after having acted otherwise: and of living in dependance on God's protection, aid, and favour, in well-doing; whether in the practice of univerfal juftice, equity, charity, and other focial and relativé offices, (all which are enjoyed or enforced by Christianity) the earth would not become a moft joyful place; as it hath proved through ignorance or neglect of thefe doctrines and motives, to be the feat of contention, rapine and oppreffion!

And if these great ends be attainable, under and by means of the Chriftian difpenfation, it is not hard to determine on which fide the true wifdom of mankind fhould determinethem; whether to Atheism, which muft infallibly unfettle the happiness of individuals, and overturn the peace of the world; or to mere Deifm, which hath never yet been tried in any country; or to the Chriftian religion, which, were it obeyed, would eftablish the happiness that is attainable in this life; and to which, (as little as it is practifed) is however owing the quiet, the fecurity, the order, which a great part of the world enjoys at prefent.

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