Philip de Comines, who wrote the history of Lewis the Eleventh of France, could not avoid observing that the divine vengeance was conspicuous in returning to this most wicked prince the evil which he had inflicted upon others, and in making his punishment suitable to his offences. Many memorable and striking instances of this kind might be produced from modern historians. In the scriptures there are examples of saints as well as of sinners, who suffered in this life according to the law of retaliation. St Paul was consenting to the stoning of Stephen, and though God forgave him, yet he permitted him to be used by the Jews, as he and the Jews had used Stephen and other Christians, and he was banished, imprisoned, beaten, scourged, and three times stoned. It is observable that from the beginning of the reign of Tiberius down to Constantine, the Romans, even omitting the colleagues of the emperors, and those usurpers who set themselves up against them, had no less than thirty-seven emperors, whose reigns, one with another, amount only to seven years for cach. Take the same space of time in the English History from William the conqueror, and you have no more than eleven kings and their reigns will be of twenty-seven years, one with another. This very quick succession of the Roman emperors for the first three centuries, the violent and untimely death by which many of them perished, the empire often falling into the hands of persons not related to their predecessors, but their enemies and rivals, and not disposed to adopt their private views and animosities, was of singular advantage to Christianity, and made the persecutions less violent and less lasting than they they would else have been, and may very reasonably be looked upon as providential. Let us now see what the prophets have delivered concerning these events. The hundred and tenth Psalm is a direct and literal prophecy of Christ : 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. 4. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. 5. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. 6. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies: he shall wound the heads over many countries. 7. He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall he lift up his head. The second psalm is of the same kind : 1. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take council together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, 3. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure, 6. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. S. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 10. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little: blessed are all they that put their trust in him. This psalm seems in a lower sense applicable to David; but it suits much better with the Messias, especially when compared with the hundred and tenth, which is a key to it, and the apostles apply it to Christ. No person ever lived before David, and none ever yet arose after him, to whom the exth Psalm could be applied, besides Jesus Christ. David was a king, he was a great and victorious king, he was a king by divine election and appointment, he was a prophet, he was called a man after God's own heart, not because he was a better man than many of his subjects, for he was guilty of several faults, but because, as a king, he kept up the true religion, and made the laws of God to be observed in his dominions, and never fell into idolatry; and upon all these accounts he could have no superior upon earth, none who could be his lord. A great king, a promised Messias was to arise; but as he was to be the son of David, he must must have been in that respect inferior to his father, and it seemed unnatural that David should pay homage to his own child. This difficulty our Saviour proposed to the Jews: they could not solve it, and he would not; but his design was to intimate to them that the Messias was a greater person than they apprehended, and that though he was inferior to David, as he was the son of David, he was superior to him, as he was the Son of God. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word. Besides, what relation could there be of Lord and servant between David and the Messias, when David was dead, or before the Messias was born, unless the Messias existed before his appearance upon earth, and were the Lord not only of the living, but of the dead ; that is, of those who, though dead to men, yet lived to him and were his servants? David therefore is to be thus understood: The Lord Jehovah hath said to my Lord the Messias, Thou shalt sit at my right hand, invested with divine power, and next in dignity to me. In this Psalm there are some expressions which are ambiguous and obscure; but setting aside grammatical and critical difficulties, and attending to those parts of it which are plain, we find it foretold here. that a person should arise, who should be greater than David, who should be a king, who should rule in the midst of his enemies, who should be an everlasting priest, and who by the assistance of God should overthrow kings and armies that opposed him. These predictions were evidently accomplished in Christ. By comparing this Psalm with other prophecies, we may observe that the person here mentioned was to be the son of David. It hath been universally agreed upon by Jews and Christians that the Messias should be the son of David, for these reasons. ecer. God promised to David, not only that he should have a son to reign after him, but that the kingdom should be continued to his family. Thus in the first Book of Samuel, wii. 12. I will set up my seed after thee-Thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for In Psalm lxxxix. I have found David my servant-My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him: his seed will I make to endure for ever. In the cxxxii Psalm it is also declared: I will make the horn of David to bud, I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed. Horn means a king, and the expression of budding is taken from trees, which shoot forth branches Isaiah says, I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. That is, I will fulfil what I promised to David, Iv. 3. And again; In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shull stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious, xi. 10. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, &c. xi. 1. This was said long after the death of David, so that the promised person was not yet come, but was to appear in future times. Afterwards |