sider how his victories are gained, namelj^ by his word and Spirit, and that it is by the illumination of men's minds that he subdues their hearts, we shall see that this part of the psalm may properly be un- derstood as relating to his prophetic character. Accordingly we behold him here represented as, 1 . A Prophet —
[Tlie word is " the rod of his strength," by which he works all the wonders of his grace. In itself it is as weak and ineffi- cient as the rod of Moses, whereby he wrought all his miracles in Egypt ; but, as applied by the Spirit of God to the souls of men, it is " quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," and " is mighty to the pulling down of all the strong holds" of sin and Satan : " it is the power of God unto salvation to all them that believe'." It " came forth from Zion, even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem''," when it was published by the holy Apostles ; who delivered it, as they were commanded, to Jeru- salem first, and then to other parts of the world. And there is this remarkable difference between the victories gained by it, and those gained by any carnal weapon : by the latter, men are brought to a reluctant submission ; by the former, they are " made willing," truly and cordially willing, to take Christ's yoke upon them. Whenever the Lord's time, the " day of his power," is come, they, like the rams of Nebaioth, present them- selves as voluntary sacrifices at God's altar, and give up them- selves unreservedly to the Lord'.
Nor is deliverance from death and hell the only object of their pursuit : they feel, that they can be happy only in the way of holiness ; and therefore " in the beauties of holiness" they come unto him : their dispositions and habits are all changed : they abstain from sin, because they hate it ; and obey the law, because they love it : and, could they obtain the desire of their hearts, they would be " holy as God is holy," and " perfect, even as their Father in heaven is perfect."
The numbers that shall thus be converted to the Lord exceed all calculation or conception. As the drops of " dew" issuing from " the womb of the morning," so will be the progeny that shall be born to him, innumerable : there may be but " an handful of corn cast on the top of the mountains ; but yet shall the fruit be as the woods of Lebanon, and as the piles of grass upon the earth™." Thus powerfully did his word and Spirit operate in the early " youth " of the Church ; and thus shall they operate to the very end of time : and it is worthy of parti- cular
' Rom i. 16. '' Isai. ii. 3.
' Compare that beautiful passage Isai. Ix. 4 — 8, with Rom. xii. 1. ic 2 Cor. viii. 5.
'" Ps. Ixxii. 16.
364 PSALMS, ex. 1 — 7. [411,
cular observation, that the very first verse of this psalm, with tlie explanation given of it by the Apostle, was that which pierced the hearts of our Lord's murderers, and subdued 3000 of them at once to the obedience of faith °.
David now proceeds to speak of Christ as,]
2. A Priest —
[As Christ was to offer a sacrifice for the sins of his people, he must of necessity be a Priest. But from the Levitical priest- hood, which was confined to the tribe of Levi, he was of necessity excluded, because he was of the tribe of Judah. There was however a priesthood of another order, the order of Melchizedec ; and to that he was solemnly consecrated with an oath. What this j)riesthood was, we should never have known, if it had not been explained to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the Mosaic history, Melchizedec is briefly mentioned, without any account of his predecessors or successors in his office" : and this was particularly overruled by God, in order that he might be a type of Christ, whose priesthood was from everlasting (in the Divine counsels,) and everlastingly to continue in himself alone. Now at the time that the Levitical priesthood was in all its glory, David foretold, that it should be superseded, (and the whole Mosaic economy with it,) by a priesthood of a higher order ; a priesthood, which Abraham himself, and all his posterity in him, acknowledged, and which, on account of the solemnity of its appointment, and the perpetuity of its duration, was of a far higher order P.