Ps. xl. 9, 10. I have jiTeaclied righteousness in the great con- gregation : Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knoioest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart: I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation : I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. ''^OL. v. Y
SOME of the most important prophecies are in- troduced in such a way as clearly to shew, that the writers of them were overruled, as it were, bv a divine impulse, to speak things which they them- selves did not understand. This was certainly the case with Caiaphas, who, being the High Priest, was moved by God to utter words, of the true import of which he had not the slightest conception ^ I think it highly probable, also, that David in this psalm had no just comprehension of the prophecy before us. The beginning of the psalm and the end of it seem to belong to David only : but here is a passage which can have no reference to him, and can be interpreted of Christ alone. To him it is applied in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the writer of which, shewing the utter inefficacy of the legal sacrifices to take away sin, refers to this psalm in confirmation of his state- ment; and argues from it, that God in this very pas- sage had declared his determination to ^'^ remove" the shadowy institutions of the law, and to " establish " that which was revealed in the Gospel, even '^'^that one offering of Christ Jesus, whereby the whole world may be sanctified and saved''."
The words of my text stand in immediate con- nexion with those cited by the Apostle : and they declare what Christ should do in his jwophetic office : that as, in the capacity of our great High Priest, he should offer himself a sacrifice for our sins, so, in the capacity of a Prophet to his Church, he should " preach righteousness and salvation" to the whole world.
In this view of the passage, I shall be led to con- sider it as fulfilled,
L In the ministry of Christ himself —
Our blessed Lord did not, indeed, open the truths of the Gospel so fully as his Apostles did after his re- surrection : for, till after his death and resurrection, the people were not prepared to receive a full com- munication of all which he was commissioned to
a John xi. 49 — 52. t> Heb. x. 4 — 10.