who are at a loss to answer this question ; and who, from their inability to reconcile the apparently oppo- site assertions, are led to doubt, or even to deny, the divinity of our blessed Lord.
That you may be established in this fundamental truth of our holy religion, I will,
I. Solve the difficulty that is here proposed —
The difficulty, no doubt, was great —
[The Pharisees all acknowledged David as a prophet of the Lord : and they were all persuaded, that in this psalm he spake respecting the Messiah, whose future triumphs he pre- dicted. Had they been able to say that those words were not inspired; or that they did not refer to the Messiah; or that our Lord had misapplied them in any respect ; though they had not given a solution of the difficulty, they would, in a measure, have extricated themselves from it. But they could not: and it is of great importance for us to bear in mind, that on no occasion whatever did the Jews ever controvert the application which was made of the prophecies, either by Christ or his apostles ; and that all the interpretations which have been suggested by Jews of later days, have been invented for the purpose of invalidating the arguments of Christians founded upon them ; which arguments, upon a just interpretation of the Scriptures, they were not able to withstand. They saw that David really spoke of one, who, at the distance of a thou- sand years, was to spring from his loins ; and that yet he had called this very person his Lord and Governor. Had he said, ' The Lord said to my son, Sit thou on my right hand,' the sense would have been clear and easy : but how could he say, ' The Lord said to my Lord?' David himself was the greatest of all the kings of Israel ; and yet he speaks of a person who should descend from him at a remote period ; and of a person who, as the event proved, was the son of a poor carpenter, as his LordJ]
But, had they understood the Scriptures, they might have solved the difficulty with ease —
[They knew, and universally acknowledged, that the Prophet Micah spake of the Messiah, when he said, " Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thou- sands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting*^." Now here the pre-existent
c Mic. v. 2.