bade men see in sacrifice not a substitute, but a means, for true reconciliation of the soul to God.

(d) Its message to the soul itself.

Thus it was that prophecy (I repeat) carried on those earlier revelations, teaching men not only to feel but to see God's hand in history, and in law to know not only God's will, but God Himself. But its peculiar revelation was the revelation of God, neither in outward history nor outward law, but to and in the individual soul itself. This office of the prophet towards his own generation is perhaps most distinctly seen in the prophets of unwritten prophecy in Samuel, in Ahijah, in Elijah, in Elisha, and in their less famous brethren of the same early periods. The establishment and succession of the prophets corresponds to the establishment and succession of the kings, in something more than mere coincidence of time. The true theocracy was to be maintained against the danger of the conversion of the kingdom into a mere Eastern despotism of the ordinary type, worshipping material strength and splendour, perhaps idolising the king himself. Whether by friendly guidance or by stern rebuke, by the promise of God's protection or by the threat of His vengeance, it was the task of the prophets to fix the position of the king as simply the vicegerent of God in the department of legal and temporal power, and thus at once to give sacredness to the authority of the Lord's anointed,' and to mark out its limitation and responsibility. It has been said with truth that the prophetic power was thus the guardian of liberty, and the representative of the element of progress, in the commonwealth of Israel. But this beneficent work was indirect rather than direct. It was by the assertion in the national life of the true sovereignty of God alone over the spirit as well as the body, that the rights and liberties of His covenanted people were guarded; it was by the declaration of God's direct revelation of Himself to the individual soul, that the spirituality of man, in which lies the secret of progress, was brought out.

The answer

IV. It is to be observed, as illustrative of this peculiar character of the prophetic revelation, that in Scripture, immediately following the first entrance of prophecy and actually preceding its full development, occur those books which express the answer of the human

to the prophecy.

soul to the new revelation of God, and shine upon us by the light of inspiration, transfiguring the spiritual life within. Of that answer of the soul there are two phases-the moral and spiritual answer in the Psalms, the intellectual answer in the books of Wisdom. In both we trace not the word of God to man, but the answer of inspired man to God.

David.'

We listen first to this answer, as embodied in the Psalms of Scripture, not confined to the Psalter, but running in a distinct thread through the history and the pro- (a) The phecy itself. Those psalms are the productions of Psalms of many writers known and unknown, and of many ages, from the days of the Exodus down to the return from the Captivity. But, by consent of all, the highest strength and beauty of the psalmic element of Scripture is enshrined in the Psalms of David, the pupil of the first prophet, and the child of the first prophetic age. They may therefore be best considered as belonging to this stage of the Scriptural revelation.

nion of the

soul with

The psalm is the lyric poetry of Israel, and it occupies very much the place which ordinarily belongs to the lyric element in the development of a national literature. The commuBut the question may occur to the mind why the lyric poetry, generally the most varied by virtue of God. its individuality, should present in this case so remarkable a unity, and why it is that, while other lyric poetry appears to be naturally more evanescent in charm and vitality than other elements of literature, the Psalter is just the one element of the Old Testament which is most permanent, and which through eighteen centuries has been taken up as the utterance of Christian thought and feeling. The answer is simple. It is because it embodies that which in its essence is most unchangeable in various persons and various timesthe consciousness of a revelation of God in the secrets of the soul. In this lies the true essential inspiration of the Psalmist's spiritual song.

Other as

It is true that the Psalmists constantly realise the presence of God in the outer world of event and conduct. Then there are psalms which delight to pects of the trace that presence in the outer sphere of nature. Such is the 8th Psalm, the hymn of the earliest astronomer,

Psalms.

watching the starlit heavens; or the 104th Psalm, that great psalm of creation, surveying it in all its kingdoms of earth, and sea, and sky, tracing all the beautiful gradations of being, in vegetation, in animal life, and in humanity. There are psalms, which are little more than an adoring comment on the history of God's chosen people, and a recognition of His hand working through it all. Such is the great 78th Psalm of Asaph, passing under rapid survey the story of Israel from the Exodus to the kingdom of David, or those later Psalms (Ps. cv., cvi.) which dwell in fuller detail on the early patriarchal days, on the trials and blessings of the Exodus, and the misery of the subsequent apostasies, and end in a call to all Israel: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for everlasting, and let all the people say Amen.' There are psalms, like the 107th Psalm, which are the psalms of life, tracing God's hand in all the changes and chances of this world-the wandering in a wilderness, the darkness of captivity, the wasting away of sickness, the tossing on the great deep-and at every point crying out, not to Israel, but to all mankind, O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of men!' There are psalms again like the great 119th Psalm, which, through scores and scores of verses, repeats constantly the expression of reverence and thankfulness for 'the law,'' the statutes,' the commandments,' 'the testimonies' of the Lord; rejoicing to plant the foot firmly on the rock of God's declared will.

This the es

racter.

But the true essential idea of the Psalms, which runs like a golden thread of light through them all, is the sense of a direct and individual communion with God in sential cha- the soul itself. The very motto of the whole is contained in the famous passage- Have I not remembered Thee on my bed,' in the solemn thoughtfulness of the night? Have I not thought upon Thee when I was waking,' in the first fresh rush of thought and feeling in the morning light? That sense of communion with God may express itself in the tearful cry of penitence, such as the Psalm (Ps. li.) poured out to God and to God alone, when the Psalmist lay prostrate with veiled face before the sanctuary of the Lord. It may, on the other hand, speak in an outburst of thankful

ness (Psalm ciii.) Praise the Lord, O my soul,' or in exulting confidence (Psalm xci.) in the defence under the wings of the Most High' and 'the shadow of the Almighty.' It may assume (as in Psalm cxxxix.) the form of a solemn awestricken sense of the unceasing presence of God in the very secrets of the heart, trying, examining, judging, cleansing' the soul. But, under whatever phase, the essential thought is the same. The Psalmist closes the eyes to all outward things, that he may see God within. To him the inward witness supersedes the necessity of anxious search into the works of God. To him the voice of the Lord in the soul speaks more clearly than the thunders of the outward law. To him the shrine of God in the soul is a more sacred temple than even the tabernacle, which all the psalmists loved, and at which so many served. We enter with him into a revelation of God to man as man, which we feel to be essentially our own. The history changes age by age; the law in its outward form has passed away; the sacrifices have told their tale; and the altar is deserted and cold. But the word of the Lord, written on the heart, abides to all eternity. The Spirit of the Lord in His action on the soul is the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

(b) The

books.

But there is another answer of the soul to God, not, as in the psalm, through the moral elements of conscience and love, sublimed into the enthusiasm of adoration, but, as in those books which may be called the Sapiential philosophical books of Scripture, an answer of the understanding. They naturally succeed the other; for there is a reaction of deep thoughtfulness which settles down on the soul, whenever some burst of enthusiasm has passed over it. Their one great characteristic, expressed in many forms, is the desire of wisdom.' That desire, searching for wisdom as for hid treasures, with which no earthly The search gold or jewel may compare, is perhaps not less for wisdom. earnest, but certainly calmer, more self-conscious, and more self-controlled, than the Psalmist's intense spiritual thirst for God, yea! even for the living God.'

But what is the Scriptural idea of wisdom,' as distinguished from 'the understanding,' the faculty by which

it is attained, and from the knowledge,' which is but the preparation for attaining it?

There is a wisdom of man; and this is the conception of the true design and object of life, for which all faculties The wisdom and all opportunities are given him, and on which depends what some call his happiness, and others

of man.

the perfection of his nature.

There is a wisdom of God; and this is the principle of His great dispensation to man-the design which ruled in The wisdom creation-the scheme or plan which determines all the events of the world, and should rule all the

of God.

actions of man.

The union

But these two are in some sense one. The wisdom of man cannot be attained unless he enters, so far as a finite creature may, into the wisdom of God-in part seeof both. ing it by his understanding, and in part resting upon it in faith. The idea is the grandest of all possible ideas; the loftiest conceptions of the spiritual nature and capacities of man are implied in this consciousness of a power to enter into the very wisdom of God.

Job.

This fundamental idea is expressed in many forms.

In the Book of Job it wears the form of an intense desire to know the secrets of God's moral government of the world, The Book of and an honest, though impatient, perplexity at the apparent imperfections of His retribution. It ends to Job himself, not in understanding, but in a deeper faith in God's inscrutable wisdom and infinite love. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil'-let what will betide-' that is understanding.' It ends to the reader of that magnificent book, in the conception of life as a discipline, in which there is a power of evil making it hard, but a power overrruled in God's wisdom to good.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes-that terrible soul's tragedy -we have the teaching of failure after failure in the search The Book of after wisdom. The purpose of life is sought by the Ecclesiastes. wise king of Israel," first in self-indulgence, selfconsciousness, self-culture; then in the communion with

5 It will be, of course, understood that the lesson of the book, with which alone we are here concerned,

is independent of all critical questions as to its date and authorship.