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medicine for his own disease....The prophets provide one kind of instruction, the historians another, the law yet another, and the exhortations of the Proverbs yet another. But the Book of Psalms contains that which is profitable in all of them. It prophesies of the future; it recalls history; it legislates for life; it suggests rules of action; in a word, it is a common storehouse of good doctrines, providing exactly what is expedient for everyone....A Psalm is the calm of souls, the arbiter of peace: it stills the stormy waves of thought. It softens the angry spirit, and sobers the intemperate. A Psalm cements friendship it unites those who are at variance; it reconciles those who are at enmity. For who can regard as an enemy the man with whom he has joined in lifting up one voice to God? Psalmody therefore provides the greatest of all good things, even love, for it has invented concerted singing as a bond of unity, and fits the people together in the concord of one choir. A Psalm puts demons to flight: it summons the angels to our aid; it is a weapon in the midst of alarms by night, a rest from the toils of day; it is a safeguard for babes, a decoration for adults, a comfort for the aged, a most befitting ornament for women. It makes deserts populous and marketplaces sane. It is an initiation to novices, growth to those who are advancing, confirmation to those who are being perfected. It is the voice of the Church; it gladdens festivals, it creates godly sorrow. For a Psalm calls forth tears even from a stony heart. A Psalm is the employment of angels, heavenly converse, spiritual incense....What mayest thou not learn thence? The heroism of courage; the integrity of justice; the gravity of temperance; the perfection of prudence; the manner of repentance; the measure of patience; in a word every good thing thou canst mention. Therein is a complete theology; the prediction of the advent of Christ in the flesh, the threatening of judgement, the hope of resurrection, the fear of chastisement, promises of glory, revelations of mysteries: all, as in some great public storehouse, are treasured up in the Book of Psalms1"

1 This passage seems to have been in Hooker's mind when he wrote the well-known words quoted on p. viii.

In a well-known passage of his Confessions (ix. 4), St Augustine describes the comfort which he derived from the Psalms in the interval before his baptism.

"In what accents I addressed Thee, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs, the language of devotion which banishes the spirit of pride, while I was still a novice in true love of Thee, and as a catechumen rested in that country house along with Alypius, who was also a catechumen, with my mother at our side, in the dress of a woman but with the faith of a man, with the calmness of age, the affection of a mother, the piety of a Christian. How I addressed Thee in those Psalms! how my love for Thee was kindled by them! how I burned to recite them, were it possible, throughout the world, as an antidote to the pride of humanity. Yet they are sung throughout the world, and there is none that hideth himself from Thy heat1. How grieved and indignant was I with the Manichaeans! and yet again I pitied them for their ignorance of those sacraments, those medicines, and their mad rejection of the antidote which might have cured them of their madness. Would that they could have been somewhere near me without my knowledge and watched my face and heard my voice when I read the Fourth Psalm in that time of leisure, and have known the effect of that Psalm upon me. Would that they could have heard what I uttered between the words of the Psalm, without my knowing that they heard...how I spoke with myself and to myself before Thee out of the inmost feelings of my soul. I trembled for fear, and then I became fervent with hope and rejoicing in Thy mercy, O Father. And all these feelings issued forth by my eyes and voice..."

The interpretation of the Psalm and the application of it to his own circumstances which follow are fanciful and far-fetched, but they shew how his heart glowed with fervour as he read, and how he found the Psalms "sweetened with heavenly honey, and luminous with the light of God."

Luther and Calvin represent the revival of the study of the Bible in the age of the Reformation.

1 An allusion to Ps. xix. 6.

2 Who deprived themselves of the Psalms by rejecting the O. T.

Luther speaks thus of the Psalter, which he found inexpressibly precious in the trials and conflicts of his stormy life:

"You may rightly call the Psalter a Bible in miniature, in which all things which are set forth more at length in the rest of the Scriptures are collected into a beautiful manual of wonderful and attractive brevity. From the Psalms you may learn not the works of the saints only, but the words, the utterances, the groans, the colloquies, which they used in the presence of God, in temptation and in consolation; so that though they are dead, in the Psalms they live and speak. The Psalms exhibit the mind of the saints; they express the hidden treasure of their hearts, the working of their thoughts, and their most secret feelings1."

"This book," says Calvin, in the Epistle to his Readers prefixed to his commentary, “I am wont to call an anatomy of all the parts of the soul; for no one will find in himself a single feeling of which the image is not reflected in this mirror. Here the Holy Spirit has represented to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, anxieties, in short, all the stormy emotions, by which human minds are wont to be agitated. The rest of Scripture contains the commands which God gave His servants to be delivered to us. Here the prophets themselves, in their converse with God, because they lay bare all their inmost feelings, invite or compel every one of us to examine himself, that none of all the infirmities to which we are subject may remain hidden. It is a rare and singular advantage when every secret recess is laid open, and the heart purged from the foul plague of hypocrisy and brought out to light."

One quotation from a modern writer must suffice. With profound insight and unrivalled delicacy of touch the late Dean Church thus describes the Psalms and their work2:

"In the Psalms we see the soul in the secret of its workings, in the variety and play of its many-sided and subtly compounded nature-loving, hoping, fearing, despairing, exulting, repenting, aspiring the soul, conscious of the greatness and sweetness of

Works, ed. 1553, Vol. iii. p. 356.

The Discipline of the Christian Character, pp. 53 ff,

its relations to Almighty God, and penetrated by them to the very quick; longing, thirsting, gasping, after the glimpses that visit it, of His goodness and beauty-awestruck before the unsearchableness of His judgement, silent before the certainty of His righteousness-opening, like a flower to the sun, in the presence of His light, of the immensity of His lovingkindness"......It has been the work of the Book of Psalms to teach devotion, worship, self-knowledge. "They bring before us in all its fulness and richness the devotional element of the religious character. They are the first great teachers and patterns of prayer, and they shew this side of the religious character...in varied and finished detail, in all its compass and living and spontaneous force....The tongue is loosed to give utterance out of the abundance of the heart, to every mood, every contrasted feeling of the changeful human mind. From all the hidden depths, from all the strange and secret consciousnesses of the awakened and enlightened soul, spring up unexpected and vivid words, in which generation after generation has found the counterpart of its own convictions and hopes and joys, its own fears and distresses and perplexities and doubts, its own confidence and its own sorrow, its own brightest and darkest hours. This immense variety of mood and subject and occasion, with which the reverence and hope of worship are always combined, is a further point in the work of the Book of Psalms. It is a vast step in the revealing of man to man. We know how much we owe of the knowledge of ourselves to the great dramatists, to the great lyrical poets, to the great novelists. Such, in the unfolding to man of all that is really and most deeply involved in the religious character, is the place of the Book of Psalms."

Luther, as we have seen, calls the Psalms "a Bible in miniature"; and the words which Coleridge uses of the whole Bible may most truly be applied to the Psalms. In them we find copious sources of truth, and power, and purifying impulses; words for our inmost thoughts, songs for our joy, utterances for our hidden griefs, pleadings for our shame and our feebleness. And whatever finds us bears witness for itself that it has proceeded from a Holy Spirit, even from the same Spirit, which

in all ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God and prophets'.

CHAPTER XI.

LITERATURE.

The literature on the Psalter is enormous, and only a few of the most important and useful works can be mentioned here. An interesting sketch of the history of the exposition of the Psalms will be found in § ix of the Introduction to Delitzsch's Commentary.

St Athanasius' Letter to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms is worthy of its author. It treats of the character and value of the Psalms, classifies them, and indicates how they may be used in the various experiences of life. The most famous Greek commentary on the Psalms is the Homilies of St Chrysostom. It was complete, but only the Homilies upon 58 Psalms are now extant. The corresponding work in the Western Church is the Enarrationes in Psalmos of St Augustine, expositions of the Psalms for the most part actually delivered, the 32 discourses on Ps. cxix forming an exception. It became the great authority from which subsequent writers drew freely.

Medieval expositors followed in the track of the ancient Fathers. The literal meaning was neglected, mystical and allegorical exegesis was predominant. Dependence on the imperfect Greek and Latin Versions often led them far astray, and the absence of any restraint to the luxuriance of their imagination lays them open to the charge of "making anything out of anything." But the patristic and medieval commentaries are rich in beautiful thought, profound spiritual instruction, and practical application.

To the Jewish commentators of the Middle Ages we owe a great debt. They preserved the tradition of the meaning of the Hebrew language, which had been entirely neglected

1 Coleridge's Letters on the Inspiration of the Scriptures, Letter i.

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