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fhame cover them-Let the pit close her mouth " upon them-Let them be blotted out for ever?'These things are further explained in the New Teftament: The dead fhall hear the voice of the Son of man-And fome fhall, arife to fhame and everlasting contempt And these shall go away into everlafting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. Kifs ye the Son.' Behold the King who hath the government of his Father's houfe upon his fhoulders. Turn away your eyes from David, and behold the Branch of the root of Jeffe, who hath the keys of death and hell; who openeth, and no man fhutteth; who fhutteth, and no man openeth. Behold, he hath faid, faid to every creature under hea ven, Blefs, and curfe not.' Would you jump into Jehovah's judgment-feat? or plead for David's being there, ufurping the word out of his mouth? wrenching the fword out of his band? fcattering the bolts of the Almighty's wrath? and dealing with his arm damnation or falvation round the world, according to his good pleafure? certainly! as people were favourers or oppofers of him and his righteous caufe?" Behold what you have done, when you contended for David against the Lord fpeaking in the Pfalms!--Verily in the fight of God! thofe curfes, uttered in the Pfalms, are fo far from being an argument against, that they are an irrefragable teftimony of God, bearing his own peculiar feal and character, proving that it is his own Son in perfon that fpeaks in those Pfalms. Therefore, if thou wouldst not be found fighting even against God here alfo, you must allow that David, in all the curfes uttered in the Pfalms, is only the mouth of God, to whom vengeance belongeth, who faith, I will recompenfe, faith the Lord' -And again, Let them fhout for joy who love thy falvation, and fay, Let thy name be magnified But let them be deftroyed together who with me • evil

evil-who perfecute the foul of thy turtle-adding iniquity unto their iniquity, and bow down their back alway-Let them be defolate, for a reward of their fhame, who fay unto me, Aha! aha!'-To fpeak thus, was it not his prerogative alone, who was hated without a caufe, infulted, scoffed, reproached as an affociate with publicans and people of bad fame, a glutton, a wine-biber, a raifer of fedition,. and Sabbath-breaker, a profaner of the temple, a madman, a devil in communion with Beelzebub; blindfolded, buffeted, fpitted upon, fcourged, crowned with thorns, clothed, with a robe of mockery; crucified, and blafphemed every where, evermore, by the ferpent and all the ferpent's feed, in his own perfon, and in the perfons of all his members-was it not his prerogative, I fay, to utter his Father's wrath, and execute the judgment due upon the devil and all the devil's children? Was he not exalted? Sent he not the Holy Ghoft of purpofe to convince: the world of fin, of righteoufnefs, and of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged, and caft. out with his children for ever, for their rebellion against the Son? Thus hath the Son declared, If I had not come and fpoken to you, you had had no fin,' (no fin' in rejecting me); but now I have come and fpoken to you, and done the works. which none other man did, you have no cloak for your fin-I am come the light into the world-He that believeth on me fhall not walk in darknefsBut this is the condemnation, that the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rá'ther than the light, because their deeds are evil,' and therefore, Pfalm lxix. 22. &c. is faid to be fulfilled, Rom. xi. 9. in the deftruction of thofe who believed not the apoftles teftifying of Chrift and his righteoufnefs So that, if thou believe not those fame his apoftles, all the curfes of Jehovah's power, by Chrift, and for Chrift's fake, fhall be even poured.

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into thy fpirit; and eternity fhall fhew, that it was not a fellow worm you had to do with, talking or praying about the deftiny of his enemies, or thofe of the church; but Chrift himself, the Lord in perfon, God over all bleffed for ever, appearing with his own blood, which you trample under foot, and wherewith he fanctified himfelf, and with his own Spirit, to which you do defpite, against you, and as many as fhall continue to the death, calling God a liar, by difcrediting his teftimony which he hath given concerning his Son -The very appearance of a curfe, therefore, in any Pfalm, were there no other evidence of the Pfalm's being spoken by the Lord, is an infallible mark of interpretation to go by; that we may learn not to blafpheme, but afcribe to him hisown prerogative, who hath power to caft both foul and body into hell-fire.

What a piteous thing is it to fee Dr. Watt and others making palliations and apologies for the harth Jewith fpirit, as they call it, and unkindly genius or nature of that difpenfation appearing in the curfes and imprecations uttered in the Pfalms! And thenyou are roundly advised by them, after their own method, to leap over fuch paffages in your devotions, as if you had ftumbled on a deadly fnake; for this reafon, add they, because they are unfuitable to be ufed by us now-a-days, under our milder difpenfation, which breathes nothing but love and gentleness: -True! to all who rejoice in the crofs of Chrift... But does the gofpel curfe the fearful and unbelieving lefs bitterly than the law? or, had we ever heard a word of the law, but for the fake of the gofpel? or of the gofpel but for the fake of the law? Are these two contrary the one to the other? or is there any curfe in Mofes, the Pfalms, the prophets, but in as far as there is gospel in them unbelieved? Was there ever any condemnation, but becaufe light was come, and the darknefs comprehended it not? Where is

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the ground, then, for any perfon acknowledging the New Teftament, in finging the Pfalms in churches, families, or by themselves, to pass by any paffage, becaufe of the curfe therein? feeing the curfes and bleflings are both by the fame Spirit, and equally effential eternal parts of the fame plan, wherein ismanifefted the character of God and glory of his. love, guarded and defended by the fanction of all his infinite power and wrath, whofe name, even our God in Chrift, (for no where else was he ever seen, either in creation, prefervation, or redemption, but in Chrift), is a confuming fire.'-He that would fhew his zeal for the love and bleffings of God, by being against the wrath and the curfes, is like a man who fhould pull up the hedges for the beauty and defence of the garden. It is the univerfal voice of the New Teftament, fpeaking as exprefsly as ever the old did, That he who believeth fhall be faved'that he hath life, and shall not come into condemnation; but that he who believeth not fhall be ' damned,'-nay, is condemned already; and (while this is his character, that he believeth not) he fhall not fee life; but the wrath of God abid eth upon him and, if any man love not the Lord. Jefus Chrift, let him be Anathema Maranatha.” So faith the Lord, the Spirit, to the churches: who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

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5thly, and laftly, If it be objected, that the other prophets introduce their prophecies by Thus faith the Lord;' but David in the Pfalms never ufeth that form therefore, he speaks not of the Lord, but of himself.

An. The apoftles have obviated this objection, by affuring us, that the Lord fpeaks, and not David, where no fuch form is ufed, as in Pfalm xl. 16, But if there were any thing in your objection, it would deftroy not only the infpiration of the Pfalms, but of the whole New Teftanient, wherein no fuch

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form is used, in the manner of Mofes and the pro phets, by the Lord or his apoftles; God being in them all in all, iffuing out his own mandates as a King, immediately of himfelf. And this is a proof in comparing the Lord with his prophets, who were faithful in all things as fervants, that in himself, as in the Son over his own houfe, dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily: and that the apoftles were not, like the prophets, moved only at times by the Spirit of Chrift, but always, and without intermillion; fo that they needed not fay, Thus faith the Lord the Lord himself being always perfonally, or, as it were perfonally, prefent by his Spirit, without intermiffion, giving his own teftimony with his own mouth through them: and fo, after the fame manner, in the Pfalms; even as a perfon of authority, perfonally acting and prefent, fpeaking immediately with his own mouth, or writing with his own hand, fhews himfelf by his fpeech or writing; and the manner thereof.

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After all, 6thly, if it be asked, Why are we fo zealous for the right interpretation of the Pfalms? and where is the great harm of miftaking the meaning of any part of the Old Teftament, feeing the New is fo full and clear about Christ?

Anf. This zeal is fhown for the fake of the truth, even that full and clear truth in the New Teftament about Chrift, And the harm of mistaking the meaning of the Pfalms, as has been already made appear, lies in a great meafure in this, that of however little importance thofe mistakes are fuppofed to be in themfelves, yet they have been employed to hide the light, and eat out the fpirit of the New Teftament: fo that, taken along with thofe errors, it turns out to be not only a dead, but a killing and deftroying letter, in ftead of a miniftration of life; every member thereof being, as it were, disjointed and broken; as, if you let an error efcape you in the first figures of a calculation,

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