says: "It is now about eighteen years since I began writing and printing books; and how much in that time have I gained by printing? Why, on summing up my accounts, 1 found that on March 1, 1756, I had gained, by printing and preaching together, a debt of £1,236. Seventeen years after the income of the London Society was bad, but, says he, "My private account I find still worse. I have labored as much as many writers, and all my labor has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred pounds." (Journal, 1773.) Mr. Wesley kept printing presses of his own, and he might have lost in carrying on the business. Some of his works were very profitable; others, as his Commentary on the Old Testament and the Christian Library, did not pay. Another cause of debt was the cheap mode in which he published, for the sake of usefulness. His works, with his brother's, must have yielded much profit. Before Charles Wesley married, his brother gave security to the parents of the young lady for the yearly payment of £100, on the profits of their books. The mother (Mrs. Gwynne) wrote to Mr. Perronet to know whether the sale of the books would be likely to continue before she consented to the marriage. The good clergyman wrote her:

"The writings of these gentlemen are, even at this time, a very valuable estate; and when it shall please God to open the minds of the people more, and prejudice is worn off, it will be much more valuable. I have seen what an able bookseller has valued a great part of their works at, which is £2,500; but I will venture to say that this is not half their value. They are works which will last and sell while any sense of true religion and learning shall remain among us." Here we have an estimate of the value of the books published prior to 1749. The after works were also of great value. Charles Wesley appears to have had his £100 a year from the income of the books. And his brother, especially after he gave up his fellowship, doubtless drew yearly from the same source. These books were not only profitable to the writers, but to the English Methodist Conference, for Mr. Wesley in his will gave all his books on sale to the body of preachers. The books are still on sale, and yield, especially the hymn books, a large sum every year to the English Conference. The works are useful, too, to the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, who also derive pecuniary assistance from the same source. And in Canada, the Wesleyan Book Room sells and profits by the hymn books and other works of the founder of Methodism. These books, now a hundred years are passed away, "last and sell," as Mr. Perronet said, and doubtless will "last and sell" to the end of the world.

1

ART. VII.-EXPOSITION OF THE EIGHTH PSALM.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. Subject of this Psalm.

"THE subject of this psalm," says Hengstenberg, is “the greatness of God in the greatness of man." We would say that it is man in his primitive condition, made in the image of God, “a little less than God," and the ruler over the works of God; man as fallen, yet blessed with the divine visitations of mercy; and man by implication, as redeemed by the Son of God.

This prevailing topic is prefaced by an ascription of praise to Jehovah :

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Who hast spread thy glory upon the heavens;

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,
Because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger.

The psalmist then introduces the prevailing subject of the following verses, namely, man as frail and mortal, but yet originally almost divine, crowned with glory and honor, and ruler over the works of the Divine hand; and the last verse closes with a second ascription of praise in precisely the same terms as those of the first

verse.

§ 2. Is this psalm Messianic?

It is plainly not Messianic in the sense that Messiah is the exclusive subject. The Messiah is, however, an included subject, as man is the general subject, and Messiah, as possessed of human nature, is therefore included.

Hence the apostle, Heb. ii, 5-9, applies this psalm to Christ: "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come [the Gospel dispensation] whereof we speak; but one in a certain place [the Eighth Psalm] testified saying:

What is man that thou art mindful of him,

Or the Son of man that thou visitest him?

Thou didst make him [originally] a little lower than the angels;
Thou didst crown him with glory and honor;

Thou didst put all things under his feet.

For in that He [God] did put all things under him [man]; he left nothing which was not put under him. But we see Jesus [in human nature] made a little lower than the angels for the reason that he must suffer death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for every man."

Jesus, therefore, as man, is crowned with glory and honor. His earthly glory was great, but his heavenly glory is greater. We see, indeed, not yet all things put under him actually, but they are prospectively put under him. In the purpose of the Father he is the Ruler over all.

We do not, therefore, call this psalm Messianic in the same sense as the second, twenty-second, twenty-fourth, fortieth, forty-fifth, seventy-second, and one hundred and tenth. These psalms we take to be exclusively Messianic; and it is not necessary to understand the apostle's quotation of the eighth Psalm, as implying its exclusive Messianic character; only that Jesus is referred to and included in human nature; and as God gave to man originally the government of the world, made him ruler over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, (Gen. i, 20-25,) so all things shall be subject to Jesus as the head of human nature.

§ 3. What is the meaning of in ver. 5?

We make this a matter of distinct inquiry, because our translators, following the Septuagint, Vulgate and Chaldee, have rendered it by the term "angels" a very doubtful signification, and a rendering which, so far as we remember, is not followed elsewhere by our version. The following are the only passages to which this signification has been thought to belong, namely, Psa. lxxxii, 1; xcvii, 7, and cxxxviii, 1, and verse 5 of this Psalm.

"angels;"

De Wette and Bleeke, following Syrus, render but if we compare verses second and sixth, it would seem that we are rather to understand princes of the land, who are hence called, gods, because they, as judges who stand in the

place of God, are administrators of justice. Compare especially the sixth and seventh verses, where God thus addresses them:

Which we may paraphrase thus: Though I said ye are gods, highly exalted and standing in the divine place as judges in the land, yet on account of your unjust verdicts, oppressive to the poor and the needy, ye shall die as one of the common herd, ye shall fall by sudden and violent deaths. Death temporal, and that by violence, could not be predicable of angels; and hence the translation of Syrus, De Wette, and Bleeke is untenable.

The next passage in which it is supposed means angels is found in the ninety-seventh psalm, seventh verse:

Septuagint: προσκυνήσατε αὐτῶ πάντες ἄγγελοι ἀυτοῦ.
Worship Him, all ye his angels.

So the Vulgate and the Syriac. But the context plainly obliges us to refer it to false gods, and by metonomy those that worship them. Hence Hengstenberg: "The false gods are called upon to worship through the medium of their servants. The idol gods are also in other passages frequently viewed poetically, as gifted momentarily with life and feeling, only for the purpose of exhibiting the Lord as triumphing over them; compare Exod. xii, 12; Num. xxxiii, 4: "And upon their gods has the Lord executed judgment;" Isa. xix, 1: "Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and cometh to Egypt, and the gods of the Egyptians are moved at his presence." The Septuagint could not understand this representation, and substituted angels instead of gods, to whom what was said could apply only by an inference, as a majore ad minus; if the proud gods of the heathen cannot measure themselves with the Lord, how much less may the angels. Heb. i, 6. As decisive against the direct

reference to the angels may be mentioned the whole connection and tendency of the psalm, which is to inspirit the people of God in prospect of the approaching victory [over] the false gods; and also the usus loquendi, as Elohim never signifies angels." So Gesenius

in Thesaurus.

The next and last passage is Psa. cxxxviii, 1:

I will sing praise to Thee before the gods.

Septuagint: ἐναντίον ἀγγέλων ψαλῶ σοι.

Vulgate: In conspectu angelorum psalam tibi.

Chald: Before the judges.

Gesenius, who for once is found napping, says: "At

,that is לִפְנֵי יְהוָה לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהִים,nihil aliud esse videtur atque

, seems to be nothing more than the common formula, before God, found in such passages as Exod. xvi, 33; Lev. xxiii, 40; 2 Sam. vi, 14; Josh. xxiv, 1; Judges xxi, 2; 1 Chron. xiii, 8, 11. But this plainly cannot be, inasmuch as there is a direct address made to Jehovah by the psalmist. The English version is correct: Before the gods I will sing praise unto thee." The sense is, Jehovah is God alone, and as such I will declare him in the presence of all idols and their worshipers. Compare 2 Sam. vii, 22: "The Lord God is great, for no one is like him, and there is no God besides him." There is no need, therefore, of departing from the usus loquendi.and interpreting the by angels.

A more difficult question now arises. If never means angels, how comes it to pass that the Apostle Paul, quoting the Septuagint in Heb. i, 6, and ii, 7, adopts its errors, and founds an argument upon them for the superior and even divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ? For this purpose the apostle quotes in Heb. i, 6, from the ninety-seventh Psalm, seventh verse: "And when again he brings his first-begotten into the world, he saith: Kai προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι Θεοῦ—and let all the angels of God worship him. This quotation coincides with the Septuagint, except in using the oblique πρоσкννησaтwoav, instead of the direct роoкνvýσатε. The argument of the apostle is, if Jehovah commands the angels to worship the Son, then the Son is superior to angels, and consequently divine.

προσκυνήσατε.

In the quotation from the eighth Psalm in Heb. ii, 7, the object of the apostle seems to be twofold: 1. To show the divine dignity