Saul endeavoured to slay David, even while he was soothing him with his harp: " David played with his hand, as at other times; and there was a javelin in Saul's hand, and Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it: and David avoided out of his presence twice" (1 Sam. xviii. 10). This marvellous ingratitude and ferocity in Saul towards his Heaven-inspired physician, has an exact parallel in the conduct of the Papacy towards Huss, Luther, and all the Reformers, and subsists to the present day. David flies for his life, which answers to the separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome. If Goliath typify Charles V., then Goliath's sword, with which David arms himself in flying, would answer to those German princes who defended the Protestants. Saul, on David's flight, slays all the priests, excepting Abiathar, who fled to David and became his priest: "And Abiathar shewed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests; and David said unto Abiathar, Abide thou with me; fear not : for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life; but with me thou shalt be in safeguard" (1 Sam. xxii. 21). Corresponding with this we have always maintained that the Church of Rome contained in it a true church till the time of the Reformation; but that then the true church went out with the Protestants, as Abiathar did with David. "Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger," and so has the Protestant church; " and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker," and so did the Papacy and we know that it has now fallen, never to rise again; that the proclamation hath already gone forth, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird" (Rev. xviii. 2). But David was not permitted to build the temple of the Lord: that honour was reserved for Solomon, the "Peaceable:" 1 Chron. xxii. 9, "Thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever." This shews that the reign of peace, and the universal spread of the Gospel which attends the Millennium, in whatever aspect we view it, will not be brought about by the Protestant, or any other existing church, but is reserved for Christ alone, whom Solomon typified, and with whom this typical series concludes.

The church has now been represented in all its different

aspects, and the remaining portion of the sacred history prepares for the manifestation of the person of its great Deliverer. To do this, the several oppressors of the church are exhibited in the oppressors of the Jewish people; that suitable expressions might be afforded to the persecuted church of Christ, and that it might have its hopes directed to its coming Lord by the example of the Jews in looking for their promised Messiah. The language for both the Jews and the church is abundantly furnished in the Psalms of David;-a treasury for the supply of every thing which the soul of Jew or Christian stands in need of, in all their various wants and trials; a well-spring of refreshment in every stage of their pilgrimage, a day-star of hope in their greatest gloom. But these Psalms have nothing of Stoicism: the motives they offer are not derived from stern necessity of endurance; no obstinate knitting of resolution to bear up against an inexorable fate; none of this false philosophy of the heathen is to be found in them. On the contrary, the Psalms, when they most deeply express the present misery of man, always carry the mind backward to the cause in the fall of man, and forward to the remedy in the interposition of Jehovah; and the hope they offer to men under present suffering is, to look out of themselves to One mightier than they, and mightier than their adversaries; "their rock, fortress, deliverer, strength, buckler, horn of salvation, and strong tower." (xviii., cxliv.) They sing, too, of the destruction of our enemies without compunction, because they are also the enemies of the Lord: "For, lo, thine enemies, O Lord; for, lo, thine enemies shall perish...mine eyes also shall see my desire on mine enemies" (Psal. xcii. 9, 11). "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice...a fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about" (Psal. xcvii. 1, 3). And the final end they set before us is the making known the glory of God: "Let the heaven and the earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein; for God will save Zion" (Ps. Ixix). "Say among the heathen, that the Lord reigneth" (Psal. xcvi). "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things and blessed be his glorious Name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen." (Psal. lxxii.)

In the reign of Solomon, the house of Israel attained its greatest degree of prosperity at home, and its highest dignity in the world: "Judah and Israel were many as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt ....And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore.....And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth

in riches and wisdom. And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom that God had put in his heart. And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses and mules, a rate year by year" (1 Kings iv. 20-29; 2 Chron. ix. 22). What a complete type of the Millennium! and how much does it resemble, in another and a higher kind, that dominion with which Adam was invested over the brute creation! But Adam fell, and his kingdom, the creation, with him. Solomon fell, and his sin brought the house of Israel low. "For it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.....Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding, in thy days I will not do it, for David thy father's sake but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which I have chosen" (1 Kings xi. 4, 11-13). When Adam fell, the whole creation came under the sentence of death; but was respited, to give place for bringing in the Seed of the woman, who shall restore creation: when the whole world became corrupt, Noah was saved, to keep alive that church of which the woman's Seed shall be the Head and now, when Solomon fell, a remnant was left to his son, that in his line the King might come who shall sit on the throne of David for ever and ever. And as in the preceding series, the corruption of man, the bondage of the church, and the adversary of the kingdom, were first shewn, in order more clearly to shew the nature of their deliverances, and the establishment of the kingdom; so now, when the rescue of the fallen kingdom is to be shewn forth, its oppressors are first exhibited, who each of them give occasion for the display of some new feature in the Redeemer's character, and each adds one to his " many crowns." From the death of Solomon the times of the Gentiles may be considered as beginning; for though the first of the four monarchies was not immediately brought forth to scourge and root up the apostate kingdom, yet the doom of Israel began with the sin of Solomon, as the doom of Adam with his act of eating, and the delay proceeded only from the forbearance and long-suffering of God. The first chastisement is foretold shortly after, by Abijah the prophet (1 Kings. xiv. 15): "The Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter

them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger; and he shall give Israel up, because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin." From this time forward the people are always dealt with as if bound up in the king, and he is considered as responsible for the conduct of his people;-a great truth, one of the last which rebellious man will learn, but the climax of the purpose of God towards man; who, having been created in a federal head, Adam, and having fallen in that head, shall in the fulness of times be regathered in one, the Second Adam, and exhibit that greatest of all mysteries, a rebel enthroned beside his King; union growing out of diversity, and in the very union exhibiting the diversity; a multitude standing in one, and one upholding a multitude. From this time the special revelation of the person of Messiah begins. He had been promised in general terms from the beginning, and typified in all the deliverers who had been raised up, but his personal character had not been hitherto revealed, nor his peculiar personal work described, although his personal experience is largely given in the Psalms of David. The person and offices of Christ are given in the books of the Prophets; and the different conditions of the Jewish people, under their good and bad kings, derive their chief interest from having given occasion to the various prophetic strains by which the sufferings of the church, and the coming of her Lord in the time of her greatest need, are set forth at large. All the prophecies, without exception, include the whole time of the church: every prophet, however concise, speaks of the second advent of Christ: but there is no unnecessary repetition in Scripture, and therefore each prophet delivers his own burden, links it on to the coming of the Lord, and leaves the intermediate events as the special burden of some other prophet. Joel, the first of the prophecies, shall be accomplished when "the Lord shall become the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel so shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no stranger pass through her any more; but Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation for I will cleanse their blood, that I have not cleansed; even I, the Lord, that dwell in Zion." And Malachi, the last of them, shall be fulfilled when "the day of the Lord shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear the Lord shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.....and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I

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will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.' The person and offices of Christ, as set forth by the Prophets, we shall make the subject of a separate paper: let it suffice for the present to say, in one word, that it is The Gospel, the glorious Gospel of the kingdom, ordained in the counsels of God from all eternity; for which creation prepared the materials, and of which every event that has taken place since the world began has been the gradual disclosure. Its own period of operation. is commensurate with this mighty preparation; for it began as the grain of mustard-seed two thousand years ago; it shall become a great tree, and fill the whole earth, in the ages to come. He came as Immanuel, the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him Immanuel's land, and the throne of his father David. He came to be set at nought by the builders he shall become the Head of the corner. He came the Holy One and the Just; and " those things that God before had shewed by the mouth of all his Prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled." "And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you; whom the heavens must receive until the times of RESTITUTION of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of ALL HIS HOLY PROPHETS since the world began." (Acts iii. 21.) This is the Gospel announced by the angel to the shepherds: "For, behold, I evangelize to you a great joy, which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you this day a SAVIOUR, who is CHRIST THE LORD, in the city of David." THE SAVIOUR was he whom the angel had previously named "JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21), and declared that "he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke i. 33); thus uniting the two types, of Joshua, who put Israel in possession of the land, and Solomon, under whom they reached their highest grandeur; the beginning and the ending of their national history. And to us, who live so much later than the shepherds,-recalling that Jesus who was "made in the likeness of men; and, being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. ii. 8-11)-this Saviour is also CHRIST, the Anointed; of whom it is written, "Yet have I anointed my King upon Zion, the hill of my holiness." Of whom also it is written, "Because of Jehovah is our defence, and of the Holy One of Israel our King. Therefore thou hast spoken in vision