The book of Psalms forms a very important portion of Holy Scripture.

Perhaps no other book of the Old Testament is so frequently cited by the Holy Spirit in the New; and no other book of the Old Testament is so full of Christ, both in His Messianic character, and as a Man upon the earth. He only can fully answer to the Blessed Man of Psalm 1, as He alone is the Suffering Man of Psalm 22, who will assuredly, in a coming day, be the glorified King of Psalms 45 and 72. In the Psalms, too, we can trace His path of sorrow, as He walks, a righteous Man, and one true to God, through a world under the power of evil, so that He can sympathize with His own, whether the believer of to-day or the remnant of Israel in a future day oppressed by the Man of Sin.

The Psalms do not give us the unfolding of Christian truth which we have in the Gospels. Christ come to His own; rejected by them and slain; the Spirit leading the remnant to long for His return as the Avenger of their manifold wrongs, the Judge of the wicked, and the King to reign over Zion-these we get in full. They are precious truths, vindicating the ways of God in grace and righteousness with men upon the earth. But the present period during which Christ, risen from the dead, has gone back to the Father; the Father's name revealed; and God by the Spirit calling out a people to form the assembly of God, the Church, which is "the Body" of Christ-this is nowhere spoken of in the Psalms.

Hence, whatever men may say, the Psalms are not a proper vehicle for Christian worship. To try to make them such serves only to distort the plain words of God, and to read a meaning into them which they do not contain.

If one indulges in this "spiritualizing" process, Israel and Judah would be made to represent Christians; Zion and Jerusalem must mean the Church; the "pleasant land," the Father's house; and the wars of the Jews have to be metamorphosed into spiritual conflict. When we reach the imprecatory psalms, this system breaks down totally; and men resort to an unjustifiable method of what they call "mitigating the vengeance," by taking unwarrantable liberties with the text. This system dates back to the second century; and the Reformers, delivered from much, never delivered themselves from this false theology of Rome.

In the Books of Psalms, taken as they stand, everything is in true and beautiful order. God is now dealing with men in grace:a day is coming in which He will deal in righteousness; and those who will not bow to grace, however much men may forget it, will be broken by power, as Ps. 2 plainly shows.

Now this leads us to consider briefly the characteristics of the various Books.

In Book 1, which contains Psalms 1 to 41, Jerusalem is recognized as the center of God's government on the earth. In spite of the state of things in Judah, the covenant relationship of Jehovah with His people is maintained:hence what marks this first book is that, no less than 270 times, the divine title LORD (Jehovah) is employed to express that relationship. GOD (Elohim) is used only some sixty times.

In Book 2 (Psalms 42 to 72) this order is exactly reversed. The glorious land is under Gentile domination. Judah is outcast, and the relationship title, Jehovah, occurs only some twenty-six times, while the Creatorial title, Elohim, is used about 200 times. He is the God of all the earth.

Book 3 (Psalms 73 to 89) continues the theme; but there is now a remnant in the land, who, though only a remnant, are representative of the nation, and hold in faith to the truth expressed in the opening sentence of Asaph's Psalm, which becomes the keynote of this portion, that "God is good to Israel." Moreover, the disciplinary dealing of God has produced true repentance of heart; hence the writer immediately adds, "to such as are of a clean heart."

In Book 4 (Psalms 90 to 106) the opening psalm was no doubt historically the first to be written, and is essentially the psalm for the wilderness; but in it also there is expressed, what the writer had learned experimentally, that man's littleness finds resource and satisfaction in God's Almightiness; and, in spite of all the powers arrayed against him, the heart rests in the supreme fact that "Jehovah reigneth." His manifold mercies extended to His erring but now restored people call forth the praises of the psalms that follow; and this portion closes with the prayer for the full recovery of the scattered people. "Gather us from among the heathen to give thanks to Thy holy name."

The Doxology here in Psalm 106 is of a fuller character than heretofore.

Book 5 (Psalms 107 to 150) contemplates the nation again in their land with Messiah's law written in their heart, and Jehovah's ways and purposes about to be manifested in the millennial kingdom. The prospect and the retrospect call forth the great "Hallel" of praise rising to its climax in the closing psalm-"Everything that hath breath shall praise Jehovah." L. Laurenson