f
interpretation which seem always to have been in the mind of the Church
in her use of the Psalter. A few additional helps have been suggested
in the Notes.

CULHAM, 1908.

{vii}

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

_LECTURE I_

PART I.--GENERAL PRINCIPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
PART II.--DIFFICULTIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

_LECTURE II_

CHRIST IN THE PSALTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

_LECTURE III_

THE CHURCH IN THE PSALTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

_APPENDIX_

BRIEF SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE CHRISTIAN USE OF EACH PSALM . 107

INDEX OF PSALMS REFERRED TO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

{1}

The Christian Use of the Psalter

LECTURE I

PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Haereditate acquisivi testimonia tua in aeternum:
Quia exsultatio cordis mei sunt.

The Christian use of the Psalter is as old as Christianity itself. The
new-born Catholic Church, returning from her earliest conflict with the
kingdoms of this world, found the most natural expression of her faith
and her need in the words of the 2nd Psalm:

Why did the Gentiles rage,
And the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth set themselves in array,
And the rulers were gathered together,
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed.
(Acts iv. 25, 26, R.V.)

{2}

Before this, on the very birthday of the Church, the chief of the
Apostles had appealed to the witness of "David," for the Resurrection
and Triumph of the Holy One (Pss. xvi., cx. in Acts ii. 25-8, 34, 35).
And even earlier, during the ten days of waiting, the great Psalms of
righteous wrath (thought so impossible by many to-day) had supplied the
prophecy of the fall of Judas:

Let his habitation be made desolate,
And let no man dwell therein;

and the justification of the election of Matthias:

His office let another take.
(Pss. lxix. and cix. in Acts i. 20.)

So harmoniously did the praise-book of the Jewish Church pass into the
service of Christ; so clearly did the first believers recognise that
the Spirit of Christ was the same Who had spoken by "David." This
immediate appropriation of the Psalter as a book of Christian witness
is remarkable evidence to t