of the Divine warfare; they were a
foretaste of the triumph of God Himself. They suggest that the
Ascension of Christ, while it gathers into itself all the moral
victories of the past, is the beginning of a new order. It brings in a
Catholic empire of truth and righteousness, which, in spite of puzzles
and warfare and contradictions, parallel to those which vexed the heart
of the prophets of old, is now absolutely certain in its hope:

Who will lead me into the strong city:
And who will bring me into Edom?
Hast not Thou forsaken us, O God:
And wilt not Thou, O God, go forth with our hosts?
O help us against the enemy:
For vain is the help of man.
Through God we shall do great acts:
And it is He that shall tread down our enemies.
(cviii.)

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Thus, to him who, by God's mercy, has learned the Catholic Faith, the
Psalms are full of Christ from end to end. He reads Christ in them,
not by a pious imagination, but as the legitimate and only perfect key
to their meaning and their use by the Church. In the Psalms he
worships Christ as God:

Thy seat, O God, endureth for ever.
(xlv. 7.)

In the Psalms he worships with Christ as the Son of Man, with Him Who
alone could say rightly:

My soul hath kept Thy testimonies:
And loved them exceedingly.
(cxix. 167.)

The human sorrows and struggles which cry out in the Psalter have been
taken into the sacred heart of Him Who is the Word of the Father, and
the King and Priest and Prophet of humanity, in Whom is fulfilled the
saying:

He sent His Word, and healed them:
And they were saved from their destruction.
(cvii. 20.)

This Catholic secret of the Psalter, writ large as it is over the
history of the Church's worship, {72} is yet something that eludes mere
human research, and is a stumbling-block to human learning and
scholarship. It can only be taught by that "hidden wisdom" of which S.
Paul has told us (1 Cor. ii.), the wisdom given often to the weak of
this world, the wisdom of the Spirit Who dwells in the Church, and
makes her "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15).

[1] _Discourses to Mixed Congregations_, xvi.

[2] _i.e._ Sheol, Hades, the grave or place of departed souls.

[3] _i.e._ godly or pious, a characteristic word of the Psalmists,
implying not only consecration but active devotion to God.

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LECTURE III

THE CHURCH IN THE PSALTER

Glori