oughts which they wish to
convey. Of this we have a beautiful example in Rom. 10:18, where the
apostle says, in reference to the proclamation of the gospel: "But I
say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the
earth, and their words unto the ends of the world," meaning that what
the psalmist says of the instruction given by the heavens, Psa. 19:1-4,
is true of the preaching of the word; so that none are excusable for
their unbelief. Another striking example is found in the same chapter
(ver. 6-8), where "phraseology originally used by Moses to express the
way of justification contained in the law (Deut. 30:11-14) is adapted to
the gospel as properly descriptive of the salvation propounded in it."
Davidson's Hermeneutics, p. 471.

But that the Saviour and his apostles used accommodation in the commonly
received sense of the term; that is, that they quoted, in accommodation
to the ideas of their age, passages from the Old Testament as applicable
to the Messiah and his kingdom, which they knew to have no such
application when fairly and legitimately interpreted; that, for example,
they used the hundred and tenth psalm as a prophecy of the Messiah
(Matt. 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Acts 2:34, 35; Heb.
1:13), simply because this was the current interpretation of their
times--this is not to be admitted for a moment. That the Saviour dealt
prudently with the prejudices of his age is admitted; but he did not
build upon them his claim to be the Messiah, nor solemnly appeal to the
authority of Moses and the prophets knowing this to be only a dream of
fanciful interpretation. If Christ and his apostles taught any thing, it
was that he had come in accordance with the prophecies of the Old
Testament, and in fulfilment of these prophecies. Did they indeed, in
all this, only act upon the maxim which Paul rejects with abhorrence as
damnable? "If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto
his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather (as we
be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do
evil that good may come? whose damnation is just."

4. The writers of the New Testament often cite the Old by way of
_argument_. Thus the Saviour argues against divorce at the husband's
will "for every cause" by an appeal to the original institution of
marriage (Matt. 19:3-6); and Paul proves that the man is the head of the
woman, and that she owes subjection to him,