TETH.
As the first verse of the foregoing portion proved that Jesus was the speaker; so the last verse of this portion as plainly points to the same. None but the ever-blessed Jesus had such testimony to give as this. But of him the Prophet sang, The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips, Malachi 2:6. And hence the church intreated, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, Song of Solomon 1:2. And wherefore? Because (saith another scripture) grace is poured into his lips, therefore God hath blessed him forever! Psalms 45:2. Reader! is it not precious thus to view Christ, and to know our interest in him? What a beauty appears in this whole Psalm, in beholding Jesus as the sum and substance of it! for then we behold an exact correspondence. We see the precepts of Jehovah kept with a whole heart; not one departure, not a single omission. The excellencies of our Jesus are all pure and unmixed: whereas with the best of his people, so much imperfection mingles, that there is nothing to be depended upon. But Jesus is the altogether lovely; comprehensive of all that is fair, and holy, and good; and excluding everything that is unpleasant, and unamiable. Oh! for grace to took to Christ; and from the continued communications of his love, to feel, and know, and enjoy, our interest in him! - Let not the Reader hesitate over these scriptures in making application of them to Christ, because he hears the confession: Before I was afflicted I went astray, and the like; let him recollect, that in all those scriptures the holy Sufferer is speaking as the sinner's surety, enduring the curse which the law denounced against the sinner, and consequently confessing in the sinner's name the divine justice of God, in taking vengeance for sin. Hence, being made sin, and then a curse for his people; he thus speaks in the sinner's person: see Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21. Hence we find in other scriptures similar expressions: Mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me, Psalms 38:3-4. That the Prophet is speaking in the person of the Redeemer, in these and the like scriptures, is evident from the other parts connected with them: see Psalms 38:13-14, compared with Isaiah 53:7, and Matthew 27:12-14. Reader! when you have duly pondered these grand points of redemption, I trust and hope, your views of these portions of the Psalm will be more plain. May the Lord give both you and me a right understanding in all things!