in the events of his history also;
that the psalms in question, whether they describe his victorious might
or his deep suffering at the hand of his enemies, had a true historic
origin; that their first and immediate reference was to the writer's own
situation and the events which befell him; but that, under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, he was carried beyond himself to describe the office
and history of the Messiah; that consequently these psalms have a lower
fulfilment in David the type (the seventy-second in Solomon), and a
higher in Christ the Antitype.

The second psalm, for example, which describes the vain
conspiracy of the heathen rulers against the Lord's anointed
king, and God's purpose to give him the uttermost ends of the
earth for his possession, may have had its occasion in the
combination of the surrounding heathen nations against David. In
the victorious might with which God endowed him, it had a lower
fulfilment; and this was, so to speak, the first sheaf of the
harvest of victories that was to follow. It was an earnest and
pledge of the complete fulfilment of the psalm in Christ, in
whom alone the promise made to David: "Thine house and thy
kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne
shall be established for ever" (2 Sam. 7:16), could have its
real accomplishment. Luke 1: 32, 33.

The second class of psalms, of which the twenty-second is a
well-known example, may have had, in like manner, a true
historic origin. When the psalmist began with the exclamation:
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he may have had
immediate reference to his own distressed condition. But since
he was the divinely appointed head of the line of kings which
should end in Christ, and was thus in his office a type of
Christ, God had so ordered the circumstances of his history as
to shadow forth in them the sufferings and final triumph of the
Messiah. Writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was
led, through these circumstances, to say many things which
applied to himself only in a lower and often figurative sense,
but which were appointed to have a complete fulfilment in Christ
his Antitype (Psa. 22:1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 18; 40:6-10; 69:4,
7-9, 21; 109:1-20), and which point to Christ as the chief
subject of the prophecies.

How far the psalmist understood this higher refe