i8 7 4] CRITICAL STUDY OF THE PSALTER 297 



time during which the collection was growing was an age 

 of prophecy. And though we cannot show, and must not 

 assume, any formal collection by the hands of prophets, 

 yet at least the individual psalms would be subjected, 

 again and again, to be tried by that gift of SiaKpuns 

 Trvev/zarwv which, as Paul teaches us, is closely associated 

 with prophecy (i Cor. xii. 10). And again (2) just as in 

 New Testament times, a special sifting was no doubt the 

 fruit of the persecutions and distress of the people, particu 

 larly in the exile, not only the people themselves but their 

 literature would be smelted in the furnace of affliction. 

 Where it was possible to rescue so little from the destruc 

 tion of the nation and all its accumulated treasures, 

 mental as well as material, that would, of course, be 

 saved which had planted itself most deeply in the hearts 

 of the true worshippers of Jahveh. Thus, then, while 

 much that was valuable in the ancient poetry of Israel was 

 no doubt lost before the close of the Canon, we have at 

 least received in the Book of Psalms a collection of the 

 noblest kind, embracing the most precious utterances of 

 the faith of the Old Testament, each one of which had by 

 long use and trial become the common property of the Old 

 Testament Church, which recognised in them a fitting 

 expression of her own faith, hopes, and prayers. And 

 again, whatever differences there are between the Church 

 of the Old and the New Testament, it is at least certain 

 that it is the same Spirit which gave life to both, and that 

 the Psalms in which our Lord found His own spiritual 

 experiences as Head and Saviour of the Church so fully 

 mirrored, must remain a no less necessary and sufficient 

 picture of true spiritual life for the Church, which is His 

 body, and for every believer who claims to be His follower. 

 And so, if we simply take the Psalms as they stand with 

 out enquiring at all into their origin, their authors, or the 

 occasions on which they were written, if we simply take 

 them as utterances of a spiritual life far deeper and purer 

 than we have attained to, but yet similar in kind to those 



