enmity; and when this is done, the enemy, qua enemy, will have been destroyed. The individual (never himself the object of hatred) remains, but the enemy has disappeared, and his place knows him no more: he who was an enemy before, has, qua enemy, passed out of being; a deadly vengeance has been exacted; coals of fire have been heaped upon his head. Or, to put the case rather differently: The word enemy symbolizes the complex notion of a person in relation with certain qualities not inherent; and when that relationship comes to an end, then, by its dissolution, the complex being, 'enemy,' is ipso facto destroyed. Not unlike, from one point of view, is the case of an idol, which is nothing in the world.' The essence of an idol is an imaginary relationship between e.g. a stock of a tree' and certain qualities; and the idol is ipso facto destroyed when the worshipper's regard for that 'stock of a tree' has vanished. Conversely, the idol is not necessarily destroyed by the burning of the 'stock,' seeing that the false idea of it may still remain: and, in like manner, an enemy' is not annihilated by the physical destruction of a person hated, unless the idea of the enemy then vanishes. But even thus, if the enmity does indeed cease with the death of the enemy, his physical destruction will but have induced a change of mind in the survivor (which might have been effected by some other means), and will not have contributed in any direct way to the destruction of the 'enemy.' In popular language, to kill an enemy, is to kill a person, whether or no the idea of enmity survives; but, strictly speaking, the destruction of an enemy can be effected only by the eradication of enmity; a process which stands in no direct relation to the physical destruction of an opponent'. St Paul, following the Parcmiast, is not using popular language, when he affirms that, to succour a distressed enemy is to heap coals of fire upon his head. 1 St Paul contemplates a destruction of enemies, which is a reversal of the process of making enemies. III. On the Christian duty of Forgiveness. There are some confused popular notions on the subject of the Christian duty of forgiving enemies, which take their rise from the assumption that there is some inherent virtue in an unprincipled mercy, and that charity should be cognisant of no distinction between light and darkness. But WHY are we to forgive our enemies? I. Charity, taking the form of compromise, is a condition of imperfection: for in an ideal state of existence which shews things as they are, there is no room for charity which thinketh no evil,' and for the nice adjustment of essential contrarieties. Right must enter upon the contest without misgiving, and engage in a war of extermination with wrong absolute and irreclaimable. And such must be our mode of representation, when the principles and workings of good and evil are to be set forth as abstractions, though in a concrete form. But in actual life we find none absolutely good, and none whom we can declare absolutely and irreclaimably bad; and hence, precepts for guidance in practical affairs may differ conspicuously from such as relate to abstract good and evil, and presuppose an ideal state of things. Christian Charity, hoping all things, allows for the existence of latent good, and has faith in a Divine Power which can reclaim those in whom evil most preponderates: but if the Christian's enemies were absolutely evil, and known of a certainty to be incapable of amendment, his rightful attitude would be one of uncompromising hostility, and there would be no place for the injunction: 'Love your enemies.' 2. Not to desire the discomfiture of an enemy is contrary to nature. The Apostle, granting this, and making it the groundwork of his argument, shews what is the most efficacious weapon that can be employed: the benignant treatment of an enemy is the readiest way to overcome him: 'In so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good;' i.e. perhaps: 'I say not, that you should yield and allow yourselves to be overcome by evil; but rather that you should resist and overcome it; and that, by the most potent weapon, good. The Psalmist takes it as evidence of God's favour towards him, that 'mine enemy doth not triumph over me;' CHRIST himself by His passivity and non-resistance evinces no desire that His enemies may triumph over Him, nor indifference as to the issue of their antagonism: in a word, wherever the mutual relations of persons and things can be symbolized under the form of a contest, the desire to discomfit one's enemy must of necessity enter as one element into the representation. IV. Distinction between practical and ideal Ethics. It has been remarked above, that our Lord's practical precepts are, in some cases, unsuited for an ideal state of things; and it follows as a natural consequence, that representations which presuppose such an ideal state may be prima facie at variance with, while yet not actually opposed to, the doctrine of CHRIST. The Psalmists being for the most part conversant with an ideal condition of affairs, the above remark is applicable to their compositions. The characters which they introduce are, in certain cases, absolutely good, or absolutely evil they depict sin, truth, purity, ungodliness, &c. in the abstract: the Psalmist, if not an embodiment of righteousness, is at least on the side of right, the object of Jehovah's care, calling to Him for aid: his enemies are 'the wicked,' 'the workers of iniquity,' 'the blasphemer;' and hence, it is only natural that a Psalmist should pray, not for, but against, his enemies, and that he should desire their destruction; seeing that they are regarded as embodiments of evil, and are not thought of as capable of amendment. Again, the figure of a contest being presupposed, it is scarcely necessary to remark, that the success of one implies the discomfiture of another; and that in the description of a battle it is, so to say, immaterial from which point of view the issue is regarded. It has been thought however that the directness with which the Psalmists contemplate the destruction of their enemies is out of harmony with the Christian spirit, which would choose rather to dwell upon the victory of faith, and to cast into the back-ground the implied defeat of the opposing powers of evil. It has been thought too, that if the latter is to be dwelt upon at all, it should be with less of detail than the Psalms exhibit. (a) As a practical answer to the former of these two objections, it may be urged that the discomfiture of enemies is prayed for, in no unchristian sense, in our National Anthem : Scatter her enemies, And make them fall: and in A Prayer for the Queen's Majesty: 'strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies.' (b) But the objections to certain imprecations in the Psalms may be said to spring almost entirely from their particularity and detail. Is not this at least at variance with the tenour of Christian teaching? The answer to this is obvious. The thing objected to is essential to the completeness of the broad concrete representations of Hebrew poetry, which are very far removed from euphemistic abstractions of modern phraseology; and not only so, but parallel representations are found in the work of a Christian Apostle, which concludes the Canon. V. The Curse of Babylon, Ps. cxxxvii. 8; Rev. xviii, 6. Of all denunciatory passages in the Psalms not as yet specially considered, the most striking is the curse of Babylon in Ps. cxxxvii. 8, 9: 'O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.' Whatever the true explanation of the difficulty which the foregoing passage raises, it may be remarked that the Apocalypse contains passages which may well be compared with it. The description of the fall of Babylon in Rev. xviii. is cast in the Old Testament mould, and borrows one of its expressions from the Psalm in question :-' Reward her even as she rewarded you1 (Ps. cxxxvii. 8), and double unto her double according to her works in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning [ȧTeκvía Kai xηpeía, Is. xlvii. 9], and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord who judgeth her... Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.' As regards sustained severity of tone, the passage of which this forms a part can scarcely be said to fall short of 'the varied, deliberate, carefully constructed, detailed anathemas of the Psalms.' VI. The Psalms, being poetical, are to be interpreted non-naturally. I. 1. The opinion that the Psalmists' denunciations were directed against their spiritual enemies has been maintained by some as the means of accounting for the semblance of vindictiveness which attaches itself to some of them but on the other hand this explanation has been characterized as non-natural, and on that account to be rejected. Advocates of the theory in question (which is at least plausible) have sometimes indeed exaggerated its non-naturalness, by taking the characters introduced in the Psalms for more complete abstractions than they are, and neglecting the natural element altogether. For David, contemplating the destruction of his enemies, is not a mere abstraction; though, on the other hand, to his natural feelings he superadds the consciousness that he is the favoured of Jehovah: 'The Lord is on my side.' 'Zion,' את גמולך שגמלת,The original 1 (Thy reward wherewith thou hast rewarded us), illustrates the use of the |