“It appears,” said he, “to be a song of congratulation upon the marriage of a great king; but, from a consideration of all the subjects on which it touches, there is no doubt that it prophetically alludes to the mystical wedding of Christ with his church. This was the unanimous opinion of all the Jewish expositors—for though prejudice prevented them from discovering the completion of the prophecies in our Saviour, yet they well understood their meaning, and all allowed that this psalm related to Him, and not to any earthly prince.
“This figure, of the union of a husband and wife, has been consecrated by our Lord himself, to signify his own union with his church, in the parable of the king making a marriage for his son. Some commentators have imagined that the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh’s daughter was the subject of the 45th Psalm; but it is in many respects wholly inapplicable to that king. The hero of the poem is a warrior, who reigns at length by conquest over his vanquished enemies: Solomon, on the contrary, enjoyed a long reign of uninterrupted peace. He is also distinguished by his love of righteousness; whereas Solomon, during the latter part of his reign, fell far short of the excellence here described. But, above all, the king is addressed by the title of God in a manner which is never applied to any earthly king.
“The Psalmist begins with our Lord’s first appearance in the human form, and passing rapidly through the different periods of Christianity, makes them the groundwork of this mystic and inspired song, which may be divided into three parts.
“The first three verses describe our Lord on earth in the days of his humiliation. The second section consists of the five following verses, which relate to the propagation of the gospel by our Lord’s victory over his enemies; and this includes the whole period, from his ascension to the time, not yet arrived, of the fulfilling of the Gentiles. The sequel alludes to the re-marriage—that is, to the restoration of the converted Jews to the bosom of the true church.
“‘Thou art fairer than the children of men.’ Though we have no account in the gospels of our Saviour’s person, yet it is evident, from many circumstances, that there must have been a peculiar dignity in his appearance. But it was the sanctity of his manners; his perfect obedience to the will of God; the vast scope of his mind, which comprehended all knowledge; his power to resist all temptation, and to despise shame and to endure pain and death, to which that expression alludes—this was the beauty with which he was adorned beyond the sons of men.
“‘Full of grace are thy lips.’ This is put figuratively, for that perfect doctrine which he delivered, and which, if sincerely adopted, was to sustain the contrite, to console the afflicted, and to reclaim the guilty.
“‘The king’s enemies’ are the wicked passions of mankind, against whom he wages a spiritual war; and, the ‘sword and arrows,’ St. Paul tells us, mean ‘the sword of God.’
“The seventh and eighth verses shew the King seated on the throne of his mediatorial kingdom, where he is addressed as God, whose throne is everlasting, and as a Monarch whose heart is set upon justice and righteousness.
“In the first dispensation of the law through Moses, the perfumed garments of the priest were typical of the graces and virtues of the Redeemer, and of the excellence of his word; so the Psalmist describes the King, of whom the high priest was the representative, as scented with myrrh, aloes, and cassia.
“In the figurative language of scripture, ‘king’s daughters’ express peoples and nations, and here mean, that the empires converted to the faith of Christ will shine in the beauty of holiness, and will be united to the Messiah’s kingdom.