_Answ._ But to this it may be replied; that the words being spoken by David, under divine inspiration, some of those scriptures referred to, may, agreeably to the rules of grammar, be understood as a prediction of those judgments which God would execute on his implacable enemies; especially when the word, that is supposed in the objection, to contain the form of an imprecation, is put in the _future tense_, as it often is. And if it be put in the _imperative mood_, as in other places, in which it is said, _Let death seize on them; let them go down quick into hell; let them be blotted out of the book of the living_; this mode of speaking, especially when applied to God, contains an intimation of what he would do, or the wrath which he would pour forth, as a punishment of sin, committed, persisted in, and not repented of. And, indeed, in one of these psalms, _viz._ Psal. lxix. in which the righteous judgments of God are denounced against sinners, the Psalmist plainly speaks in the person of our Saviour, to whom the 9th and 21st verses are expressly applied in the New Testament, John ii. 17. Matt. xxvii. 34. Therefore, when he says, ver. 22. _Let their table become a snare_, the meaning is, that God would deny some of his furious and implacable enemies, that grace, which alone could prevent their waxing worse and worse under outward prosperity. And when he says, ver. 23. _Let their eyes be darkened_; the meaning is, they shall be given up to judicial blindness, as the Jews were; the providence of God permitting, though not effecting it. And when it is said, ver. 23. _Pour out thine indignation upon them_, it is an intimation that this should come to pass. And, in ver. 25. _Let their habitation be desolate_; the meaning is, that the land, in which they dwelt, should be destitute of its former inhabitants, and so contains a prediction of the desolate state of the Jewish nation, after they were destroyed, and driven out of their country by the Romans. And when he farther says, _Add iniquity to their iniquity_; this may be accounted for consistently with the divine perfections, and the sense thereof is not liable to any just exception; as has been observed elsewhere. This I only mention, to shew that it is not necessary to suppose that these imprecations are always to be understood as what will warrant, or give countenance to private persons to wish, or pray for the destruction of their enemies.