With the very facts before them, of which the former and larger portion of the Psalm referred to resembles a detailed history rather than a prophecy,--with what force, and with what lively consolation and infusion of stedfast hope and faith, when all human grounds of hope had sunk from under them, must not the obvious and inevitable inference have flashed on the convictions of the holy mother and the beloved disciple! "If all we now behold was pre-ordained and so distinctly predicted; if the one mournful half of the prophecy has been so entirely and minutely fulfilled, after so great a lapse of ages, dare we, can we, doubt for a moment that the glorious remainder will with equal fidelity be accomplished?" Thus to his very last moments did our Lord (setting as it beseemed the sun of righteousness to set) manifest with a wider and wider face of glory his self-oblivious love. In the act he was offering, he himself was a sacrifice of love for the whole creation; and yet the cup overflowed into particular streams; first, for his enemies, his persecutors, and murderers; then for his friends and humanly nearest relative; 'Woman, behold thy son!' O what a transfer! Nor does the proposed interpretation preclude any inward and mysterious sense of the words 'My God! my God!'--though I confess I have never yet met with a single plausible resolution of the words into any one of the mysteries of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or the Passion. Nay, were there any necessity for supposing such an allusion, which there is not, the obvious interpretation would, I fear, too dangerously favor the heresy of those who divided and severed the divinity from the humanity; so that not the incarnate God, very God of very God, would have atoned for us on the cross, but the incarnating man; a heresy which either denies or reduces to an absurdity the whole doctrine of redemption, that is, Christianity itself, which rests on the two articles of faith; first, the necessity, and secondly, the reality of a Redeemer--both articles alike incompatible with redemption by a mere man. Ib. s. lxxxviii. p. 362. And I the rather make the inference from the preceding argument because of the cognation one hath with the other; for the Apostles did also in the consecration of the Eucharist use the Lord's Prayer; and that together with the words of institution was the only form of consecration, saith St. Gregory; and St. Jerome affirms, that the Apostles, by the command of their Lord, used this prayer in the benediction of the elements.