Another  objection  will  doubtless  be,  that  this  numerical  system  is  too
artificial — ^too  mechanical — seems  to  make  the  interpretation  of  Scrip-
ture too  independent  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  be  of  Him.  The  perfectly
suflScient  answer  to  this  would  be  that  it  is  there ;  and  being  there,  it
must  be  of  Him,  of  course.  God's  ways  are  often  strange  enough  to  us,
and  we  misjudge  strangely.  Who  would  have  thought  that  the  alpha-
betic psalms  would  be  worthy  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  write  ?  Probably
no  one,  if  He  had  not  confessedly  done  so.  And  these  alphabetic  psalms
are  but  the  indication  of  that  very  numerical  structure  which  in  the
hundred  and  nineteenth  stamps  it  every  where  with  that  number  8,
which  reveals  easily  one  of  its  main  features.
If  it  has  pleased  God  to  give  us  helps  to  the  consistent  interpretation
of  His  blessed  Word,  it  is  no  wonder  if  they  should  be  something  that
we  might  call  unspiritual.  The  more  easily  they  strike  the  eye,  the
better  for  the  purpose.  If  they  are  to  conduct  to  the  spiritual  meaning,
they  must  not  be  as  hidden  as  the  meaning,  surely.  And  in  fact,  the
divisions  are  often  to  be  discerned  without  any  difiBculty,  where  their
meaning  is  nevertheless  hard  enough  to  discern.  For  it  is  here  that  the
need  of  spiritual  judgment  is  still  found ;  and  without  God,  we  shall  go
widely  astray.
The  fact  remains  :  the  numbers  are  there.  Let  criticism  do  its  work
thoroughly,  and  prove  if  they  are  not.  Let  it  be  as  severe  as  the
subject  demands,  and  let  the  pretension  be  exposed,  if  it  be  merely  that.
