Scripture and Criticism

The fact that there are, and can be even among persons of the highest intelligence, two opinions as to whether the Scriptures give revelation from God, proves them to have a character, position and power as, writings wholly unique. And the question they raise demands an honest' inquiry, and a definite and explicit answer.

No subject can be said to have prior or greater importance than that which they raise. No decision can be mentioned fraught with more lasting or solemn issues; and no claim should be easier to disprove if' false.

There is no other book or collection of books whose claim to a like consideration would be entertained for one moment by any intelligent or sober minded man. And yet the Scriptures have maintained their claim, in the face of every manner of attack and criticism.

Few, if any, whatever their position or reputation, can honestly declare that they are wholly indifferent as' to whether that which is stated in the Scripture is true and will prove itself so.

The claim, then, made by the Scriptures, and the proof given of their title to it, are subjects that cannot 'be lightly disregarded by one who cares either for reason or for truth. Neither, considering that the issues are a matter of universal importance, can the subject be treated too simply or plainly.

THE CLAIM OF SCRIPTURE.

Unparalleled Statements in Scripture.

On opening the pages of Scripture we are met at once by statements, which are in form authoritative and positive, on subjects about which man knows nothing. They claim belief. Man has no power either to confirm or to contradict that which is declared by them. As truth from God, that which is stated is sure and certain, and is known to be so solely because the statements are His. As human utterances they would be worse than worthless.

The end that awaits this world, the events that it is yet to witness, the personal, and eternal future of man,, the purposes which God is working out in and through all, and the manner and means of their fulfillment are some of the subjects into which human knowledge cannot penetrate, neither gather data from which a judgment can be formed, and yet in the Scripture there are plain, positive and authoritative statements concerning these matters.

A Definite Position Unavoidable

Facts thus are declared which could only be made known by divine authority. Whether or not the Scriptures do possess this &Vine 'authority is the question.

As to this, an uncertain and equivocal answer can easily be given, and it is even popular to do so, but it must be remembered that an indefinite position is impossible.

Statements are made which are so simple that difficulty in understanding what is said cannot, with any pretense to honesty, be urged as a reason for uncertainty concerning the facts which are stated.

If there is uncertainty or ignorance with respect to facts stated in Scripture, it must be because they have not been believed.

Every man is either assured as to the facts plainly stated, or he is not. His position must be one either of faith or of unbelief.

Statements As to Personal Salvation

No statements raise the question of whether there is to be faith, with greater force; or prove with greater distinctness whether the position is of faith or unbelief, than those which assure the believer personally of eternal salvation.

How could any man, if judging from what he is, feels, has done, or knows, say that he has eternal life? His judgment would be that he has not. By what authority could anyone declare that he will not come into judgment? His conscience tells him that he will; although he does not feel that his state is so corrupt before God as to be called a state of death. And yet in the Scriptures we are told in the most emphatic and precise way possible that the believer has eternal life and shall not come into judgment. “Jesus saith unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my' Word and believeth on Him that sent Tile, shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life."

There can in this case be no possible uncertainty either as to what is declared or is to whom the declaration applies to Not Only life is said to be possessed but everlasting life which Can hardly be taken to mean life temporal or conditional, and not everlasting.

He who declares that such an one shall not come into judgment is said in the context to be He to whom all judgment has been committed, The Judge himself declares that he will not judge: The newness and necessity of the gift bestowed could not -be indicated with greater emphasis than by declaring that the state preceding its reception is one of death. And this is true of those who have heard the word and believed in Him who sent Christ.

The Fact of an Essential Difference Among Men

We have then a difference among Men declared.

With the divine authority of the Son of. God, The fact is that there are those who possess eternal life and there are those who do not.

Everyone who values the Scripture, will value and welcome, these results of scholarship or research that help to elucidate the Meaning of difficult or obscure passages. But the difficulty in this case assuredly cannot be said to be in understanding what is declared. The meaning lies on the surface so that 'a wayfaring man though a fool can understand it. The difficulty is one of faith. That is, there is difficulty in believing,—but in believing whom?

Statements, of Fact Are Not Theory.

The statement is one of fact and in considering it this must be remembered. For, paradoxical as it sounds, those who have attained the greatest, reputation for delicacy of thought and expression have proved themselves peculiarly susceptible to the confusion of the fact itself with their notion of it; and when vital consequences depend on the fact the confusion is fatal.

The idea of a fact may be known with accuracy and truth and the fact itself be unknown and unpossessed. The writer well remembers a young undergraduate at Cambridge, then lately brought into the joy of knowing what he possessed, calling on the Regius Professor of Divinity and in the course of the 'conversation bringing tip the subject of the ground of justification. The Professor, with readiness and much kindness fully and carefully explained the seven different Ways of justification as exhibited in the text of the original.' But when the inquiry was politely made as to whether he knew himself to be justified by any one of them the reply was sadly vague and uncertain.

Let the questions raised by the Scriptures then be considered at least as to fact and not as to theory. Has my render been born again? Does he possess eternal life.? Is he justified?

Personal Posses Sion and Knowledge of Possession of Eternal Life

The fact so simply stated in the foregoing quotation must be either accepted or rejected as such; but Scripture statements test the heart and conscience still further.

It is positively declared that Scriptures have been written, order that the believer may know.

" These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God;" 1 John 5:13.

After such a word it is impossible to say that Scripture teaches that the personal possession of eternal life should, not be known. And yet how sadly common are ignorance, and indifference on this subject, especially when the excepted standing of religion tends to confirm them.

The religious man may be thoroughly versed in the dogmas of his Creed, or punctilious in performing every rite and ceremony of his church, or strong in his argument for the peculiar' tenets of his sect, and yet never have had once to do with God in his soul.

The demands made by dogmas and ceremonies are such as the human mind can meet, if not fulfill, with its theoretical acceptance: But when, a man comes. To the Scriptures he finds he is utterly incapable of learning the truth of its simplest and plainest statement without having to do with God in reality and in truth.

A Personal Question.

Let the reader pardon the inquiry, whether he knows that he possesses eternal life. For no one knows better than himself whether honestly he can or he cannot 'say that he has.

The late J. L.P., who lost his life during the mutiny of the Sudanese in Uganda, whither he had gone to preach Christ, doubtless himself never forgot an answer given to him, which also made a deep impression on the present writer. During his first months in college at Cambridge he was known for taking every opportunity to oppose those who had the certainty and joy of possessing Eternal Life. When he appeared at a meeting which some undergraduates had arranged for the purpose of telling to others in their college what they themselves had learned from the Scriptures, it was generally known what had brought him there. After the meeting he came forward with all the points of his arguments against what had been said, jotted down on a little slip of paper, and began addressing one who had spoken:—How do you know I am not a child of God? What right have you for the assumption?" and went on to argue that no one can tell. At the conclusion he to whom he had been speaking replied, “Well, P., I think if you were a child of God you would be only too pleased to say so." A reply P. apparently had not anticipated, and. though greatly the superior in argument and in the love of it, he found manifest difficulty in answering this reply with satisfaction to himself or to any other.

The Cause of Difficulty in Understanding Scripture

The difficulty then of knowing the truth of the statements that have been referred to, certainly is not that of understanding what is stated, but rather of acknowledging the need for that which is offered and 'haying to do with God, as to it. When the need is owned, the message, is listened to in simplicity. "The difficulty unquestionably is in the man, not in the statements. Through the needs of the heart and the conscience; and not by the strength and ability of the mind, 'the wealth, wisdom and truth of God's word unfold themselves. It is to the heart and conscience that the Scriptures speak, and only to them. And their teaching becomes plain and simple, and intelligence is gained, according to the measure in which the need for that teaching is owned. It is through the heart and conscience that we have to do with God Himself; with the mind alone we can have only as it were conceptions of truth, not truth itself.

By this very fact the Scripture renders its own witness of its Author, as does theology to its author. For in the hands of man even the things of God are reduced to his own level. The theologian systematizes his theology. He places the study of theology amongst other branches of science and accords his emoluments and honors to those who have displayed pre-eminence in learning. From the order in the Theological Tripos List can be learned the degree of mental superiority in each. But the test the Word brings by that which is written the plainest is, how far the soul has had to do with God. Of old one win) had been accorded by man the place of a teacher of the Jews, had it declared to him by the word of the Son of God, “Marvel not that I said, unto thee, ye must be born again." 'The religious world found no flaw in his theology, on the contrary had given him the pre-eminent place. Before the Son of God he had to learn to know his need of being born again, in order to see the kingdom of God. He knew nothing of God's truth and yet he had been chosen as a teacher.

No Difficulty If What Is Stated to Be Fact Is Known in Fact.

What difficulty does one who has been born again find in what is declared necessary? He knows no, other words could express so completely and yet so simply what, has been wrought in him by the Word.

And again the Scripture, “Being born again net of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Pet. 1:23) means precisely what it says.

It was by the Word, the second birth was as real in spirit as the first was in the flesh.

Difficulties, of course; will and must be found 'where the new birth is not known. That birth will have to be regarded as a mystical birth at baptism by the ritualist; or by the rationalist as an imaginary and sentimental thing; ritualist and rationalist are thus agreed in owning nothing of the reality of that of which Scripture speaks. But a. common portion and joy, independent of rank or learning, is that of all who know the reality of that birth spoken of in Scripture.

THE STANDARD OF TRUTH IN SCRIPTURE.

The power that the Scriptures are found to have is worthy of the deepest consideration. Itis the power to speak as the word which proceeds out of the mouth of God.

The Power of Scripture; Standard of Truth.

The facts, then, that by tile Scriptures the possession of eternal life can, and ought to be known, and that a new birth is necessary, make a man that apprehends them real in these matters, concerning which otherwise he would be unreal and unconcerned. Neither would this power to influence the reader be possible unless the Scriptures were what they are. The power is in the statements tin that made, and the power is to make men genuine in the very things they profess to believe but about which in reality there is a well-loved ambiguity and unreality.

Men make professions and find satisfaction in them. The Scriptures insist upon actual possession, or nothing.

Very early in our inquiry' we find the power of the statements in. the Scriptures, as well as their claims, wholly unparalleled, and could well rest the proof of their claim to be the Words of God on the fact that their plainest statements are found incapable of being received us they stand without having to do with Him—and that in truth and reality—while human teaching on these some matters is found wholly lacking in this power.

The Authority of God Claimed and Maintained by the Statement of Scripture

As long as man is in reality indifferent to God's honour and his own position before Him, the greatest difficulties present themselves in understanding the message the Scriptures contain.

They with power main taut God's authority. Other literature of any sort whatever yields its interpretation to the study of the mind, apart altogether from the character of the reader's personal responsibility, or relationship with the author. 'Scripture on the contrary will not yield its truth or its wealth till the man first him Self owns what lie does know of the claims of god and of the character of his own personal position before Him.

The Scriptures have nothing to communicate till the soul desires to hear from God. But as soon as there is the desire to: learn from them how God meets man in the needs that belong to the position he in fact occupies before Him, their Message is the simplest and the plainest. Difficulties that those who refuse to, own the truth they do know, state they find in understanding the Scriptures, is itself the strongest proof possible of the divine power of the Scriptures to maintain God's honor.

Man's Position Be From God

The position man is in as a fact before God, is that of a sinner. This he knows and seldom attempts to deny, though all that is understood in such an admission is sought to be forgotten by an unreal, conventional profession of the truth, 'or by levity in the statement of it.. Still aka fact it remains. The man would not be believed who declared he had never laid the consciousness of having sinned and of, having to answer to God for what he had done. A Man might affirm this but his own conscience and the

conscience of others would declare the untruth of the Statement.

This truth received not long since a remarkable testimony froth a source that certainly none would consider a biassed one.

In the Times, weekly edition of May 20th, 1899, p. 322, a letter appeared from Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) in reference to the book he purposed having posthumously published, in which was the following passage:

“A man cannot tell the whole truth about himself even if convinced that what he wrote would never be seen by others. I have personally satisfied myself of that and have got others, to test it also. 'You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it. You are too much ashamed of yourself. It is too disgusting. ' For that reason I confine myself to drawing the portraits of others." This may be received as a fair, unbiassed testimony to what every man honestly knows himself to be underneath the surface: Such, then, is the condition of man under the surface of the world's pleasure, occupation and progress. He is in fact disgusting to himself and guilty before God. But it might be asked, if man finds his private soul destitute and disgusting, judged by himself as he is, what would his portion be in knowing God to be God? What might not God Himself; in all that He is, be to that soul. if only the man would " come to himself" in his want, and act upon the realization of it, thus finding what is for him in the Father's house?

THE GOSPEL OF GOD.

The Message of God to Man.

Is then the message to man in what he, first needs clear and unmistakable?, Is that which is written in the Scriptures so plain that there can be no doubt even as to whether the reader has understood aright? Can difficulties be found as to this subject?

Blessed be God, His Word will not mock, as the world does, the man who seeks truth for his deepest and most heartfelt needs.

The need will lead him straight into the depths of, its wealth, and not into darkness, because of what the truth is.

He may be unacquainted With the fact that the question is raised in. the book deemed by many to be the first written book of Scripture, " How can man be just with God? " He may be ,

ignorant of the manner in which the subject is taken up, tested, illustrated, in precept, history and prophecy. And finally, at the end, after every test has been made and man is proved to have no righteousness in which to stand before God, the ground stated, in the first book of the volume is held out as the hope of 'the people. whose history is itself a testimony to their own ruin, and to the righteousness of God's ways; and the message in the prophets is to Israel,—as it is to all men, at all times—" The just shall live by faith."

All this 'illustrates the subject, but where the need is real, the substance and not the shadow will be sought. Certainly when the need of being justified before God is in reality felt, the Epistles, where these subjects are known be definitely and carefully taught, would be turned to, and the very first would answer the seeker's needs best. In turning to the Romans he would have no difficulty in understanding from the first chapter, that the rejection of the evidence of creation to a Creator renders all who reject it without excuse before Him; from the second, that man under law is brought in guilty by the breaking of the law, and without the law knows his guilt from his conscience; while the summing up in the third, leaves no possibility of Misunderstanding. The character of man is described according to God's estimate of him; and the manlier in which God has met his need it’s a sinner, by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,, is plainly stated. The result of which is the statement, " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight... therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith."

The Fact of Faith

The only question about which there could remain any doubt would be as to what the faith was by which God justified, and With reference to this it would be well to read on. For in the fourth chapter it is said, “Abraham believed God." Faith; then, is believing God.

The word of the Lord had come to Abraham at a time when his needs had Made themselves felt at his heart. And moreover, although all creature resources had failed him, with the message that God would undertake for him came a grace and power which were His. The promise was as distinct in what it said as was ' the test the statement brought. Could he trust God to accomplish that in which he 'lad known himself to fail? and would he acknowledge to be God's a power and grace that were outside the limits of his finite comprehension? And the Scriptures declare that, Abraham believed 'God, thereby becoming the father of the faithful. But there are, at the root of man's being, deeper needs’ than those through which God spoke to Abraham.

Man still with all his talents and progress has needs he cannot satisfy. Is God as resource less as he is to supply his need and meet the requirements of his heart and conscience?

The Message of God Concerning His Son.

The message of the Gospel concerning His Son Jesus Christ declares not the promise of what He will do, but the work He has accomplished. And he who genuinely desires to know how he may have peace with God, learns that righteousness is through believing on Him Who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. The in message then to the sinner to-day is as clear and distinct as that one in the past was to Abraham.

But to be justified by believing God is wholly contrary to the, religious propensities and other impulses of the natural heart and mind. The natural thought is, that the man himself must do Something in order to better himself and make himself more fit for God. The message to man in the Scripture is, that he must believe 'what (hid has done for His Son and accomplished by His Son. T his way may not be according to man's thought, but it is certainly according to the Scriptures which teach on this subject.

Difficulty From Confusion of Fact and Idea

There can be no difficulty, in understanding is written first, perhaps, some difficulty may be found in the attempt to grasp the idea conveyed the witness to this difficulty may be found, in many a commentary. But this wall again test the reality of the need in the heart, and will again be the guide, not to the idea ‘but, to the facts. Of Which the Scriptures speak., In attempting to grasp the idea the reader will find himself pursuing a phantom: The facts 'when all Was accomplished, and their worth; are declared in the. Scriptures.

Resurrection As a Fact

The fact of the resurrection puts an end to all conjecture and surmise as to whether man has to answer to God and is responsible to Him.

That which has been testified to, all can read for themselves in the Scriptures. The resurrection is the proof that God has in fact concerned Himself with man's personal responsibility, together with the deep needs arising there from; and it: is in view of what, He has accomplished and revealed Himself to be that the responsibility of rejecting the testimony to the resurrection must be assumed, or else the fact must be recognized.

The resurrection being a fact, the truth that it declares is incontrovertible. There is no qualification or equivocation in the testimony to the fact itself. Rather, the minutest details are given that the power mid the act of which it gives the proof might be faced and considered. " He whom God raised from the dead saw no corruption “as had been foretold. " Thou wilt not suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. He (David) seeing' this before spake of, the resurrection of Christ." Acts 2:31.

The power the resurrection thus witnesses to, was contrary to the course of nature and was the proof that God Himself had interposed with an act that was peculiarly and directly His 1 Cor. 15

For the glory of the resurrection an analogy may he found in nature, but not one for' its power.

He whom God raised saw no corruption. By the Gospel Life and Incorruptibility are brought to light.

And When the little company of disciples were gathered together, the risen Lord stood in the midst of them, saying, "'Behold my hands and my feet, a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye See me have.'' They had the demonstrative evidence before them that God Himself had concerned. Himself with their needs. They had before them the evidence that could not but solemnize their hearts, and which they could not deny. God Himself had had to say to them. Whose was the act that had raised Him they had laid in the grave? Whose was the power displayed, before them and whose the glory? The living God was brought directly home to them by what He had done. And in the twentieth century, with the wonderful development of natural resources, and their subjugation to the will and intellect of man for his own needs as well as for his own glory, the act of the resurrection still stands without a parallel, in the most striking contrast to all the triumphs that science can boast of. It still gives its unequivocal testimony that God has acted. in this world With a power outside all human and even satanic calculation and understanding; and that He, by what He has done, has made known, both what His will is and His own power to carryall out in spite of sin 'and its consequences being existent facts in a world in which His will was to have effect. In and through the history of this world, God has His own purposes to fulfill, which He accomplishes by power and means that are in His hands, and already His act in this world has given the proof that the natural course of events and the apparently conclusive results of man's purposes can be suddenly and effectually broken into by a power that is His.

The Testimony of God

But the fact has done more than give the proof that there is a living and true God, not merely with whom man must have to do, but who has to do with man: It has also given the proof of what His will and counsel are and what is acceptable to Him.

It is God who has raised Jesus our Lord, thereby marking Him out as the Holy One, His beloved Son in whom is all His. And God, by what He has done, has manifested that the activity of His grace and power are engaged in giving an effect to all His counsels and love which center in the blessed Lord. Only 'One has ever in this world's history been found to have righteously bad a claim, by His worthiness; upon a Special and immediate act of divine power to vindicate His name and cause and to testify to His person and work. Many have been accorded public honor and glory in response to their acts or labors during their life-time, and others have had their names banded down in the roll of this world's glory. But one fact is common to all: From the grave they have not been claimed. Their glory is from man; not from God. It is. from the grave, as from the resurrection,, that the believer is taught by fact, that in himself he has not one whit more claim upon God than the vilest sinner The resurrection gives God's witness both as to Who it was upon the cross and as to the glory of the work there accomplished. It is the proof that it is the work on the cross that has been acceptable to Him and by which He has been glorified. The depth or the fullness of what was accomplished on the Cross we may not 'know,—what finite mind could fathom this?—but that it has been accepted we do know, and moreover from its being so we have proof of the necessity for it.

The Testimony From the Fact the Cross.

In the estimate man may form of himself, the of extent of his guilt before God, or the depth of the ruin in his own heart, or, on the other hand, the results of the development of his powers and talents, may be subjects of conjecture to him, but we must remember that it is the Cross that gives God's estimate of him. That bears His seal, as being His estimate. Man truly has a paramount position in this world, and his powers of mind are stupendous—but he is a sinner before God. And, as typified long before, the head in common With the offal had to meet with the same judgment and condemnation in the sin-offering. And He who undertook to answer the full claims of God's holiness again had to take the place of judgment and death.

It is then from the facts alone that peasant or professor can have positive assurance as to God's truth; and as, believers they are alike taught of God.

Their knowledge of God's truth depends not upon their theological acumen but upon what God has accomplished; and by this they are alike as believers taught of God and moreover' know with Certainty that what they believe, is His truth.

The Power of the Message

The Simplest soul finds the Scriptures speak to him from God, when need and conscience have created the desire for His word, while the profoundest scholar and theologian stumbles at the simplest truths when the sense of need and conscience are lacking; and' it' is this difficulty, of being right with God, that is used as an objection—and that by many Professing to believe the Scriptures to be His word—to going to the Scriptures to learn! It is a difficulty truly not found in the treatise of the theologian—his idea can be grasped apart from man's true state before God. It is human in its, character. 'And it is this difficulty that makes it seem preferable' and easier to get from the lips of men the declaration of the absolution of sins, rather than from the Word of God, that only speaks with God's authority and maintains His rights instead of usurping them.

The Testimony to the Faithfulness of God’s World.

It can be stated 'without fear of contradiction, that no one has ever come to God, in the way which the Scriptures have declared, that has not proved it to be His way, and that has not found His word faithful. And that no one ever attempted to secure; that which was promised in, his own, Way without laboring at his own charges and being conscious of barrenness and destitution underneath all profession to blessing or religion, knowing nothing of God's way of blessing, and proving that front God Himself he had received nothing.

THE HARMONY OF ALL SCRIPTURE WITH THE 'GOSPEL.

God’s Work and Word

The facts of the Gospel are divine proof that God has purposes of His own to accomplish through man's history in this' world. This world has already been the scene of a work preeminently and exclusively divine: And the question is::Are the Scriptures His word.? Do they give to man divine truth, and not human speculation, on the import of that which He has wrought? His work on earth by which He has revealed himself to man, and His word, bear the same witness. They must together be rejected or together be received as rendering the two-fold witness, without collusion, by which is established every word of the message they bear from God to man. The test the Scriptures bind themselves to is as definite and conclusive as it is unexampled in character. They certainly declare that God has spoken to man by what he has done. Has he also, we may ask, given His word, by which we may know with certainty what His purposes are, and what the glory and worth of that which He has accomplished?

These writings are as varied and distinct in subject as in the occasion of their contents, but are capable (it is not necessary to claim more than must be owned by the rationalist) of being shown to contain throughout a consistent and harmonious teaching that unites and interprets all by its accord with and testimony to facts of a preeminently divine nature, that came into existence subsequently to the time of writing. Would the rationalist contend that such a harmony is to be looked for in mere literary relics? If so, let him adduce one 'instance of the actual existence of whit he says is possible.

It will be specially instructive to consider the harmony in the truth revealed by the facts of the Gospel with that which is found, throughout the Scriptures. For that which is popularly and religiously held as the truth of Christianity; after the facts have been professedly received, is so contrary to what the, facts do teach, that teaching antecedent to the facts, and in accord with truth revealed by these facts, proves itself divine. If the result of human teaching, even with the very knowledge of the facts merely de, grades, all to a human level, is it to be supposed that human, teaching could have given a clear and distinct testimony to the truth of the Gospel before this earth Thad been the scene of these wondrous events?

To what extent the Old Testament Scriptures are capable of accord with the divine facts of the New will now be our inquiry.

Divine Truth and Popular Theology Contrasted.

The postulates which underlie popular religious teaching universally will hardly be denied by any to be:

(1). First that man in himself has some good in him.

(2). That he must strive in order to develop the good that is in him and make himself pleasing to God.

(3). That God will accept his endeavors, more especially if religious observances and sentiment be added thereto.

But human goodness fails to answer to either demand. It is incapable of taking one step with Him who came to meet man's true neediness. It proves itself also incapable of seeing any attractiveness in Christ. Its character is superficial and Christless, so that, having being corrupted, it is no longer goodness at all.

What a contrast is found in the kindness (i.e. philanthropy) and love of God which has been proved in His beloved Soli I He was the rich one who became poor, surrendering all, even to His life, for the sinner's good. In Him love was inseparably linked with light, and grace with truth. But this love is of God, not of man.)

The facts of the Gospel show each of these tenets to be contrary to the truth of God, as revealed and proved by what He has done:

(1). The Cross proves by fact that Man is a total ruin before God, and that there is nothing in him or in his conduct but what calls for death and judgment.

(2). "That having no good before God to develop; he needy. God to undertake for him, which in grace has been done. And he is now required to believe, not to strive at all for his justification.

(3). And thirdly, by the resurrection we know that Christ only has been accepted and we accepted only in Him. The only alternative to being in Christ is to be in one's sins.

Examples From the Old Testament,

It is not the purpose here, however, to prove from argument the total ruin of man's nature before God, but to show that the teaching of Scripture throughout is in accordance with the divine truth of the facts of the Gospel, and not with the popular estimate of-sin and its consequences.

To present evidence as to this in full, the whole of the Scriptures would have to be taken up in detail. This proof is the most powerful and conclusive possible, because of the immense variety of its character and its accumulative weight, and it cannot be wholly ignored. Yet if given with any completeness the work containing it attains such a size as causes it to be neglected save by those who already have considerable interest in the subject. An attempt, then, must be made to present evidence as briefly as possible but with sufficient variety and completeness to be conclusive. For if any approach the enquiry with Open-mindedness and without prejudice, proof that the teaching of the Old Testament is in truth only reconcilable with the facts of the New and with the divine Person, and Work of Him whom they concern, must in itself be sufficient evidence to decide as to the inspiration of the Scriptures:

Teaching From the First Chapters Relating to Sin and Its Consequences

The very first chapters, which recount the fall of man, present perhaps the simplest, fullest and most striking testimony in the whole Scripture to the divine truth revealed in the Gospel fads. That sin is in the world and is found in the heart, would hardly be denied by any. What are its consequences' as seen in the first chapter that speaks of it? Man's confidence in self, which prompts the attempt to mask his nakedness and' undertake for himself as best he can; his distrust of God, and. fear when the voice of God makes known to him that God has something to say to him, so that he cannot wait to listen to what it is; his inability to deny before God his nakedness, in spite of fig-leaves. And there appears yet grace, which clothes him with that which God has himself provided, and the consequent assurance Of God's satisfaction in that which He has Himself given. Man finds that after all there is grace. Moreover he learns that before he can be clothed there must be death.

So in the following chapter. The enmity in man's heart is found stirred up by having his offering to God rejected. It spoke of his best endeavors and the fruit of the toil-of his hands, but it was rejected. The offered lamb was accepted as well as he who offered God testifying to his gifts, we are told. Could

teaching be plainer, that man is rejected if he comes before God offering “the best he can do "? He is accepted in the offering that owns that his sin calls for death and judgment.

And so throughout the Scriptures Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, perish for the presumption of offering, strange fire unto the Lord which' He had not commanded. But there is also the divine acceptance signified of that offering which had been offered in obedience to divine direction. The same passage which tells of their presumptuous sin and its consequence speaks also of the burnt offering which was wholly accepted.

From the Offerings

The same positive teaching is found in the offerings.

The general testimony of the facts and sacrifices of the Jewish dispensation, to the sacrifice of Christ in its needs and its effects, is so striking as to be felt by all, and recognized as such by all who make any pretense to Christianity.

Here again the depth and the wealth, the excellence and, the power of the instruction as to the worth and glory of that one great sacrifice which interprets all, will be found in the detail. But we must confine ourselves to the undeniable essentials of some only of the offerings, and compare them with the truth of the gospel.

The Burnt Offering

In the burnt offering, the offerer recognized the claims of God as paramount, and moreover that blessing depended upon giving to God His true and right place as God; and the essential feature of it was death, thus owning that the dishonor to God through sin required death.

How widely different is the general estimate of sin, as a „dishonor to God, from that shown in the burnt offering of the Old Testament; or in Him who was obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross, that God might be honored by subjection and blessing established, not as man seeks it, by will, but by obedience even unto death!'

The Sin Offering and the Meat Offering

In the sin offering, the offerer presented to God an offering that represented his estimate of sin and its guilt.

Judgment had to consume all. “The head, the inwards, And the dung," had to be owned as equally corrupt because of sin and as calling for the same judgment. A more perfect or precise representation of total corruption—each and every part calling for the same judgment—and of the special holiness of that sacrifice by which sin was put away, it would not be possible to give. The injunction with reference to the meat offering, to the offerer who brought it as a “sweet savor unto the Lord," was that “no meat-offering that ye shall bring unto the Lord Shall be made "with leaven." The type once more finds its antitype only in Him who was the "Holy One" prophesied of throughout Scripture and testified to in the resurrection. The Old Testament makes the demand for a perfect and accepted life, apart from every taint of that corrupted nature common to every member of the race, and this is found in Him whom the New Testament reveals.

Sufficient evidence has now been given to prove that there is teaching of the plainest character possible in the Old Testament that accords wholly with that of the New and the Gospel of God it contains.

Another instance of the character and power of the teaching in the Old Testament may be seen in the clear light that is thrown by single statements there upon questions with respect to which men of the acutest minds are found confused.

The Power of One Statement From the Old Testament

Ritualism and Rationalism will be universally owned as the two principles that at the present day are exerting the most powerful influence over the minds of those professing Christianity. The principles, though apparently leading in precisely opposite directions, have something in common. In both, the anchor of the ship is dropped within its own hold and the ship is allowed to drift with the current.

The rationalist professedly takes reason as his guide. This, as will be shown, is just what lie does not do. He takes his own ignorance of God—the consequence of a fallen nature—as his stand, and attempts to use his power to reason—not his reason—to reduce all truth from God to the level of his own ignorance. At present we have only to do with it in result. The tendency of Rationalism is most certainly to refuse the authority of all Scripture, and it is only consistent when taking the position which is at least bolder and more honest, of denying all that is-divine in the person and work of Christ.

But if' the rationalist allows his fallen nature to govern his selfish reason, the ritualist lets the same nature, with its ignorance of God, govern his religious feelings: He knows he is owning facts when he owns religious instincts, and believes he is capable, beyond and in contrast to a brute, of knowing and appreciating truth that reveals God to him as his eternal portion. The rationalist knows religious instinct as a fact, too, but not knowing-God would make this the ground for degrading himself to animal responsibility, even if it be that of a "religious animal." Instincts unquestionably they are, and the ritualist has the truth in owning them. But in allowing himself to be governed by these instincts within, he again surrenders himself to his own heart, and is condemned of folly by the Scriptures.

Forms 'and ceremonies supposed to present divine truth, appeal strongly to these instincts; combining the attractiveness of worldly tastes and of religious superstitions. They may present ideas of the truth, but they cannot present the true fact. Sentiment may be cultivated and moved by such ideas, but not faith. Faith does not come by seeing or feeling but from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God.

The Scripture declares the true facts which are to be believed. The ceremony presents the shadow, and in the end the whole value of the substance is accredited to it. The finished work of Christ is not believed but denied, and the " Eucharist " becomes a perpetuation of it.

The tendency, then, at work in that which as yet bears the name of Christianity leads either to deny all that is divine in the work and worth of Christ or to attempt to borrow glory from it for man's own imitation and pageantry.

That which is common to both is confidence in that which is in man, and this either reduces the death of Christ upon the Cross to that of only a man, or else seeks to imitate and perpetuate it. And yet these two tendencies, which exert such powerful influence over the minds of men in the enlightened twentieth century, find as complete an exposure and condemnation. of their principles as is possible from one statement with reference to the offerings. A believer with the smallest intelligence can be warned by it, and a rationalist cannot fail to own the agreement. " Thou shalt not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning." Ex. 34:25.

Thus both the Rationalist's and the Ritualist's corrupt depreciation of the value of that sacrifice God had put His seal upon, is condemned, centuries prior to the event, as expressly as it subsequently is," When the most solemn warning is given against the tendency toward making "the blood of the covenant an unholy (ordinary) thing."

Thus, however inscrutable to man be the sources of such agreement, however marvelous or inexplicable the details of illustration may be, yet the Scriptures prove themselves capable of consistency with themselves and with divine truth. Their accord must be owned by the rationalist as well as by the believer, let him explain it how he will. Otherwise rationalism must feel itself on poor ground, if facts cannot be owned as they are found to be.

Evidence Both From Separate Examples and Also From the Purport of All.

Teachings wholly diverse in character have been given which confirm only the gospel and condemn popular views, but there is still more conclusive evidence that proves at once the divine source of the Scriptures and their divine truth.

The Scriptures are referred to, both by the Lord himself and by His Apostles, as a whole. Such they can only be, as having for their author one who has directed and perfected them as a whole. Whether they prove themselves this must wholly depend upon the sequence and completeness of the truth contained within them. If the Scriptures are taken first as they are and tested by what they claim to be, they must either, in fulfilling their own claim, prove themselves divine, or they stand convicted by their own contents of the falseness of such a claim. For Old Testament writings are given divine authority and divine purpose to testify of Him who was to come. Does the teaching in them point only to Him whom the Gospel in the New declares? The divisions into which they had been divided by the Jews, are found recognized in the New Testament writings. Luke 24:27. Acts 26:22

The Divisions in the Old Testament and the New, and Completeness of

THEIR TEACHING

They are divided into the Psalms, the Law, and the Prophets The teachings comprised under these titles certainly contain the truth necessary for a soul to know in order to wait for Him who was to come.

First man needs a revelation, so that he may learn what he is when the claims of God upon him are made known to him, and how he acts when he is responsible for having those claims pressed upon him. For this fully to be made known, there. must be the presenting of God's claims upon man in every possible way, and under every possible condition; and a true history of what man proves himself to be when thus tested.

This exactly answers to the subjects of books that may he placed under the bead of “The Law."

Secondly, man has to learn to need Him Who was to come. A history of exercise of the heart and conscience in having to do with God was needed. Man has more than action and words to his life, he has a heart and conscience, and the history that belongs to them is as much fact and as certain as that of actions and words, even if the history of the heart and conscience has never been written or even confessed. None are found able to honestly write one. So, at least, it has been publicly declared.

In the Scriptures a complete and honest confession of heart and conscience exercises is found, beginning at the first awakening of having to do with God, and ending with knowing needs that could only be satisfied in Him Who was to come, but which are fully satisfied in Him Who has come and Whom Scripture has. declared. Every exercise that heart or conscience can know before God finds its place in the division of the Psalms.

Thirdly, the last division declares its own purpose. There were writings extant before Christ came. They were professedly prophetic, and announced Him Who was to come. And the question has to be answered, Has part been so definitely fulfilled in Him as to give the divine assurance that that which is still unfulfilled will as certainly have an accomplishment?

Our inquiry then is, what is found as the result of teaching under these separate heads? Does it accord with the divine truths of the gospel and with them only?

THE LAW.

The History in the Scriptures needs but little comment.. it shows its own message and purpose. The history of the Patriarchs unfolds, with the greatest simplicity, the blessings of individuals blessed upon those very principles that the gospel has-by facts proved to be the principles, and the only principles, upon which God does bless. They sought blessings by ways of their own, and failed to get them.

The Human Heart When the Claims of God Are Pressed Upon It.

The history of a nation is given, and that history is complete. It begins by God claiming the people as His, and taking them to be His people. But though every advantage is given, every way tried to see if it were possible they could front their hearts own God's claims and give Him His due, they prove that with, man that is impossible, because of what he is and what his heart is. Under trial of need, there is grumbling and resentment towards Him. Under blessing in the Land, they forsake Him, and every man does that which is right in his own eyes. But What cannot be denied is, that in the history of Israel we have the test of what man is when God's claims are brought home to him. They were not left to themselves, but they were proved. Their desire was to be let alone, to go their own way. Were they alone in this?

But He took them as His people. God Himself they quickly reject for a molten calf' and they are given a mediator. And the mediator they grumble at rather than trust. With the Captain given of God they enter the promised land, and under blessing. quickly sink to the level of servants, from which bondage they had been redeemed. Judges are raised up, but they themselves sink, in a great measure, morally to the level of all around. And the end is found in each man doing what was right in his own eyes—a moral condition in which it might be erected that the word of God would be “scarce " or "precious," but grace still them, and His word is given by the prophet. But glory and position in the world is desired. His word is not their joy; they desire a king, like other nations. The king is given and taken away in wrath, and then in grace the Lord Himself establishes the royal line. But their resource, when this turns out contrary to their desires, is not in God but in. their own will. And from that time their history records the grace of God that sent message after message by the prophets. Under the kings the history presents the same picture,—man still puts his own interests before God's claims. The people are religious—too religious,—but their service is as they like it, where they like it. God's way and place they resent.

Sequence in the national record can hardly be denied. It is so obvious as to have once afforded a pretext to the critic's fertile brain for impugning its historical basis!

We see what man is when God's claims are pressed upon him, and the result is a perfect and complete picture of his ruin. But accord with divine truth cannot be denied. God does concern Himself with the people lie takes up, and makes Himself known to them by His prophets. The people choose their own way, and though willing to be religious, their religion has to be that which is popular and in accord with the spirit of the age.

Thus each the history of the nation with whom God had to do, Is it possible to say it is not complete in proving that man ever resents God's claims being pressed upon him, as if they would interfere with his happiness?

His history proves him to be a total ruin before God. This ' is human; but what, may be asked, are the grace and forbearance shown to man as such? Is this human, or divine?

The Human Heart When the Grace of God Is Presented to It.

A final test was put, after man was proved to resent the claims of God, to see what his heart was to God when trespasses were not imputed to him, but only God revealed to him in His love and light: There is no demand of rights. The Son of God offers Himself as a gift. But man who had begun his course by resenting divine authority, ends it by declaring his preference for a robber and murderer to be let loose again in his midst rather than Him who had revealed God in this world.

The answer to God's grace is the same as to His claims.. He is rejected, His gifts despised, His claims hated.

In the present dispensation the heart of man is tested still further by the gospel of God. “Now is the day of salvation," now is the clay of grace. It announces to man salvation and beseeches for reconciliation in Christ's name. In the present day man rejects not only God's claims, not only His offer of Christ, but of Christ with the depth of His love revealed, whether to a miserable robber who in his dying hours had been reviling Him, or to a proud hater of His name on the way to persecute His people on earth. Man, in his rejection of Christ now, rejects Him whose love led Him to finish the work the sinner needed, so that God's own love might be commended to all. Rom. 5:8.

THE PSALMS (MATERIAL MISSING)

to direct his steps."* "The way of peace he has not known." This at least might lead to an inquiry as to what the Scriptures have to say. The first book of our division is found to begin at the beginning. Is there anything in this world which can meet and satisfy the needs of the heart and conscience of man? This question is answered by that book which speaks of “all under the sun."

No Satisfaction Under the Son in Ecclesiastes.

“The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing," is the testimony of the world today.. One thing certain is that the world with all the progress and enlightenment of the day has not on the list of its innumerable inventions one " new thing " that can meet the need of man,—not the needs without but that within, at the root. So the testimony in the book that deals with man's deep dissatisfaction. Each subject raises a new discovery and proves it true that the character of the works of man cannot change; "that which is has been already." This world is to be its own evidence that God must " work a work " for the soul Of man, for the heart and conscience. He must do the new work; a divine work and a divine path alone can bring man to satisfaction for heart and soul. But is there such a path?

(MATERIAL MISSING)

Wisdom and the Beginning of It in Proverbs

So too in the hook that deals with the principles of wisdom for this world. The world can appreciate the wisdom that is spoken of, as far as its truth is proved in its (the world's) course. But the Scriptures insist on a " beginning " that the world does not. The beginning is the fear of the Lord. Wisdom itself is spoken of in terms so plainly applicable only to the divine Person and grace of Him who is referred to in the New Testament as the Wisdom of God, that the dullest conscience might well he awakened by reading, Prov. 8:22-31.

The Heart and Conscience Having to Do With God in the Psalm.

But the subject would not be complete, if we had not the experience of some, in' whom at least was “the fear of the Lord," that we might be taught what portion they did find for their hearts in Him Whom. they trusted. And this is precisely

(MATERIAL MISSING)

divine if there were. It is in and through his need that man first begins to be real with God. In his ease he may turn to his divinity lectures, in his need he has to turn to God. In his fullness he may be pleased with what the world has to give him without God; but in his want he must seek Him.

One thing is certain, that the utterances which are given expression to in the Psalms carry with them the power of reality-not of theory. The Psalmist could say, " I sought the Lord and He heard me." And they range from the simplest and most natural utterances of what comes to God from the heart of man pressed by trial, to the deepest, most precious revelation of what the heart of Him Who was David's Lord felt and suffered and knew in the sorrows and beneath the burdens that this world placed upon it,

But to object to expressions of those who turned to God in the real needs of their hearts, and under the actual pressure of circumstances around, to make known to Him their wants, on the ground that these expressions reveal a lower standard of morality than that of the present day, only proves once again that man desires not a living God, as the Psalmist did, but theology. The psalmists certainly spoke to God and looked to Him concerning that which, touched their hearts and consciences.

But the Scriptures, which ever give the whole truth both of God and of man, put before us in this book, which gives the experiences of hearts and consciences having to do with God, the beginning as well as the end. The spirit of the judicial, and so-called imprecatory Psalms certainly is not that of the Gospel. The Scriptures have stated the difference But in using them as an objection to the Scriptures being a revelation from God because of the presence of a legal or judicial spirit in them, the Rationalist only betrays himself into showing he does not know that his heart has all to learn from the beginning. And the beginning must be when he, as he is at heart, begins to have to do with God, for it is God who Must teach him. For what does he mean to say is wrong in expressions found in the Psalms,—the having to do with God about that which touched the psalmist's heart, or the standard of the heart's desires? Presumably the latter. But it is stated in the Psalms themselves, " In Thy light we shall see light " and " For thou halt taught me." It is not by being unreal—honoring God with the lips while the heart is far from Him—that through having to do with God men will get taught. In having to do with Him they must first be real. Those who have feared the Lord are taught. No fairer or more perfect illustration could be given us than “the Psalmist of Israel " himself, whose name is so inseparably connected with the Book. Pressed by his enemies, he had pleaded with God to scatter them. Exposed to the wiles of treacherous friends, he had trusted God to confound their schemes, and judge them, and even with integrity of heart he had pleaded his own righteousness. And in his so doing there was reality, but his experience did not end there. He found himself a sinner, and with the guilt of a sin for which he had no remedy under the law, nor could his royal treasury provide any sacrifice sufficient to atone for it. But if all else failed him in this the hour of his greatest need, he had learned to know God. He knew Him to be One he could trust at all times, One before whom he could pour out his heart, One who was a refuge for him, Psa. 60:118. If the lukewarm moralist of the present day cavils at the moral standard of the psalmist's heart, let it be remembered that, by having been real with God at this time when the ruin of his heart and nature had become manifest, he came to know his in to be sin in a depth of meaning and holiness of which the moralist knows nothing. If it be said that David began morally behind the present age, he certainly ends, infinitely ahead of it in judging sin as sin against God., in his confession, his statement of' his sin as a dishonor to God is surpassed nowhere in its absoluteness. “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned." Who has ever been taught that this is the character of sin, without having had to do with God in truth? By his own standard the moralist is found to be neither cold nor hot, but to be that which is spued out of Christ's mouth. David knew Whom to turn to in his need. " 'Wash me," he says, " and I shall be whiter than snow," and his heart found its joy in knowing that, as transgressors had found grace on His sight, so transgressors might be taught God's ways. He proves by what is uttered that God had taught his heart and conscience, who had had to do with Him.

Ruin of All Save Confidence in God

Could accord be more perfect than that which is found here with the divine truths of the Gospel? The Psalmist of Israel has himself given expression to his inmost soul. In having to do with God in reality as to that which touched his heart and conscience, he finds in the end that not only others but he himself is both “disgusting," and guilty before God. But he has also learned to know God and that He only can meet his needs, and that in doing so He will have a gospel for the sinner. The `message in the Gospel declares that this, is divine truth, proved by the facts of 'the Gospel. Now that the work of the Cross has been finished and accepted, there can of course be no unfinished redemption. There is eternal redemption for man, or nothing. That truly which the Psalmist had to learn by experience the believer can know by faith. He, through having to do with God as to needs that were real to his heart and conscience, found for himself that his need and his faith in God could be answered in 'Grid's gift of Christ alone. The believer, by the same way only, will find himself taught of God to know Him-and the worth of all that He has accomplished.

THE PROPHETS.

The Scope of Prophecy.

We now come to the last division, that of the Prophets—let us see whether they too accord with the facts of the Gospel. And now we may surely ask for some soberness of thought and carefulness of consideration. The message of the prophet has morally the same weight and order as when delivered. The prophet prefaced his message with, " Thus saith the Lord." And the question is now as it was then: Was the prophet speaking from God in truth, or was it a voluntary and false assumption in order to accredit his message?

Many of these messages which claim to have been uttered 'before the event declared, are known now to accord with history; while many, again, certainly still stand unfulfilled. This at least definitely brings before all their claim to shine as a light in a dark place.

Discredit undeniably has been cast upon the whole subject by men of unbalanced and often unprincipled minds. But what truth has not its counterfeit? Or what counterfeit is there of that which is not pure metal? Difficulties too may be found out in interpreting all prophecy. But difficulties, by the man of the world, are thought to be only that which has to be overcome in attaining his object. He is ashamed of being deterred by them. In the things of God, how often difficulties are used as an excuse for heartlessness RS to the truth God has revealed, and even made a boast of !

But the subject now under consideration is not that of events or the order or development of them, nor is it our present aim to show they are dependent for their fulfillment upon the facts. of the Gospel, however important such subjects may be. The-question is, whether prophecy is as distinctly in harmony with the truths of the Gospel as the two former divisions in the Old Testament have proved themselves to be.

The Harmony of Prophecy With the Gospel.

The general agreement of the subject of the prophecies with the truths of the Gospel is so conspicuous as to demand attention. In each case the very occasion of the prophecy is the failure of man to honor God or answer to His claims in truth, though there is much profession of religiousness.

Total Ruin

But the authoritative character of prophecy would lead to the expectation that man's position before God would be expressly declared. Accordingly we find that the very first chapter of the first prophet speaks with unmistakable plainness: "Why should ye be stricken any more,? Ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores."

It may further be profitable to consider the sequence and completeness of the truth presented by the contents just as they are; in doing so no charge of bias can be made, seeing that the contents of this book, above all, have been assigned to heterogeneous times and writers. It appears, then, that the representative of that royal line of men of God, upon whose faithfulness His blessing to the nation so largely depended, had died a leper, stricken of God, rendering all hopes vain from that source. In place of him, Jehovah Himself is seen on the throne, and before Him and the claims of His throne the prophet finds himself undone,—which he had not learned when comparing himself with the ruin around.

Jehovah’s Throne

Succeeding this comes the revelation of the manner in which lie will Himself vindicate the claims of His throne in the world, as well as the precious and distinct revelation that in spite of David's royal line after the flesh having produced an apostate king for Jehovah's land, yet He was to come whose land it was, and who was to be called Immanuel, God with us, upon the throne of David in his kingdom. Then the throne of David would have no end,.

Judgment and the Remnant

The judgments upon this world that precede the public assumption of' divine glory and rights in this world, are with reference to the world generally, and especially with reference to the godly remnant who are preserved throughout that time of trial and judgment. Then the prophetic word proceeds to slim that even they owe all to grace. For it is impossible not to read their character in the narrative regarding the godly King Hezekiah, and his fall, not before the boastful, raging attack of the Assyrian, but before the blandishments of the King of Babylon. The history ends with the royal seed, who should have upheld righteousness and blessing, becoming themselves, together with their people, servants to a heathen nation; proving not only that man's blessing is not from' his own hands, but that lie is unable to maintain that which is put into his hands.

A New Message

Certainly consistent with this, we have a wholly fresh message from Chapter 40. That which the ruin of man makes impossible because of what he is, when it depends upon him, is made not only possible but sure when its fulfillment depends on God's work for His own glory. The certainty of that which is assured, the blessings that follow His word that brings it, those blessed know themselves, and they know too what he has proved them to be. First Jehovah's controversy with idols is the subject; then, after their love for idolatry and superstition brings them as servants to the idolatrous Gentiles, they aril restored to their land. But they return to their land as servants. Their unfaithfulness has lost for them the glory of their regal kingdom,. but not the grace of their God. And His message to them is, that though their position is that of servants, they shall be servants to Him. “But thou Israel art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen." In His service they might learn a joy more satisfying: than any they ever derived from grandeur.

A little further on we read of the character of JEHOVAH'S SERVANT, the servant in Whom 1-16 soul delighted. But again by reading on we learn that Israel as a nation, far from answering to this character, is found to be so, incurably bad as to be beyond recovery in himself. A remarkable transition is then found in the Scripture itself. It declares the service of Him who is, it is said, “My Servant in Whom I will be glorified." As to His service, He says, "I have labored in vain and spent my strength for naught, yet" (there are results). "I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord," and it is given to Him to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to be a light to the Gentiles.

And as we read on, the Scriptures again afford the key of the interpretation. The path of Jehovah's Servant stands recorded, with the precision of history and the pathos of God's Spirit. He was to be the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was; to suffer not only from the world and because of it, but from the hand of God. " It hath pleased Jehovah to bruise Him. He hall put Him to grief." His soul was to be made an offering for Sin. But the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in His hands and he was to see of the fruit of the travail of His soul, and to be satisfied.

The Gospel Invitation

Following after this comes the message of free grace,—" He every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money fin: that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."

If the teaching, and sequence in the teaching, in perfect accordance with the Gospel of God concerning His Son, be not allowed to exist here, surely it may be said that words have no meaning nor evidence any weight.

A Rousseau may be arrested by the history so as to declare, “The marks of its truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero." Or, as another has said, referring to him, “it would have been a greater miracle for a man to invent such a life as Christ's than to live it." What, then, can be said of those writings where all the essential character and peculiar details, and above all the divine worth and import of that life, stand chronicled with the precision of history—but prophetically?

And yet if this one evidence be received, prophecy is established, and with it divine communications to man.

But more, by the power of it a straightforward answer to its claim cannot well be avoided. Does it or does it not speak of Christ?. Throughout the Scriptures we find the claim they make raises difficulties, so that those who wish for an excuse find one; on the other hand, there is always some striking proof of the truth of this claim, so as to leave without excuse any evasion of the issue. And so with prophecy. Who would read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and state, as his unbiassed opinion, that it should be rejected as a prophecy of Christ?

The subject of the accord of prophecy need not be pursued further here. Enough has been referred to to establish its perfect accord with, and more, as was stated, its own positive and authoritative declaration of the Gospel, revealing the total ruin of man and God's salvation in Christ.

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

History in the Gospel

It is now frequently assumed, and even positively asserted, that the teaching found in the

Gospels is contrary to that in the epistles. Could there be a greater proof of the blinding power of man's bias, and of his incapacity of seeing anything that is divine, even when plainly written? To teach the need and value of His death, Who declared himself that he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many, may be taken as the purpose of His service, seeing it is so stated. He proved His power and His willingness to deliver man from the consequences of sin in this world. But the deliverance that brought man to have to do with God was not desired. Man was happier and freer with the robber and murderer in his midst, than with the Savior God.

The principles of the kingdom of God, the character of the righteousness required, were enunciated, but who was there to welcome them? To confuse the ground upon which an entrance into the Kingdom of God is at first offered, and that ground upon which the kingdom is afterward established, is fatal, and contrary to the plain teaching of the Scripture itself. For the blessings of the kingdom did not come on the principles of Matt. 5 It was actually opened by the preaching of the Gospel—and the keys to open it Were committed to Peter. (To open the Kingdom was not to build the Church—as another has said, ''People do not build with keys ") The path of the Lord ended on earth not in exaltation to the kingdom, but in His being lifted up upon the Cross. His presence was the lust test with which the heart of man was tested, and it shew firth the final proof of what man's heart was.

Nothing is more inscrutable to man, or confounding to his reason, than the existence of that teaching which proves its divine purpose, and yet is the result of actual facts, past and present.

Immanuel,—God With Man.

We have had man's history as the result of God having to do with him. In the Gospels, we have the results of God with him. And again the witnesses agree. The heart of man has no more desire for God Himself than it has for 116 ways. Of course the religious among men resent this assertion.—" No Sir,"—was the answer of an old countryman, when asked if he had ever known himself to be an enemy of God, " I have always had a liking for Him." Whatever the difference in mind that education may make, the heart thinks alike in all sorts of men. How little the heart of man knows itself'! Few dare say openly that they hate Christ, it is hardly respectable to do so. But have they received the Christ of God? If' enmity against God has not yet been known, neither can His reconciliation to Himself by the death of His Son be known. In the history of Him who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, centers the revelation of what God is, as well as of what man is.

Ruin Too Amongst Christ's Followers

But the ruin of man's heart and his need of Divine grace's nowhere more clearly proved than in the history of the little company of those who were followers of Christ, and especially of the most zealous of their number. They all forsook Him. And he who once had gone forth with the message from Him, " Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven," (Matt. 10:32),—was himself found cursing and swearing, denying that he knew the Man. What does this teach? He who thought that being a disciple was his title to be with Christ, learns in the most humbling and yet preciously practical manner, (with this result, that it leaves no bitterness) that his one and only title to be found with Christ when He comes in glory was the sufferings and death he had once taken upon himself' to depreciate as the Lord's portion in this world. True it is that Peter did confess his Master on earth, even unto death, but it was as the-disciple who had learned to know the value of that Master's death, for him, not as the disciple with exceptional devotion in him. It is-he who speaks of the trial of faith—the trial of the heart was over, it had been manifested, the trial of man was over, his character was out—but the trial of faith was precious while waiting for the return of Him Who, not being seen, is loved and known. It is he who speaks of the power and glory of the Living Word which abides, while the glory of man blossoms and falls. The Word had proved itself divine. He himself had become the evidence of its truth,—but there was more. He had by it tasted that the Lord was gracious. He had been born again by the Word, in the hour of his deepest need, when he found himself exposed without a shred of righteousness wherewith to cover himself. His faith could not fail, for it was dependent on the faithfulness of his Lord and the power of the Lord's word.. His confidence had been weaned from himself and won for God.

But what a dark, solemn contrast is found in the end of him who betrays his Master. He, too, is exposed, but faith he has none, and the only salve he can think of for the agonizing consciousness of his sin, he seeks from man; to the priests he makes his confession, “I have sinned." (This is the only instance in Scripture of human priests hearing confession.) Their heartless answer (Matt. 27:4) may well be contrasted with that to the same confession to God in Job 33:27, 28.

In the New as in the Old Testament, Scripture is proved to be interpreted, as a whole by the facts of the Gospel, and as a whole to be incapable of any intelligent interpretation at all without them. One objection alone remains to be noticed, that of" positive contradictions in what is positively and definitely taught.

The Epistle of James

The doctrine of justification by faith is called Pauline, and is said to have contradictions elsewhere; and this has even been urged by some who profess to believe that the revelation of God is somewhere in this book.

A fair example of this alleged contradictory teaching may be found in the book of James, which the great champion for justification by faith, failing to reconcile the truth therein with his doctrine, promptly denounced as " the downright strawy epistle" and cut it out of the canon of his Scriptures,—certainly failing, in this instance, to give evidence by his works of his own faith And yet it is James who insists on, and puts a test to, the reality of faith, beyond even Paul, if that be possible. James insists that it is useless for a man to say he has faith unless he shows it by his works. His works must testify to his faith as did those of Abraham, and Raba, and the works referred to are certainly not of the kind from which a religious or popular reputation would be obtained. But one thing is plain,—in doing what they did they made it certain they believed God. That could not be-denied.

Is Faith Seen in Works?

And let it be asked, do the works of the popular religionist give evidence that he has believed the Gospel, and knows that Christ has been raised for his justification, and that, being justified, he has peace with God? Is one thing certain from his works, that he has believed God? Not that he is religious, moral, or, as it is popularly called "doing his best," fir with all this he may be giving the strongest evidence that he has not believed God.

Let it be remembered that in James the word of God declares that there must be works to testify that God has been believed; in Romans that, " If thou shalt confess with they mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shall 'be saved. For with the heart man believed' unto righteousness." Romans 10:9, 10.

The Divine Power and Authority of the Scripture

Any word that proves itself divine proves also its claim to authority. The messages of God had been accompanied at various times, especially when introducing a new testimony, by acts of divine power which confirmed their authority. But in the character of the message lay its strength. The heart and conscience recognized in it the rightful claims of God.

This was preeminently the case with Him who declared Himself the Son of God. His work bore witness to His mission and His message, but there was even deeper evidence, and that was in His word. By His word He Himself was revealed; as He said in answer to the question, " Who art thou?" “Even altogether that which I said unto you from the beginning." Even to the present day, it is certain that never man spike as He spake. The words from His lips were divine. And never was the authority of His word more divinely manifested and perfectly vindicated than at the time when the chief priests and scribes and elders came to ask, " By what authority quest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?"

The leaders in religious learning made common cause to approach the Lord and question Him as to the authority of His words and works; and in the very power of the reply given they receive their answer. The cloak of religiousness is stripped from their rationalism, which thus stands exposed to all in its moral degradation and contemptibility. They appeal as if asking for what was reasonable and true, and as the result of the answer drawn from their own lips they stand convicted of being governed by fleshly expediency and self-esteem alone. "Was the baptism of John of heaven or of men?" It had been the baptism of repentance. Was the call to repentance by John the Baptist of heaven or of men? “They reasoned with themselves, saying, if we shall say of heaven, he will say, Why then believed ye him, not? But and if we say, of men, all the people will stone its for they be persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered that they could not tell whence it was." An answer that proved their hearts false before God and man. They stood, convinced and confounded before Him they thought to confound, for He was there in grace.

Will the unsaved reader ask himself,—If such is the power of the Word of Christ in grace, what will it be in judgment?

FAITH OR UNBELIEF.

The Standard of Truth

It is then from the revelation God has given by fact and by Scripture that specifically He is known. Man is called to take the place he is proved to be in before Him, and to believe that which in perfect goodness has been accomplished for him, when his ruin was complete. The standard by which he is to judge what is right and true must be the revelation of God, both as to God's grace and as to man's ruin. It is a revelation from God, and of Him, that alone can give in reality that moral discernment which the nature of man of course affects as conscience.

Man's conscience is no standard. He has by it a knowledge: of sin, but this is partial and incomplete. For he will see no evil save in that which is below his own standard of good and evil.

Moreover, conscience cannot by its nature give a knowledge of God at all; it is a knowledge of good and evil, and by sin even this has been defiled. But though the conscience, through being defiled, is no standard of good and evil, still by its nature it recognizes the truth of the Divine message when presented, to it.

The Gospel a Command and a Revelation

And so the message of God to man commands him everywhere to repent; the power and trail of the requirement the conscience recognizes, but such is man's nature that either he will consider honestly what it involves and resent the claim; or he will seek some religious subterfuge whereby a salve is received from man, not from God; or he must perforce deny 'conviction, and profess a moral standard lower than the natural 'conscience. But the message of God is Also a revelation, and as such a message of reconciliation. It makes known to man sin in the full extent of its wretchedness and guilt and man's, complete thraldom to it, but declares that God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that the believer might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Man in his own works, can never get above what he is in himself—enmity against God. But in the place of the claims of God being pressed upon him, there is the message of what God Himself accomplished in Christ, upholding the claims of His Own Name Himself'; declaring that in Christ the believer becomes His righteousness, sin having already been judged as such—mat is a new creation. The relationship of the new creation is not dependent upon the creature's faithfulness, but upon the eternal subsistence and righteousness of God in Christ. If' he is not now become the righteousness of God in Christ, he is not yet of the new creation at all, but of the old.

This is Gods last ministry and message to man. His claims have been resented, His Son rejected, and the message of what His Son in His rejection at the cross has accomplished for man is sent back as a final message to him, and God, in the present clay of grace, with the Gospel is beseeching man to be reconciled to Him. Will the sinner, after 'this, still believe that his blessing consists in turning his back upon God? Will he not he recon oiled to Him Who has first proved His perfect love? God's work for the sinner has left him nothing to do; but for him to be justified, what has been done must be believed.

The Obedience of Faith Necessary

Faith is necessary; and it is the message which tests faith in God.

A notice once appeared at the park gates of a gentleman's residence, announcing to the people of the village that all who came to the house on the day and at the time named, would have their debts paid, whatever they might be. One old woman (alone) believed that message, and all her debts were paid.

On London Bridge, again, sovereigns were offered to the passers-by in exchange for pennies, but it was long before one was found to believe a message so contrary to every principle and motive that governs human actions in the largest business city of the world. Nevertheless a true offer had been made. Reasons enough may indeed be given why such offers as these were ignored, but the result of ignoring them is undeniable. The debtor had to bear his own burden of debt, though he might have been relieved of it; the passer by was not enriched, though the stranger would have enriched him had he trusted him in trusting his offer.

And so with God's announcement to man concerning His Son Jesus Christ. In order to be justified, faith being necessary, not to believe is of course not to be justified.

Evasion Impossible

It need not be denied that all is at stake, when the decision is made to reject confidence in man and that which is human, and judge all by a message that claims to be divine. But it must also be remembered that a message having been given from God, a man stakes his all when he rejects and seeks to evade or ignore it. The offer, man considers, is made by a stranger (though blessed be His name He is no longer a stranger to those who have trusted Him), and it demands faith in Him as trustworthy and divine.

But that which is 'demanded is as definite as that which is promised. The message in the Scriptures is at least straightforward, though man proves, alas! that the popular ways of treating it are not. It demands faith, and only faith receives an answer. The message must be believed because it is God's message to man, indeed it cannot be received unless as such. But folly must be imputed to the man (not unfaithfulness to God) who hopes to secure, in his own way, and not according to the message, the blessing that the message offers.

Substitutes for Faith and for Honesty.

Popular adherence to religious observances proves at least that a large majority do not

like to think themselves wholly without that Which the Gospel of God offers to man, but are also unwilling to accept the terms on which it is promised.

What is the result? A substitute is provided for faith,—anything or everything will be believed except the one message which tests faith in God, and upon which justification depends. Tradition, creeds, the sacrament, works, etc., are relied upon,—anything, or nothing particular—only going to church or chapel like other people, and not being worse than the majority. Or, on the other hand, there will be shuffling,—an attempt to escape the issue that Scripture brings every honest man to face. Reason will be made responsible for some such loose objection as " I must reason." Such an objection is either in its nature absurd, or a gratuitous assumption without any proof.

Reason and Faith

But as reason is so frequently appealed to, it may be well to consider its place in reference to the message of the Gospel.

Upon what, then, is the supposed antagonism based? Reason assuredly is not faith. Reason, then, must either be put forward as the principle by which justification is sought and in this way substituted for faith, or else reason in its results is assumed to make, faith in the Gospel irrational.

As to the first case, justification because of human righteousness would be possible on the ground of works, if the works were blameless. Justification, again, has been made possible by divine righteousness on the principle of faith; God's righteousness revealed by what he has wrought. He is, now " just and the Justifier of him who believes in Jesus." Justification on the principle of reasoning, could be recognized only in law-courts of a shamelessly corrupt character.

In the second case, an answer is required only by evidence, not by assumption. But the Scriptures as ever show themselves sufficient to prove and expose the subterfuges in which men seek to hide themselves from God,—meets them to with their own self-chosen weapons, and, wondrous truth, in the power of grace. " Come now," it is said, " and let us reason together saith the Lord; Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they he red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah, 1-18.

Upon what ground does man refuse to listen to reason in the matter of the message?

To reason only from as much and to as much as is chosen, is will, not reason. If reason be appealed to, reason must also be listened to. Its first essential character is the power to abstractly apportion to each argument its adequate weight and relative importance, apart from personal considerations and bias. Save by irrational denial that there is a God, what does reason teach to be more important personally than the question of His way of justification? Or of more weight abstractly and relatively than knowledge as to God's purposes in and through the world's history, which are to stand forever, after both the world and the individuals in it have run their course?

Man can be reasoned with, if the reason to which lie appeals is capable of weighing the message the Scriptures give—a brute cannot be—on righteousness, temperance and judgment to come; with the consequence that though he be governor on the tribunal, and he who wields the truth be his prisoner, he must tremble if reason is followed to the end.

It is man's reason as to these subjects, that will cause him to tremble, his irrationalism that makes him 'indifferent, and faith. that makes him declare, as the above mentioned prisoner dial, " I. would to God that not only thou but also all who hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds."

Reason demands that the message the gospel gives should be considered and either accepted, or openly rejected; that the reasons given for rejecting it be submitted to the same criticism and test that is demanded for faith; and that the responsibility for rejecting it be accepted.

THE ASSURANCE OF FAITH.

Demonstrative Proof the Believer Has.

The character of proof that the believer rests upon, must be owned as the most satisfactory possible to him. It is demonstrative, and the poor old woman who, believing the message of a free discharge of her debts, obeyed the notice as given, and returned with both possession of the promised benefit and proof of the value of the promise, had, by possession of the offered help, such positive conviction of the faithfulness of him who had promised as no mere theoretical belief in his trustiness could ever have given.

"Wisdom is justified of her children." It is through simplicity and need that many a metaphysical knot is cut, and when the wise become foolish by their wisdom, the simple prove themselves wise. “If any man will be wise, let him become a fool that he may be wise."

None could question the poor woman's ground for certainty and joy too. The Scriptures also afford their proofs to those who trust them. They are personal and not theological, conclusive to him who knows them but incapable of being demonstrated to others.

The blind man whose eyes had been opened could give as his only answer, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."

Such testimony has its weight from honesty rather than wisdom. And the testimony rendered by those who have believed the message of God in the Scriptures has been similar—irrespective of class or condition, unaffected by changing centuries, and confirmed throughout all nations.

The ground, then, upon which the believer's feet stand has now been stated. To him, it must be conceded, the ground is found to be inexpressibely satisfactory and secure. The very criticism to which it is on all sides exposed only forces him to consider the proof of its divine character and power, and to return to find his feet resting where conscience and heart and reason only can rest, on what is divine and not human,—what is proved to be fact, and not theory.

THE GROUNDS OF UNBELIEF.

The Grounds of Unbelief.

What guarantee or evidence can they produce reject the Gospel, for the security of the position they prefer to that of faith? Among the refusers of the message of God's salvation now, as in former days, arguments and attitudes are many and varied. Some mock, sonic say, " We will hear thee again of this matter," or hope vainly that some future day will 'move a more convenient season for definitely considering the issue raised.

But, though the arguments and attitudes of unbelievers are many, one position only is common to all, in respect to the message given. All alike are "outside the gates," and without that Which is offered in the announcement; and this is as true of him who may be arguing for the authenticity of the message, if he has not himself accepted the terms, as of him against whom lie is arguing.

It is often assumed, that a man is safe if he abides where he finds himself to be, while honestly to accept the claims of the Gospel is like stepping forth upon the waters. Perhaps the latter assumption is true. But still he who does step forth " to go to Jesus," in obedience to the divine invitation, proves that his path, is one of light, and has a security beyond what the water or his faith can give. And he has no desire, though he has the opportunity, to return to that path in the dark, leading he knows not whither, though it be as dry,—very dry,—ground.

But if tested by what can be known, is this ground so solid as to merit the unbounded confidence placed in it? The reasons for such confidence, and for the assumption that the definite claim fin: faith in the Gospel can be rejected or neglected with impunity, when there is the specific warning against doing so, may well be asked for. Philosophy and science are the only two sources to which unbelief can look for support, and we will consider their evidence.

The Evidence of Philosophy

It is popularly thought that the phenomena of the world are being progressively explained on a rationed basis by Scientific philosophy, and that in time everything will be. And so faith in anything that is not understood is regarded as mere superstition, and it is imagined that as the phenomena of nature become subjects of investigation and research they prove themselves to be self-existent and self-subsisting, and consequently are no testimony whatever to a Creator.

The position of the scientist philosopher is assumed to be that of one who believes only that which he can understand, while science is supposed to be that which to him makes all things in nature plain, simple, and explicable. The teachers looked upon as the authorities fir such views would undoubtedly deny such assumption, and guard their remarks with metaphysics. But then popularly, and with more truth, the consequences lying latent are seized upon and carried beyond the limits thus set. People assume boldly a position which they think the teachers assume the responsibility of teaching; while the teachers relieve themselves of the responsibility by refinements of metaphysics which carry them so far and no farther.

The principle of clericalism is found to wield as subtle and wide an influence through science as through religion. The sense and remembrance that man is individually responsible for his own position before God, and will have to answer for it to Him, is effectually stifled and deadened by it. As the Scripture says, "The prophets prophecy falsely, and. the priests bear rule by their means and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof?" "As I live saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me and every tongue shall confess to God." Rom. 14:11

But to return. As to philosophy, the remarkable fact is that the one thing learned for certain from philosophy is the exact opposite of that which it is popularly supposed to prove. The one thing certain is, that what cannot be explained on any ground of reason or understanding, and is even paradoxical in its nature, has to be received, One instance of this may he found in what is generally called the law of gravitation. To quote from a work before referred to:

"There is a somewhat general impression abroad in the world, that whatever is scientific is clear and free from doubt or difficulty. But such an opinion is as far as possible from the truth. . . . The Newtonian theory of gravitation is far from being so simple as it seems, and this its author clearly saw, and was free to acknowledge. In reality Newton's law of gravitation is simply a mathematical statement of facts established by observation. The statement that all material objects act as if attracted toward each other by a three which is directly as the product of the combined masses, and inversely as the square of the distance, has been verified as completely as any matter of human experience. Newton's hypothesis as to the cause of this uniform action of law is, however, incapable of absolute verification, while its acceptance impales us on one or other horn of a 'dilemma from which it is not easy to be extricated. We must either believe that bodies act upon each other from a distance through a vacuum, or that matter is continuous in space, so that there is no such thing as a vacuum

So keenly were the difficulties of this paradox felt, that many of Newton's eminent contemporaries, especially upon the continent, refused to accept the theory of gravitation, thus delaying its final triumph for a century. Huyghens declared the theory to be absurd; John Bernoulli, that it was “revolting to minds accustomed to receiving no principle in physics save those, which are incontestable and evident;" while Leibnitz called gravitation” an incorporeal, an inexplicable power." To the contemporaries of Newton, and indeed as we have seen, to Newton himself; that one material body should act upon another at a. distance seemed not only inconceivable but absurd.

The philosophical statements of this difficulty are easily understood and incapable of refutation. A material body can no more act where it is not than when it is not. . . . Nor have the difficulties of Newton's theory disappeared since his day. The acceptance of the law' as a fact has taken place in spite of the paradoxes which his theory involves, and mathematicians and physicists are as much puzzled as ever to find an ultimate, explanation of the law."

The difference in the principle upon which philosophy and' facts call for recognition, deserves attention. Facts, because of" the evidence they themselves give of their own truth, have to be received although they cannot be explained. Philosophy on the other hand' is' held together by reason and logic, and its tenets, are recognized because of the explanation they are, thought to afford.

These Opposite principles may bring philosophy and fact into collision, and we may inquire what is their respective weight and solidity when this is the case. To this the logician has as satisfactory and conclusive an answer as can be asked. “No one now feels any difficulty in conceiving gravity to be, as much as any other property is, "inherent and essential to matter," nor feels the comprehension of it facilitated in the smallest degree by the supposition of an ether (though some recent inquirers do give this as an explanation of it); nor thinks it at all incredible that the' celestial bodies can and do act where they, in actual bodily presence, are not. To us it is not more wonderful that bodies, should net upon one another “without mutual contact," than that they should do so when in contact; we are familiar with both these facts, and we find them equally inexplicable, but equally easy to believe."

And further, anyone who is ever tempted to pronounce a fact impossible because it appears to him inconceivable, is advised, to have always before him some constant reminder of this “a priori " fallacy. If the principles of philosophy are chosen as that on which the feet are to rest, they are already proved, by what is known, to be ready at any moment to betray, him who trusts them, and to confound him in his very confidence."

We have seen that at least some certainties are attainable from the principles of materialistic philosophy:

(1). It is incapable of explaining phenomena as they are.

(2). On the attempt to do so by its principles, it comes into collision with facts of nature, and annihilating itself proves its " vanity."

(3). Facts have to be received, even by philosophers, which are inexplicable and paradoxical.

It is then from the evidence philosophy gives that we learn the folly and ignorance of any who would choose an " a priori fallacy " and object to the facts of the Gospel as incredible, merely merely because their power and glory are beyond human powers of explanation and understanding.

THE EVIDENCE OF SCIENCE

Origin of Nature

What certainties can be established by the study of the phenomena of nature? Some subjects of thought and inquiry are at once suggested by them:

(1). To what does nature owe its origin?

(2). Whence is the wisdom displayed throughout its system?

(3). What is the power by which all is carried on?

What light, then, can science give; or what certainties has it been able to establish in respect to these inquiries?

As to the origin of the works of nature, it is known that the widest difference of opinion exists and has existed.

Sir Isaac Newton, concludes his famous Principia with a general scholium, in which he maintains that the whole 'diversity of natural things " can have arisen from nothing but the ideas and the will of one necessarily existing being, who is always and everywhere, God Supreme, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, absolutely perfect." A. little more than a hundred years later Laplace began to publish his, Mécanique Céleste which may be described as an extension of Newton's Principia on Newton's lines, translated into the language of the differential calculus. When Laplace went to make a formal presentation of his work to Napoleon, the latter remarked: “M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large, hook on the system of the universe and have never even mentioned its Creator." Whereupon Laplace drew himself up and answered bluntly: "'Sire,. I had no need of any such hypothesis." '

Since these words were spoken nearly another century has elapsed throughout which time well-known scientists have labored to put the elimination of this hypothesis on a scientific basis, with no other result than indicating the impossibility as well as the absurdity of such a procedure just now scientific opinion is again on the change, and we find the conclusion in a recent philosophical treatise as follows: "But above it (history) there can be only God as the living unity of all, and below it no longer things, but only the connecting conserving acts of the one Supreme."

The Sphere of Science

Scientists, then, differ amongst themselves.

Seeing this, is it possible, it may be asked, for the unscientific to have a settled and sure opinion on the subject'? The very fact that scientists do differ suggest that the question probably lies outside their province as scientists. Hence that suggestion is both possible and proper, apart from any pretense to learning or original research. The scientist can well be allowed his preeminence and honor in his own sphere, but not where he steps out of it. If science is asked what it has to say as to the origin of the phenomena it is occupied with, it must answer " Nothing," neither can it say anything. This subject is not in its province. Its province is to investigate things and laws that exist. “It (materialism) professes to start from the beginning, which science never can do; and when it is true to itself, never attempts to do." "The laws of nature only state the relations, they do not make them." And whatever these statements may be, they must accord with the facts, and be confined by the limits which facts prescribe. Discoveries may be made leading to a more accurate classification of matter, or a more definite statement of the principles and conditions according to which the forces in nature act,—but this knowledge must be the result of observation of phenomena as they exist, and the inquiry, like the discovery, is dependent on the existence and the fixedness of the laws proved to exist.

For the acceptance in science of that which is alleged to be discovered, it is necessary to prove that it is actually existent. And for this phenomena are taken as evidence. It would not be science, certainly, to discover a law that did not exist. The most sanguine scientist hardly expects to discover a law that does not exist! How then can the origin of the law, its passage from non-existence to existence, be discovered? The whole weight and argument of a scientific statement depend upon its confirmation by facts as they are. If facts are wanting, as science the statement has no weight. Its proof lies in fact.

The Character of Rational Proof

With philosophy, the object is to give for perceived effects an adequate cause. The condition of validity is of course that the cause assigned shall explain all facts or combinations of facts seen in the effect. This being the case, the cause is established on as solid a basis as reason can give it. The proof that there is such a cause is rational. The rejection of it, then, must be assigned either to incapacity of weighing arguments abstractly, because of subjective feelings and prejudices, or to willful determination to be guided by these prejudices in spite of reason.

That effects need a cause to produce them, is the principle with which science prosecutes its investigations of nature, and also the principle front which philosophy blows its bubbles. And it is a principle established as firmly in fact as it is in intuition. The apprehension of it is a common capacity of every rational being. Now, a cause can be assigned rationally to the phenomena of nature, but it must be in Him Who is Himself self-existent and whose power is creative.

There is 'but one alternative left to the materialist, (unless he merely evades the issue by urging his subjective ignorance of God), namely to declare that the laws are themselves self-creative and self-existent powers.

Wisdom Displayed in Nature

But this brings us to our second inquiry,—as to the wisdom which the works of nature exhibit. Now, even if the question as to the origin of the universe is philosophic and not scientific, that of the wisdom found 'in fact in the works of nature is not so. The fact of the wisdom displayed in the works of nature gives a scientific basis of inquiry. Here again the scientist himself supplies the principles and lassification by which the testimony can be rationally understood.

The separation in sphere and domain of mind from matter, is scientifically recognized. Mind is as much a fact to' science as matter. “We have seen Huxley, the scientific champion of agnosticism, run his ship high and dry on the idealistic side, and there capitulate:” Our one certainty," he acknowledges,” is the, existence of the mental world.'”

Mind has a sphere of its own, and the results of its activity are wholly apart from those of the activity of matter and from physical laws. Moral effects of the most diverse kinds will result front the same expenditure of energy. " For it requires no more physical force to utter a kind word than to speak an unkind one: the same strokes of a pen will sign a declaration of war or a treaty of peace; the same amount of waste phosphorus in the brain which determines the policy of a government in promoting internal improvements whereby commerce will be facilitated, could be made to determine a policy of isolation which, should make a hermit nation of a kingdom."

Testimony Respectively to Mind and to Matter in Phenomena

But through these results the relations of “facts of mind and facts of body " can be perceived and ascertained. Phenomena exhibit the relationship, but possess only the material. The forces and materials in nature can be made to serve intelligent purposes, but in their doing so, mind itself becomes no part of the: result.

The evidence of the part mind has had is not in the material, but in the use the Material is made to serve. Analyzes of the material, however scientifically thorough, will not give—is it necessary to say?—evidence of what part mind had, but of what the material used was. No evidence against a carpenter's mind having been employed upon the making of a box is found in the proof of its being wood, neither does this fact confirm any theory that a tree might have made it.

A piece of finely wrought tapestry, illustrating thought, taste and fact, by design and color, might be unraveled thread by thread. These threads, again, might be assorted according to their respective colors, or classified by their textures; or even farther described as to the quality of their molecules or the motion of their atomic system, until the analysis of the material was scientifically complete. Reconstructing could then be begun, and step by step the tapestry restored to its former estate; and then it might be brought forward as proof that, it having been subjected to a thorough scientific analysis and no mind or purpose being found in the material, none was in it, nor needed, to account for its being what it was. There was the clear proof that no, human mind had ever been engaged with it!

This illustration will at least serve to raise the question, What could possibly be found,—let the scientific materialist answer,—in an analysis of the material and forces of the universe, which would cause them to witness more than they do as they, are, to the wisdom, grace and power of a divine Creator? Neither is it any objection that the illustration omits to take account of the powers in nature,—of any force. The illustration does shew that it is absurd to look for mind in the analysis of material. And "this is equally true of force or motion. Intelligence can no more be imputed to them than to matter.

A denial, in face of all evidence, scientific and rational, of testimony to time activity of intelligence, when phenomena give evidence of it in fact, can only be made on subjective ground.

"The rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons" as it is written, minister both to his needs and happiness, and bear their witness to a kindly care and interest in him. Does he owe his debt of gratitude to the beneficent thought and purpose of unintelligent laws?

But perhaps he does not feel grateful, nor feel that any intelligence has been manifested in the universe. Be that as it may. But others cannot be expected to receive his not feeling grateful as a proof that the works of nature do not testify of Him “Who in wisdom has made them all."

The Power of Nature

The third inquiry is as to the power found in nature That power there is, by which purposes and ends are carried out, is certain. The, scientist knows this and puts it to account,—" knowledge is power." But this is saying that man is in himself powerless, his power consisting only in knowing how to utilize the powers he learns to be in nature. Moreover he can only count upon securing the results he desires by himself conforming to established laws. He cannot command their power. They do not obey his word, but the principles of their own energy. Yet, when he plans according to 'nature's laws, he can so absolutely count upon their faithfulness as to delegate the execution of the plans his mind has conceived to another who may have no intelligence in such matters at all. "After years of patient mining beneath the tumultuous waters of the channel connecting Long Island' Sound with New York harbor, a complicated mine is prepared with its chambers filled with dynamite.... The Engineer's daughter, a girl 'of tender years, is to be the agent employed to complete the plan and bring the catastrophe to a culmination. The electric batteries are arranged so that by simply pressing a button, the connection will be made which will send the electric current on its destructive errand." The powers of a scientist there depend-upon what he knows, and his knowledge is witnessed to by what he can do.

The Contrast of Man’s Knowledge As Power With the Power Itself in Nature

In nature we find a contrast. The power in nature is known by what it does. It is a power width does its own work, and carries out purposes and ends revealed by what is accomplished by it. The power itself' is proved obedient., accomplishing the end and purpose of an intelligence, and fulfilling the word of—Whom?

But with the profession of wisdom, in an enlightened age, the moral and rational state is pagan darkness. The heathen assigns power and dreaded influence to the works of his bands.

Such a notion is mere assumption, and irrational. The folly or it is manifest to all, for he can give no proof of his idol's possessing that which he assumes for it.

The analytic scientist sees before him a universe whose constitution exhibits incontestably the most marvelous and inscrutable display of wisdom and power in carrying purposes into effect. Has analysis resolved the universe into matter and motion? The scientist can express chemical constitution by formulas, or demonstrate the various stages and orders of development with the slides of a magic lantern. And a certain conception of what is found in. nature can be conveyed by these methods. But in using them the scientist can present only the idea,—not what the reality is or does in itself. For his idea he assumes the wisdom and power that has made the thing what it is. The thing itself is the proof that there exist such wisdom and power, and the assumption that they exist is justifiable, but when men ignore the reality and testimony, or further, assign wisdom and power to a substance, whether real or hypothetical, the heathen's idol,—or the scientist's stock,—the prime atom, the nebulae, protoplasm, vortex sponge or what not-their folly is manifested to all. Their theories do testify, not indeed to the wisdom and power of the creature but to the willfulness and blinded mind of those who attribute to the created that which belongs to the Creator.

The Limit Creation’s Evidence

But the evidence nature has to give is as definite in its limits as it is in character. It cannot reveal. God but only testify to Him and give the conception of Him as far as the display of His work can give it. Nature is His work, not Himself. His power and His divinity are understood from His visible works, though His moral attributes cannot be known from their evidence. For this reason He must reveal Himself. The evidence nature gives is a rational one. And man as it rational being can consider the evidence, and find that by the very principles of science and reason, in the understanding of which he prides himself, the evidence is absolutely unanswerable and conclusive, and can only be refused for subjective reasons.

If man denies his responsibility to God, he defies the evidence of nature and of his own conscience, and stands only and solely on the ground of his own subjective state of not knowing Him. He does not know Him, and concludes that therefore He is not! And yet in general those who take such or similar ground, frequently object to the believer's evidence as being “wholly subjective."

The Power in Nature a Witness to a Divine Will.

Still more marvelously, the more so because wholly inconceivable and contrary to human thought and method, comes the concurrent testimony in nature and in the Scripture, that there is power that obeys a divine command. Thoth agree in their witness to Him, whose word is power.

Science, for example, can speak of one thing certain as to the substance of light. To quote the words of Lord Kelvin who has been described as " our foremost physicist."—" You can imagine particles of something, the thing whose motion constitutes light. This thing we call the luminiferous ether. That is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether."

The undulations in this substance require power to produce them. Science finds in phenomena a power which fulfills of itself the purpose whereunto it is sent. It is power which man finds neither in his own hands nor in his own words. He can by his intelligence learn to use power, but power is not his. The power of sin is a fact, so is man's powerlessness. Death is a fact; so is man's incapacity to cope with its power. With all the extension of man's knowledge of nature and the power in it, the secret of power he has no more touched than when nature was wholly unknown to him. He has learned to use the powers of nature but the power to carry out his own will of himself is as far from him as at the beginning. The words of Scripture are as true and grand in this scientific age in which they are now read as in the unscientific one in which they were given. “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God." Psa. 62:11.

The power of human words lies wholly in what they can use; that of divine, in what they accomplish. Of the word of man it cannot be said, "He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast." Man can only pander to the cry of man for satisfaction and amusement for a restless heat. He writes folly or worse in fiction, or he reasons and seeks to convey knowledge.

To prove that the testimony of Scripture reveals God and maintains His word to be power; is in itself sufficient to prove its source divine and not human. And yet not only is such testimony maintained throughout all the various parts of Scripture, but it may almost be said to be the foundation of all it declares. In this respect, the harmony of the whole is undeniable; and the Scriptures themselves possess the power they reveal.

The scientist will have to come to God from the same cause as the ignorant. It is need alone, developed maybe in very different circumstances and experiences from those of his neighbor, which compels any man to come to God's terms and take His word as it is given. Hunger teaches the scientist as well as the beggar to eat rather than analyze his food. And perhaps it can be said with the beggar, in doing so lie finds the evidences of its being food more satisfactory than any drawn from any analysis.

Would it convince the beggar that bread is not food, if it was beard that the scientist had starved while analyzing his loaf? The scientist certainly would starve on his analysis, and yet this would afford no evidence that bread is not food. And “main shall not live by bread alone, 'but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Humbling it may be to a critic's mind,' but still to live he has to eat in the same way as the most ignorant. And he with others has to decide whether to accept the Gospel of

God concerning His Son in faith, or starve on his analysis.

The "living Bread " has been given, " which if a man eat, he shall live forever," and the assurance uttered, " He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Nature, which because of what it is, renders its testimony to the power and will of a Creator and Lord, owned the word of the Man of Sorrows, who had not where to say His head. The winds and waves were rebuked by His word; “and there was a great calm."

Power was with the word when “Jesus saith unto the deaf man, Ephphatha,—be opened; and straightway his ears were opened."

And power too was in that call that arrested the man, who hating the name of Jesus, was " yet breathing out threatening and slaughter " against all who confessed it, with "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"

He who afterward declared that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of God for it was His power unto salvation, had learned its power and grace in the call which came from the lips of the One Whom he thought was in the grave, but Whom he found to be alive in the glory of God.

The limits of this paper alloy' no further illustration than that in Scripture itself, where the testimony of God's power and grace in nature is so beautifully compared with that in. God's word, in that wonderful appeal to the heart of man: "He, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the Waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,... For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways, saith the Lord."

We have now closed our inquiry as to what man, as a rational being, can understand, his position in the world to be, in respect to his responsibility towards God. The rationalist at least, on his own principles, is bound to the position. Let him appeal to the evidence of nature, and he finds that, as to theories that set God aside, his feet have nothing under them but his subjective state; while the evidence convicts him of estrangement from God, but is itself in the most marvelous harmony with the word of reconciliation sent to him as a divine message in the day of grace.

THE RESULTS OF CRITICISM.

To criticism, then, must be the final appeal thy evidence to give the rejection of the Gospel a rational basis; and in this confidence is so great that it is frequently thought that the believer dare not honestly face the results of the critic's work.

The Sing to Unbelief of the Divine Message

The confidence which leads the believer to turn to the Scriptures for the supply to his every need as a believer, finds no more disappointment in their difficult passages than in any others. In fact, the Scriptures are so far from yielding to the claims of rationalism, that the believer is perhaps himself surprised to find that one of the chief witnesses rationalists call, in order to impugn the credibility of the Scriptures, is made to witness for their divine authorship, and by it, light and order are given to the whole subject. This at least would show that the critic's case is not as easily proved as he would have it.

He who declared Himself to be the Son of God, has given the sign of His mission, and we may learn from this, what the credentials of the divine message are:—" An evil and 'adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign. be given onto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," Matt. 12:39-40.

Jonah, it need hardly be said, has always been a very favorite subject of ridicule in the hands of the skeptic. But it being declared here that an event analogous Jonah's to experience is to be the one and only sign given to the unbelieving generation, the “honest doubter " may be expected to give that event his most careful consideration. It is given us the evidence which the unbelieving must recognize, as a proof that God has had to say to man.

The sign, then, that confirms God's message to man, may be considered in three aspects: First, facts as evidence possessing their own power; secondly, the purpose and testimony of divine acts; thirdly, the character of the divine word.

The Sing Facts Sign

The Scriptures themselves declare that the unbeliever will receive no other sign of the truth of the message of God's grace to man in his need, than that which the facts, by virtue of what they have been, will afford. The fact of the resurrection was to be its own credential, and would become a sign of such distinctness that any 'would-be rational refutation would prove its own irrationalism. And so it has been. Infidels have made the attempt to set aside the fact, and there are books extant where their arguments and statements meet with complete refutation.' Historical statements have been gathered and sifted, and the recorded incidents proved to be possible only on condition of the reality of the facts of the Gospel; while the contents of the Scriptures themselves have afforded such innumerable undesigned coincidences, "as to render -their historical truth impregnable." Let it be remembered that many a work on Christian Evidences, having served its generation, is comparatively little known now, but this does not imply that its arguments have ever been answered or refuted. Some still' survive as “evidences." Paley's Evidences have been known for over a century; had they been refuted they would be known as Paley's errors.

There is no moral weight in affecting to despise that which cannot be answered in argument.

Paley's Evidences

The resurrection, as a fact, is the sign to unbelief. The writer remembers the way in which the arguments of Paley were met by undergraduates who in their First Term had his Evidences as, a compulsory subject in their “Little-Go." “The indignity of Making a book published in 1794 compulsory, was disgraceful. The arguments were wholly out of date," and the like. But the up-to-date wiseacres seemed to be incapable of answering any one specific argument. And it is to Paley that the writer gladly owns his indebtedness for being brought to consider the facts of the Gospel in their power, at a time when he felt a decision for the gospel as it is given, or for hopeless infidelity, must be honestly made.

The testimony of the Apostles and time original witnesses of of the facts of the Gospel, allows of only one of two explanations Either it was false, and those who rendered it did so knowing it to be false,—or it was true.

Enthusiasts who deceived themselves as to what they stated as facts, they could not have been. What they testified to was “what they had seen and heard," and if their statements were not true they were in the worst sense false.

The Facts of the Gospel

It is by an infidel, that two distinct grounds upon which every inquiry must be conducted, have been most sharply defined. “All objects of human reason or inquiry," says Hume, "may be naturally divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Hatters of Fact.”

The testimony, extant in part in writing's, and proved, by concurrent history, given by the original witnesses to the incidents of the Gospel, was undeniably to matters of fact, and was either true or willfully false. But seeing that evidences of the 'historical basis of the Gospel, narrative, as well as the narrative itself, are within the reach of all, it will suffice to say, that the historical character of the story of divine grace is in a more unassailable position in the present day than it has ever been. Its strength in historical facts has been brought to light by criticism, and these facts stand like the rocks in dangerous waters supporting the lighthouse which guides into safety those who profit by its gracious light, remaining sure and firm throughout the storm, while those who despise its warning dash their vessel to pieces „upon them.

That their evidence develops under honest criticism may be judged from the following extract:

An Instance of the Power of These Facts

It is stated by Rev. T. T. Biddolph that Lord Lyttleton and his friend Gilbert West, Esq., both men of acknowledged talents, had imbibed the principles of infidelity from a superficial view of the Scriptures. Fully persuaded that the Bible was an imposture, they determined to expose the cheat. Lord Lyttleton chose the conversion of Paul, and Mr. West, the resurrection of Christ, for the subject of hostile criticism. Both sat down to their respective tasks full of prejudice; but the result of their separate attempts was that they were both converted by their effort to overthrow the truth of Christianity, They came together not as they expected, to exult over an imposture exposed to ridicule, but to 'lament over their own folly, and to felicitate each other on their joint conviction that the Bible was the word of God. "Their able inquiries have furnished two of the most valuable treatises in favor of revelation, one entitled ' Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul,' and the other Observations on the Resurrection of Christ.'"

Every attempt to discredit the testimony to the Resurrection, has to be based on subjective a priori ground. And in accepting the Resurrection as a &et, the simplest believer is only accepting what criticism has to substantiate as history unless criticism denies its own principles.

Conjoined Testimony

But the Scriptures force another issue. The fact of the resurrection and the truth of the story of Jonah are linked together. The Lord has-not only given His express word for this, but declared it to be the sign given to an unbelieving generation. Both then, must either be received or both rejected.

To receive the incident as a fact, the Son of God must be trusted,—to reject it, His word must be disbelieved, amt'' he who disbelieves that word is proved an unbeliever.

And thus, while criticism is so frequently introduced as the reason for having the Gospel claims in abeyance, and thereby excusing or rather deceiving oneself in neglecting “the great salvation," the Scriptures take up one of the chief subjects of criticism and with it force the issue upon the critic himself.

The Word of God is still "living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword, Piercing even to the dividing of soul' and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discoverer of thoughts and intents of the heart."

The Harmony in Divine Testimony

The critic finds the signs given have still more to say to him on his own principles. The act that preserved Jonah was undeniably divine; as was the resurrection. And the history of Jonah, thereby, presents such a striking harmony with the history of the Gospel, that a child can see the analogy. The resurrection being established as a fact, the divine ways and power displayed in the history of Jonah have a definite purpose and a divine one.

The inquiry into the veracity of the Scriptures leaves the question indefinitely open, because of the constant accumulation and discovery of evidence with which the investigation, is conducted. The divine evidence does not change, for the Scriptures are complete in themselves. This, the critic is responsible. to understand; for when writings make an explicit claim to speak from God, the critical consideration of the claim would ask if the evidence proves them divine in character,—not merely true to fact, which would be possible with any human history, but true to their divine claim. To this query an answer is given him.

A manifest harmony is found between the history recorded in the Old Testament and that recorded in the New; and this harmony is the result of what is divine and superhuman in each. Either, then, the critic must condemn his rationalism and accept the facts which are divine, or deny the history wholly and profess agnosticism, and accept himself the criticism such a position exposes him to.

Evidence of Veracity Compared With That of Divine Truth

Just when the critic has apparently triumphed in proving the narrative inconsistent with reason and experience, the Scriptures by what they contain turn the narrative into a witness to a mysterious power that places the critic in a quandary, and sets the very incident in question as a sign of irrational unbelief.

Again thus the scripture places the simple believer, in position of rational as well as divine faith, and the critic, if he takes reason as his standard, in one of irrational infidelity. The critic would raise the question of the veracity of the Scriptures, which assuredly has its plea; but the Scriptures force first the question of their divine evidence, and upon this all depends. If the evidences of their divine power and character are manifest, undeniably their veracity is a necessary consequence, and a simple believer is rational in assuming it as such. For after all, he is dependent upon others for almost the whole evidence in which the veracity of the scriptures is involved, and if he has learned the scriptures to be the Word of God to hint, he is certainly justified in believing God rather than man. 'With one who is without the opportunity or ability of judging of evidence rationally, it is but one or the other.

This is no concession of course on the point of the veracity of the Scriptures. Far from it. The evidence that what is stated in Scripture is true, is of necessity distinct from the question as to whether it is divine. The critic would like to accept only that which he considers his criticism sanctions, paying thereby a tribute to the capacity of scholarship. But the Scriptures do not allow this, and handling him with his own principles bring him first to the issue whether his criticism is to be based on accrediting what is rational, or on receiving what is divine. And what guarantee can he give at the Start that he possesses the necessary honesty and capacity of mind to consider the abstract question of the Scriptures' veracity?

The Veracity of the Scriptures

But still there are few indeed who are not aware of, and who do not frequently have to face, the most confident statements that the Scriptures contain that which is not true. “Facts” have proved it untrue, and consequently to consider it divine is folly. It behooves a 'believer, then, seeing that facts and truth are appealed to, at least to consider what is meant. The question arises, of course, what facts and what truth are ascertained that bear upon what is stated in the Scriptures? And what evidence do they give?

Here the evidence appealed to is certainly that which the vast majority are incapable of verifying, but receive it second hand. And this is as true of him who accepts the latest theory that is put forth, as of him who questions it. The fields of research and study from which “facts" and “truth” are dug, few have either ability or opportunity to enter.

Assertion can easily be made, and alleged &as can be adduced in support, which make the attack irrefutable to any who have no information on the subject, although the absurdity of it might with ease be shown by any who possessed independent 'equal or superior knowledge of the facts. Learning in the branches of study from which the veracity of the Scripture is judged, is the property of specialists. With this weapon the scholar arms himself, whether for attack or defense, in discussing the veracity of the Scriptures. Into the arena of criticism the present writer does not pretend to go. Like every other witness, criticism has its fixed and already defined hounds. When it assays to go beyond them, it is no longer evidence but assumption.

Literature on the various subjects of attack is open to all, and any who have the intelligence to understand one side, have also the opportunity of reading the other. It is the interest, not the opportunity, that is lacking, and for this fact the responsibility must be accepted.

As evidence, the results of learned criticism must be considered under two heads:

(1). Reasoning from these results,—that is, theory.

(2).Facts.

Facts, of course, all are bound to receive, but conclusions drawn from them, by no means.

Reason and Logic As Guides

First then, what confidence can he placed in reasoning, as a trustworthy witness? Reasoning is far from being as safe and certain as it is often supposed to be. Rationalists are often accredited by the simple with being incapable of believing because they think too much. But it is the quality, not the quantity of thought that is essential. Inductive reasoning is quick in suggestion, but being abstract is indifferent to realities or even sense. Thus we find the logician led quite unconsciously by Ilk inductive reasoning from sense to nonsense. Phenomena in this world, it is owned by him, make it not very rational to speak of phenomena which have not been caused; but he challenges any to say that uncaused phenomena may not be found in far away stellar regions! The infidel logician thus conclusively proves that, for grounds of disbelief, neither reason nor fact are necessary. Talk about phenomena coming into existence when there is absolutely no cause for their doing so, is simply meaningless to reason. It is mere phraseology, possessing no intelligible sense at all. The assumption argued for simply amounts to this, that it is folly to affirm confidently that the phenomena of stellar regions present the necessity of a cause; and yet, as to the phenomena of the world where Mr. Mill finds himself as a fact, it is virtually admitted that they teach him or any other infidel his need of Him to whom they bear witness.

Animadverting on the meaningless phraseology which reasoning can produce, another has cited “such. . . . childish puzzles [as], Can God make a stone so heavy that He cannot move it? Can God make two hills without a Valley between.? Can God add two and two together so that the sum shall be five?"

Along with these may be placed theories such as Lord Kelvin's suggestion that life was brought to the world by some straying meteorite; while Huxley's faith tells us, that somewhere ins infinite time and amid the infinite changes through which matter has been called to pass, life did somehow originate.

Rational induction, then, affords no safeguard against taking from facts their proper weight. On the contrary, to its nature-belongs the dangerous quality of forgetting facts altogether.

Faultless Reason Ing Untrustworthy

Again we find that theories which are each equally unimpeachable on its own basis can, by the contradiction they give to each other,, become a witness to the folly of placing absolute confidence in reasoning even if wholly unassailable in its conclusions. " Dr. Croll as the propounder and defender of an astronomical theory of the Glacial period which made great demands upon geological time, encountered the startling calculations made by Lord Kelvin,. Prof. Tait, George Darwin, and others, going to show that the solar system is running down so fast that geological history must be compressed into what seems to some an incredibly short space of time. Whereas geologists had been in the habit of assuming that many hundred million years were at their command, these physicists came in with their demonstrations that if all things continued from the first as they now are, the solar system would part with its heat by radiation in less them one hundred million years, having only a fraction of that brief time fit for the development of plant and animal life." (Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences, p. 8.)

Contradictory Evidence in Geology

The same contradictory phenomena present themselves in geological evidence. For instance," It is alleged that for certain sandstones-some twenty thousand years must have passed to have a bed of such thickness deposited; but at Cringleith, near Edinburgh, a tree some 60 feet long lies slanting at an angle of 40 degrees across the strata in its whole length. Now that a tree remained twenty thousand years slanting thus while the sea deposited these strata, is not to be believed. Again they tell us that the formation of certain beds of coal, would require twenty thousand years to make a bed of coal a foot thick, and some one hundred and twenty thousand years for the coal measures of England. Nor is this all; at South Joggins cliff in Nova Scotia, and somewhere near Manchester, sigillaria grow through the coal, the roots being in and below it, and the stems rising up in their original position through the superincumbent sand-stone and shale.. So, in the Isle of Purbeck, dicotyledonous wood in limestone."

Is more evidence needed as to the danger of theories? An account of the many times that able and learned men have been betrayed by their very power of reasoning, would fill many volume. We find the same contradiction in facts in the evidence as to the dates of Egyptian history; the long ages so popularly believed in have met with a that denial based on facts, " Not only does Manetho speak of contemporary princes, but the stelæ and tablet monuments give unequivocal proofs of the coexistence of kings of different dynasties, sometimes subordinate one to another. The names are brought together of two and even of several dynasties on the same monument, so that the chronology founded on their being in succession one to another is a delusion from beginning to end."

Reasoning From Figures

Chronology also passes into the mythical.

Pit" The figures of Babylonish chronology are manifestly made to serve the ends of the chronicler. The reasoning will be denied by none. The ease with which theorists can manipulate figures has also had somewhat recent illustration in the calculation concerning the age of a bone found in the delta of the Mississippi. In the first edition “It was 100,000 years; in the second, reduced by half to 50,000. Then, according to Professor Hitchcock, 14,200; or 4,400. according to Humphreys and Abbot, 'United States engineers, the latest authorities on the subject."

ELABORATE THEORIES WORTHLESS BECAUSE OF ONE FACT

Theories again would frequently be completely unanswerable but for some small fact which is contradictory. But, for one established fact the whole theory must go.

Such is the case with an elaborate theory concerning a skull found, which the presence of a little verdigris—the undeniable proof of bronze—wholly contradicts. A small plug of cork found with canoes dug from the estuary silt of the Clyde at Glasgow, will prove their age to be very different from which otherwise theory would give it. That which it is important to notice in such examples is, that but for one very small fact, theoretical evidence would have had it all its own way. And yet, as we know from facts now, it would have been wrong.

Enough for the present has been said, in proof, that theories, 'however ingenious or apparently conclusive as arguments, yet as witnesses must give place to every other kind of evidence. Bubbles, as has been said, may be attractive and spherically complete, hut they make bad foundations. The web of the spider may be ingenious, but flies only can be caught by it.

The links of the argument may be as strong as reasoning can make them, hut their weakness comes from its being reasoning and not fact. And consequently we find that, by theorizing, nonsense supported by argument can be presented with the same ease as fact; while different theories, each faultless in the process of deduction from its own premises, will often confound each other.

Again, the respective weight of fact and reasoning as evidence may be judged from the fact that a whole theory may have to be surrendered because of one established fact. And lastly, when theories leave no room for reasonable doubt, before statements of facts can be pronounced certainly untrue because of them, it must be proved (1) that the theory is really infallible, and (2) that the statements of fact are impossible of reconciliation-with it.

Blind Confidence in Theory

And yet it is popular to trust theories, in the face of all other evidence; and with the great majority it is trusting only the reputation of them. Satisfaction is felt in following in the wake of critics. When the believer finds to what so ninny are willing to commit their eternal Welfare, he has indeed cause to be thankful, and rejoice that God through the gospel has given him " not the spirit of fear, but of a sound mind," as well as " of power and love."

But research and study, besides affording material fine theory, have brought to light facts that can be compared with facts in Scripture. The chronicles of those nations whose histories are so closely interwoven and connected with that of the chosen nation of Scripture, have of late years been discovered and deciphered.. The result is evidence of a very different character to that of theory. Facts will be found stated which must either throw the strongest doubt upon the records of Scripture, or else will) confirm and establish on a historical basis the facts there given as facts and not romances.

Result of Archaeological Researches

What the result of these discoveries has already been cannot be better or more strongly presented than in the words of Dr. Sayce,, whose knowledge of the records renders his opinion equal to any on the subject. “This realization of Old Testament history is not the only result of the recovery of Assyria upon Biblical studies. It is a very important result, but there are others besides of equal importance. One of these is the unexpected confirmation of the correctness of Holy Writ this Assyrian discovery has afforded. The later history of the Old Testament no longer stands alone. Once it was itself the sole witness for the truth of the narratives it contains. Classical history or legend dealt with other lands and other ages; there were no documents besides those contained in the Old Testament to which we could appeal in support of its statements. All is changed now. The earth has yielded up its secrets; the ancient civilization of Assyria has stepped forth again into the light of day and has furnished us with records, the authenticity of which none can deny, which run side by side with those of the Books of Kings, confirming, explaining, and illustrating them. It has been said that just at the moment when skeptical criticism seemed to have achieved its worst, and to have resolved the narratives of the Old Testament into myths or fables, God's providence was raising up from the grave of centuries a new and unimpeachable witness for their truth. Indeed so strikingly was this the case, that one of the objections brought against the correctness of Assyrian decipherment in its early clays was that Assyrian monarchs could never have concerned themselves with petty kingdoms like those of Samaria and Judah, as the decipherers made them do. Before the cuneiform monuments were interpreted, no one could have suspected that they would have poured such a flood of light upon Old Testament History.

Nahum, again, we can now read with a new interest and a new understanding. The very date of his prophecy, so long disputed, can be fixed approximately by the reference it contains to the sack of No-Anion or Thebes (3:8). The prophecy was delivered hard upon sixty years before the fall of Nineveh, when the Assyrian empire was at the height of its prosperity and mistress of the eastern world. Human foresight could little have imagined that so great and terrible a power was so soon to disappear. And yet at the very moment when it seemed strongest and most secure, the Jewish prophet was uttering at prediction which the excavations of Botta and Layard have shown to have been carried out literally in fact. As we thread.(air way among the ruins of Nineveh, or trace the after history of the deserted and forgotten site, we see everywhere the fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy. Of the words that he pronounced against the doomed city, there is none which has not come to pass.

"Those who would learn how marvelously the monuments of Assyria illustrate and corroborate the pages of sacred history, need only compare the records they contain with the narratives of the Books of Kings which relate to the same period. The one complements and supplies the chapters missing from the other.

The Bible informs us why Sennecharib left Hezekiah unpunished, and never despatched another army to Palestine; the cuneiform annals explain the causes of his murder, and the reason of the flight of his sons to Ararat or Armenia. The single passage in Scripture in which the name of Sargon is mentioned, no longer remains isolated and we have no longer ally need to identify him with Tiglath Pileser, or Shalmaneser, or any other Assyrian prince with whom the fancy of old commentators confounded him; we now know that he was One of the most powerful of Assyrian conquerors, and we have his own independent, testimony to that siege and capture of Ashdod which is the occasion of the mention of his name in Scripture. Between the history of the monuments and the history of the Bible there is perpetual contact, and the voice of the monuments is found to be in strict harmony with that of the Old Testament."

The examination, then, of these records has resulted in confirming even in detail facts stated in Scripture, comprising the descent of Chedorlaomer in the time of Abraham, as also the number of talents with which Hezekiah sought to buy off the Assyrian attack.

The references in the Scriptures to Pul and to Ezar Haddon the Assyrian taking Manasseh to Babylon, were once grounds of attack for skepticism; now they stand as warnings against its confidence. The campaigns of Pul have been proved. Babylon is known to have been built by Ezar Haddon, who as the only king that sought to conciliate the nations by compromise, held his court alternately at Babylon and at Nineveh.

What then has criticism to offer, as security that the gospel of God's Salvation can be neglected with impunity? Theories,, doubtless; many elaborate inquiries; but direct evidence against the Scriptures as a revelation from God it has none. And even the weight of its theories is balanced by the result of criticism itself in another and far more certain field.

The Contrast of Scripture With Contemporaneous Writings

It is difficult to conceive what, according to a critic's idea, a divine revelation of God to man in writing would be. All that speaks of God directly, intervening in the history of man,. and displaying a future purpose as well as present grace and righteousness, in order, to reveal Himself and give the word that would do so, must be denied because it is superhuman; and all that proves that living men and their actual 'history have been used must be rejected because it is human! The contemporaneous, records of other nations extant, then, is the standing sign to the critic of what is human. The brutality and arrogance recorded in them leave no doubt as to their source. The contemporaneous records extant, one and all, allow no uncertainty as to what the men were.

In the Old Testament, that which exhibits the undeniable and mysterious harmony with the fact of the resurrection, is its constant and varied testimony to the activity and power of a living God and of a work that finds its complement and testimony in the Gospel concerning His Son. The records agree from first to last in revealing what God is in His grace to man, The sign of divine love and power has been given in this unparalleled harmony. How is it the critic cannot discern it? If he denies the. divine element in the Old, he must deny also the resurrection by the principles of criticism his position involves.

THE CHARACTER OF CRITICISM.

The Capacity of Criticism

The discussion of the results of criticism on its own ground properly belongs to the learned only. But if few comparatively are able to handle the details of criticism from an independent stock of knowledge, every plain man is as competent as the most acute critic to form a judgment as to whether the criticism of the critic falls within the limit his capacity prescribes.

The knowledge which has given the critic his position in one sphere will tempt him to assume the capacity of a critic in all. But criticism attempted beyond that for which there is capacity witnesses only to its own incapacity, and is no longer criticism but ignorant pretension. To borrow an illustration from another: “With all respect for their skill in what mentally is very interesting, if they go beyond it they are simply sutor ultra crepidam. I suppose for some I must translate the rebuke given by the Rhodian sculptor to the cobbler who could show that the shoe on the statue was not rightly made, and famous by correcting. the work of a renowned artist, would go further and judge, the work, but was only the cobbler beyond his last. With the existence of creation or of the laws which govern it, they have nothing to do. They may investigate these laws where they exist; if they go beyond them, I say, Ne sutor ultra crepidam."

These are the confines to the judgment of the critic, beyond which he cannot without exposing his ignorant pretension assay to judge. And it is to these fixed limits to the validity of the judgment of the critic that we would seek to direct attention.

Can the line be drawn, we would inquire, to which, criticism is just and valid, and beyond which it becomes self judged? The answer must be, Certainly, if the sphere of the knowledge which is made the basis of judgment is defined, and the quality of that which it assays to criticize is absolutely determined.

If the Scriptures prove themselves to be God's word, a profession of inability to receive or appreciate them as such, witnesses to no more than this,—that he who urges such inability proclaims his own blindness and incapacity of heart and mind to know that which is divine.

We may consider then (1) the province within which the exercise of the critic's judgment may be fully recognized, (2) the evidence that the Scriptures contain within themselves the proof that they do possess communications that are indisputably divine, and (3) that upon which the recognition and appreciation of that which is divine depends.

The criticism that the contents of Scripture meet may with advantage be considered under three divisions, (1) scholastic, (2) textual and (3) higher criticism, according to the kind of researa that is used as the basis of criticism.

SCHOLASTIC CRITICISM.

Under this heading we would refer to the knowledge that has developed in the various schools of science, as to questions raised by the Scriptures, and consider the conclusions based on the knowledge thus acquired, in respect to the references to the same subjects that are finned scattered throughout the Scriptures.

The rapid and extensive increase of knowledge in various branches of science has resulted in many scientific truths established, as also, it is to be remembered, in many scientific paradoxes. As a basis of criticism, science is adequate as to how far science is found technically taught in the Scriptures. But one needs very little of it to know that the truth of the Scriptures declared from God is not presented with scientific nor scholastic learning. If it were, there would be the strongest presumptive evidence that it did not speak from God at all. Divine truth would be eclectic and not universal, —attainable only by the scholar, and not by all or any who sought God. And this would be the critic's idea of a revelation from God for the needs of the souls of men!

But the critic,—to judge from published writings,—far from recognizing, in the very manner in which subjects studied at schools are referred to in Scripture, consistency with a revelation from God, would place the character of the references in invidious comparison with the advanced knowledge of the present day. It is well to remember, that character of objection applies with equal force to the Master whom many critics in their profession affect to serve, as to the Scriptures which testify of Him from first to last.

The attitude taken by the critic may be learned from his own words:—" it has not been readily," says Prof. Jowett, “or at once, that mankind have learned to realize the character of the sacred writings. . . . It is the old age of the world only that has at length understood its childhood (or rather perhaps is beginning to understand it), and make allowance for its own deficiency of knowledge."

Whatever be the full meaning that this remark is intended to convey, the purport it bears is simple and plain enough to be understood. by all:—The wisdom and understanding of the world has already passed its ‘infancy' in which infantile ignorance was the source of infantile pride, and now in its old age it recognizes with assumed humility " its own deficiency." From this the plain inference is drawn that thus, by the present wisdom and understanding of the world, the deficiency of the revelation of God, given at the time of the world's infancy, must also now be recognized.

Could any word be more needed in such a day than the declaration that; "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God“?or "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? for after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

Present day science undoubtedly is 'not found taught in the Scriptures, but when the critic uses the fact that science is not technically taught, to imply or openly state that the revelation of God is thereby defective, he condemns his position by his unwarrantable assumption.

The critic is beyond his capacity, whatever be the range of his knowledge—for which due honor must be accorded to him—since his acquired knowledge has no more formed the capacity for judging of a divine revelation, then the accurate knowledge of the last, or the education iris mind had acquired by careful attention to it, fitted the cobber for judging of artistic excellence.

Still, if scholarship gives no assurance of capacity for the appreciation of divine truth as such, yet those features which are peculiar and unique within the province of the critic's work demand his recognition and acknowledgment.

There is no excuse for the critic's failing to notice the harmony and consistency with the avowed purpose of giving a revelation of God, of all Scripture references to subjects that have been treated scientifically, as well as the complete subordination to that purpose of all such references.

The Contrast of Scientific Deductions From the Scriptures With the Scriptures Themselves

No better proof of the power and character of the Scriptures could be presented than the contrast between the labors of the most learned of their day upon the Scriptures, as tested by time, and the words of the Scriptures themselves.

The Scriptures not only endure, but the exactness of their words is brought into strong relief by the test brought upon them.

The labors of the learned on the contrary, pass out of date and are proved erroneous. Less than 400 years ago the best learning And research of the day were used to assign to creation its date. In the margins of our Bibles we have the results of the calculations to which Archbishop Ussher has committed his name and his knowledge. But what is worthy of notice is that lie leaves attached to the Scriptures it statement which is the declared precinct of his understanding of the Scriptures, and of the engagement of his learning upon them, and yet in out' day his statement is not only considered worthless by men of science but erroneous by students of Scripture, The contrast of the acceptance accorded to the word of one of the most learned men in his own time, with that given to it at present, is most instructive, especially when compared with the first statement found written in the Scriptures themselves. Science, with all its advance in the present day, not only has to other solution for the problem of the origin of the universe than that statement of Scripture, but all the wealth it has brought by its labor goes only to confirm the truth as it stands written in the Scriptures’ The statements of Scripture with reference to the phenomena that have at all times been the object of philosophic and scientific discussion, have no parallel in the literature the world has produced in the 'natter of dint they do state, of how they state it., and of what they do not state, In this regard they occupy it unique position which leaves it critic, on the principles of his critical acumen, without excuse, if the source. of such literature is not deemed by him worthy of sober thought and decisive judgment.

(1). A period of creation, the length of which is left wholly open and undefined.

(2). Following this, one of waste and desolation.

(3). From the formation of the present Adamic Earth by a new creative energy.

Standing out from the midst of criticism like the clear outline of the distant mountain peak from the haziness below, there, is always found some such striking evidence of the truth and stability of Scripture as to command attention and sober inquiry from all but the most biassed and frivolous, for the message it contains.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM.

The various verbal and constructural differences found in the text of the 'extant MSS. of the Scriptures raises the inquiry as to the text of the original documents. The comparative study of these differences in order to ascertain the original text, is known as textual criticism.

But there is little that calls for any remark in this connection, so far as the authority of the Scripture is concerned.

The work of the textual critic is to eliminate the additions or alterations that may have crept into the original text, owing to careless copying or to intentional tampering by those through whose hands it has passed in transmission.

What is the authority of the original communications, is a question not comprised within his province; still the results of the work of the textual critic give a place to the Scriptures that is special and unexampled in any other literature. The material is so abundant that the scholar has the opportunity, by study and comparison of the various MSS., of arriving at what the original text was with a hundredfold greater assurance than he has with the text of any classical author. Where there is one manuscript to check the text of a classical author as it has come to us, there are a. hundred that do so with the Scriptures. Again, whatever be the difference or variations that criticism may discover in the MSS. the result of all criticism concurs in stating that the same Gospel of God, and the same truths, are found taught unaffected and unaltered in any point at all. The question of Textual Criticism thus has nothing to do with the question of accepting or rejecting the Gospel as found in the Scriptures. That is wholly untouched by any result of 'Textual Criticism.

The well-known words to this effect, Of the critic Dr. Bentley, may be quoted once again: "Make your 30,000 (variations) as many more if the number of copies can even reach this sum,—all the better to a knowing and serious reader, who is thereby richly furnished to select what be sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and. let his choice be as sinister or absurd as it may, yet will he not be able to extinguish one Christian doctrine or disguise its truth so that every feature 'of it will not be the same."

Whether even the Authorized Version as read by the multitude does not contain a better text than that which popular critics would have us read, is a question upon which scholars themselves are divided. One fact recognized by both schools of critics alike, is that the same text of the Scriptures has, generally speaking, been that universally read since about 350 A.D.

And lastly, in the Authorized and Revised versions, every reader has before him fair representatives of the texts of the two schools of criticism, and is thus able to know and judge for himself how much, or rather how little the greatest possible variation of text can affect any Scripture truth. The truth of the Gospel of God, as well as the issue it involves, will be as clearly presented to him in the one as in the other.

Can the reader, it may be asked, fail to see the hand of a Divine Providence over the text'?

The scholar, whose education brings him to know of the variations of text which, through human carelessness or meddling, have arisen in its transmission, finds himself provided with a mass of material, from which he MIL with diligence and dependence come to a judgment as to the original; while whether the ordinary reader has not had given into his hands a better text than that which is favored by many critics, is, as before remarked, an open question amongst scholars.

But however this may be, the greatest possible variations that could be made by any sober-minded critic of either school have already been published; so that all, in the present day, may know that the truth of the Gospel of God at least is placed' beyond controversy,

HIGHER CRITICISM.

Our final inquiry in the province of criticism Will be as to the results of that which moue properly answers to the so frequently used phrase, “higher criticism."

Examination of Meaning, and Capacity Needed for It.

If Higher Criticism be understood according to a definition given, as “the critical examination of meaning with all its attendant references and connections," we find ourselves already informed of the basis upon which the judgment of higher criticism rests.

By such an examination the meaning, and the only meaning, of any human literature, must be sought.

“Attendant references and connections “having been corrected, the meaning and purpose of the writer will be interpreted accordingly.

The examination, having as the object of its criticism the man, his meaning and the circumstances of his writing, the interpretation of the meaning depends upon the judgment of human intelligence.

With respect to merely human literature, the competency of such a judgment is perfectly adequate; but natural human intelligence has no capacity for interpreting a divine meaning.

An intelligence in divine truth, not in human criticism, is needed. The capacity required is, not that of forming a human, judgment, but that of accepting judgment of self by that which is divine.

God's truth being the standard of truth, its meaning interpret itself on these principles. Even if the cobbler fails to see what is in the statue, still he may come to appreciate the work of art, provided he suffers the ignorance and pride of his cobbler's criticism to be judged by it as such.

The Question Prior to Examination of Meaning

In the matter of the interpretation of the of the Scriptures, the question, then, that first must be determined is whether the Scriptures are to be received as God's Word or man's evidence must determine.

If they convey a divine meaning, mail has been used as the instrument, his circumstances as the means of “fulfilling the purpose of a divine author. An examination of the details connected with the instrument may afford much that is interesting and even instructive, but for understanding the meaning of what is written a knowledge of the Author's mind, not of his instrument, is the essential thing. To assume as it premise that the meaning of Scripture is learned from a critical examination, is thus to deny at the foundation that the Scriptures are God's word, And this higher criticism does. For though its premises are perfectly" legitimate, if' properly guarded, and if its own position be definitely and plainly declared, it does not so define them; and by not doing so, it plainly leaves the inference to be drawn, that the meaning of Scripture is to be interpreted by a critical examination of it: The German nomenclature, in its choice of the term "higher criticism," has certainly found one which admirably expresses its character. Very little concern is ever shown for the solidity of the foundations of its elaborate buildings. They are probably too low for its consideration.

In considering the question as to whether God or man is to be received as the author of the Scriptures, no other principle is required than those which the critic himself declares he has taken as his “guides." The position of higher critics, as defined by “one of the first and most generally accepted of that school, may be taken as fairly representing it.

Professor Robertson Smith states that “the ordinary laws of evidence and good sense must be our guides. And these we must apply to the Bible just as we should do to any other ancient book." But it must be confessed that the good sense of the critic is frequently apparent only to himself or his party.

This enunciation of higher critics' principles calls for some examination. The words sound fair enough, and are meant to be so. But if Prof. Smith's article on the Bible in the Encyclopedia Britannica is to decide, his own principles have not been his guides. It is not the principles generally, speaking, to

which any exception has been taken, but the higher critic's imperfect and uncritical use of them.

The sphere of criticism and inquiry as to any other ancient literature is readily understood. From internal and comparative evidence, the claim found within the writings as to authorship and authenticity calls primarily for consideration, and must be Accepted or rejected according as the contents are found to agree or to conflict with the claim.

With any other ancient literature, the sphere of the inquiry is limited to the man, his writings and his circumstances. The contents do not raise any other question. But if' this is all with the Scriptures, any other ancient literature may be considered as equally inspired with the Scriptures, or the Scriptures equally uninspired with them.

The Consequence of the Claim to a Divine Authorship

But in contrast to any other ancient literature, the Scriptures as a whole make a definite claim to be God's Word, a claim which certainly is both recognized and authorized by the word of the Son of God,—which must assuredly either be owned or Christianity openly repudiated.

It is this claim for which the ordinary laws of evidence demand first consideration, —the authorship claimed within the body of a work being recognized by ordinary laws as having. the title to acceptance till proved false. If the writers and their circumstances be proved by the critic to be as real as those of any other ancient literature, the question of the divine authorship is in no wise settled by this. That question must be decided by the evidence the Scriptures give as a whole. The sum-total of that evidence will show whether these writings were only the product of the Aril" and genius of the writers themselves, or whether writers and circumstances have given writings which are the product of the grace and power of a divine author.

Harmony, Sequence and Completeness the Scripture

All that is necessary as convincing proof of the divine source and authorship of the Scriptures, is the evidence of a unity and harmony of subject and purpose throughout. None, certainly, would be found bold enough to state that the independent writers fulfilled purposely and consciously each his part in one great whole. Neither could one with any pretense to reason defend the proposition that it connected and perfect whole had sprung from chance,-an infinite variety of interests an& circumstances and purposes of independent writers accidentally resulting in a connected and perfect whole.

It is for the critic to explain how the writings of a. lawgiver at the head of a nomad people,—of a king in exile and then on his throne,—of a prophet-herdsman of Tekoa,—of one who saw Jehovah on the throne of His glory,—of one who himself passed through the woes and humiliation of the destruction of his city,—of fisherman, publican and Pharisee,—not only agree with each other, hut are each found to give truth supplementary to the rest so as give a complete whole. There is not a subject in Scripture that is not begun by one writer, taken up by another, and completed by another, each one being of different station and in diverse circumstances from the rest.

Moses the Prophet, Aaron the High Priest, Joshua the Captain, David the beloved King, Solomon the glorious King, in fact almost every prominent individual spoken of within the Old 'Testament, gives the proof of the failures they were in themselves in respect to the very character of perfection in which they, as types, point to Him who was to come.

The Evidence of Types.

One example only of the perfectness of the Scripture, and of its character may be noted.

Men stand out in its history with the most in dividual characters, essentially human, with their ways, failings and sins fully recorded; and yet so recorded, that in their most striking features, both in similarity and in contrast, they illustrate with much simplicity and plainness the life and death of Him Whose Person and work the New Testament Scriptures unfold. This fact clearly declares and proves these records to be essentially divine.

Neither are the types found confined to individual biographies. As with them, so with the vicissitudes and incidents of nomad and political life of a people, and so with the very laws and sacrifices and the people's history in connection with them; so too with the utterances of prophecy. Each taken by itself or compared merely with some other, may seem wholly meaningless and hopelessly confused and unintelligible. But the ” holy writings written aforetime," are not only intelligible but illustrate each in some particular, and together in almost every possible way, the one and perfect message of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ.

But if the evidence of milt), and harmony throughout Scripture is plain enough for a child to recognize it, it is also so powerful as to compel the critic to take notice of it, or else forfeit his name as such.

The Confession of the Critic

The testimony of the critic is sufficiently clear, while it may fairly be considered unbiassed evidence, and in this respect may be worth giving. Professor Jowett says, with reference to this unity and harmony:—"It may be compared to the effect of some natural scene, in which we suddenly perceive a harmony, or picture, or to the imperfect appearance of design which suggests itself in looking at the surface of the globe. That is to say there is nothing miraculous or artificial in the arrangement of the books of' Scripture; it is the result, not the design, which appears in them when hound in the same volume; or, if we like so to say, there is design, but it natural design which is revealed to after ages."

The critic himself thus places the evidence the Scriptures give to the unity and harmony perceived throughout their contents, on a level with that presented by a. landscape or picture. What is involved in this concession by one of the principal masters of the Higher Critic School is worthy of fuller consideration by those who follow in his steps. Men and their history have been made to fulfill,—and hence in their result witness to—the mind and purpose of a divine Author, as the works of nature attest the power and Will of a. Creator, or the picture a man's power and mind.

This is as full a concession as could possibly be desired that the glory and greatness of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will ought to be seen here, and that He has held history in His hand for the giving of His word to man.

Either, then, the religious critic must retire from his position and take his place among atheists, or he must advance and bow to the truth the Scripture has declared, because God has spoken it.

The Concessions of Critics Contrast Ed With Their Philosophies

Is it not remarkable that these philosophers themselves by their own concessions give away the very position they take? But in their study they at least have had sufficient occupation with facts to know they cannot deny them as facts. And thus they have to concede them, although giving their own theories. In this respect we make a difference between philosophers' philosophy and the popular conceptions of their theories. 'Their followers are enamored of their ideas, especially when these tend to give the reins practically to self-will and encourage the feeling of irresponsibility.

Mr. Spencer

Mr. Spencer states " our consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though it is, is positive not negative." And " though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness:" Again, " it is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of Appearances only without at the same time conceiving a Reality of which they are appearances, for appearance without reality is unthinkable." His followers quote his philosophy and accept him as their master' for teaching that appearances only are real.

Mr. Huxley.

Mr. Huxley writes: " Our one certainty is the existence of the mental world." Atheism he knew could not stand before scientific facts. His knowledge of these facts made him feel that the plain acknowledgment of not knowing Him to whom scientific facts testify, could only be evaded by seeking to clothe it with a better sounding title, as his Agnosticism. Not so with his professed followers, as was proved by a recent letter in a daily paper when the Writer gave it as his opinion that Mr. Huxley would have been more consistent with his own teaching if he had professed himself to be, as the writer signed himself, an " Atheist."

DR. JOWETT.

The higher critic acknowledges the “perceived harmony," "it may be compared to the effect of some natural scene in which we suddenly perceive a harmony or picture, or to the imperfect appearance of design which suggests itself in looking at the surface of the globe." The philosopher, the scientific materialist, or the religious higher critic may give evidence of much ability and ingenuity in building ships, but it must be remembered a further capacity is needed for guiding them in the waters, and when they themselves run their own ships ashore and leave them high and dry, he must be forgiven, who, while honoring them for all the talents they possess, can but consider them lacking in that capacity upon which the safety of the ship depends.

The Two-Fold Witness.

Thus in the Scriptures as in the works of nature we have presented to us the clearest and most undeniable testimony to a divine wisdom and power.

The wisdom and power may be confounding and wholly inexplicable to reason, but what the Scriptures prove themselves to be as a fact allows only of one explanation. A living God has proved. His grace and power sufficient to work His own will in and through this world's history in order to give His word, which should reveal Himself and His purposes; in the fulfillment of which purposes, creatures, once so fallen and degraded as to believe blessing was to be found in the fulfillment of their own purposes, are to be blessed in learning to know Him as the Author and Accomplisher of all their good.

The character of this evidence is rational. That is, it cannot with reason be denied. If it is rejected, the cause can only be found in the subjective state of man, who is a stranger to Him whose word and work render their two-fold witness to grace, glory mid power wholly divine.

PROPHECY.

The Scriptures thus prove themselves to be the product of a divine grace and power, that have so wrought through history in this world as to give God's word to man.

But this raises a further question. Is the critic right who seeks to interpret the meaning of Scripture by a “critical examination," or is the simple believer right who receives the Scriptures as speaking from God to him? Evidence, not prejudice must be allowed to decide the question. The evidence may be considered in two aspects:

(1). As to whether messages essentially and unquestionably divine in their power and authority have been delivered to man, by human lips and with human words.

(2). If divine communications are proved have been delivered, what is it that governs the rejection or acceptance of those messages at the time when delivered?

The Proof and Character of Prophecy

Both these inquiries will find an answer from the evidence in the matter of the claim to

prophecy that the Scriptures make.

In the first case, the claim to declare events that were to come will meet with definite and demonstrative proof of either its truth or its falsity, in subsequent events.

But this proof of prophecy in its fulfillment must not be confused with the proof of its character as speaking to man in God's stead. The acceptance or rejection of prophecy at the time it is delivered depends upon the proof of this character that it carries with itself.

THE SUBSEQUENT PROOF

The Scriptures make the express claim to prophecy such as by its very character requires that the message be received because authoritative and divine—or rejected because fraudulent. The proof by fulfillment was subsequent to the delivery of the message, but this subsequent proof can be considered by “ordinary laws of evidence," and if those laws accredit the proof, the claim is established on the critic's principles.

The Ordinary Laws of Evidence Applied to Prophecy

To use the ordinary laws of evidence as if they could only be applied to what is ordinary or belong to some “other ancient literature," is to serve the interests of prejudice and unbelief.

To appeal to the ordinary laws of evidence only so far as it suits prejudice and unbelief to do so, and no further, or again to raise any objections to prophecy because its nature is beyond human comprehension and faculties whatever be the proof of its actuality, is to-reject the ordinary laws of evidence as guides, and to follow prejudice and unbelief.

It must be remembered that, for the purpose under consideration, any prophecy unquestionably established would be sufficient to prove that divine communications had been made, There is certainly no necessity of tracing all prophecy to its fulfilment and consummation. Indeed, to attempt this would be to deny that there is any prophecy yet to be fulfilled.

Any prophecy placed beyond dispute, proves that a message has been delivered which in its nature is divine and authoritative, containing truth and announcement outside the province in which a critic's judgment is valid. Frequently, too, it proves the direct interposition of a divine act and power, with results positively contrary to a critic's thoughts, because these are determined by what he considers to be usual and natural.

Fashioned by the contents of any other ancient literature, a critic's judgment will condemn, and must be condemned by, the prophetic message.

Whether or not there are or have been such communications delivered to men by human lips, must, then, be left to ordinary laws of evidence to decide. Prophecy in Scripture is moreover of so varied and extensive a character that the period which has elapsed since its utterance must either have afforded abundant and overwhelming evidence of its truth or lead to its total rejection.

(1). The main essentials in the evidence that would establish prophecy by its fulfilment may be stated, as:

(2). That the message was delivered prior to the events declared.

(3). That the subsequent events fulfilled or interpreted by the prophecy were such as to have been wholly impossible to human anticipation.

That the harmony between the prophecy and the events is plain and undeniable.

Specific Subjects of Prophecy

Some events with reference to which prophecy in the scriptures is established by evidence that answers to the above conditions, will now be considered. This will be the more satisfactory if subjects expressly and manifestly prophetic are taken, and compared with the subsequent events which have taken place. There are prophecies in scripture concerning:

(1). A divine Saviour.

(2). The world and its future, together with the history of the Jews and those nations specially associated with their past and future.

(3). Christendom, or the history of those professing Christianity in the present dispensation.

A Divine Saviour

The burden of the prophecies of the Old Testament, and that in which all prophecy was to had its consummation, was the coming of a Saviour, upon which depended all blessing, from God,—all spiritual and heavenly Blessing.

This at least will not be disputed. It is plain also that the events recorded in the New Testament which are claimed as fulfilling those prophecies, as far as they applied to that period, were beyond the power of human anticipation.

The cross meted to Him who declared the whole of the Scriptures to speak prophetically concerning Himself and who must either be accepted or rejected in. His claim to be the Son of God; is the proof that there was in that case no human anticipation. Fulfilment of prophecies—firmly held, by those who unwittingly fulfilled them, to be such—was not anticipated by man in the way the New Testament records.

"What is the reason why we, educated Englishmen, living at the end of the nineteenth century, in an atmosphere of cosmopolitan ideas, with all the latest productions of criticism on our bookshelves and on Our library tables, and able to make easy personal acquaintance with every religion of interest which has had its day in the world's history, attribute with all our hearts and souls supreme importance to the old sacred literature of the Jews? Did not Voltaire prophecy that the Bible would not be read in the nineteenth century? Did be not say, more than a. century ago, that in less than a hundred years Christianity would have been swept from existence, and would have passed into history? Certainly the infidelity which he did so much to promote ran riot through France, red-handed and impious. More than a century has passed away. Voltaire himself has passed into history. But it is a curious coincidence that his own printing-press has been used to publish the revelation at which he scoffed; and the very house where he lived is packed with Bibles, as it has become the depot of the Geneva Bible Society. Did not Tom Paine, in this country, think he had demolished the Bible by his “Age of Reason? What is the fact? Since Tom Paine went despairing to a drunkard's grave in 1809 more than thirty times as many Bibles have been produced and scattered through the world as had been produced since first Moses began the Pentateuch. Why is this? It is because, without prepossession or predilection, on a calm survey of fact:,

we have made up our minds that this unique and extraordinary literature is actually the transcript of God’s message from the unseen world of spirit, thought, and eternity, into the world of "time, space, sense, arid "action. There is no other book or literature like the Holy scriptures in the whole history of mankind. It is of no use to mention the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead, or the Assyrian Tablets, or the Maxims of Confucius, or the Hindu Vedas, or the Homeric Hymn, or the Mahometan Koran. The religious literature of all countries and ages has been brought into one focus by a great literary publication.. Even a cursory glance will show that there is no possibility of comparison of these ancient documents on the one hand and the Holy Scriptures on the other. . . . . What advantage, to use the words of St. Paul, had

the Jew in his little country, so open to attack, so frequently invaded and conquered by powerful neighbors, so poor in the endowments that made other nations great and famous? Much every way; chiefly that unto them were entrusted the oracles of God. We believe, deliberately, on an impartial survey of the whole facts, which this literature is absolutely unique in being the record of God's dealing with men, concerned from beginning to end with a unique person, the Lord Jesus. Christ. "Bring the book," said Sir Walter Scott when he lay dying. " What book?" asked his friend.." There is only olio hook," said the St. Paul, by Dr. Sinclair.)

It only remains to ask whether the application and harmony, of the prophetic word are established by ordinary laws of evidence. This has already formed the subject of' much that has been under discussion, and hence the evidence will not be here repeated.

PROPHECIES CONCERNING NATIONS OF THE WORLD

When we turn to those prophecies which, concern the Jewish people and those nations and countries connected with their destiny and compare their general condition and aspect in the present clay with that which the prophetic messages declared was to be proof of the outpouring of divine judgment upon them, the accord is so marveleously evident as to be capable of denial by none; though the partial judgments which make those nations and those countries standing witnesses in the present clay of the divine message that once was delivered to them, must not be confused with the ultimate purport and consummation of the prophecies, which are always connected with the outward revelation and establishment of the kingdom and glory of Christ. The date of those prophecies has been made the object of attack by those who reject all prophecies alike. But in this respect scholarship places some beyond dispute, while with others it is at least as available, in defense of the prophecy's claim as for attack upon it.

An answer to this charge of having been written after, not before, the events they speak of, may be given from the Scriptures themselves as an illustration of the sufficiency of their contents to maintain their own authority.

The Prophet Daniel

No prophecies have been more severely criticized as to their contents them those of Daniel.

The precision and the detail of the message, together with the perfect accord of much of it with the events, of history, have at all times been advanced as the proof that it must have been written subsequent to the events. Because of its accuracy it could not be prophetic! And yet it is in the very detail that is made the ground of attack, that this prophecy is confirmed by facts beyond any other.

In Dan. 9:24-26, is the following passage:—"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going' forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined."

This prophecy certainly was written prior to the Christian era. In it Daniel prophecies expressly of the coining, and of the cutting off; of the Messiah, and moreover declares the exact date of)these events. The prediction of the coming and of the cutting off must be at least owned in its marvelous harmony with the history of the Gospels, and in marvelous contrast with the prejudices and the expectations of the people who actually possessed the prophecies.

But further, the dates given may well be examined. The periods throughout Daniel have a specially prophetic character, and hence the most natural interpretation would be a prophetic one, — i.e. a year for a day.

The year from which the coming of the Messiah must count would be that of the first Edict that recognized Jerusalem as a city and sanctioned its restoration. From Ezra (7:11-26) we learn that this was the edict in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, when Jerusalem was to be inquired for. That it officially recognized the city—which would allow the restoration—may be learned, by the prayer, (9:9). of Ezra to God who had given them a wall to Jerusalem That was in. B.C. 458.

The Messiah was to come after a period of seven and sixty-two weeks, or 69 x 7 prophetical days, or four hundred and eighty-three years. And his cutting of was to be after this, but within one week or seven-year period.

History we know has generally assigned the date of Christ's coming forward as the promised Messiah to A.D. 26. His death took place A.D. 29. The prophecy of Daniel assigned the, date of the coming of the promised Messiah to 483 years after B.C. 458 That is, 457 years bring us to B.C. 1 and a further 26 years to A.D. 26; and His cutting off was to be after A.D. 26, but at least before A.D. 33,

According to the accepted dates of history the “cutting off of the Messiah occurred in the middle of the period between the years A.D.

Reckoning also with accepted dates according to the times given in the prophecy of Daniel, the cutting off of the Messiah was to take place in the period between A.D. 26—33

But the prophecy leaves us with a week to be fulfilled, and the week is a week of special judgment, ending with the establishment of eternal righteousness in this world.

Of the cutting off of the Messiah all professing Christians have heard; and since the cutting off, prophecy has been declared anew by “the word of the Lord," and this too must either be accepted as a direct divine message or rejected as fraudulent.

But certainly the most beautiful and perfect sequence and harmony is found in the messages of these two wholly different periods and conditions of prophecy, a divine unity and completeness that is inimitable.

The relationship with God of the world and particularly of the nation taken out from it as His chosen earthly people, being broken by the cutting off of the Messiah, for which both the world and Israel, in their representative heads, and in their people, have become guilty, the line of prophecy which revealed God's purposes and ways with the world is also cut, and its reestablishment placed in abeyance.

A new dispensation, not directly connected with that which has thus been broken off, is commenced, which has its own history from the beginning to the end declared in the prophecies of the New Testament, and again (Act. iv.) it is learned from Scriptures given how the line of prophecy in the Old Testament is once more to be taken up, and how all that is unfulfilled is to have k accomplishment.

The line of prophecy in the Old 'Testament reveals God's purposes with regard to His establishment Of righteousness upon the earth; but his ways of grace with noun, culminating in that lave which gave His Son, receives as its only answer the rejection and cutting off by the world of this Great Representative in the world.

(1). In the Old Testament we have revealed a line of prophecy concerning purposes of establishing'

everlasting righteousness in connection with His ways—surely, as ever, having grace as their source— with this world,

(2). This prophecy takes us down to the rejecting and cutting oft' of God's representative in the world,

(3). This, of course, closed relationships between God and the world as such, and the remaining period is a period of judgment, terminating in the establishment of righteousness upon the earth. The next den lings of God with the world must be on account of the rejection of His Son and must in righteousness be those of judgment,

(4). Prophecy in the Old Testament thus places the world now under the coining wrath of God,

(5). Prophecy in the New Testament also places the world under the coming wrath of God-but reveals as its burden the purposes of God fulfilled during the interval pending the coming judgments

(6). Now is a day of grace; mid purposes of grace planned before the foundation of the world are being fulfilled during it.

(7). The activity of God's grace is not for the world but for the glory of His Son, for whose name He is taking out a people. The links that by nature bind them to the world, its purposes and it expectations, have been severed by His cross, and links have been formed in Christ, so that their place in the world is that of His rejection, and their place in heaven is to be with Him; accordingly, the " one hope " given to them for all times is not the improvement of the world—fur with whatever glory the world may be clothing itself, the next thing for it, from God, must be judgment—but the coming of His Son from heaven.

(8). At His coming his people will be taken out of the world. For the world, the day of grace will be closed,—the day of judgment begin.

(9). This may occur at any time. The cry certainly has already gone forth, “Behold the Bridgroom." The door will at last be shut.

Concerning Christendom

Thirdly, we come to prophecy in the New Testament with respect to the history of Christianity in the world. Here the evidence becomes that of facts and dates known to history, so that the proof of the claims of prophecy will be placed beyond controversy by "ordinary laws of evidence."

The evidence in this case must he received, in spite of prejudice, as conclusive either to establish or condemn absolutely the claim which the Scriptures make to deliver a direct message to num from God.

The Date and Circumstance of Its Beginning

All criticism concurs in giving the first century approximately as the period during which the writings of the New Testament were certainly written. The general condition of those professing Christianity at, or about that time is known; and there was no material change in their condition until sonic time after that period.

They were a people insignificant, unpopular and uninfluential as to their position in the world. Christianity, by Jew and Gentile alike, was considered " a sect everywhere spoken against " and any who zealously proclaimed it " a pestilent fellow." What future do those writings give to a beginning of such a character?

Its History Given in the Gospels

What future could reasonably be anticipated for such a "sect?" And what future is found given it as a fact in the writings of that time? We turn to the Gospels, and read that it was to have an abnormal, and unparalleled growth. It would lift itself up and spread itself abroad as a tree, and that from the seed of a herb. Secondly, it was to allow the entrance of evil, which would work in it till all was leavened or corrupted. Thirdly, the truth is given in parables the import of which being, as stated, that men having turned away their ears from the plain truth have the divine message delivered in parables, which afford the deepest instruction and teaching to those who have ears to hear, but which otherwise withhold the truth.

In the epistles precisely the same history is given prophetically to Christendom as in the parabolic teaching of the Gospels. That which is written declares its own import and purpose, and thus is not capable of any charge of misinterpretation, as parable might be. Rom. 11. For instance, is written for the express purpose of teaching those who had professed Christianity, their privileges and responsibilities because of having the truth and testimony of God transferred from the nation of the Jews to them,

Israel had failed in its trust, and being found unfaithful was as a nation severed from all blessing and 'fatness' from God, which were conditional upon its faithfulness. To the Gentiles, as such, had been given the privileged place of conditional blessing, and to this Gentile Christendom was added the remnant to be found at all times in Israel. But would Gentile Christendom be any more faithful to its trust than Israel?

The answer is, No. Israel had fallen because of unbelief. Christendom stood only by faith, and if unfaithful to this testimony, would be cut off:

Let professing Christians themselves give the answer. How many have believed God, and His Gospel concerning His Son, and being justified by the principle of faith have peace with Him?

The mystery moreover is declared that—Jew and Gentile having both failed and become disobedient—to Israel, the original root, the truth and blessing of God shall once again to be returned, on the principle of pure grace. But for Christendom there is no other portion than the utter rejection from God which its unfaithfulness to Him has fully merited.

History of Christendom in the Epistles

'But as if this was not sufficiently clear, in the Epistles we have given as the definite announcement of the character of the last days of the history of the professors of Christianity. "This know, that in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men shall he lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to Parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lover's of God; having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof . . . For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts will they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2nd Timothy 3) The most solemn injunction is given, " I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and. His Kingdom, Preach the word..." May it not be said that if the evidence; which proves this to have been a divinely given prophecy he not accepted, nothing will be? Surely in rejecting it, the critic has to deny his principle of being guided by the ordinary laws of evidence, and to own that his-actual guide is the subjective unbelief and prejudice, of his own heart.

In the first place, these statements were certainly written at the earliest period of Christianity. Secondly, will anyone say that the present state of professing Christianity could have presented itself to any human mind, however far-seeing or acute, at that time? There was certainly no form of godliness in that day or any likelihood of such. Thirdly, few words could be pill; together that could so fully and perfectly describe the exact condition of professing Christendom in the present day as a fact. Whether this is true, may be left to any impartial judgment. What, for instance, would be the judgment of any one not open to the charge of bias either to support or discredit the truth of Christianity? Let the criticisms of seine intelligent heathen visiting Christian lands be here pondered.

Subscription to some religious organization or benevolent institution, together with "love of pleasure," might well be given as the two chief characteristics of Christendom that he would certainly refer to. Indeed he would observe that the "ways of Christendom " required that the very lovers of pleasure had to be appealed to in order to secure support for some form of godliness. Once a week, truly, churches would be filled, but again the strange anomaly that from thousands of pulpits, preachers, divided as to religious tenets, traditions and ceremonies, were found united in teaching that which covertly or openly undermined the divine authority of the Scriptures, and the divine person and work of Him to whom all Scripture testifies.

The skeptic who would deny this prophecy, must assume that in days of historically notorious wickedness, shameless ungodliness, public rejection and hatred of Christianity, a public profession of its truths and a form of godliness without the power, was humanly anticipated; or else take the alternative and deny that the description answers to the present state of Christendom.

As if to render the denial of prophecy absolutely impossible, the Scriptures contain even further prophecy open to further test and rendering further proof.

In the Scriptures just referred to we have an exact description of the present character of Christendom; but in the Book of the Revelation, which most appropriately brings to it close and completes every subject that has been introduced in the Scriptures, we have the history of those professing Christianity in detail. Since all are able and free to compare the facts of history and the details of this prophecy, little more is necessary than to direct attention to their marvelous and manifest agreement.

In the Book of Revelation the condition of the seven churches is described. The book being professedly prophetic, and no prophecy being of private interpretation, it follows that the teaching given through the messages to these churches will have a deeper and fuller import and application than what pertains merely to the local churches.

But if nothing else awakened time thought, that “Church History " has here been prophetically and divinely written, church history as found written in human annals can hardly fail to do so by time perfect interpretation it gives to the record of Scripture.

First Period

Scripture speaks of the loss of first love. The writings of the New Testament as well as extant literature of the earliest period prove an early decline and laxity of heart-interest in the truths of the Gospel As taught hi time Scriptures. Christians contended warmly for good works, and suffered much persecution, but showed little heart for the glad tidings of the work of salvation as finished, or for the value of the glory that was to come as being Christ's.

Second Period

The second period of Church history is a well defined one. The most finely organized government, in the hands of an absolutely despotic ruler, was set in motion to crush Christianity. A series of authorized persecutions under successive Emperors ended as history states with the last and bitterest persecutor owning during the last moments of his terrible death that he was vanquished, and asking the prayers of the Christians to their God. Scriptural prophecy declares the second period to be one of persecution.

Third Period.

History records that in A.D. 312 an Emperor professed Christianity, and at once in consequence Christianity became popular, and. Christians in favor and at ease—"seated"—in this world. Prophecy describes the church at this third period as dwelling where Satan's seat is. The plain application to ease and comfort from a world which gave Christ its Cross, but Satan its throne, gill be manifest to all.

Fourth Period

Facts of history leave no doubt as to what system has by it works proved its acquaintance with “the depths of Satan"; concerning the history of Papal power, little need be said. All can read for themselves of the successful assumption of temporal power; the unspeakably low and licentious lives of popes in rapid succession; the sale of souls for money'; the recognition of fornication among the priests, indulgence in any sin if paid for, and the worship of idols.

Fifth Period

Protestantism with its successful protest against Romish abuses, followed. Its profession and the character of truth that belong to it, are summed up in the prophetic word, "I know they works, that thou halt a name that thou livest, and art dead." History gives the 15th April, 1529, as the date of the celebrated protest whose principles constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Prophecy makes this to be the fifth period of the. Church, as does also church, history.

From the era of the Reformation, general and public movements having any political significance or result in Church history, cease.

But, as most people of the present day know, there have been extensive movements characterized by intensely personal faith, and activity of a private and individual character. Especially was this true of the time during the first half of the last century, when an awakening sense of and testimony to the value of the Lord's word and His name, was so widely spread that few in Protestant lands were not in some way affected by it. The decadence of this simplicity of testimony is also the subject of prophetic warning. “Thou halt, a little strength and hast kept my word and hast not denied my name. Hold fast that thou hast that no man take thy crown."

Seventh and Last Characteristic of the Professing Church

Finally the character of the last church is so clearly defined, the application of the message so patent in the present day that little comment is required. If the general character of the mass of professing Christians in their attitude towards His name bad to be described by one word, that word could only be " lukewarmness." That which, in Scripture, is authoritatively and pointedly declared to be vital and essential, is generally now considered non-essential and of no serious consequence. It matters little, it is said what a man believes as long as he is earnest and broad minded. In other words, neither salvation nor truth depend upon the object of faith, but upon the man's own feelings. The vessel may he sound or rotten, it matters not, as long as he who puts to sea in it is pleased with himself and with those around him.

Scripture, from first to last, declares that all depends upon who and what is believed.

Prophecy thus delivered precisely the same message as to the professing Church's history as did parable and explicit teaching. According to all alike, the close of the Christian era w add be a time when Men were content with themselves, and their ways; lukewarm as to Christ, "neither cold nor hot"; and the end of the professing Church would be, to be cast out of Christ's mouth, its pride humbled and its miserable condition without Him exposed. We may well close our remarks by quoting at length this wonderful prophecy.

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of Clod; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, urn rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou invest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Rev. 3:14-22.

ITS IMMEDIATE EVIDENCE.

Prophecy’s Credentials From Its Own Power and Character

The demonstrative proof prophecy receives

From the event is of necessity subsequent to its delivery.

This proof is not available when the message is delivered; but to wait until prophecy is fulfilled involves rejection of the message at the time when given. The capacity of the critic for criticism fails him in the matter of recognizing a message from God.

What, then, are the credentials of a divine message? What is it that causes the message to be known as delivering that which God has to say to man'?

The answer is simple. The credentials of the divine word are in itself. The message speaks to the heart and the conscience, and the heart and the conscience recognize God's voice when His word is delivered. This is the only sign that has been given, and no other than this will ever be given to confirm the authority of the divine message.

And yet it is a sign standing out in such peculiarly bold and divine characters, that every believer is taught, and the skeptic confounded, by its testimony.

It is not too much to say that the testimony of Christ to the whole of the Scriptures as God's written word, and the testimony of the written word to Christ, must either be received as giving the unqualified divine authority to the testimony of each, or both must be absolutely rejected, and the position of denying even the existence of God faced, with its accompanying responsibility.

The mutual testimony of the living mid the written Word to each other is such that no man has or can put them asunder. Let it be said who it is that is the source of such union.

One Divine Prophetic Utterance and Its Power

The whole question of whether man has ever listened to words which were divine, and what the character of them, has been brought into a locus, searched, and answered, by the living power of that one divine utterance in reply to the definite request for a sign,—promising " the sign of the prophet Jonas."

Christ's words certainly were divine. This all must own, unless His Person is openly denied and Christianity rejected. What He said, were the words of the Son of God to man. The announcement, too, was that of His own death. Time was to prove whether the message and He who declared it were divine, but at the time His words had no other confirmation than that which he gave. They were based upon that very part of and incident in the Scriptures that were the most open to the skeptic's cavil. But yet divine credentials were common to both the Scripture referred to and the Lord's reference to it. They both put man in his right place before God and spoke to his heart and his conscience from Him.

They testified that ruin was whole arid complete in man, that " Salvation was of the Lord."

The Prophetic and Inspired Character of Scripture Common to All

It is this power and character that all Scripture possesses. All speaks to man from God, and thus “if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they hear though one rose from dead." There is no other sign given of the divine authority of the Scriptures than that which the message itself receives from the heart and conscience of man. He who has risen from the dead has thus declared, that if the power of divine truth is not recognized when it is heard, neither would it be if what it speaks of were seen. “Faith cometh by hearing; and hearing by the Word of God." But as if this were more than sufficient, the message seems wholly indifferent to the claims of criticism.

Any incipient critic readily perceives the apparent discrepancy between the period announced in the prophetic message and that found in the history. But in the prophecy language is used which every scholar knows to have been in accordance with time popular and ordinary manner of expressing at such a period. The actual period that history precisely relates between, the death and resurrection of the Lord would he expressed in the same manner as that of the prophetic announcement, in the ordinary language of scholar and unlearned alike. In the history there is historical accuracy. Alford refers to Lightfoot, who quotes from the Jerusalem Talmud, where it is expressly stated that any part whatever of a νυχθήρερον, was reckoned in ordinary speech as a whole. Liddell and Scott always render the word during a day and night.

The difficulties the critic would attempt to make. from scholarship, must find their answer from the same source.

The divine reply of Christ apportions to this evidence precisely and place. Bowing to the divine authority of the divine message is the only way of knowing its demonstrative power and truth.

It is not in the fallen nature of man to believe God. His new nature begins with faith, when he first judges himself' by the divine message that comes to him,—a cause indeed for thanksgiving and joy on account of every soul who through grace is brought to believe God's gospel concerning his Son. "For this cause, we also give thanks to God unceasingly that, having received [the] word of [the] report of God by us, ye accepted, not men's word but, even as it is truly, God's word, which also works in you who believe."

(*1St Thess 2:13. New Translation by J.N.D., published by Morrish Paternoster Sqr.)

The power and character of this message can hardly receive better illustration than from a comparison of the truth found at the beginning with that at the end of the volume which claims to be received us God's Word to man.

In the first chapter that speaks of Man, a he now is, a sinner, we read of him " hiding himself from the "presence of the Lord Gel";' the last chapter of these Scripture speaks of those who know their Savior, and says, "They shall see his Face.”

IS the first statement that speaks of the sinner being brought 'before God, whatever had been his satisfaction or pride in the clothes he had made fin himself away from God, before Him, he can only say, I hid myself because I was naked."

The last statement declares the holy boldness of those redeemed because at that they bear "on their foreheads "—where all call see—not their sins, but "His name," and "have washed their robes."

And lastly, whatever be the sinner's boldness and shamelessness away from God, the conscience can only make the reply when before Him, " heard Thy voice in the garden and I was afraid." What a contrast is found in that quick, eager reply from those who know the love and grace of Him whose last message to them is, "Behold I come quickly." The only response that can be given from those who now know Him is, “Even so, come Lord Jesus."

THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES.

Scripture Is As Sufficient for Testimony in the World As for Standing Before God

The message declared in the Scripture and the Claim it makes upon man have now been considered. The only ground of blessing there given is testifying to what the message is, and believing it. There are those who have done this, and proved God's word true, though they have never found truth in their own hearts or in the world.

As to their standing before God, from believing the gospel of God, they have received divine assurance that they know is from God. The Scriptures have been proved sufficient for this. By what they contain, they prove themselves in the present day, as-much as they have ever done, able to speak with divine power to the souls of men, to give peace with God, and to answer every question of unbelief that is the consequence of the natural fallen state of ignorance of God. Are they also, it may be asked, sufficient to give the same divine certainty and assurance to those who turn to them for instruction as to the position and testimony in the world that are honoring and pleasing to God? In spite of all the dangers and snares about the fed: of the believer, can he be' divinely assured as to his path?

The Scriptures Claim Sufficiency to Meet Every Need of Faith

The Scriptures themselves afford the answer to the question of their sufficiency. The claim they make in respect to meeting the need of faith is just as clear and unequivocal as that which declares God's way of peace and justification. " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable fire doctrine for reproof, for correction for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God mat be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

Divine grace and power have anticipated every possible need the heart or conscience can know during time of the trial of its faith, and have provided the word to guide and assure.

Hence the believer who does not take all the needs and difficulties that arise because of his faith and knowledge of God’s truth, to the Scriptures, is, in principle, by his indifference, dishonoring their sufficiency as much as the unbeliever who neither listens to nor considers What God has to shy in His Word with respect to the difficulties that arise from his unbelief and ignorance of Him.

The Ground of Assurance the Same in the Standing As in the Path

The personal and separate details of the path of every believer not of course to be looked for in the Scripture, but there are principles given which will apply to all. Circumstances about the path will each believe, but the ground of the path of the believer as such must be common to all. It must be the ground upon which God has placed his feet. This ground he has learned from believing the Gospel.

All we have to examine, then in any particular case, is the question of what is the only course consistent with what the believer has learned from God es His truth, which constrains him to be faithful in witnessing against all that has deceived him and is still deceiving others; but in turning to the scriptures there is no longer left any doubt as to what position he is to take in Christendom. The position is definitely and explicitly stated.

The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His, and, Let everyone that, nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity." “in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and vessels of silver, hut also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor."

Again, “Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and.... h will receive you."

There is no uncertainty about these injunctions. All that denies or undermines faith in the Gospel and in Christ's finished work, Its well as all open wickedness, has been learned to be iniquity, and separation from it in position is enjoined; as well as the annulling of every bond or association that links believers with unbelievers—" vessels to honor" with "vessels to dishonor "—in a common position and testimony. The believer, in allowing such a bond, is as unfaithful to the unbeliever, —who needs to realize his true condition of ruin and separation from God,—as he is disobedient to the Lord.

What the Christian is responsible to consider before the Lord is the question whether his standing is on ground that every believer himself knows to be divine, and whether his position, testimony and doctrine conform to it.

This may be considered under (1) his position in Christendom, (2) his testimony as to the unity of the Spirit, (3) his judgment in doctrine.

CHRISTENDOM.

The Ruin of Christendom

The ruin of Christendom has already been amply referred to, as clearly and certainly foretold in prophecy. But the intelligence the believer has as to the rum will have been the consequence of his believing the gospel concerning Christ.

From believing the gospel concerning Christ and His finished work, he received peace and the Spirit.

It is because of what he possesses and of knowing how he came to possess it, that he perceives the terribly delusive power and the real character of the many other objects of trust and confidence that are found under the profession of Christianity.

The Position of Separation

But as a believer there is no possible uncertainty as to his position in Christendom. By possessing life and the Spirit, he finds himself separated in fact from those who, though professing popular Christianity, are without them. Does he, then, take in Christendom a position that; witnesses to this truth?

The Unity of the Spirit.

But again the believer, by believing the gospel of his salvation, was brought to know a new bond that before he did not even know existed. He found himself to be one in spirit with all those who by believing the same gospel had received the same life and peace, and received the same Spirit. Difficulties and differences might come in to separate and divide believers, but the unity of the Spirit abides as truly in a day of ruin as in the time when it was for a brief moment manifested, as perhaps it was in the first days of Christianity. It was when the believer first had the joy and peace of knowing lie was born again, that he found himself in a new union, with a new membership and part of a new unity. He came to know the unity of the Spirit as a fact; but then, further, Ile finds that it is declared in the Scripture.

Testimony to the Unity of the Sprit

But this gives rise to the question of the believer's responsibility because of the fact of such a unity.

Does his position in Christendom witness to the unity of the Spirit before tin unbelieving world? Or is he with those who, by holding membership in a State Church, openly reject the distinction between believers and unbeliever, and openly disfellowship all who do not meet statutory requirements, whether believers on the Lord or not? Or is he linked with still others, who, perhaps with the best of intentions, have done a worse thing? For in constituting a Church on the ground of spiritual membership, by what they do they wholly ignore that unity of the Spirit that is already formed, and which they are to endeavor to keep. A membership professedly spiritual is recognized and yet, it is not based upon the unity of the Spirit.

Difficulties of Faith Not in Understanding but in Obedience

Every believer, thus, as such, will recognize ruin of Christendom and the unity of Spirit.

His difficulty in testifying to what he has been taught of God lies, not in understanding God's truth, but in obeying it.

He is not told to set Christendom right, or to attempt to do so. His difficulty will be in obeying the injunction to set himself' right in Christendom. He cannot leave Christendom. By baptism he has his position in the world as a, Christian, in the same manner as an unconverted professor. Neither is it the believer's work to pluck the tares out of the world. But he is to separate himself from all iniquity; and in this will be the contrast of his position to that of the mere; professor. His hope is in the Lord's (Joining to take him to Himself. And so with the unity of the Spirit. There is no difficulty in understanding the union that exists in spirit, but, especially in a clay of ruin, the difficulty is to walk according to it. Here once more the Scripture injunction is simple and explicit. The Christian it “to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

The unity of the Spirit, then, bus not to be formed, but being formed the Christian is responsible to “endeavor to keep it." He certainly is not seeking to keep that unity, when he joins sonic canon, or is received into smile membership, that denies it. And by its very constitution every humanly formed Christian denomination or society does deny it. Because humanly formed, it will have those who are not of the Spirit's unity, and it certainly will not have all that are of the Spirit's unity.

It is noticeable that the ground upon which the believer, because of what he has learned from God, recognizes the necessity

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very earnestness of the natural temperament will perhaps unconsciously but deceitfully lead the believer to resent a path of simply believing what God has said about His Son; and such titles to promised blessing appeal deeply to any unrest and want that is felt within.

These doctrines are so widely preached, in sonic manner or form, as a complement to the Gospel, that a few words as to their principles seem called for.

The judgment of the believer in divine truths must be formed upon that which he knows, as a believer, to have already been taught hint by God, and which he '' has been assured of." Without this knowledge there cannot possibly be any right judgment, and thus the unestablished will be greatly influenced by the mere nomenclature awl professed spirituality of these teachings.

Blessings from God most certainly are right; to seek, and “those who seek shall find." But they will find them given in God's way, and they thus become to them the witness that God's way is divine. To the perception of this fact, their very need and lack of success in seeking according to their own ways mid thoughts, will, in His grace bring them in time end.

Until the believer is established, and has himself; by being blessed of God, learned the ground of blessings, he can have no test for doctrines which are presented to him. Thus many a Christian may seek to obtain or attain that which is offered to him in these teachings, hut desire for reality and truth keep hint from being satisfied with what is not of God. It is the profession of attainment of blessing, on principles upon which God does not bless, nor the Spirit act in blessing, and the teaching of these principles to others, that make the teachers of them so solemnly guilty and responsible.

When the Christian has known for himself blessing front God, he has learned thereby what was the ground upon which he was blessed, and he has a sure and sound basis of judgment for all ministry that is presented to him.

The Character of the “Holiness Blessing”

The "blessing” of what may well be called a second conversion " is held out to those who are already Christians, who are told that the proper preparatory state to the reception of it is to have the heart wholly set upon it. "Ponder it till you dare not go on any longer without this blessing. Pray over it till the longing desire is as a burning fire shut up in your bones." Notice here the “blessing" and the “it," and so throughout every popular pamphlet of this nature.) Finally the blessing is received, it is said, as “when breathing upon them, He (the Lord) bade them "Take by faith the Holy Ghost." Notice here that an interpretation of the Scripture is used as a quotation, and actually put in inverted commas. In the Scripture no such words are given. This should lead every thoughtful Christian who values the Scriptures to test, further these doctrines to see if al! be not built on interpretation, and not upon the Scriptures just as written.

Some blessing to be received thus is definitely put before those already saved. No exception would be made on this ground. “Peace with God “and "the forgiveness of sins" are by the gospel preached to the unconverted. It is in the principle upon which the soul is supposed to be blessed, or the blessing obtained, that this teaching stands in direct contrast to the ground upon which God, in the Scriptures, is declared to bless, and upon which those who are His know that He has blessed. Did the believer ever obtain life and peace or liberty on the principle of taking by faith “and find in consequence his ground of blessing sure? Certainly an Evangelical Gospel very similar to this has long been much preached in Christendom, but with the result that settled peace has been undermined. There has either been a hope that satisfaction might, on the same lines, be found, in the higher blessing " or such like, or else with a true sense of need and an exercised heart, troubled souls, going to the Scriptures themselves, have learned the value of the facts there stated and of the words that record them.

The ”Holiness " Phrase "Taking by Faith" Contrasted With the Scriptural “Hearing of Faith”

The Gospel declared from the first that eternal redemption had been “finished” and God's message demanded the hearing of faith. Those who have peace with God know that they received it by " listening " to what the Gospel declared to be God's estimate of the value of the work on the Cross; and believing this, they judged what was contrary to it in their own thoughts and feelings as unbelief and ignorance. It was this hearing of faith that brought peace and joy, and that the Holy Ghost owned. "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" Thus the Scriptures declare that the receiving of the Spirit, and the beginning of His blessing was by the hearing of faith. In direct contrast to this, the " holiness movement " makes the Spirit's blessing to depend on " taking by faith " Moreover Scripture declares that only folly can lead the Christian to seek the perfecting ' or fullness ' of the Spirit on any other ground than that which He has owned in the beginning. The solid simplicity of the Scriptures and the confused character of these mystical teachings are well illustrated by comparison of the terms used respectively in Gal. 3, and by the “Second Blessing " teachers.

The confusion between facts themselves and the ideas concerning them—realities and mental conceptions,—that has been traced in the dogmas of the philosophers, the materialists and tire higher critics, is here once more evident.

The message concerning facts of divine import may be believed, and by being believed these facts have to the soul their proper value as realities; but when blessings are announced as." taken by faith," that which is taken must be either nothing at all, or a Satanic delusion.

The Difference Not One Merely of Words but of Results

The real character of the blessings which are supposed to follow as a result, prove that this phrase " to take by faith " is not a loose one used in an attempt to express what is true (a failure to which all are liable) but a phrase that exactly expresses what is meant to be taught. In believing the Gospel of

God, something is learned from the Gospel concerning the Person: and work of the Son of God that brings the " hearer" to know more fully his own need of all that is in Christ, and all He has done, and to find the supply thus given to be according to God's riches in glory in Christ Jesus. The idea of'" taking by faith," is to take into oneself the blessing itself'. Thus the source and center of satisfaction must be self-ward and from within. The contrast between “holiness” teaching and Scripture teaching is not in the blessings spoken about, but hi time character given them. The "blessings" professed to be received are actually contrary in character to what Scripture declares the divinely given blessings to be. The difference may be thought slight, but if we are to learn from Scripture, the fact that it is a solemn and vital difference is plain. The difference between perfect and eternal blessing' and absolute corruption is, in principle, involved in the question at issue.

The Nature of Their Blessings Compared With the Type of Corruption 'In Scripture.

In Ezek. 28 a most remarkable insight into the nature of sin and the cause of corruption is given. Of the 'King of Tyre it is said, "Thou sealest up the stun, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty," "thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast, created, till iniquity was found in thee. . . .Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." Perfect in his ways, till his wisdom and beauty became the source such center of his own satisfaction. His satisfaction was with what was 'within him ' and he sank to what was the most corrupt of all creatures.

As to the character of these “higher blessings," we read, "[Those possessing them] would have power to give gladness, peace, and life to hearts about them. Yes! this would be time natural abundant outflow of their life! All who came near them should be blessed and praise God for them." This is stated as the result of the Holy Ghost being “taken by faith."

I have here quoted these words because as blessings belonging. to a Christian they are just as truly facts as were the wisdom and beauty which were in the " anointed cherub," "till iniquity was found in him "; but as blessings in the Christian which are themselves made the object of faith and testimony, they witness only to the sad fact that those who make them so are surrendering themselves to the same corrupt nature which seeks some satisfaction from that which is within itself, instead of being satisfied with Christ, as God is, and walking in the Spirit's witness to this truth.

The holiness doctrine by teaching that the blessing is taken by faith necessarily imply that the source and ' center of satisfaction is found within. In Scripture the blessing of the Holy Ghost is found to be the exact opposite of this.

The Ministry and Testimony of the Spirit.

With one who has believed the Gospel of God, the Spirit's blessing began by taking of' the things of Christ as blessing, and by them bringing the believer to judge his heart as contrary to them. Never, the Scriptures declare, from first to last will the Spirit's ministry of blessing differ in character from this. It will often-times alas! be necessary for the Spirit to occupy the believer with what is within MID, but it will always be for self-judgment. And He will always testify to all blessing being in, God's beloved Son. He will always "glorify Christ” and occupy the believer with what the Scriptures reveal Him to be, and to have accomplished.

The ministry of the Spirit by the Apostle Paul to believers who had fallen into a sad state of weakness, ignorance, and carnal ways, who were on the eve of originating sects, is " Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" 1 Cor. 6:19. How applicable in the present day, when many stand in doubt as to whether they have the Spirit of' God or not. The Scripture declares that if through believing God's Gospel, love, joy and pence have been known before Him, they are His fruit. A plain testimony that He has been received by the hearing of faith.

Then to the same people, he continues “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.... Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." 1 Cor. 12:13-27.

What are the words, and the purport of them, in contrast to this: " Even though you arc saved, and have the Spirit, and are living in this dispensation, it does not prove that you are baptized with the Spirit. These blessings are great; but this is greater."

Again the Scripture speaks of Eternal Life. "This is the witness of God which he hath testified of His Son, mid this is the record [or testimony] that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son." 1 John 5:9-11. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou halt sent. John 17:3 The plain teaching is that the believer has eternal life within him, but the source and center of it, the capacity for it, is in. the knowledge of the '?ether and the Son, and fullness of joy is found in that which was written of Him whip has been seen, heard and handled.

'What a contrast in the words, " They were, indeed, full of the Holy Ghost, enjoying abundant life in their souls, and so more than conquerors of the world, the flesh, and the devil."

The Lord Himself has declared the character of the ministry of the Spirit. “He shall not speak of Himself', He shall glorify me for He shall receive of Mine and shew it unto you." John 16:12-14. Nothing indeed is of greater importance to the Christian in the present dispensation, than a true knowledge of the presence and work of the Spirit in the individual and in the dumb. His presence, work, unity, are found as a fact to be ignored and rejected in the present dispensation, in a manner very similar to the rejection of the divine Messiah by His people to whom lie came. But to make use of this ignorance and weakness amongst Christians to present a false ministry of the Spirit while all the time denying His testimony to Christ, is certainly very wrong.

The Claim of the Power of These Teachings Tested by Scripture.

How is it that those who profess the fullness of the Spirit, never have the power to purge themselves from what is contrary to the name of Christ, but abide, as so many do, in the Church of England, or in denominations expressly declared to be carnal? 1 Cor. 1

The power of the holiness teaching is always put forward as the proof of its claim. Whether this power is that of the Spirit of God, the Scripture must decide.

The Spirit in the believer is certainly the only power for his life and for his walk; but the Spirit's power from the first to the last is in answer to faith in what God has said concerning His Son.

The believer needs to continue in his walk as he began. His responsibility is that of a believer. And the temptations about, his path are calculated to make him forget this fact.

How many a believer looks back to the time when he first, imply and fully believed what God said concerning His Son, as the happiest and brightest day of his testimony to what Christ was to him! What caused the attractions of the world to have lost their power? What gave him the power to testify in the world to a personal Savior and salvation? Is the believer really so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit by the hearing of faith, is he seeking "His fullness" by denying this principle?

Believers may be asked to solemnly decide before God as to 'what spirit it is and what power it is that are presented in these teachings.

The Scriptures declare that the Spirit was received by the hearing of faith; these, by the taking of faith.

The Scriptures teach that when those who are already saved' ate becoming weak, and failing in their testimony and walk, the-ministry of the Spirit is to recall: them to what they learned at the first. These teachings hold forth' “what may be called a second conversion “as necessary. The Scriptures certainly identify those who have received the Spirit and those who have been' baptized by the Spirit; these teachings as expressly contrast the two.

The Unscripturalness of the “Gospel of the Holt Ghost.”

Finally this "Gospel of the Holy Ghost "— another unscriptural phrase,—is said in plain language," to contain a message of things " greater " and " better " than that gospel concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ, by which those addressed are presumed to have been saved.

Can a, Christian's heart give evidence of deeper and more deplorable corruption than the profession of such a "gospel" implies'?' The " greater " and " better " things than listening to the glory of Christ and His work are the " taking " of blessings that put the source and center of power within the Christian himself'!

Could there be a grosser perversion of the ministry of the Spirit, who VMS not to speak of Himself but to glorify Christ and take of His things and show them unto His people?

But the believer has been given the truth by which he may know his path through this world to be as sure, and certain, and" as divine, as he knows his standing before God to be.

The message that he believed, which proved its own divine-power and moreover received the Spirit's seal to its truth, was that the believer's attainment of eternal blessing and salvation had been wholly taken out of his hands, and assumed in grace by the great Shepherd of all, though' it took Him to the cross.

So too with the believer's path. Having learned to know the Shepherd's voice, he follows that, because of what it means to him. It declares that the safety, liberty and fullness that he needs are wholly the care of another, whose joy the providing is, in the path whither the Shepherd's voice leads. The testimony of fullness in the believer's path will not be of the blessings which have been taken by faith" but of the Shepherd Who “leadeth" and maketh" and "restoreth" the soul.

Every believer, then, who does know the Shepherd's voice, can be called upon to judge by that knowledge all that is dishonoring to the care, love and power of the Shepherd. And let him judge himself if ever he has given ear to the voice of "the stranger," however plausible and tempting in its promises that voice nay be.

CONCLUSION.

Tile present inquiry as to the objections based THEORY AND FACT, on criticism and science that have been raised against the accepting of the Scriptures as a, divine revelation to man, has at least made plain the danger that there is in all rational argument of ignoring the value and quality of facts. To the mind, the idea and not the filet itself appeals. Moreover, the theologian is as liable to this error in his theology as the materialist has proved himself to be in his argument from philosophy and science. And yet this confusion, just beginning to be recognized as undeniable one in some of the philosophy of the present day, is one which is never once found ill the Scriptures.

The Truth and Power of Scripture

If the Scriptures do make it claim which is unique and unparalleled in human literature, ancient or modern, so are the truth and power they contain equally unexampled.

They do not descend to discussing their own importance. Bat they state that which necessitates their being inspired, and that which is stated proves its own power to make its claim recognized.

The Witness of the Conscience to the Claim of Scripture

Because of that which is stated, every man knows the Scriptures at least place the claims of God before men; unless he denies that he has a conscience,—a denial which gives him but small reputation for telling the truth. Every man, too, recognizes the claim God has upon him as one that is right. The question for each one is, Has he ever considered yet what he knows to be right? Has he ever obeyed even such. Scriptures as he himself knows to be right'?

As to this, it can with utmost confidence be said, that if the. greatest skeptic listened' to what is in the Scriptures, and judged himself even as far as his own conscience recognized the judgment as right, he would not long he without knowing his own personal need of a Savior. By the manner in which he hides himself from the claim Ins conscience recognizes as a true one he is himself giving the strongest evidence possible of recognizing that the voice of God speaks to him in it.

Man has a conscience which recognizes that which is stated in the Scripture as God's word to him.

The Voice 'Of the One to Repentance

The question of the inspiration and authority of Scripture may he waived. This message comes to man simply "as the voice of one in the Wilderness.”—And let each give an honest and unequivocal reply, as to whether the message is from heaven or front men.

Man fears the message because he knows that the Scriptures will press home that which his conscience knows to be truth, but which lie would fain not hear. The manner in which the skeptic hides himself under a variety of excuses from learning from the Scriptures even that which his conscience knows to be a true demand, itself makes the strongest evidence possible that he does recognize the voice of God Speaking to him, but he desires to be let alone and to live without owning such a claim.

The Voice of the Son of God and Life

The believer as well as the skeptic' knows the power of the Scriptures to be divine. It was because of what is stated in them, that Ile became awakened to what his need really was. The solemn declaration that a man "must be born again” displayed to man his trite condition and had to be received as stating to man from God his true condition before Him. Because of hint who announced this necessity, either it has to be bowed to as such, or else all professions of confidence in the Son of God and in the Scriptures which testify of Hint, have to be openly abandoned.

By one who has “believed in the Son," His word is proved to accomplish that which answers to a “new birth," and to that alone. As truly as he knows has natural life if the reality of life is known from its joys, so truly does he know he possesses a new nature, with new intelligence, relationship and hopes He has a right to testily that he himself knows the words of Scripture not only to be true but to be divine.

The Voice of the Shepherd and Guidance

All that is stated in the Scriptures will be found to answer only to that which at the first he learned from God. By the truth the Scriptures contain, he proves that believing God's gospel concern ing His Son Jesus Christ must be taken as the ground of blessing before God, and that the Spirit's answers to the hearing of faith must be remembered as the only power in his life.

Those who have believed the Gospel have found a Shepherd or rather have been found of Him. His voice first reached then in the message that He had undertaken and finished ' all. And thenceforth they know that what does not speak of His grace Who has taken all providing for them into His own hand and laid them on his shoulder, is not His voice, but that of a stranger.

As long thus as the Scriptures, because of what they contain, Speak to the deepest need that the soul of man has and prove their truth sufficient to meet it,—speaking moreover in a manner and power wholly, divine,—so long will the glory of the Word abide, while that of Man rises and falls like that of the flower 'of the grass.

"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof faileth away; hut the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." 1. Peter 1:24-25.

"Thou hast magnified thy wont above all thy name." Psalm 138:2

APPENDIX.

MR. MILL'S LOGIC EXAMINED.

An examination of the attempted use of logic by Mr. Mill may be helpful and. instructive in illustrating the amount of knowledge and argument that can be made apparently to serve absurd conclusions. His “grounds of disbelief " will be found in the chapters on Induction, the argument of which calls for notice.

The Notion of a Cause

Mr. Mill undoubtedly is right in stating that the notion of a cause being the root of the whole theory of induction, “it is indispensable that this idea should at the very outset of our inquiry be with the utmost practicable degree of precision fixed and determined."

It must be granted that the only notion of a cause that is intelligible is that of an adequate one. All inadequate cause—that is, effects caused by a cause that is not sufficient for the effects it causes—is an inconceivable and meaningless thing.

The steps of the induction by which Mr. Mill reaches his conclusion are as follows:

First:—the Premise

We will proceed a consider the notion of a cause as Mr. Mill presents it. First on page 236 he clearly states the premise from which he is to get his notion:—I premise, then, that whom in the course of this inquiry I speak of the cause of any phenomenon, I do not mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon; I make no research into the ultimate or ontological cause of anything. To adopt a distinction familiar in the writings of the Scotch metaphysicians, and especially of Reid, the causes with which I concern myself are not efficient, but physical causes."

Second Step:— the Adequacy of This Premise Stated, but Not Its Inadequacy

Mr. Mill asserts that the only notion of cause which the theory of induction requires is such a notion as can be gained by experience. The definition of induction is also given:

"For the purposes of the present inquiry, Induction may be defined, the operation of discovering and proving general propositions."

No objection could be raised to this, provided the limit of the induction were acknowledged to be fixed by the character of the premise. But this is just what is not done.

Physical Cause Inadequate to Explain All Phenomena

There is no basis of induction in the premise of a physical cause—which is the only notion that can be gained from a study of physical causes—for all phenomena, unless all phenomena can be proved physical. But this the agnostic scientist positively declares to be not the case. “The one thing certain is the existence of the mental world."

Some phenomena testify as unmistakably to mental causes as others do to physical laws. Another has well illustrated this. "Bat what they have discovered leads me to another point, which they have obscured by their studies and constant occupation with secondary causes, and which is much more simply and clearly apprehended by unscientific minds. If a man of science met a peasant with his cart, and tried to prove the cart had not been made, he would bring Bedlam, not science, into the poor man's mind. He might explain the curves produced by a fly on the periphery of the wheel as it turned, what the principles of the pressure of weight on the parts of the cart were, and the plan of draft, how far equal wheels affected the draft, and much more. Nay he might explain to him how the stimulus of the whip applied to the horse behind set the centrepetal nerves to produce an effect on the cells, or combination of cells, in the horse's brain, and by some unknown reflex action set the motor efferent fibers in activity, so as to act on his hind heels, and even his fore legs, and at the same time to move the cart. Still my poor carter would believe that his cart had a maker, and was made with a, particular design to carry manure or corn as the case might be; nay, perhaps, in his ignorance, that though born of a cart mare, his horse was made too, and would fancy, poor ignorant man with a whip in his hand, that it was made for him to have dominion over; nor would he be much in the wrong."

The correlation and conservation of physical force and matter are the same whether the cart is made or not made; but the cart as made presents phenomena which witness to a cause outside and independent of physical causes. At least so Mr. Huxley has taught.

Again there can be in 'the premise of a physical cause no basis of induction for any inquiry either as to the origin or, as a consequence of this inadequacy, as to the permanence of things which are. Moreover, science, which can experiment in causes and effects within that sphere where all is in existence, can cause nothing to exist that was not there before, The notion of a cause, if based upon scientific experiment and observation only, must be that of a cause that in fact has caused nothing to be!

Third Step:— Physical Causes Become Permanent Ones

The next stop in Mr. Mill's procedure, is to aver that physical causes present the idea of permanence. Perhaps they do suggest such an idea to an observer occupied solely with them. But logical induction has nothing to do with the origin or permanence of things as they exist. It cannot state that things will continue as they are, for it has no pie miser as to how they came to be.

Fourth Step:—From Permanent to Cyclic Causes

These permanent ca uses are not always objects; they are sometimes events, that is to say, periodical cycles of events, that being the only mode in which events eau possess the property of permanence.

But circles are not always a guarantee for permanence, at least hardly so in argument. Whether Mr. Mill's logic depends on this premise for its permanency, the reader must judge

The Fifth Step:— Attempt to Discredit the Proof of an Efficient Cause

Slowly thus the evolution is proceeding from a physical or inefficient cause to an efficient one. The gap between the efficient and the inefficient causes is now sought to be descend by the attempt to discredit the proof that exists of an efficient cause in the world because there is only one.

The argument continues from p. 249 to p. 255. And then we read according to the theory in question, Mind, or to speak more precisely, Will, is the only cause of phenomena. The type of causation; as well as the exclusive source from which we derive the idea, is our own voluntary agency. Here, and here only (it is said), we have direct evidence of causation. We know that we can move our bodies, Mr. Mill labors to invalidate this direct evidence of efficient causation. But numbers of objections have nothing to do with the weight of proof. There may be any number of physical causes, but this does not affect the existence of one cause that is efficient. The exercise of mind or will recognized as a cause is the only example known that fulfills—as far as it goes—the requirements of the law of causation. An efficient cause in this case can be assigned to perceived effects, Whether it be in the moving of bodies or the use the forces of nature are put to, the phenomena as a whole from beginning to end can be traced to an efficient cause.

The Sixth and Final Step:— Cal Causes Are Placed in Company of Efficient Causes.

But though lie does say that volition is not an efficient cause, it does not seem to be Mr. Mill's object to deny the illustration given of an efficient cause so much as to claim for other causes the same efficiency, He denies " the inference that because Volition is an efficient cause, therefore it is the only cause " (p, 262), Other causes—those, for instance, of the notion of his premise—ought to be given, then, which can be proved to be of the same rank as efficient. Needless to say, this is not done; but thus the field of argument has been cleared for any meaningless statement.

The last step now becomes an easy one, and it is not astonishing to see one who set out with the premise of an inadequate cause find himself back again by his argument to the seine place, and claim by his conclusions (p. 405) the possibility of uncaused phenomena The concession, is made that it is natural to assume that in this world there are no phenomena which were uncaused, yet the passage continues, " It must at the seine time, be remarked that the reasons for this reliance do not hold in circumstances unknown to us, and beyond the possible range of our experience. In distant parts of the stellar regions where the phenomena may be entirely unlike those with which we are acquainted it would be folly to affirm confidently that this general law prevails, any more than those special ones which we have found to hold universally on our own planet." And Mr. Mill has made logic responsible for such a conclusion,

Astronomers may tell us that the star 61 C. is rushing onwards at the rate of 100 miles a second and moreover find such a speed and the power that is the cause of it alike inconceivable; but if any were to state that such a speed was an uncaused phenomenon and the star might with the same reason be traveling in the opposite direction, for cause was not an essential of the phenomena,—or again that without cause it might start on a return journey,—the astronomer’s judgment would begin to be questioned, certainly by ordinary men of ordinary intelligence, The ignorance of the ancients in attempting an explanation of the observed motion of the stars by placing wheels or souls within them, may be patent now to almost all, but in the attempt the need of at adequate cause was always assumed. They never assumed there were phenomena without a cause. This was left for Mr. Mill to attempt. May it not with fitness be said, "Great men are not always wise” and that God has indeed made foolish the wisdom of this world—that by the foolishness preaching he might save them that believe?

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Scripture and Criticism