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 Atighs 
 Giibe ENDVOP REVELATION: 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2022 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/chiefendofrevela0Obruc_0 
 
THE 
 
 CHIEF END OF REVELATION. 
 
 BY 
 ” 
 
 ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D.D., 
 Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow. 
 
 AuTHOR oF “THE PARABOLIC TEACHING OF CHRIST,” “‘ THE MIRACULOUS 
 ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS,” ETC.” 
 
 THIRD THOUSAND, 
 
 Londo : 
 EOD DE Re ANDEs LOU GHinLON: 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCXC. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved.) 
 
BuTLER & TANNER, 
 THE SELWOOD PRINTING WoRKs, 
 FROME, AND LONDON. 
 
PIRieaMCid, INO) Ine Sed OINND, 
 WIN VOR: 
 
 I HAD thought that the large impression of the First 
 Edition would have sufficed to meet the demand of 
 the public. Books on Apologetics soon get out of 
 date, and are superseded by others, setting forth 
 newer phases of the Christian argument. But it 
 appears that the work is still inquired after, and I 
 willingly accede to the request of the Publishers to 
 revise it for a Second Edition. 
 
 This comparatively slight apologetic effort met 
 with just such a reception as I anticipated and pre- 
 dicted. I would not have allowed it to appear unless 
 I had believed that it would meet with a welcome 
 from many to whom it would prove a helpful word, 
 solving doubts and aiding faith; and that it has 
 been of use in this way I know from not a few 
 gratifying testimonials. But, as I expected, adverse 
 critics were not wanting. It is not my intention here 
 to refer in detail to their criticisms. So far as my 
 recollection serves me, none of them were serious or 
 
 important. Some of my critics, while disapproving 
 Vv 
 
vi PREFACE TO THE SECOND £DITION. 
 
 of certain of my apologetic views, were kind enough 
 to express high approbation of my exegetical writ- 
 ings, and to give utterance to the wish that I would 
 leave Apologetics alone, and confine myself to Ex- 
 position. The advice is one which, were I to consult 
 my own comfort, I should be only too glad to follow: 
 for the task of the apologist is apt to be a thankless 
 one. If he write with: fairness, moderation, and can- 
 dour, as surely he ought, many readers, disappointed 
 with the supposed weakness of his argument and the 
 spirit of concession pervading his pages, will be ready 
 to exclaim, “ Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.” 
 But it would be a somewhat unheroic proceeding in 
 one having any apologetic talent, to confine himself 
 to the comparatively easy task of the expositor. It 
 would be to shun the perils of a search for the stray- 
 ing sheep, and abide securely in the fold with the 
 ninety and nine that need no special care. I am 
 glad to think that I am deemed one able to lead 
 the flock of believing men to the green pastures of 
 Holy Scripture, but I trust also that I am not with- 
 out some capacity to seek and find the erring and 
 doubting; and I should be ashamed of myself if I 
 were not willing to try, even at the risk of being 
 assailed as a traitor to the faith by men not accus- 
 tomed to distinguish between sectional opinions and 
 the Catholic verity. 
 
 Men of this type have their own notion of the 
 function of the apologist. If the New Testament is 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. vii 
 
 to be our guide, he ought to answer such as ask the 
 reason of the hope that is in him, with meekness and 
 fear, and such, for the most part, was the spirit of 
 the early apologists. But some in our day seem to 
 imagine that an apologist should be a sort of prize- 
 fighter for the faith. By believers of this type a man 
 is applauded according as he deals in hard blows at 
 opponents, asserts his opinions with serene self-con- 
 fidence, and professes to prove all things great or 
 small with mathematical certainty. My idea of the 
 apologist’s function is different. His vocation is 
 neither to confound infidels nor to gratify the pas- 
 sions of coarse dogmatists, but to help men of an 
 ingenuous spirit, troubled with doubts bred of philo- 
 sophy or science, while morally in sympathy with 
 believers. This is my own habitual attitude as a 
 theological instructor of students in training for the 
 Christian ministry ; and I have the comfort of know- 
 ing that an apologetic course, conducted on this 
 principle, has its reward. It was this knowledge, 
 indeed, that inspired the hope that this work might 
 be of some service to a wider public; for in truth, 
 as is well known to my old students, it simply em- 
 bodies the substance of the views I have taught for 
 the last twelve years in my class lectures. 
 
 A number of interesting and valuable works on 
 kindred topics have appeared since “ The Chief End 
 of Revelation” was first published. Of these the 
 only one I notice here is that by Principal Simon, 
 
viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND: EDITION; 
 
 of the Congregational Theological Hall, Edinburgh, 
 on “ The Bible, an Outgrowth of Theocratic Life? 
 (1886). The specialty of this book is that it insists 
 on. the importance, in our inquiries concerning the 
 Bible, of separating it at the outset from the idea 
 of Revelation, and regarding it simply as the litera- 
 ture of the Hebrew people. This mode of regarding 
 the sacred book is described as the historical, in 
 contrast to the traditional, which is represented as 
 contemplating it exclusively from the view-point of 
 Revelation. That the Bible is inspired, and contains 
 a revelation, is not denied, but these attributes are 
 regarded as springing out of the fact that it is the 
 literature of a theocratic people—a people in the 
 midst of which God abode in an exceptional manner. 
 The respected author is of opinion that this mode 
 of viewing the Scriptures, for which special advan- 
 tages are claimed, has hitherto been overlooked. 
 While the present work is spoken of in a highly 
 complimentary manner, it is represented as bearing 
 its share of evidence to the statement “that the 
 treatment of Scripture by those who at all recog- 
 nised its possession of a Divine character, has 
 throughout been dominated by the idea of Revela- 
 a” (lee ays IRIS however, is scarcely correct. 
 I have expressly stated that the Bible is not directly 
 involved in the discussion to which the following 
 pages are devoted (vide p. 5 and pp. 5 3—7).1, What 
 I am concerned with is not the Bible, but rather the 
 
PREFACE 1O THE SECOND EDITION. ix 
 
 theocratic life of which-the Bible is declared to be 
 the outgrowth. My aim is to ascertain to what 
 effect or intent God manifested Himself in the his- 
 tory of Israel; and my answer is, that He manifested 
 Himself before all things as the God of a gracious 
 purpose, towards the elect race in the first place, and 
 eventually towards the entire human race. If I were 
 to write a book on the question how the Scriptures 
 are to be conceived of, I do not suppose I should 
 materially differ from Principal Simon in my way 
 of handling the subject. I entirely agree with him 
 as to the importance of keeping distinct the ideas of 
 Scripture and Revelation. I am so far from identi- 
 fying them that I conceive it possible that a revela- 
 tion of God might be given in history without any 
 written record coming into existence, the Divine 
 action in the world being left dependent for its 
 record on oral tradition. I highly appreciate the 
 effort which the respected author has made to intro- 
 duce clearness of view into the important subjects 
 under consideration, and I feel that we are not oppo- 
 nents, but fellow-labourers in the same cause. 
 
 The text of this edition has been carefully revised, 
 but not otherwise altered. There is one topic on 
 which I might have been tempted to enlarge,—the 
 distinction taken towards the close between doctrines 
 of faith and theological dogmas, and creed simplifi- 
 cation based on the distinction. This is a subject 
 which seems destined ere long to come to the front. 
 
3 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 A widespread feeling of uneasiness exists, which, 
 even in very conservative quarters, may give rise to 
 early and possibly premature ecclesiastical action. 
 I have ventured to deprecate attempts at creed re- 
 construction till the scope of the distinction between 
 doctrine and dogma is fully realized, and the dis- 
 tinction itself, in all its breadth, is formally accepted. 
 To this opinion I still adhere. No church, for ex- 
 ample, with a Calvinistic creed is ripe for action 
 which is not prepared to treat the questions in 
 dispute between Calvinists and Arminians, however 
 important in their own place, as questions of the 
 school. To treat them as questions of faith leads 
 to strange results. It requires us in Scotland, for 
 example,-to regard as a heretic a man) "whogsie 
 esteemed, wherever the English language is spoken, 
 as one of the soundest and most felicitous of com- 
 mentators on the New Testament. One is forced 
 to ask himself, what can be the value of a church 
 fellowship which excludes such men, and does vio- 
 lence to our feelings of respect for Christian worth 
 and wisdom. 
 
 AC Bb RU Ge 
 
 GLASGOW, Woventber, 1886, 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST. 
 EDITION. 
 
 PorTIONS of the contents of this volume were 
 recently delivered as Lectures at the Presbyterian 
 College, London. I have taken occasion from the 
 opportunity thus afforded, to write at greater length, 
 and with more fulness, than was necessary for the 
 immediate purpose, on a subject which appears to 
 me of great importance in its bearing both on Chris- 
 tian Apologetics and on the internal life and future 
 fortunes of the Church. Two convictions have been 
 ruling motives in this study. One is, that in many 
 respects the old lines of apologetic argument no 
 longer suffice either to express the thoughts of faith 
 or to mect successfully the assaults of unbelief. The 
 other is, that the Church is not likely again to wield 
 the influence which of right belongs to her as cus- 
 todian of the precious treasure of Christian truth, 
 unless she show herself possessed of vitality sufficient 
 
 to originate a new development in all directions, and 
 
 x1 
 
xil TREPACE TO SHEGIIRS lah DLLLON: 
 
 among others in Doctrine; refusing to accept as her 
 final position either the agnosticism of modern cul- 
 ture, or blind adherence to traditional dogmatism. 
 The last chapter of the book refers more particularly 
 to this latter topic. The views there expressed may 
 satisfy neither liberals nor conservatives in theology. 
 I do not deprecate criticism, but I ask the critics to 
 remember that the apologist’s task in these days isa 
 delicate one. It will be observed that very frequent 
 reference is made to the author of the well-known 
 work, “Literature and Dogma.” This was due to 
 one who is the accepted exponent of a wide-spread 
 tendency of thought on the subject of religion, whose 
 significance it vitally concerns the Church of the 
 present to understand. 
 THE AUTHOR: 
 GLASGOW, April, 1881. 
 
VBE Ole © @ NL Nels: 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Classification of Misconceptions 
 Kabbalism . am 
 
 Dogmatism. ‘ 
 Illuminism . : : ; 
 Lessing . 
 
 Reimarus 
 
 W. Rathbone Greg 
 
 Spinoza ; : 
 
 Kant and Fichte ° : ‘ : ° 
 Matthew Arnold. - : ; : : : 
 
 GHAGEE RSI 
 
 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 Revelation and the Bible 
 Idea of Revelation : 4 : . 
 
 A Ong SSR ee oe 
 
 Theories of Redemption . : ° . ° . 
 
 53 
 57 
 62 
 
 64 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 The Purpose of Grace in the Bible 
 
 The Call of Abraham . 
 
 The Trial of Abraham 
 
 Elements of Grace in Abraham’s History . 
 
 Se CHAPLERGILU 
 
 THE METHOD OF REV}2LATION. 
 
 A priori Views . . : . : 
 The Actual Method . : ; . 
 Congenial to the Idea of Grace . 
 
 Law of Progress . a 
 
 The Principle of Election 
 
 Ethnic Religions. 
 
 Salvation not by Doctrinal Knowledge 
 Moral Defects of Early Stages 
 
 The Agents of Revelation . 
 
 The Destruction of the Canaanites 
 Crude Legislation : ‘ 
 Traces of Legal Spirit in Old Testament 
 
 GHAR TEREIV: 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 Old View 
 
 Its Defects . : : 
 
 True View . 
 
 Mr. Arnold’s Someta Miracle 
 
 Can Miracles be Removed from Bible without Altering 
 
 our Idea of it : : 
 
 PAGE 
 74 
 53 
 93 
 99 
 
CONTENTS, XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bible View of Miracle : : : : : : nko 
 
 Dr. Abbot on Miracles : : 183 
 
 Spinoza and Miracles. : : 186 
 
 Ambiguous Character of Miracles . ‘ : : . I9I 
 Advantage of our Position Compared with that of those 
 
 who immediately received Revelation . - . seelOS 
 
 Lessing on Miracles . . : . . ; : 200 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 Older View . ; : ‘ 211 
 Prophecy Ethical : ‘ ° ; ; : wel Aw 
 Not History Written Berend 217 
 Old and New Schools of Interpreters 222 
 Conditional Element in Prophecy 227 
 Mr. Arnold’s View of Messianic Prophecy . 231 
 Function of Prophecy in Revelation . go2 
 In Reference to Law . : 233 
 In Reference to Promise . : : : : , ig pa Wh 
 Prophetic Idea of God : 237, 
 Prophetic Universalism . : : 241 
 Prophetic Ideals of the Future . : : : ; . 244 
 Fulfilled in Jesus and Christianity . : : . » 250 
 The Method of Proof . : : ; . ; : 250 
 Christ His Own Witness . : . aoe 3 ome z50 
 
 CHAE TER AVI: 
 THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 The Speculative Presuppositions of Christianity : 7, 207 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 Mr. Arnold’s Agnosticism . : , 
 
 Dr. Mansel’s Modified Agnosticism . 
 
 The Bible Profitable for Doctrine 
 
 Use and Abuse of the Bible for Doctrine . 
 
 Qualification for Interpreting the Bible 
 
 Fundamental Truths of Faith 
 
 Four Types of Doctrine concerning the Gift of Grace in 
 the New Testament . : ° ; 
 
 Doctrines of Faith and Theological Dogmas 
 
 Applications of this Distinction . 
 
 Conclusion . 
 
 PAGE 
 276 
 280 
 282 
 285 
 287 
 290 
 
 295 
 395 
 3°97 
 309 
 
MISCONCEETIONS. 
 
 & 
 
COAT LE Rear 
 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Y purpose in this book is to endeavour to form 
 
 as definite ideas as possible concerning the 
 
 chief design of revelation, or God’s end in making 
 that special manifestation of Himself above the plane 
 of nature, whereof the Bible is the literary record— 
 and to bring the ideas thus formed to bear on past 
 and present controversies, as aids to faith and barriers 
 against unbelief. On first view this may appear a 
 very superfluous task. Who, it may be asked, does 
 not know the answer to the question, What do the 
 Scriptures principally teach? Yet nothing is more 
 certain than that vague or erroneous notions have 
 been and still are entertained on this subject both by 
 believers and by unbelievers ; creating unnecessary 
 perplexities, giving rise to false inferences and objec- 
 tions, affording opportunities of attack, and occasions 
 for defence, which disappear when the true state of 
 the case is understood. The answer of the West- 
 minster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, to the ques- 
 tion above propounded, may itself be cited as an 
 
4 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 instance in point. “The Scriptures principally 
 teach,” we are told, “what man is to believe con- 
 cerning God, and what duty God requires of man.” 
 The statement is too vague and general, and is thus 
 fitted to become the cause, if it be not itself the 
 effect, of misconception. But the crude notions I 
 have in view are not mere relics of a bygone time ; 
 we meet with them in current literature, in such 
 popular books, eg., as Mr. Matthew Arnold’s “ Lite- 
 rature and Dogma,” and Mr. W. Rathbone Greg's 
 “Creed of Christendom.” In these books attacks 
 are made on the faith, which are based on certain 
 assumptions as to the raison d’étre of revelation, and 
 the only effectual method of meeting the assault is 
 to form exact ideas on the subject to which these 
 assumptions relate. When it is considered how vital 
 the questions involved in the controversy are, it will 
 at once be seen how very incumbent on the apologist 
 it is to undertake that task. They relate to such 
 cardinal topics as the foss¢bility and verifiableness of 
 revelation ; the function of wzracle and prophecy in 
 connection with a revelation; the method of revela- 
 tion, involving advance from rudeness to perfection 
 along a regular course of development, the employ- 
 ment of morally defective agents, and the adoption 
 of the principle of election, that is, the principle of 
 first bestowing privilege on the few in order to the 
 eventual communication of the benefit to the many ; 
 and, to specify only one other point, the doctrinal 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 5 
 
 significance of revelation. Though the Bible is not 
 directly, or in the first rank, involved in this discus- 
 sion (for Revelation must not be confounded with 
 its literary record, or the term used as a synonym 
 for the Scriptures—of this more hereafter), yet it too 
 suffers from misconceptions on the fundamental 
 question, What was God’s chief end in making a 
 supernatural manifestation of Himself in the sphere 
 of human history? 
 
 In view of the momentous issues involved, the 
 utility of a careful consideration of the class of topics 
 which cluster around the question will, I venture to 
 think, be generally conceded. This conviction will 
 support me in the endeavour to execute the task 
 which I have taken in hand, not without diffidence 
 and a grave sense of responsibility. What I aim 
 at is not encyclopedic completeness, but to suggest 
 some serviceable thoughts on the most pressing 
 matters. To achieve even this modest piece of work 
 in a slight and sketchy manner will require six 
 lengthy chapters. I devote this first introductory 
 one to a statement of the principal misconceptions 
 which have been or still are entertained on the 
 subject of our study. 
 
 These misconceptions, then, fall into two general 
 Glasses Hitst; there: are; those which: take va. theo- 
 retical or doctrinaire view of revelation, and next 
 ‘there are those which go to the opposite extreme and 
 take an exclusively practical or ethical view of the 
 
6 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 UAB nplghrerue $59 a a, NO Rae eee’ She as ne 
 same subject. This classification does not resolve 
 itself into a distinction between the views of believers 
 and those of unbelievers respectively ; on the con- 
 trary, believers and unbelievers or freethinkers may 
 be found on the same side. Especially does this 
 hold good, as we shall see immediately, in reference 
 to the doctrinaire class of ideas. 
 
 1. Common to all patrons of theoretical or doctrin- 
 aire conceptions are these two opinions ; that Revela- 
 tion is to be identified with the Azd/e, and that the 
 Bible was given by God to men for the purpose of 
 communicating doctrinal instruction on certain topics 
 of importance. This may be said to be the old view 
 held in common both by believer and by infidel. 
 The points on which those who adopted this view 
 differed, had reference to the subjects on which in- 
 struction was supposed to be given, and, as connected 
 with that, the extent and character of the information 
 vouchsafed. The sober, intermediate, what we may 
 call the orthodox, opinion was that the knowledge 
 communicated in the Scriptures relates to God and 
 to human duty and destiny, and that it contains 
 numerous items of information which could have 
 been obtained from no other source. From this 
 medium position some diverged by excess, others 
 by defect. The excess consisted in looking on the 
 Bible as a book containing miscellaneous information, 
 of a more or less curious character, on all sorts of 
 subjects; not merely on God, duty, the future life, 
 
iLITSCONCEPTIONS. 7 
 
 and such moral and religious topics, but on the 
 secrets of nature, the problems of philosophy, the 
 constitution of the heavenly world, etc. The extreme 
 instance of this unlimited construction of the term 
 Revelation is to be found in the Jewish Kaddala, 
 which, by an arbitrary and grotesque system of in- 
 terpretation, converted the Old Testament into a 
 book of science, philosophy, and magic, as well as 
 a book of moral law and religion. Milder examples 
 of the Kabbalistic treatment of Scripture (using the 
 epithet with reference, not to the method of inter- 
 pretation, but to the character of the results obtained) 
 have been supplied in more recent times by those 
 who have been of opinion that the sacred Book, 
 though not meant principally to teach the science 
 of nature, yet contains latent in its pages important 
 scientific hints, and always expresses itself in refer- 
 ence to natural phenomena with scientific accuracy. 
 The conflicts in which this view has involved believers 
 in Revelation and science in its onward progress are 
 so familiar to all that it is not necessary to speak 
 of them particularly. Suffice it to say, that these 
 collisions have gradually taught faith the necessity 
 of caution in the claims which she advances in behalf 
 of the Bible, and led to the general adoption of the 
 position that the revelation contained in the holy 
 Book relates to distinctively moral and religious 
 truth, that it is not intended to make known the 
 secrets of the universe, and that when these Divine 
 
8 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 —— es 
 
 writings have occasion to speak of natural phenomena 
 they do so, not in scientific, but in popular language. 
 The old Kabbalistic idea, however, is not yet quite 
 extinct ; it lingers still, for venerable error dies hard ; 
 one meets with it now and then in odd corners of 
 literature, and it may serve the purpose of a fresh 
 illustration of a trite theme, and suffice as comment 
 on the most obvious and gross abuse of the Bible, as 
 a supposed repository of scientific lore, if I briefly 
 allude to the latest instance which has come under 
 my observation. I find it in a book with which I 
 became acquainted on my first visit to America, 
 entitled ‘Life: ‘its “true Genesis; +. In” réespectmem 
 ability and knowledge the book is by no means to 
 be despised ; on the contrary, its author shows him- 
 self to be well acquainted with the most recent 
 scientific investigations, hypotheses, and discoveries, 
 and discusses these with much acuteness, vigour and 
 spirit, which make the volume altogether enjoyable 
 and exhilarating reading. But the writer is a dis- 
 senter from the views current in scientific circles on 
 the origin of life, as taught by Darwin and others. 
 Dissatisfied with prevalent hypotheses and theories, 
 he propounds one of his own which he endeavours 
 to support by an induction of relative facts. The 
 facts are interesting and demand explanation on 
 
 1 By Mr. R. W. Wright. Published by G. P. Putnam. Sons, 
 New York, 1880, 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 9 
 some theory. They are such as this, that when a 
 forest consisting of a particular kind of tree, say pine, 
 is cut down, it is succeeded by a growth, not of pine, 
 but of oak, and that again by beech. The author 
 believes such facts to be inexplicable on any current 
 views of the origin of life, and he propounds his 
 own theory to account for them, which is, that in the 
 earth there are vital germs (not ordinary seeds) of 
 all plants, and that whenever the necessary condt- 
 tions come into existence, these germs manifest their 
 presence in the bosom of the earth by sending forth 
 a crop of vegetation. The germ differs from the seed 
 in this, among other respects, in this above all, that 
 a seed is always preceded by a plant, whereas the 
 plant is always preceded by the vital germ. Now, 
 as to this theory and the argument in its support, 
 I am not going to call in question the facts alleged ; 
 they may be all true for aught I know to the con- 
 trary: neither do I quarrel with the theory ; it may 
 be as legitimate and as feasible as those it is meant 
 to supplant. I certainly think neither the facts nor 
 the theory should be treated with indifference or 
 contempt; but, rather, carefully considered. The 
 hypothesis is in some respects very plausible to say 
 the least, as, ¢¢., when it deals with the question of 
 plant distribution. The “tramp” theory of distribu- 
 tion, according to which each plant had originally 
 one native place on the earth’s surface, whence in- 
 dividuals migrated in course of ages, is beset with 
 
10 ZISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 serious difficulties, which the author of the “True 
 Genesis of Life” very acutely exposes. How simple 
 and how tempting, in presence, of these difficulties, 
 the hypothesis that all the world over, the earth is 
 filled with vital germs which develop into plants 
 wherever the requisite conditions of soil, temperature, 
 and the like prevail. Let the theory, therefore, re- 
 ceive, at the hands of competent judges, fair and full 
 consideration. What I wish to point out is, that the 
 author finds in Scripture support for his theory, on 
 which he seems to rely more confidently than on all 
 the facts of observation adduced. The Scriptural 
 basis is discovered in a few Hebrew words in the 
 first chapter of Genesis, rendered in our English 
 version, ‘““whose seed is in itself upon the earth,” 
 but which we are told ought to be rendered “ whose 
 germinal principle of life, each in itself after its kind, 
 is upon the earth.’ That is to say, we are to under- 
 stand that the Hebrew word zerva is used by the 
 sacred writer to express the scientific conception of a 
 germinal principle existing in the earth antecedent 
 to all plant life, created there by the energy of the 
 Divine Spirit, not the popular idea of seed produced 
 first by plants and from which in turn plants are made 
 to grow by the fertilising influence of the soil. Is 
 this probable? Even if the theory were established 
 I should gravely doubt it, and still incline to hold, 
 that in the text referred to, we are to find no 
 anticipation of the new theory advanced by Mr. 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. Il 
 
 Wright, but a reference to the familiar fact that 
 plants spring from seeds deposited in the cround. 
 And on the other hand, should the theory on exam- 
 ination turn out a mistake, the authority of the 
 sacred Book will not be compromised, because a 
 sober exegesis will adhere to the principle, which 
 painful experience has taught the Church to respect, 
 that on the phenomena of nature Scripture uniformly 
 speaks not in scientific or philosophic, but in popular 
 language. This principle may be held fast without 
 prejudice to the negative scientific merits of the 
 - Bible, such as the invariable accuracy of its descrip- 
 tive references to natural phenomena, and the still 
 more important fact of its keeping aloof from all false 
 science, especially from any theological and super- 
 stitious views of nature, such as were current in the 
 ancient world ; a feature which comes conspicuously 
 out in the Scripture account of creation, compared, 
 e.g. with the Chaldean Genesis, a feature, I may 
 add, so remarkable that even freethinkers have been 
 struck with it, though unwilling to recognise therein, 
 with believers, the sure trace of a Divine guidance 
 helping the sacred writer to avoid Pagan error, and 
 in all his representations to walk in the light of a 
 pure ethical monotheism. 
 
 In comparison with those who would treat the 
 Bible as if it were a repository of miscellaneous in- 
 formation on all conceivable subjects, the dogmatist 
 proceeds rationally who uses it as a theological text- 
 
12 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 book given for the express purpose of conveying 
 doctrinal instruction on religious and moral themes, 
 which it is his business to draw out into distinct 
 propositions, and set forth in systematic order. He 
 has the merit, at least, of recognising that the proper 
 sphere of Biblical teaching is to be found in morals 
 and religion. But even in his conception there is 
 something out of accordance with the actual fact, and 
 unwholesome in tendency. In making this statement 
 Iam not to be understood as denying the compe- 
 tency or utility of systematic theology. I not only 
 admit, but strenuously maintain, that revelation 
 has a doctrinal significance; and I can imagine 
 attempts at exhibiting such significance in a system- 
 atic way, which should keep the chief end of revela- 
 tion steadily in view, and make the whole system 
 of doctrine revolve round it as a centre, and assign to 
 each individual truth its place of importance in accor- 
 dance with the nearness or remoteness of its relations 
 to the centre. Such attempts, indeed, have been 
 made, especially in recent times, and might be re- 
 ferred to if needful. All I mean to say is, that there 
 are certain sins which easily beset one who makes 
 revelation consist in the suggestion by the Divine 
 Spirit, to the minds of apostles and prophets, concep- 
 tions of ideas and words concerning the dogmas of 
 faith and the rules of conduct.! In the first place, 
 
 rt 
 
 + In these very terms is Revelation described by Hollaz, a 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 13 
 
 the habit of using the Bible as a quarry of proof-texts 
 for an elaborate system of doctrine, is apt to render 
 the mind insensible to all Biblical material that 
 cannot be utilised in that way. The amount of such 
 matter is not small. There is much that is beautiful 
 and valuable in the sacred writings which cannot 
 be manufactured into dogma, and possesses chiefly 
 literary or devotional interest. It is to this fact 
 Mr. Arnold points in the title which he has given to 
 his well-known work on the Bible, “Literature and 
 Dogma.” Then, even that which can be utilised 
 for dogmatic purposes, is likely, in the hands of the 
 dogmatic theologian, to lose its living characteristics, 
 and become transformed into a dead thing. The 
 Bible is a rich wide tract of country, wherein the 
 plants and flowers of Divine truth grow in endless 
 profusion and picturesque variety. What we find in 
 theological systems based on Scripture texts is a 
 Hortus Siccius, or collection of dried plants, arranged 
 according to their specific resemblances for the pur- 
 poses of science, but with the life pressed out of them. 
 
 Further, the dogmatic mind, as we now conceive of 
 it, has no notion of progress in revelation. All Scrip- 
 ture given by inspiration is profitable for doctrine. 
 All texts or books of Scripture are alike good for 
 
 Lutheran divine, who flourished in the 17th century. His words 
 are: “Spiritus Sanctus Prophetis et Apostolis conceptus rerum 
 et verborum de dogmatibus et moribus suggessit.” Quoted by 
 Rothe, in “Zur Dogmatik,” p. 55. 
 
14 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 the purpose, without distinction of date. The earliest 
 books are as available as the latest. It is implied in 
 the dogmatic conception of revelation, that salvation 
 depends on the knowledge of certain doctrines. That 
 being so, the most ancient men of God must be 
 assumed to have been in possession of the requisite 
 saving knowledge, and traces of such knowledge may 
 therefore be looked for even in the oldest parts of 
 the Bible. The patriarchs needed the sum of saving 
 knowledge, therefore they had it, therefore it may be 
 found even in the book of Genesis. How untrue this 
 idea of the Bible, according to which the first book is 
 as good as the last, progress, growth, development 
 is ignored, and Christ is in the Old Testament and in 
 all its parts not merely as a germ, but as a tree, does 
 not need to be pointed out. It is now generally 
 understood that even in Revelation the law of progress 
 by development obtains, and it is owing to its full 
 recognition of this truth that the modern science of 
 Biblical, as distinct from dogmatic theology, has 
 become the fruitful study that it is. 
 
 Another vice of the dogmatic spirit remains to be 
 mentioned, viz., the lack of all sense of proportion, 
 or of the relative importance of the truths taught in 
 Scripture. Every proposition capable of being sub- 
 stantiated by clear proof texts, is to be received as 
 matter of religious faith. God gave the book to teach 
 men certain doctrines, the number of these being 
 limited only by the extent to which the process ot 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 15 
 
 manufacturing theological propositions with proof 
 texts attached can be carried ; and who am I that I 
 should presume to determine which are fundamental 
 and which of secondary moment? Under the in- 
 fluence of such notions, a dogmatic system, instead 
 of being an organism of truth developed out of one 
 creat ruling thought, is apt to degenerate into a mere 
 encyclopedia of theological opinions professing to be 
 derived from Scripture, in which the least important 
 dogma receives as much prominence as the most 
 fundamental; so that the student, while in the act of 
 learning many truths, is in danger of losing sight of 
 the one great truth which sheds its benignant lustre 
 on the sacred page; the truth, viz., that in the Scrip- 
 tures we have the record of the manifestation of a 
 eracious purpose evolving itself, in the course of 
 ages, and finding its eventual fulfilment in Jesus 
 Christ. In this way it may happen to the dogmatic 
 student of a completed revelation, to repeat the ex- 
 perience of the Jew in studying the Old Testament. 
 The Jew searched the Scriptures as one who verily 
 believed that in them he should find eternal life ; but 
 his search was all but futile, his labour mostly lost, 
 because he failed to discern God’s chief end in mak- 
 ing the revelation of Himself recorded in the Hebrew 
 writings, imagining that it was to be found in the 
 law-giving on Sinai; whereby it came to pass that 
 the law eclipsed, to his eye, the purpose of grace 
 running all through the long ages of preparation, and 
 
16 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Sed, ae eR ah aca rn ee 
 bended his mind even to its sunlight-glory as it 
 shone in the face of Christ. The melancholy failure 
 of the people to whom were given the oracles of God 
 to appreciate the design of the gift, supplies a most 
 significant historical illustration of the serious conse- 
 quences such shortcoming may entail. Letcus@nes 
 imagine it is a lesson which does not concern us. 
 
 The seventeenth century was the great Protestant 
 dogmatic epoch, during which the conception of the 
 Bible just animadverted on was everywhere domin- 
 ant. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand, 
 we meet on every side a spirit of reaction against 
 theological dogmatism. The dogma-building spirit 
 had done its work amidst much controversy, and with 
 incredible toil it had created vast systems of divinity, 
 embodied in huge tomes which it would take half a 
 lifetime to read. And the task, when done, turned 
 out to be a thankless one. The world seemed weary 
 of theological controversy, and turned away from 
 the learned tomes with apathy, almost with loathing. 
 Deism, Illuminism, Aufklérung succeeded to scholas- 
 tic orthodoxy, and taught, to willing ears, that the 
 vast structure of supernatural and unintelligible 
 doctrines was really of no practical value, seeing the 
 essence of religion consisted in a few simple truths 
 which all could understand, and which commended 
 themselves to every unsophisticated mind. But whilé 
 the dogmas were given up, the dogmatic conception 
 of Revelation was retained. That conception wasa 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 17 
 
 a 
 
 legacy eighteenth-century free-thought inherited from 
 seventeenth-century orthodoxy, which shaped its way 
 of regarding the Bible, and which it even turned into 
 a weapon of assault against the faith in a Divinely 
 revealed religion. The deist, not less than the dog- 
 matist, had a doctrinaire idea of revelation. He 
 could not think of any purpose God could have in 
 view in giving a revelation, other than to communi- 
 cate instruction. The point on which he differed 
 from the dogmatist was the nature and amount of the 
 instruction communicated. Men under the influence 
 of the eighteenth-century Zeztgezs¢, whether believers 
 or unbelievers, were disposed to reduce the truths 
 which God could be supposed to teach men in a 
 special revelation to a very small number indeed—to 
 three in fact, which may be called the Dezstic Trinity. 
 These three were—that there is a God just and, above 
 all, beneficent; that moral obligations are to be 
 acknowledged and obeyed, or the infinite nature of 
 duty; and that man is destined to immortality. If 
 God gavea revelation to man, it must have been to 
 republish and enforce these fundamental truths of 
 natural religion; whatever more was found in any 
 pretended revelation was either false or of subor- 
 dinate importance. Here was the opposite extreme 
 to Kabbalism ; diverging from the wa media of dog- 
 matic orthodoxy on the side of defect, as far as the 
 Rabbinical idea of revelation diverged therefrom on 
 the side of excess. All three agreed that the Bible 
 Cc 
 
13 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 was a scholastic book; but the Kabbalist thought it 
 taught everything, the dogmatist confined its teach- 
 ing pretty much to theology, and the deist was of 
 opinion that it taught next to nothing, at most only 
 the few elementary truths of natural religion. 
 
 The most genial and friendly representative of 
 the deistical tendency may be found in Lesszng, 
 the most cultured and influential apostle of German 
 Illuminism. By the bent of his spirit, Lessing was 
 a philosophic sceptic or freethinker, but he did not 
 assume an attitude of hostility or unbelief towards 
 revealed religion. On the contrary, he professed to 
 believe in Revelation, and set himself to discover its 
 chief end and contents. He developed his views on 
 these points in the well-known tract, entitled “The 
 Education of the Human Race.” God’s aim in giving 
 to the race the Bible, he held, was to educate it out 
 of moral childhood and rudeness into manhood, and 
 He sought to do this by communicating to men the 
 knowledge of truths which reason could find out for 
 itself, but not easily or soon. Education, in general, 
 gives man nothing which he could not have from 
 himself, but it gives it sooner and easier. Even so 
 revelation gives to man no truths which his reason 
 would not eventually discover, but it gave and gives 
 the most important of these truths earlier. The truths 
 of chief moment which God taught the race in an order 
 determined by the capacity of the pupil were—the 
 _ unity of God, presented first in the form of belief ina 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. . 19 
 
 national God, Jehovah ; then, finally, in the form of 
 a pure ethical monotheism learned by Israel from 
 the wise Persians while in exile; the sa of duty set 
 forth in the Decalogue, whose precepts were enforced 
 by a promise of long life in the land of Canaan ; and, 
 finally, the doctrine of immortality communicated 
 first to a select few in Old Testament times, and at 
 length made the property of the million by Jesus 
 Christ. In this process of moral and religious educa- 
 tion the Old Testament served the purpose of a 
 primer, and the New Testament was the second 
 lesson-book, put into the child’s hands when it had 
 outgrown the first. Both were good in their place 
 and time, but both are destined to be superseded 
 when the child reaches manhood. Then comes in the 
 everlasting gospel of reason, when men shall sce with- 
 out aid truths which, in earlier ages, God beneficently 
 taught men by means of the sacred school-books ; 
 and when they shall have the law so written on the 
 heart, that they will do the right without any hope 
 of reward, whether temporal or eternal, as an induce- 
 ment ; when, nevertheless, though no longer needed 
 as a motive to well doing, the faith in immortality 
 shall be firmly rooted in the spirit. 
 
 The theory of Revelation now briefly sketched is 
 very attractive, and not without some elements of 
 truth. It supplies a credible motive for Divine 
 action; for it is quite conceivable that God should 
 communicate to men, by special revelation, truths of 
 
20 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Fe a as nae Se i rn a 
 
 the moral reason which, in the course of ages, they 
 could eventually discover, but not till much later 
 than they actually become acquainted with them 
 through Divine aid, in order that their higher educa- 
 tion might be thereby accelerated. Then the notion 
 of education, though not exhausting the idea of reve- 
 lation, does enter into it as an element. When God 
 entered upon the process of self-manifestation, of 
 which we have the literary monument in the Scrip- 
 tures, He did take in hand the moral and religious 
 education of mankind. Even the idea of the lesson- 
 books being superseded when they have served their 
 purpose has a certain germ of truth in it. That idea 
 is borrowed, we may say, from the Apostle Paul, who 
 justified the abrogation of the Mosaic law by com- 
 paring it to the system of tutors and governors to 
 which the heir of an inheritance is subject only till 
 the time of his majority has arrived. Lessing was 
 mistaken only in assuming that the time might come 
 when Christianity itself, as taught in the New Testa- 
 ment, should be superseded by the religion of reason, 
 even as the Jewish religion was superseded by it; 
 whereas, according to the teaching of the New Tes- 
 tament, and in truth, Christianity is the perfect 
 religion ; God’s last, because His full, adequate, abso- 
 lutely true word to men; which cannot be outgrown 
 in thought as the world advances in wisdom, any 
 more than the Son, by whom that last word was 
 spoken, can be outgrown in moral worth. But it is 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. oi 
 
 important to note the source of his mistake. It lay 
 in this, that his idea of revelation was exclusively 
 pedagogic. The Bible consists of two lesson-books, 
 which the pupil outgrows one after the other, as 
 pupils outgrow all school-books. He learns his 
 lessons about the unity of God, the moral law, and 
 the life to come, and goes his way, and thinks no 
 more about the primer and the second book. But 
 suppose that revelation consisted in something much 
 higher than moral education, even in the manifesta- 
 tion of a redemptive purpose, in the exhibition to our 
 faith of God as the God of Grace, so supplying not 
 only knowledge of duty, but power to become sons 
 of God; and suppose that in the Bible we have the 
 record of such a manifestation and exhibition,—could 
 we then think of outgrowing the holy writings as 
 worn-out school-books? As well might we think 
 of outgrowing the sun; for Christ is the Sun of our 
 souls, because He is the Saviour of our souls, and no 
 one who recognises in Him the Redeemer will ever 
 dream of the possibility of His being superseded. 
 Nor will the book which bears witness to His re- 
 deeming love ever lose its interest, or its value as an 
 atmosphere through which the rays of the spiritual 
 Sun are diffused abroad over the world. Only such 
 as think of Christ as merely a Teacher, and of 
 Christianity as a system of ideas, will imagine that 
 they can now dispense with both Christ and the New 
 Testament. Even they are mistaken in their fancy. 
 
22 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 They are not so independent as they think. Some 
 Christian light may indeed remain in their minds 
 after they have thrown Christ and the gospel aside; 
 it is, however, but as the twilight which remains in 
 the sky after the sun has gone down, destined soon 
 to fade into darkness.! 
 
 If in Lessing we see one who, while a true child 
 of an unbelieving time, still endeavoured to recon- 
 cile faith in a doctrinal revelation with the prevalent 
 theological liberalism, we find in another man, whose 
 name is closely associated with his, an example of 
 a free-thinker, using orthodox conceptions of reve- 
 lation to subvert the orthodox faith in revelation. 
 I refer to Reimarus of Hamburg, author of an un- 
 published work entitled “A Defence of the Rational 
 
 1 “If Christianity be the revealed, and in principle com- 
 pleted, religion of redemption, and therefore the completion of 
 all religion, an advance of religion beyond Christianity, or a 
 perfectibility, or completion of Christianity itself, is neither 
 possible nor necessary ; therefore attempts of this kind lead 
 away from religion in order to set in its place philosophy and 
 esthetic for the benefit of demigods, who no more, like us com- 
 mon men, need religion” (Alex. Schweitzer, ‘* Die Christliche 
 Glaubenslehre,” vol. iii. p. 5). This writer, in the same volume. 
 p. 31, says again: “If Christianity were not the religion of 
 redemption itself, as living piety, but only the doctrine of the 
 same, we could cherish for Christ essentially only such a feeling 
 as we entertain towards other great Church teachers; viz., 
 thankfulness for instruction given at a certain time, and for 
 the spirit with which it was communicated in spite of powerful 
 opponents.” ‘These views are the more worthy of note that the 
 - author by no means occupies an orthodox standpoint. 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 23 
 
 ee 
 
 Worshippers of God,” from which Lessing extracted 
 the pieces which he gave to the world under the 
 name of “The Wolfenbiittel Fragments.” This man, 
 to whom Lessing, and more recently Strauss, has 
 given greater prominence than he deserves, claims 
 our attention chiefly on account of the principles 
 on which his attack on revealed religion is based. 
 He commenced his inquiries into the claim of the 
 Bible to be a Divine revelation, by laying down these 
 two positions: (1) that if a revelation was to be 
 made it would be given in the form of a system of 
 doctrine expressed in precise terms; and, (2) that 
 men of irreproachable lives would be selected to 
 be the medium of communication. In the preface 
 of his work, according to Strauss, who took the 
 pains to prepare and publish a digest of its contents, 
 he gives an account of the origin of his doubts 
 concerning the truth of revealed religion. ibhesticst 
 thing that caused him to stumble was the fact that 
 the Bible is not a doctrinal compendium. If God 
 were to favour mankind with supernatural instruc- 
 tion for their salvation, He would, without doubt, 
 adopt the most convenient form of an orderly and 
 clear exposition, in which all that pertained to a 
 doctrine of faith, or a system of morals, was brought 
 together and expressed in a definite manner, and 
 not scattered here and there, or confusedly mixed, 
 or left vague and darkly worded. We observe in 
 this assumption an instructive illustration of the 
 
24 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 way in which men’s minds may be biassed in 
 religion by their philosophy. Like most members 
 of the Illuminist fraternity, Reimarus was a Wolfian 
 in philosophy, and an admirer of the demonstrative 
 mathematical method of his master, and hence he 
 was prejudiced against the Bible, because forsooth 
 its Divine Author had not adopted the style of a 
 philosopher belonging to the Wolfian school. An- 
 other thing which greatly scandalized the doubter, 
 was the character of the people whom God chose 
 to be the recipients of revelation, and of theseam 
 called men of God whom He used as His instru- 
 . ments, or who figure prominently as worthies in the 
 Scriptures. He could not conceive God choosing 
 so stiff-necked, ignoble, and perverse a race to be a 
 peculiar people in preference to other more teachable 
 and gifted nations; and in the actions of the Bible 
 characters—the patriarchs, Moses, Samuel, David, 
 etc.—he found traits which made it impossible for 
 him to regard them as men after God’s heart, and 
 messengers of His revelation. 
 
 It is easy to understand how one coming to the 
 examination of the Bible with such assumptions in 
 his mind could not fail to find in it many stumbling- 
 blocks. For in truth the sacred Book is as far as 
 nossible from being a systematic compendium of 
 religious instruction. No book in the world has 
 less the appearance of bearing that character. It is 
 most interesting, excellent, edifying “literature,” 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 25 
 
 _— aad 
 
 but it is not a book of “dogma,” whatever dogmas 
 may be extracted from it by legitimate exegesis. 
 So far are the recipients of revelation from being 
 men whom God is using for conveying doctrinal 
 instruction of a formal character to the world, that 
 some of them seem to receive little teaching them- 
 selves, and to give none at all to others. The 
 patriarchs for example: what do they learn from 
 God, or what contribution do they make to the 
 compendium of religious doctrine? Why the com- 
 munications made to them refer, as Reimarus 
 observed, to his amazement, not to abstract topics, 
 such as the unity of God, or the immortality of the 
 soul, but rather to such gross worldly matters as 
 children and lands; and instead of going about as 
 missionaries teaching the true religion, their whole 
 concern seems to be about flocks and herds and wells, 
 and marriages and offspring. Most perplexing beha- 
 viour, truly, on the part of men who are supposed to 
 be God's agents in the work of communicating to the 
 world a doctrinal revelation! But to infer there- 
 from that no Divine revelation has taken place, is 
 somewhat precipitate. What if the proper inference 
 were that the conception of revelation, cherished by 
 Reimarus in common with the orthodox, from whom 
 he received it by tradition, was an altogether mis- 
 taken one? What if the revelation consisted not 
 so much in the communication of a body of truth, 
 as in the intimation of a gracious purpose? In 
 
26 AIISCONCE PTIONS. 
 
 —————— -—— 
 
 that case the prominence given to such matters as 
 an heir, or a land, which seems so utterly out of 
 place in a doctrinaire revelation, may be found not 
 altogether inexplicable. In a similar way, revision 
 of the idea of revelation might go far to remove 
 the scandals arising out of the lives of the men of 
 revelation. It certainly must be admitted that they 
 were far enough from being perfect men. No need 
 for a microscope to discover faults in most of them; 
 no need for such elaborate efforts to convict many 
 of them of grievous shortcomings, as Reimarus 
 makes, till his reader is wearied, not to say dis- 
 gusted. The fact stares one in the face. But what 
 then; does grievous faultiness disqualify men for 
 being the agents of Divine revelation? Must God 
 in giving a revelation play the Pharisee, and out 
 of a regard to His dignity have to do. only with 
 perfect characters? Or is it due to the world that its 
 teachers should be so very far above the general 
 level in virtue? There might be something to be 
 said for these positions if revelation consisted in 
 communicating ideas of reason, ethical precepts, 
 or maxims of wisdom. But what if the revelation 
 consist in a self-manifestation of God as the God of 
 grace? Then we shall not wonder at the Divine 
 Being condescending to have intimate relations 
 with erring mortals, or making known His will for 
 the world’s redemption, by men participating, more 
 or less, in the world’s sin. 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 27 
 
 —_— 
 
 The employment of a doctrinaire conception of 
 revelation as a weapon of assault against faith ina 
 supernaturally revealed religion is a device not yet 
 antiquated. We find this same conception used to 
 assail the possibility and the verifiableness of revela- 
 tion by so respectable and influential a writer as the 
 author of “The Creed of Christendom.” In that 
 work Mr, Greg propounds for discussion the ques- 
 tion: Is Christianity a revealed religion ? and he thus 
 defines the position taken up by those who answer 
 the question in the affirmative: “ When a Christian 
 affirms Christianity to be a revealed religion, he 
 intends simply and without artifice to declare his 
 belief that the doctrines and precepts which Christ 
 taught were not the production of His own human 
 mind, either in its ordinary operations or in its flights 
 of sublimest contemplation, but were directly and 
 supernaturally communicated to Him from on high. 
 He means this, or he means nothing definable or 
 distinctive.” This state of the question he afterwards 
 paraphases thus: “It remains therefore a simple 
 question for our consideration whether the doctrines 
 and precepts taught by Jesus are so new, SO pro- 
 found, so perfect, so distinctive, so above and beyond 
 parallel, that they could not have emanated natur- 
 ally from a clear, simple, unsoiled, unwarped, power- 
 ful, meditative mind, living four hundred years after 
 Socrates and Plato; brought up among the pure 
 Essenes; nourished on the wisdom of Solomon, the 
 
28 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 piety of David, the poetry of Isaiah ; elevated by the 
 knowledge, and illuminated by the love of the one 
 true God.” These two extracts clearly set forth 
 the autnor’s point of view. Revelation consists in 
 the supernatural communication of truth which the 
 human mind could not attain of itself, and there is 
 no reason to believe that Jesus could not in His 
 position and with His training, arrive in a natural 
 way at the thoughts embodied in His recorded say- 
 ings; in. other words, no reason to regard Jesus 
 otherwise than as one of the world’s wise men. But 
 Mr. Greg goes further than this. He not only holds 
 that as matter of fact no supernatural teaching was 
 necessary to give Jesus His wisdom, but strives to 
 prove that supernatural teaching in general is 2110pos- 
 szble, or at least unverifiable. This he does by means 
 of the two following questions: Can the human 
 mind receive an idea which it could not originate ? 
 and how can a man distinguish between an idea 
 revealed to him and an idea conceived by him? The 
 questions are rather loosely put. It is assumed, for 
 instance, that an idea and a truth are the same thing. 
 The author indeed affirms that they are. “A truth,” 
 he says, “is only an idea, or a combination of ideas, 
 which approves itself to us.” Buta truth is some- 
 thing more than a combination of agreeable ideas. 
 An illustration will best show this. God is one idea, 
 sove is another ; the combination of these two ideas 
 is agreeable to our hearts; but that is a very differ- 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 29 
 
 ee SS Se NS 
 
 goer 6 6 
 
 ent thing from knowing it to be true, to be a real 
 objective truth that God zs love, as the Apostle John 
 affirms. And this illustration may also help us to 
 understand how we may be able, without Divine 
 aid, to conceive and even to combine ideas, and yet 
 may require such aid to regard the combination as 
 objective truth. Ido not need Divine revelation to 
 give me the idea of God; as little do I need such 
 help to give me the idea of love. I can also, without 
 supernatural succour, combine these two ideas. I 
 can imagine God being love. To do that is easy, 
 but, alas, to believe that God is love is not so easy. 
 After I have conceived such a thing asa possibility, 
 I stand very much in need of assurance that my 
 conception is not only a possibility but a fact. Sup- 
 pose now we translate Mr. Greg’s question into 
 accurate language, and ask: Can the human mind 
 receive a truth by revelation which it could not 
 certainly know to be true otherwise, though it might 
 be able to conceive of its possibility ? Why not? 
 Where is the difficulty? The puzzle disappears as 
 soon as it is stated in proper terms. To convert 
 possibilities, conceived but not firmly believed, into 
 certainties, was one grand design of revelation. And 
 now observe, with reference to Mr. Greg's second 
 question, how this is done. Take again the infinitely 
 momentous truth that God is love.. How am I to 
 be assured of that truth with a measure of assurance 
 far surpassing that attainable by the light of nature, 
 
30 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 which confessedly leaves Divine love, to a large ex- 
 tent, problematical ? How shall I know, e.g., whether 
 love means for God what it means among men, viz., 
 a spirit which makes a man willing to sacrifice him- 
 self for another, as Alcestis sacrificed herself for her 
 husband? I can conceive such a thing as _ possible. 
 I cannot indeed think of God as love without the 
 conception entering into my mind. But from the 
 conception to the belief what a distance! Is it 
 possible that God can or will sacrifice Himself, or 
 stoop to be a burden-bearer to His own creatures? 
 How shall I know, save by God doing the thing, and 
 so showing me that love is the reality for Him that 
 it is for all the moral heroes who sacrifice themselves 
 for others? And the doing of it is the revelation. 
 Christ’s death on the cross is the most important 
 part of His revelation ; far more important than His 
 words of wisdom, precious as these are. And the 
 radical error of Mr. Greg is, that he takes account 
 only of the latter, leaving out of view the revelation 
 which Christ made in His life, in His actions, and, 
 above all, in His passion. It is the old traditional 
 error of a doctrinaire conception of revelation repro- 
 duced in our age, and made the basis of an ingenious 
 attempt to demonstrate the impossibility of revela- 
 tion, which is seen to be inept so soon as the subject 
 in debate is rightly defined. That Mr. Greg’s attack 
 would be valid even against revelation as conceived 
 by himself, I am not to be understood as admitting. 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 31 
 
 All I mean now to point out is, that there is a way 
 of regarding revelation, with reference to which his 
 argument does not even possess plausibility. 
 
 2. In proceeding now to give some account of the 
 opinions of those who have taken a purely practi- 
 cal or ethical view of the chief end of revelation, I 
 must go as far back as the seventeenth century to 
 find the first influential representative of this tend- 
 ency in post-reformation times. The man to whom 
 must be assigned this important position is the 
 famous Amsterdam Jew, Benedict Spinoza, justly 
 regarded as the father of modern  pantheism. 
 Spinoza was not only the first, but also the most 
 thorough-going exponent of the purely ethical con- 
 ception of the aim of the Bible, which is so much in 
 favour with many at the present time; and on this 
 account, as well as out of regard to his general 
 position in the history of modern speculative and 
 theological thought, he is entitled to very special 
 attention. The fact of his belonging to the seven- 
 teenth century, and to Holland, readily suggests the 
 conjecture that his peculiar way of viewing revelation 
 may have been due to reaction against the dogmatic 
 spirit of the age, which manifested itself with special 
 intensity in that country in connection with the 
 disputes between the Calvinists and the Arminians. 
 Such, accordingly, we know from Spinoza himself 
 to have been the actual fact. In the Tvactatus 
 theologico-politicus, the writing in which his opinions 
 
32 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 _ ee 
 
 on the present subject are set forth, published anony- 
 mously in 1670, the author clearly explains the 
 occasion and design of his work. In the preface he 
 tells that he had observed, with pain, the grievous 
 evils of religious controversy, as illustrated in all 
 ecclesiastical history, and especially in the recent 
 dispute between the Arminians and Calvinists (which 
 led to the assembling: of the Synod of Dort): how 
 in such disputes natural reason was despised, and 
 treated as the fountain of impiety, and human 
 opinions were taken for Divine truth, and credulity 
 deemed faith, and philosophical controversies keenly 
 agitated in Church and State ; whence arose savage 
 hatreds and dissensions, breeding sedition and 
 schism. Observing these melancholy phenomena, it 
 occurred to him to ask whether they did not all arise 
 out of an illegitimate use of Scripture, as an authority 
 in matters of philosophical and theological opinion in 
 which reason should be left to its liberty. Men were 
 fiercely wrangling about predestination and election, 
 the depravity of human nature, irresistible grace, 
 and the like topics. What if the Bible was never 
 intended to decide such questions; what if the 
 -opinions it contains bearing thereon be not even 
 mutually consistent, and are to be taken simply for 
 what they are worth, as the personal opinions of 
 the particular writers speaking according to the best 
 light they possessed ? With this idea in his mind 
 he resolved, he tells us, to examine Scripture anew 
 
WISCONCET TICS. 33 
 with unbiassed mind, and to affirm nothing concern- 
 ing it, and admit nothing as to its teaching, which 
 was not in accordance with its ascertained character. 
 His enquiry related to such topics as these: What 
 was prophecy, and how did God reveal Himself to 
 the prophets, and on what ground were they accept- 
 able to God, whether because of the truth or value of 
 their thoughts of God or of nature, or simply because 
 of their piety; in what sense were the Hebrews an 
 elect people; whether miracles, so-called, happened 
 contrary to the order of nature, and whether they 
 teach the existence and providence of God more 
 certainly and clearly than the things which happen 
 in the course of nature, and whose causes are known; 
 whether there was anything in Scripture to justify 
 the vilification of the human intellect as corrupt and 
 blind, a question whose settlement depended on this 
 other ; whether the religious or Divine law revealed 
 by prophets and apostles was different from that 
 which the natural light of reason teaches? On all 
 these questions he arrived at conclusions radically 
 diverse from those current in the Church. The 
 authority of the prophets, he found, had weight 
 only in those things which bear on life and morals: 
 their opinions no way concern us. These Hebrew 
 prophets, on an examination of their -history and 
 writings, appeared to be men of singular virtue, who 
 cultivated piety with great devoutness, and hence 
 in Bible language, were said to be filled with the 
 
 D 
 
yoo ia 
 
 © MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Spirit of God, and to be men of God, just as a 
 stately cedar is called a cedar of God. Their chief 
 intellectual gift was a lively imagination. They 
 were not endowed with better minds than other 
 men, and therefore it is an entire mistake to seek in 
 their writings wisdom and the knowledge of natural 
 and spiritual things. All that we can learn from 
 them is what bears on the fear of God or obedience ; 
 in reference to all else for anything the prophets 
 teach, we may believe what we please. This is 
 apparent when we consider the grounds of pro- 
 phetic certitude, which were these three: a vivid 
 imagination of the things “revealed,” a sign spe- 
 cially given for the prophet’s satisfaction, and, above 
 all, a mind steadily inclined to goodness. The cer- 
 tainty thence arising was only subjective. The 
 second condition, indeed, may seem to carry with 
 it objective certitude, but it does not, because the 
 signs vouchsafed were adapted to the capacity and 
 opinions of the particular prophet, so that what 
 would convince one might fail to convince another. 
 Even the “revelations” made to the prophets, were 
 adapted not only to the temperament, the imagina- 
 tion, and the outward circumstances, but even to 
 the peculiar, and it might be erroneous, opinions of 
 the individual. That the prophets held erroneous 
 opinions, and did not agree in their opinions, is 
 apparent from the record. The conclusion which 
 results from all the facts, is, that we must not expect 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 rs 
 3D 
 
 to find in the prophetic writings, that is in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures generally, philosophically ‘accu- 
 rate views concerning God, but merely such as 
 tend to promote piety and morality, the prophets 
 not being raised by their prophetic gift above lia- 
 bility to ignorance and error in regard to matters 
 of speculation, which have no bearing on. charity 
 and practice. The author thought himself justified 
 in drawing from the phenomena a similar inference 
 in reference to the New Testament writings. The 
 apostles wrote as doctors, not as prophets support- 
 ing their statements on a Thus saith the Lord, 
 and they differed from each other in their views. 
 They are not to be blamed for mixing up religion 
 with speculation, for the gospel was new, and they 
 were obliged to gain for it access to men’s minds by 
 accommodating themselves to contemporary thought. 
 But we may now disregard Paul’s philosophy and 
 theology, and attend only to the few elementary 
 truths in the teaching of which prophets, apostles, 
 and Christ are all at one. These truths Spinoza 
 pronounced to be neither more nor less than the 
 doctrines of natural religion, which the much decried 
 reason teaches us by its own light. 
 
 It does not need to be pointed out what theory of 
 revelation these free and outspoken opinions imply. 
 It is that the substance and the design of revela- 
 tion have respect merely to piety and obedience. 
 The Bible was not intended to teach, and does not 
 
36 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 ee 
 
 in fact teach, any definite doctrines concerning God, 
 or man, or the world; but has for its sole object to 
 promote the practice of godliness, justice, and charity. 
 The writers of the Bible did not themselves all hold 
 the same opinions, and therefore it is vain to seek 
 from their writings one uniform system of dogmas. 
 A man may make a very wise, good use of these 
 writings, and be a true believer in the Scripture sense, 
 and yet hold all manner of opinions, theistic or pan- 
 theistic, concerning God. Faith consists in cherishing 
 such sentiments concerning God as are necessary 
 to and involved in obedience. It requires, not true, 
 but pious beliefs. To the catholic faith belong no 
 dogmas concerning which there can be controversy 
 among honest men ; in particular, no such dogmas as 
 those relating to predestination or election. It is idle 
 to appeal to the Scriptures to decide the controversy 
 concerning election. Election, in the Old Testament, 
 simply means that God chose for Israel a particular 
 spot of the earth wherein they might live in safety 
 and comfort. The Hebrew people were elected 
 simply to outward privilege, not to exceptional know- 
 ledge of God, or to be made in an exclusive sense 
 a holy people. In the New Testament there is a 
 deeper doctrine of election, taught especially in 
 Paul’s epistles. But then Paul speaks as a theo- 
 logical doctor, and we must take his doctrine for 
 what it is worth. 
 
 One wonders that a man holding such views should 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS, 37 
 
 continue to speak of a revelation, or to believe in it 
 in any special, distinctive sense. Indeed, we know 
 that with his speculative opinions Spinoza could not 
 believe in a revelation, in the sense of a communi- 
 cation of truth to men by the living God with the 
 intention of promoting their happiness. He was a 
 Pantheist, and believed in no living God, in no God 
 capable of cherishing intentions or performing special 
 acts. But he does not say so plainly in the 77vac- 
 tatus, but keeps his philosophy in the background, 
 and accommodates his language to theistic opinions 
 that he may reason with Theists on their own terms: 
 Yet his speculative bias is plain enough from many 
 indications, and very specially from the views which 
 he expresses on the subject of miracles. These are 
 in brief as follows: A miracle, in the sense of an 
 event contrary to nature, is impossible, the order of 
 nature being fixed and immutable. The so-called 
 miracles of Scripture, if real occurrences, were simply 
 events whose natural causes are unknown. If from 
 the nature of the case any recorded event could not 
 possibly have had a natural cause; e@,g., the resurrec- 
 tion of a dead man, then the narrative must be held 
 to be false, and probably added to the sacred wri- 
 tings by sacrilegious hands. From miracles, however 
 conceived, whether as events contrary to nature or as 
 events due to natural but obscure, unknown causes, 
 we can learn nothing, either as to the being, or the 
 essence, or the character of God. They are simply 
 
38 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 i airtel NE a a a 
 
 prodigies or accidents without significance. We can 
 know God only through the fixed course of nature, 
 whose laws are the expression of His eternal will and 
 decrees. Of course, on this view, the miraculous ele- 
 ment in Scripture, so far from being the medium of 
 a very special revelation, is no revelation at all. Nay, 
 on such a view of the miraculous, the very word reve- 
 lation, as applied to Scripture, is evacuated of mean- 
 ing, and its use ought to be discontinued, as fitted to 
 foster delusion. For a special revelation, made with 
 a definite purpose, is essentially miraculous ; and 
 if miracle is to be discarded, words which imply 
 miracle should be discarded also. In the work we 
 have been speaking of, Spinoza did not choose to be 
 thoroughly self-consistent. He preferred to occupy 
 pro tempore the position of one who believed the 
 Bible to be the word of God, given for a special 
 purpose. But he found himself somewhat at a loss 
 to tell what the precise end served was. He sup- 
 poses some one to ask the question, What is the use 
 of the Bible, seeing we cannot learn from it any 
 definite doctrine concerning the nature and attributes 
 of God, but only a few elementary truths of morality 
 and religion, such as the light of reason can reveal to 
 thoughtful minds? And he gives this somewhat 
 enigmatical answer: “Since we cannot perceive by 
 the light of nature that simple obedience is the way 
 to salvation, and that revelation alone teaches us that 
 that is accomplished by the singular grace of God, 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 32 
 
 which we cannot attain by reason, hence it follows 
 that Scripture has brought an exceedingly great con- 
 solation to mortals. For while all without exception 
 can obey, there are comparatively very few who 
 acquire the habit of virtue by the sole guidance of 
 reason ; and therefore, unless we had the testimony of 
 Scripture, we might doubt concerning the salvation 
 of almost all men.” These sentences produce the im- 
 pression that their author was puzzled to discover a 
 presentable ground for the necessity of revelation. 
 His real opinion, doubtless, was, that a revelation was 
 unnecessary, as, on his philosophy, we know it to be 
 impossible. 
 
 In the century following that in which Spinoza 
 lived, the same tendency to connect the idea of reve- 
 lation exclusively with practice was favoured by the 
 founder of the critical philosophy and his disciples. 
 Kant and Fichte were specially conspicuous advo- 
 cates of the doctrine that the proper subject of all 
 revelation is Jaw. The former restricted the sphere 
 of revelation still further, by conceiving of the laws 
 specially revealed as statutory or positive precepts, in 
 contradistinction from moral laws, The communica- 
 tion of such positive precepts by special revelation he 
 represented as made necessary by the weakness of 
 human nature. Not otherwise can a kingdom of God, 
 or a society of men associated together for ethical 
 ends, come into actual being. Such a society is very 
 needful to help individuals to fight with evil and to 
 
40 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 do good; and if all men earnestly bent on obeying 
 the law written on the heart were to unite together 
 for mutual aid in the culture of morality, they would 
 constitute a kingdom of God, or Church. But unfor- 
 tunately men have never been able to establish an 
 ethical society on the basis of the dictates of pure 
 practical “reason> They “have “ever “been @hardaam 
 persuade that a good life is all that God demands 
 of them; they have imagined that their duty to 
 Him must consist in some special service which He 
 requires of them. But we can learn what service 
 God requires of us, how He would have us honour 
 Him,—so far as this honour goes beyond our general 
 moral obligation,—only by an express declaration of 
 His will. This declaration, when made, is a revelation, 
 the contents of which consist in a body of positive 
 precepts relating to religious ritual. The abstract 
 possibility of such a revelation Kant did not deny ; 
 but to maintain its reality in any given case he re- 
 garded as foolhardy, or as probably an act of inten- 
 tional usurpation on the part of one who wished to 
 increase his influence and authority over the people. 
 Belief in such a revelation comes early in a people’s 
 history, and is made possible by their moral rudeness, 
 of which their wise men take advantage to deceive 
 them for their good.! 
 
 1 Vide “* Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blosen Vernunft,” 
 III. 1.5; also Zeller, “ Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie,” 
 p. 500. 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 41 
 
 Fichte, on the other hand, conceived of revelation 
 as having for its proper sphere moral law. The design 
 of all possible revelation, in his view, could only be 
 to bring the claims of the moral law to bear with 
 increased power upon the minds of men in a weak 
 rude moral condition. In his first publication, entitled 
 An Attempt at a Criticism of all Revelation, which 
 had for its aim to apply the principles of the Kantian 
 philosophy to the subject of revealed religion, Fichte 
 defined the idea of revelation as the idea of an 
 appearance produced by the Divine causality in the 
 world of sense, whereby God makes Himself known 
 asmoral Legislator. Such anappearance he admitted 
 to be physically possible, and, when taking place for 
 the purpose of educating morally rude men capable 
 of being influenced only by what addressed itself 
 to their senses, not unworthy of God; for, though it 
 may seem to degrade God by making Him a peda- 
 sogue, yet in truth nothing is unworthy of God that 
 is not contrary to the moral law. The Divine Being 
 may humble Himself in the interests of morality; and 
 if it be found impossible in any other way to promote 
 the moral education of the race than by a promulga- 
 tion of duty amid miraculous accompaniments fitted 
 to awaken awe, right reason cannot object to Deity 
 condescending to man’s need. ‘This theory seems to 
 have the merit of making room for at least such a 
 revelation of law as that made to Israel on Sinai. 
 The practical conclusion, however, of Fichte’s criti- 
 
ATLSCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 > 
 WN 
 
 cism is a’sceptical one. While the abstract possibility 
 of a revelation is admitted, its verzfiableness is in 
 effect denied. Revelation, in Fichte’s philosophy, as 
 in Kant’s, comes to mean dée/zef in revelation; and 
 the belief has its origin, not in any objective Divine 
 manifestation, but in devices of wise men to make an 
 impression on the minds of the multitude. It is the 
 old story of deceit for a beneficent purpose.! 
 
 Coming down, now, to our own time, we find the 
 ethical view of revelation, so called, espoused and 
 advocated with literary grace and persuasiveness by 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold in the work already referred to. 
 Mr. Arnold’s way of regarding the Bible has more 
 affinity with Spinoza’s than with that of the critical 
 philosophers, in so far as it insists on the general 
 tendency of the Scriptures to promote the habit 
 of virtue, rather than on any special instruction 
 which they convey on the rules of conduct. Of 
 Spinoza Mr. Arnold remarks, that he is coming 
 more and more to the front. The cbservation is 
 just; many things confirm it: the appearance of 
 new editions of his works, of translations in our 
 language of some of his particular treatises, such 
 as the “ Tractatus,” of which I have already given 
 some account, and of original studies on his life 
 and philosophy;? the increasing prevalence of 
 
 1 Vide Fichte’s Werke, 5ter Band, p. 81. 
 * One of the most recent works on Spinoza’s life and philo- 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 43 
 
 _——-— 
 
 Pantheistic modes of thought more or less trace- 
 able to his influence; the prominent notice taken of 
 his opinions on miracles and other topics in Apolo- 
 getic literature. In one sense, the more he comes 
 to the front the better, for to know Spinoza is the — 
 best way to understand modern philosophy and the- 
 ology. In his “Ethics” we find a key which opens 
 to us many mysteries in such writers as Hegel, 
 Schelling, and Schleiermacher, I may indeed almost 
 say in Continental systems of speculative thought 
 generally. In that work is set forth in short com- 
 pass, and in clear incisive style, and without reserve, 
 the doctrines whereof more recent systems are to a 
 large extent but voluminous and not very intelligible 
 elaborations. In Spinoza we are at the sources of 
 the Nile, starting from which we may with tolerable 
 certainty track the downward course of the mystic 
 river of Pantheism. And if one wishes to know the 
 practical outcome of Pantheism, he need not leave 
 the fountain-head. As from Spinoza he can learn 
 the essential features of the Pantheistic theory of the 
 universe, so from him also he can learn the weak 
 points of the theory. For in him is no disguise, no 
 prudential reservation, no accommodation to exist- 
 ing fashions of thought, on such topics as human 
 
 sophy is that of Pollock (1880). In the last chapter the author 
 gives an account of the influence of Spinoza on modern thought. 
 Vide also Martineau’s * Study of Spinoza” (1882). 
 
44 MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 freedom, the reality of moral evil, and the life to 
 come; but a blunt denial of all our most cherished 
 beliefs on these and kindred topics. But what I 
 wished to say was, that no better evidence of the 
 truth of Mr. Arnold’s remark concerning Spinoza 
 need be sought than that furnished in his own 
 writings. In “ Literature and Dogma,” in particu- 
 lar, Spinoza does come to the front dressed up in 
 attractive modern guise, as a smart modern man of 
 letters and child of nineteenth-century culture, but 
 still plainly recognisable by his unmistakable Jew- 
 ish physiognomy. “Literature and Dogma” is to 
 a large extent just the Zvactatus popularized and 
 reproduced with much expository skill and easy 
 grace of style. Arnold, like Spinoza, conceives of 
 the Bible as a book, not of Dogma but of Conduct. 
 Its function is, not to teach us doctrines about God 
 or other transcendental topics, but to set forth the 
 supreme value of right conduct; and its claim to 
 the lasting reverence and gratitude of mankind rests 
 on the fact that it has performed this high task 
 incomparably well. So far from being a book of 
 dogmatic divinity, the Bible does not so much as 
 declare in a dogmatic theological sense that God 
 exists, or that He is personal, or that He is a Being 
 to whom you can with propriety apply the masculine 
 pronoun. But there is one thing the Bible does, 
 over and above emphasizing the supreme importance 
 of conduct. It recognises and proclaims with due 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 45 
 emphasis the great truth that there is a power in the 
 world not ourselves making for righteousness, tending 
 to bring about a correspondence between character 
 and lot, and so to make the good happy and the 
 wicked miserable. This is not a dogma, but a fact 
 which is capable of being verified by observation and 
 by the study of history, and which may be admitted 
 by all men, irrespective of their speculative opinions, 
 by Atheists and Pantheists and Materialists, not less 
 than by Theists. In this affirmation Mr. Arnold is 
 certainly right, for the fact in question has been 
 acknowledged by men of all schools, and by some 
 it has been asserted with even greater emphasis than 
 by himself; by none in modern times with more 
 power than by Thomas Carlyle. The author of 
 “Literature and Dogma” has the merit of coining 
 a new phrase to describe the old fact ; but his phrase 
 means just what other men have spoken of by other 
 names. Even Strauss, Atheist and Materialist 
 though he was in his later days, acknowledged the 
 fact denoted by Mr. Arnold’s Power not ourselves, 
 under the name of the moral order of the world, in 
 some respects a preferable expression. But the 
 author of ‘Literature and Dogma” makes no claim 
 to have discovered the fact. The service which he 
 claims to have rendered in his work, is to have duly 
 directed the attention of his contemporaries to the 
 relation of the Bible writers to the fact, which he 
 thinks has been greatly lost sight of in consequence 
 
46 MISCONCEPTIONS: 
 
 of the misuse of the Bible by professional inter- 
 preters, who have looked into the sacred writings 
 only for their pet dogmas. The Bible writers, he 
 tells us, though they lived many centuries ago, had 
 eyes to discern this great fact. They have also been 
 able in their writings to give it adequate powerful 
 expression. Properly speaking, these writings have 
 no other aim than to assert the fact in every 
 possible form, as a motive to right conduct. They 
 do not all assert it in. the. same way.) [hemi 
 Testament writers sought the proofs that the Power 
 not ourselves is at work too much in outward lot; 
 and inasmuch as that power in its working only dends 
 to unite righteousness and felicity, and does not by 
 any means fully reach the goal, their minds became 
 perplexed, and they set about supplementing their 
 erand fundamental doctrine by inventing fairy tales 
 about a Messiah and a Messianic kingdom, and a 
 life hereafter. Jesus came and taught men a new 
 method of getting the reward of righteousness, which 
 made them independent of outward events — the 
 method, viz., of seeking felicity within, in the state 
 of the spirit; and a new secret for bringing blessed- 
 ness into the heart, viz. selfdenial, His wasmine 
 perfect doctrine. But even the ancient Hebrew 
 prophets, with all their errors and _ superstitions, 
 rendered an inestimable service to mankind by their 
 proclamation of the truth that conduct is the su- 
 -premely important thing, and that the Power not 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS. 47 
 
 ourselves,—what they called the Eternal God,—is on 
 the side of righteousness, This doctrine was worthy 
 to be called a revelation, if any utterances of the 
 human mind may receive that name; and the Bible 
 is the best of all books because, more than all other — 
 books, it directs men’s attention to that which is at 
 least three-fourths of human life, and more to be 
 regarded by far than culture, or art, or any other 
 human interest. After we have removed from the 
 ancient book all that is erroneous or worthless,— 
 miraculous narratives, fairy tales of a future golden 
 age, incredible dogmas, there remains a large mass 
 of inestimably precious material devoted to the 
 praise of righteousness and the inculcation of pure 
 morality, with an enthusiasm which raises ethics to 
 the dignity of religion. 
 
 I have no desire to undervalue the service ren- 
 dered by Mr. Arnold to the Bible by the view of 
 it which he has presented in so attractive a garb. 
 Still less do I desire to undervalue the Bible 
 viewed simply as'a book, such as he makes it—a 
 book which is pervaded by a noble passion for 
 righteousness, and by an intense belief in the 
 reality of a moral order of the world. Whatever 
 more may be said of the Bible, it is certainly true 
 that it possesses these characteristics in a degree 
 altogether unique. The Bible stands alone among 
 books for the emphatic and persistent way in which 
 it exalts morality, righteousness, to the sovereign 
 
 + 
 
48 ALISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 place among human interests, and for the glowing 
 eloquence with which in all its parts it declares the 
 truth that verily there is a reward for the righteous, 
 and a God that judgeth upon the earth; and on 
 this account it must ever continue to command the 
 reverent respect of all morally earnest men, what- 
 ever their theological position. But the question 
 stands over, whether Mr. Arnold, in directing 
 attention to these characteristics, has given a full 
 account of the Bible, or has even pointed out its 
 chief peculiarity. In connection with that, another 
 question has to be asked, viz., whether miracles can, 
 as Mr. Arnold alleges, be removed from the Bible 
 without material injury to its utility, or without 
 affecting our conception of its chief end. “There 
 is nothing,” says this author, “one would more. 
 desire for a person or document one greatly values, 
 than to make them independent of miracles. And 
 with regard to the Old Testament we have done 
 this, for we have shown that the essential matter 
 in the Old Testament is the revelation to Israel of 
 the immeasurable grandeur, the eternal necessity, 
 the priceless blessing of that with which not less 
 than three-fourths of human life is indeed concerned, 
 righteousness. And it makes no difference to the 
 preciousness of this revelation whether we believe 
 that the Red Sea miraculously opened a passage 
 to the Israelites, and the walls of Jericho miraculously 
 fell down at the blast of Joshua’s trumpet, or that 
 
AITSCONCEPTIONS. 49 
 these stories arose in the same way as other stories 
 of the kind.”! I am not careful to dispute this 
 statement. But suppose the Bible as it stands con- 
 tains another idea even more characteristic than the 
 one Mr. Arnold signalizes, an idea to which miracle,— 
 not, of course, this or that miracle,-but a miraculous 
 element,—is essential. In that case, to omit miracles 
 will simply signify changing the very fact-basis on 
 which our theory of revelation rests. The Bible may 
 still contain much edifying matter, but it will be 
 an entirely different book. It will convey different 
 ideas from the actual Bible concerning God, man, 
 and the world and their relations; that is to say, 
 it will teach by implication a different theory of 
 . the universe. The mutilated Bible will suggest a 
 different view of the reason of its own existence, 
 so different that it will be as it were the play of 
 Hamlet without the part of Hamlet. That there is 
 such an idea in the Bible I believe, and in the next 
 chapter I will endeavour to explain what it is. 
 
 Seelicerature ana Worma, po. 123, 124: 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 5t 
 
CHAPTER= if: 
 
 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 N proceeding now to explain my view as to the 
 chief design of revelation, it may be well to 
 preface the discussion with a few remarks on the 
 sense to be attached to the term Revelation. In last 
 chapter I hinted parenthetically that Revelation and 
 the Bible are not to be identified, as if the two terms 
 were in all respects synonymous, and I may now 
 briefly state the grounds of that opinion. There are 
 then certain advantages to be gained from keeping in 
 view the distinction between Revelation and Scrip- 
 ture, while, of course, ever recognising their intimate 
 relations to each other. In the first place, the formal 
 and deliberate recognition of the distinction may help 
 us to wean ourselves from the one-sided doctrinaire 
 conception of revelation which has so extensively 
 prevailed in past times. Then, further, if once we get 
 it into our mind, that Revelation is one thing, Scripture 
 another though closely related thing, being in truth 
 its record, interpretation, and reflection, it will help 
 to make us independent of questions concerning the 
 * dates of books. When the various parts of the Bible 
 
 eS 
 
54 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 ——et 
 
 were written, is an obscure and difficult question on 
 which much learned debate has taken place, and is 
 still going on; and we must be content to let the 
 debate run its course, for it will not be stopped either 
 by our wishes or by ecclesiastical authority. And 
 one thing which will help us to be patient, is a clear 
 perception that the order in which revelation was given 
 is to be distinguished ‘from the order in which the 
 books which contain the record thereof were written. 
 It is conceivable that revelations might be given in 
 the inverse order to that in which they were recorded. 
 Thus, e.g, a certain school of critics tell us that the 
 more important prophetic writings are of earlier date 
 than the legal portions of the Pentateuch ; that in fact, 
 so far as the literary record of revelation goes, the 
 Prophets were before the Law, not after it, as the 
 familiar phrase, “the Law and the Prophets” implies. 
 But the law may have preceded prophecy in revelation 
 though not in writing ; in which case not only will the 
 phrase “ Law and Prophets” still have its truth, but, 
 what is of much more importance, the natural order 
 of sequence will be observed in the Bible history of 
 the course of revelation. 
 
 But a still more important advantage than either 
 of the foregoing is to be reaped from keeping in view 
 the distinction in question. It is this, that the dis- 
 tinction makes room for the idea that possibly the 
 revelation which God has made to men consisted, not 
 in words exclusively, or even chiefly, but in deeds as 
 
THE? CHIEF (DESIGN OF KEVELATION. 55 
 
 well, yea in deeds above all, forming, when connected 
 together, a very remarkable history. What if the 
 most appropriate formula for the act of revelation 
 were, not, “Thus saith the Lord,” but ‘“ Thus did 
 the Lord”? In that case we could imagine a very 
 important revelation taking place, and entering as 
 a divine element into human history, without such a 
 book as the Bible coming into existence at all. A 
 book is not necessary to the being ofa revelation. It 
 may be necessary to its well-being, that is, to insure 
 that the revelation shall accomplish the ends for which 
 it was given ; though here we do well to bear in mind 
 the caution of Bishop Butler, that we are no judges 
 whether a revelation not committed to writing would 
 or would not have answered its purpose. As an 
 antidote to the tendency of believing minds to pro- 
 nounce dogmatically on such questions, he remarks 
 very pertinently: “I ask, What purpose? It would 
 not have answered all the purposes which it has now 
 answered, and in the same degree; but it would have 
 answered others, or the same in different degrees. 
 And which of these were the purposes of God, and 
 best fellin with His general government, we could not 
 at all have determined beforehand.”! But without 
 pressing such considerations, it may be admitted that 
 a record of revelation of some sort, oral or written, 
 was indispensable; though there is truth in the 
 
 er nn 
 
 1“ Analogy,” Part II. chap. iii. 
 
56 FITES CHIEF DESIGN: OF FRIGV BLEALIORN 
 
 remark of Rothe, that “ Divine revelation works on 
 incessantly as co-efficient in all human knowledge, 
 independently of its being known and recognised as 
 revelation.”! It may further be admitted that an 
 oral record, by means of one generation showing 
 God’s works to another, is so liable to corruption, that 
 a written record may be pronounced, in the language 
 of the Westminster Confession, “ most necessary ;” ? 
 that ‘is to say, of such-a high depree Of utiniyaes 
 amounts to a practical necessity. My present ob- 
 ject is not, of course, to disparage the value of Holy 
 Scripture, but to assert the possibility of a reve- 
 lation without a Bible, and that in the interest of 
 a conception of revelation to which the Bible itself 
 does ample justice, and which alone enables us to 
 do full justice to the Bible. Put the book foremost 
 in your idea of revelation, and you almost inevitably 
 think of revelation as consisting in words, doctrines. 
 Put it in the background for a moment, forget at this 
 stage that there is a book, and you make room in 
 your mind for the idea that revelation may proceed 
 by acts as well as words, even more characteristically 
 than by words. It is very necessary that we should 
 have this idea in our minds in advancing to the con- 
 sideration of the question, What is the chief end of 
 revelation? for it will appear that that end was such 
 as to demand Divine self-manifestation by action, 
 
 1.“ Zur Dogmatik,” p.-73; 4-Chapter ist; 
 
Tile ClILFODESIGN: OF KEVELATION. 57 
 
 not to the exclusion of words, but by action very spe- 
 cially—by acts of the miraculous order largely, such 
 as those which Mr. Arnold thinks he can eliminate 
 from the Bible without detriment to its practical 
 value. 7 
 
 Revelation, then, does not mean causing a sacred 
 book to be written for the religious instruction of 
 mankind. What then does it mean? It signifies 
 God manifesting Himself in the history of the world 
 in a supernatural manner and for a special purpose. 
 Manifesting //zself,; for the proper subject of reve- 
 lation is God. The Revealer is also the Revealed. 
 This is recognised in the words of the Westminster 
 Confession: “It pleased the Lord to reveal Himself, 
 and to declare that His will unto Hischurch.”! Mani- 
 festing Himself in zstory, I add, to distinguish the 
 revelation now under discussion from that which God 
 has made of Himself in Wature. The words, “ina 
 supernatural manner and for a special purpose,” are 
 included in the definition to distinguish the subject 
 under consideration from that revelation of God as a 
 moral Governor which is discernible in the ordinary 
 course of Providence. I believe that we have the 
 record of such a special revelation in the Bible, and 
 the question I have undertaken to discuss is, What is 
 its nature and design? In other words: If revelation 
 in general signify Divine self-manifestion, under what 
 
 Chapter ial. 
 
58 Tit CHIEF DESIGN OF TKEVELAZION, 
 
 —— ene 
 
 aspect did God manifest Himself in that revelation 
 whereof we have a record in the Holy Scriptures ? 
 
 To that question my reply is: The revelation 
 recorded in the Scriptures is before all things a self- 
 manifestation of God, as the God of grace. In that 
 revelation God appears as one who cherishes a 
 gracious purpose towards the human race. The 
 revelation consists, not in the mere intimation of the 
 purpose, but more especially in the slow but steadfast 
 execution of it by a connected series of transactions 
 which all point in one direction, and at length reach 
 their goal in the realisation of the end contemplated 
 from the first. As has been well said: “If we have 
 any revelation from God at all, we have it at the heart 
 of a great historical development; and if we are to 
 find the evidence of it anywhere, we must seek for it as 
 the cause and vital force of historical movements and - 
 events which otherwise would never have arisen, or, 
 at least, would not have assumed their special shape 
 and significance.”! The animating soul of this 
 historical movement was a purpose of grace, in which, 
 as eventually became apparent, all mankind was 
 concerned, though the fact was hid during the ages of 
 preparation. But as the word “grace” is in certain 
 departments of theology associated with very mys- 
 
 1 Vide “Old Faiths in New Light,” by Newman Smyth; 
 English Edition, p. 24. This is a spirited attempt to adjust the 
 defence of Revelation to the idea of Evolution, which I had 
 much pleasure in introducing to the notice of the British public 
 in the first edition of this work. 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 59 
 
 terious ideas, I must be careful to clear it as much 
 as possible of associations fitted to create a prejudice 
 at this stage. It is used here in a very simple, intel- 
 ligible sense, which can be easily defined by a form 
 of expression antithetical to that employed by Mr. | 
 Arnold to define his idea of God. Mr. Arnold de- 
 scribes God as “a Power, not ourselves, making for 
 righteousness.” When we speak of God as the God 
 of grace, we mean to represent Him as a Power, not 
 ourselves, making for mercy; a Power that dealeth 
 not with men after their sins, but overcometh evil 
 with good; a Power acting as a redeeming, healing 
 influence on the moral and spiritual disease of the 
 world. This is assuredly a God-worthy represen- 
 tation. Grace, so defined, is indeed the highest 
 category under which we can think of God. It rises 
 as much above righteousness as righteousness rises 
 above the category under which natural religion 
 conceives God, that, viz, of Might directed by 
 intelligence. A God of righteousness is certainly a 
 great advance on a God of mere power; yet it is 
 only a step upwards towards a higher idea of God, 
 in which the Divine Being becomes Self-communi- 
 cating Redeeming Love. God cannot be said to 
 have been fully revealed till He has been revealed 
 in this aspect. And as God has manifested Himself. 
 in nature as Power controlled by intelligence, and in 
 
 1 Vid. Schweitzer, “‘ Glaubenslehre,” vol. i. p. 311. 
 
69 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 the moral order of the world as a Righteous Ruler, so 
 we should expect to find Him revealing Himself as 
 a loving Father or gracious Redeemer. It cannot be 
 denied that such a revelation is very much needed, 
 The moral condition of the human race makes it very 
 desirable. I speak of that condition simply as it re- 
 veals itself to observation, without assuming that we 
 know anything of its ‘cause. The doctrine of a Fall 
 may or may not be true; at present, I do not care 
 or need to know. However sin came into the world, 
 the fact is, it is here, bringing manifold misery in its 
 train. And on any theory as to the origin of sin, it 
 is very desirable that it should, if possible, be cast out, 
 and the manifold evils it has caused be cured. It were 
 eminently worthy of God to undertake the task; and 
 that He should undertake it is not only conceivable 
 but probable. What more worthy of God, and there- 
 fore what more likely, than that He, looking down 
 on a race enveloped in moral darkness and corruption, 
 should be moved with compassion, and resolve to do 
 all that is possible to dispel the darkness by com- 
 municating the knowledge of Himself, and to remove 
 the corruption by measures fitted to elevate and 
 purify? And if mian’s state creates a neéd"forua 
 revelation of grace, it cannot be said that Nature or 
 ordinary Providence supplies all the revelation that 
 is required. It is true, indeed, as Bishop Butler has 
 pointed out,—for few things have escaped him,—that 
 there is a kind of rudimentary Gospel even in nature, 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION 61 
 ee ist 9 re pee ee 
 hints that the God who made the world is one in 
 whom a compassionate spirit dwells, and dim foresha- 
 dowings of a higher kingdom in which grace exer- 
 cises free sway.! Health injured by folly can, within 
 certain limits, be recovered; diseases have their re- 
 medies, some known, more perhaps as yet unknown ; 
 broken bones knit again. Many such things there are 
 to remind us that the constitution of nature is on the 
 side of mercy, and that when men talk of the inexor- 
 able way in which natural law works on, inflicting 
 penalties for transgression irrespective of all changes 
 of mind on the part of the transgressor, they are only 
 looking at one side of a matter which has two sides. 
 In like manner it may be said of the moral order 
 of the world, that it is not merely a Power making 
 for righteousness and against unrighteousness,—that is 
 to say, playing the part of a retributive justice,—but 
 muicover, a Power that dealeth not with men after 
 their sins, but is merciful and gracious, and slow to 
 anger, and repenteth of the evil threatened, Some of 
 the scripture declarations to this effect concerning 
 God, are simply readings off from the phenomena 
 presented by ordinary Providence. Still, while all 
 this is to be thankfully acknowledged, it remains true 
 that the Gospel in Nature and in ordinary Providence 
 is very dim and rudimentary. It is but the starlight 
 of Divine Love, and casts only a faint ray of hope on 
 
 a car Te Pe 
 
 1“ Analogy,” Part II. chapter v, 
 
62 THE CHIEF DESIGN “OF REVELATION: 
 
 the moral destiny of man. The revelation of grace 
 in these lower spheres comes far short of gracious 
 possibilities. We can conceive manifestations of 
 srace far in excess of those vouchsafed in the order 
 of nature or in the history of nations. These lower 
 manifestations, far from contenting us, only make us 
 long for scmething more unmistakable in intention 
 and more effective in influence, and inspire in our 
 souls the hope that, the dim starlight of grace having 
 been given, the sunlight will not be withheld. 
 
 To no one who accepts the theistic view of the 
 universe ought the fulfilment of this hope to seem 
 incredible. We know, of course, that such an ex- 
 pectation must appear a dream to the thorough- 
 going advocates of philosophic naturalism. Such a 
 Divine self-manifestation as is the object of the hope, 
 is impossible except on a conception of God which 
 naturalism disallows. Moreover, the end for which 
 the manifestation takes place,—the redemption of man, 
 the cure of moral evil,—appears from the same view- 
 point unattainable. It was one of the chief objec- 
 tions of Gelsus to the Incarnation, that it hademn 
 view an unattainable purpose. Moral evil, he said, 
 springs from a necessity of nature, having its origin 
 in matter, and its amount is constant and invariable. 
 Even if temporary amelioration were practicable, 
 it is hardly worth the trouble, for all things are 
 subject to the law of periodicity. That which has 
 -been shall be. The present state of things will 
 
eC LPS CIR ORGREVELALTION: 63 
 reproduce itself in some future zeon—any present 
 state of things you choose to think of. As Origen 
 remarked, this doctrine, if true, is manifestly sub- 
 versive of Christianity, for it is idle to speak of a 
 redemptive economy acting on free agents by moral. 
 influences, where a reign of necessity obtains; and 
 if all things must eventually return to the state they 
 were once in, then man’s unredeemed state must 
 have its turn, and Christ shall have died in vain. 
 Modern naturalistic philosophy, whether pessimistic 
 or optimistic in tendency, equally excludes the idea 
 of redemption in any real sense of the word. The 
 pessimist denies, not only that the world can be 
 made better by any outside influence, but even that 
 it has any inherent tendency to grow better. Things 
 in general, and men in particular, are going on 
 from bad to worse ; and the only deliverance possible 
 from the moral and physical evil so widely prevalent, 
 is that the universe should cease to exist. Opti- 
 mistic naturalism takes a more cheerful view of the 
 situation. There is a steady progress onwards in 
 the universe of being, both in the physical and in 
 the moral sphere. The world, says Strauss, is not 
 planned by a highest reason, but it has the highest 
 reason for its goal. In like manner it may be, and 
 by Strauss and others is, admitted that the ten- 
 dency in the moral sphere is towards an ever 
 increasing realisation of the ideal moral order. But 
 this hope for the future, as cherished by atheistic 
 
64 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 evolutionists, is not based on any belief in a Divine 
 influence, or even in the free exercise of his moral 
 faculties by man. To such thinkers, man is not a 
 free being ; and his moral improvement, if it deserves 
 the name, is the result of the upward tendency of 
 all surrounding cosmic influences. 
 
 No one who believes that there is a God, and 
 that man is a moral personality, will rest satisfied 
 with this theory of redemption by a purely physical 
 evolution. However naturalistic in tendency, how- 
 ever much influenced by the sceptical spirit of the 
 age, he will strive to hold fast, though it were in 
 the baldest form, the idea of a redemption—a moral 
 amelioration, springing out of influences that can 
 be traced up to God as their source, and that act 
 on man’s reason and will and better inclinations. 
 Repudiating all belief in supernatural grace, in the 
 sense of the creeds, as a source of moral regeneration, 
 and in an objective Atonement, he will yet base his 
 hope for the transformation of human character, not 
 only on the elements of good to be found even in 
 the most depraved, and on the beneficent constitu- 
 tion of the universe acting on these from without, 
 and provoking them into conflict with the’ evil 
 within, and otherwise influencing men for good 
 even when they are unconscious of it, but on “the 
 action of the Divine idea, as the Gospel presents it, 
 upon the reason of man—the idea given in that 
 revelation of the Divine good-will, or paternal 
 
tiie, CHIEF DESIGN: OF REVELATION. 65 
 
 relation toward us, by which Christ has reinforced 
 our better nature, enabling us to be intelligent 
 fellow-workers with God in our conflict with evil, 
 and giving a higher aim to our life”! From the - 
 orthodox point of view this is certainly a very 
 unsatisfactory account of the renovating power of 
 Christianity ; indeed, a more meagre and colourless 
 theory of Redemption it is hardly possible to con- 
 ceive. It contains, however, one thing in advance 
 of optimistic evolutionism, viz. the recognition of 
 the inspiring influence of the Christian idea of God, 
 as a God of love, or, in relation to sin, a God of 
 erace. This idea the advocates of the theory call 
 a revelation, in the sense that Christ, by His superior 
 insight, for the first time discovered the import of 
 the fact that the tendency of the influences by 
 which we are surrounded in this world is on the 
 whole in favour of good, rather than of evil. This 
 tendency they regard as a feature impressed by God 
 on the creation, and as an evidence of His design’ 
 to secure the triumph of what is good, and to deliver 
 men from the power of evil. And it is regarded as 
 Christ’s great merit, to have proclaimed to the world 
 the significance of this divinely originated beneficent 
 constitution of things. “After being hidden from 
 human vision for long ages, or only partially sur- 
 
 1 Vide “Scotch Sermons.” Sermon X., on Zhe Renovating 
 Power of Christianity. By the Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D. 
 
 F 
 
66 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 mised by other teachers, this design was at- length 
 brought fully to light, and presented to our faith by 
 the Founder of Christianity.”! The merit of this 
 theory, in the eyes of modern culture, will be, that 
 it reduces the fact-basis of its doctrine of redemption 
 to something which can be acknowledged by men 
 of all creeds, theistic or atheistic, provided they are 
 not pessimists. What it builds on that fact-basis is 
 the inspiring elevating power that lies in conceiving 
 of the Author of the beneficent constitution of the 
 universe as a Father. And without doubt there is 
 much in a name; yet it is questionable whether it 
 be worth while formulating a distinctive doctrine of 
 renovation, when it differs in nothing but a name 
 from the creed of Agnosticism. Strauss believed in 
 the beneficent tendencies of the Universum. What 
 creat difference does it make whether I call the 
 stream of tendency Universum or father? The one 
 name is warmer than the other, that is all. Every 
 one whose mind is not completely dominated by 
 the naturalistic spirit of the age, will turn from so 
 bald a doctrine in quest of a theory that shall fill 
 the word grace with more meaning, and bring to 
 bear on mana more powerful force tending towards 
 the improvement of his moral condition. 
 
 We rise at least one degree in our idea of a reve- 
 lation of grace, when we see in Christ, not merely 
 
 ee 
 
 1 “ Scotch Sermons.” Sermon XN, 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 67 
 
 one who read off accurately the beneficent tendency 
 of the universe, for the enlightenment of mankind, 
 but one who in His own person presented to view 
 at once the ideal of humanity perfectly realised, and. 
 the fulness of Divine grace. If Christ be the sinless 
 man, and if,—in His wondrous sympathy with the 
 sinful, which made Him love them in spite of their 
 moral loathsomeness, and hope for their repentance 
 when others despaired,—He be the revealer, or exe- 
 sete of the very inmost Spirit of God, then He is ina 
 most real sense a supernatural self-manifestation of 
 God as the God of grace. A sinless man is a moral 
 miracle ; and the gift of him to the world is an act 
 of creative power in which grace is revealed, because 
 the aim of the gift is to show to men their own 
 ideal, that by it, hovering above them in peerless 
 excellence, they may be drawn upwards to the 
 heights of virtue. A man full of love to the sinful, 
 though personally sinless, is still more emphatically 
 a revelation of grace, because in him God makes 
 known to men for their comfort the depths of pity 
 for the guilty hidden in the Divine bosom. Sucha 
 man, sinless yet sympathetic, awakens in me many 
 emotions fitted to act as motives to virtue. As an 
 ideal, he excites admiration and aspiration, and 
 likewise shame, sorrow, humiliation, in view of my 
 moral shortcoming, revealed to my view in darkest 
 colours by the contrast between his character and 
 my own, As a sympathetic friend and brother, he 
 
A8 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 quickens in the breast of a penitent hope, at the 
 moment when he is prone to give way to despair. 
 What more likely than that such a man should be 
 sent into the world in the course of the ages, to 
 be at once the crown of the first creation and the 
 starting point of a new career of infinite hope for 
 mankind, the head of a new humanity? And what 
 more worthy of God than to undertake in good 
 time the work of preparing the world for the advent 
 of such a divinely endowed Man, so that he might 
 come when and where the human race was in the 
 fittest condition to receive and retain his beneficent 
 influence ; determining, eg., the people out of which 
 he should spring, and so guiding their history that 
 he should receive from them the maximum of 
 endowment capable of being transmitted by the 
 law of heredity, and should find in them the best 
 possible leverage for acting on the world? Would 
 not such an historical preparation for the advent of 
 the Divine Man, be a veritable revelation of grace, 
 natural in its gradual progress, yet supernatural in 
 its immanent aim? And would not the Man, when 
 he came, be a fitting consummation to such a 
 divinely guided process? 
 
 In these sentences I have sketched a theory of a 
 supernatural revelation of grace, based on such a 
 conception of the person of Christ as that contained 
 in the Christology of Schleiermacher. It is a theory 
 which reduces the amount of the miraculous element 
 
 a ee a 
 
LHe CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 69 
 
 in revelation to a minimum, for it regards Christ only 
 as a sinless Man in whom the Spirit of God dwelt 
 in the fullest possible measure. It is also a theory 
 which introduces the least possible amount of 
 mystery into the nature of the influence exercised 
 by Christ as Redeemer. He works on the world 
 as a redeeming power by example and by sympathy, 
 by ethical as distinct from what Schleiermacher 
 characterized as magical influence. But in propor- 
 tion as this theory gains in rationality, so to speak, 
 it loses in motive power. For by its conception of 
 Christ as the Ideal Man, it excludes from the num- 
 ber of redeeming influences the power of God in 
 self-sacrifice, which can enter only with faith in the 
 Incarnation. When Christ is regarded as a Divine 
 Being entering into humanity with a redeeming 
 purpose in His heart, we then see in God a Being 
 subjected to sorrow by human sins, and compelled 
 by the instincts and yearnings of His love to be- 
 come a burden-bearer to His own creatures. And 
 through sucha view of God alone do we begin to 
 comprehend what a revelation of grace means. For 
 now we see grace revealing itself, not merely by word, 
 through a doctrine concerning God taught by a 
 @roenete Or by Christ, to’ the effect that He is a 
 Father, and that the essence of His being is love— 
 not by word alone, but by act. And that is germane 
 foethe nature of erace. It is of the nature of true 
 love to reveal itself by deeds as well as words, It 
 
70 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 is only feigned love that speaks kind words without 
 corresponding actions. Grace revealed in doctrine is 
 of value only as the promise. of a higher revelation, 
 in which all gracious possibilities shall be realised ; 
 and only in God subjecting Himself to sacrifice are 
 these possibilities realised. Till I see that spectacle, 
 I can always imagine something higher; but when 
 I see it, I perceive that the limit of gracious possi- 
 bility is touched. In the Cross the revelation of 
 grace reaches its culmination.. And just because it 
 does so, I feel that the Incarnation which makes 
 this result possible is credible, notwithstanding the 
 mystery and the miracle involved in the event. It 
 is inconsistent for any one who believes grace, or 
 love, to be a real attribute of God, to stumble at 
 the supernatural in revelation; for its exclusion 
 simply makes it impossible for the Divine Being 
 to manifest Himself as the God of grace to the 
 full extent of what is involved in the idea of grace. 
 Yet with such inconsistency many in our day are 
 chargeable who are emphatic in their proclamation 
 of the Fatherhood of God, yet accept the philo- 
 sophic doctrine of Divine immanence which makes 
 God a prisoner in nature, unable in any case or 
 for any reason to break through the chain of 
 natural causality. 
 
 Thus Mr. Rathbone Greg, listening to the voice 
 of his heart or his moral consciousness,—the sole 
 source of revelation to the school he belongs to, 
 
tae CHILI DESIGN, OF REVELATION, 71 
 
 that of modern speculative Theism,—feels constrained 
 to think of God as a Personal Fatherly Being. 
 Seotrausss Universum, he tells us, “Comtes Hu- 
 manity, even Mr. Arnold’s stream of tendency that 
 makes for righteousness, excite in me no worship. 
 iscannot pray to the ‘Immensities’ and’ the °“Eter- 
 bese Ol Carlyles “They -protier me, no) Nelp, sthey 
 vouchsafe no sympathy, they suggest no comfort. 
 It may be that sucha personal God isa mere an- 
 thropomorphic creation. But at least in resting in 
 it, I rest in something I almost seem to realize; at 
 least I share the view which Jesus indisputably 
 held of the Father whom He obeyed, communed with 
 and worshipped.”! The words are full of interest, 
 both for the pathetic indication which they give of 
 the craving of the human heart for a living God 
 with whom it can have real communion, even when 
 the intellect is clouded with doubt, and also for the 
 incidental evidence they afford of the unreliableness 
 of the moral consciousness as a source of revelation 
 concerning Divine things. But at least, if the moral 
 consciousness is to be the source of revelation, let 
 it be used consistently. If at the bidding of the 
 heart I am to believe in a God who is a Person, 
 why not at its bidding also believe in a God who 
 is not imprisoned in the world, but can hear prayer, 
 exercise a Providence over all, do miracies, become 
 
 1 “Creed of Christendom.” Introduction, p. xc. 3rd ed. 
 
72 LOE CHIEF DESIGN OF “KEV LLATION, 
 
 man, demonstrate His grace by entering into the 
 measures of humanity and passing through a curricu- 
 lum of temptation and suffering? If God is to be 
 personal, free, good, let Him be it out and out. I 
 desire a God at liberty to do heroic things, to humble 
 Himself. 
 
 Miss Cobbe, another representative of the same 
 school,—on the authority of the same oracle, the 
 moral consciousness,—declares that God is good, 
 and good in our sense of the word. Very well; I 
 accept the dictum cordially, and I point in proof 
 of its truth to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 who, being rich, for our sakes became poor. Modern 
 Theism, with its doctrine of immanence, can point 
 to nothing like that in proof that God is love in 
 the human sense of the word. A God imprisoned 
 in the world has no career for self-sacrifice, that is, 
 He cannot be love as we understand love; for love 
 among men shows itself most reliably and conspicu- 
 ously by self-sacrifice for the good of others. 
 
 If the Incarnation of God for the purpose of 
 acting as a redemptive power in the moral world be, 
 as we have just seen, intrinsically probable on the 
 principles of Theism, there is little room for doubt as 
 to the fitness of Divine self-sacrifice to be a mighty 
 force making for the regeneration of mankind, 
 Therein indeed lies a very power of God unto sal- 
 vation in all who believe. This may be confidently 
 affirmed; quite irrespective of all questions as to rival 
 
WEOCHIEF: DESIGNAOM LEVELATION. 73 
 theories of atonement. The truth of the statement 
 rests on no special theory as to the theological 
 significance of Christ's death, but simply on the fact 
 that the passion of the Saviour was the passion of 
 Deity. Admit that fact, and put on it any theological 
 construction you please,—find in it an objective atone- 
 ment for sin, or only a magnificent demonstration of 
 self-sacrificing love intended to act on the minds 
 Gfeinen as an ethical iniluence; in either casext 
 cannot but prove a truly Divine power making for 
 redemption. The history of the Christian Church 
 supplies sufficient evidence on that score, in the form 
 of multitudes in every age turned from sin to right- 
 eousness, turned, not by particular theories of atone- 
 ment, but by the great broad fact that the Son of 
 God suffered on the cross for man’s sin. The ques- 
 tion as to the right theoretical construction to be 
 put on that fact belongs to Biblical theology, and is 
 simply a question of interpretation. The apologist 
 has no vital interest in the decision. The chief 
 consideration biassing him in favour of the theo- 
 logical doctrine of an oljecteve Atonement, is that, 
 whereas, on the ethical influence theory, Christ’s 
 power to act on the world as Redeemer is limited to 
 those who become acquainted with His history, on 
 this view Christ’s atoning death becomes valid for all 
 time as a sacrifice offered by the Eternal Spirit of 
 holy love, and may exercise an important influence 
 on the destinies of the generations which lived before 
 
va LHE CHIEF DESIGN (CFRREVELATION, 
 
 Ilis advent, as well as of those which came after, and 
 on those who have never heard His name, as well as 
 on those to whom the Gospel has been preached. 
 Those who deny an cbjective Atonement, simply 
 cancel the Godward aspect of Christ’s self-sacrifice ; 
 the human aspect of unspeakable sympathy and 
 love, taking on itself the burden of the world’s sin 
 and misery, remains, with all the ethical power to 
 change the current of the moral affections and to 
 inspire enthusiastic devotion to the Divine kingdom. 
 But the question still remains, whether the Scrip- 
 tures, which purport to be the records of revelation, 
 bear out the view I have given as to the chief end 
 for which a revelation was vouchsafed. Does the 
 literature of the Bible, on thoughtful perusal, convey 
 the impression that its contents chiefly relate to a 
 purpose of grace, and that its great watchword is 
 redemption 2? Now there can be no hesitation as to 
 the answer to be given to this question, so far as the 
 New Testament is concerned. Christianity, the New 
 Testament being witness, is emphatically and before 
 all things the religion of redemption. Mr. Arnold sums 
 up Christ’s teaching in two sentences: “ Seek thy 
 happiness from within, not from without ;” and, “that 
 thou mayest be happy, thou must deny thyself.” 
 Christ did say thesé things; but He had a great deal 
 more to say than they amount to. There are other 
 sayings even more characteristic of His doctrine, and 
 more instructive as to the nature of His mission ; 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 75 
 
 tivo in particular. These are: “The Son of Man is 
 come to save that which was lost,’ and “The King- 
 dom of heaven is at hand.’ The former saying, often 
 uttered by Jesus, implies that His mission had special. 
 reference to the sinful ; anc in accordance with this 
 we find from the Gospel records that He spent much 
 of His time among people belonging to the de- 
 eraded classes of Jewish society. This part of His 
 - conduct, as all know, was much misunderstood, and 
 gave frequent occasion for faultfinding, whereby He 
 was put on His defence. The defences He offered 
 were very striking, very beautiful, and very instructive 
 as to the nature of the religion which He came to 
 inaugurate. He said at one time, “They that be 
 whole need not a Physician, but they that are sick,” 
 to signify that Christianity is a religion of redemp- 
 tion, and therefore busies itself fitly with those who 
 most urgently need remedy. At another time He 
 said in effect, “To whom much is forgiven the same 
 loveth much,” to teach that Christianity not only 
 occupies itself with the sinful, but has an interest 
 in taking pains to make converts from among the 
 greatest offenders, because among these it finds the 
 greatest capacity of devotion. On a third occasion 
 He said, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner 
 repenting, more than over ninety and nine jus‘ 
 persons who need no repentance,” to intimate that 
 in the view of Christianity the meanest of mankind 
 was worth saving; the repentance of even a poor 
 
LWE CHIEF. DESIGN OF REVELATION, 
 
 ~“T 
 Ov 
 
 publican (for such a case was in Christ’s view when 
 He spake the saying quoted) an event of solemn 
 interest, and a most fitting occasion of gladness, 
 From these golden words it is evident that Christ’s 
 mission, in His own view, was, before all, that of a 
 spiritual Healer. And without going into details, for 
 which there is no space, I may remark, that from all 
 our Lord’s recorded utterances, it appears that the 
 Kingdom He proclaimed was a Kingdom of grace, 
 open to all on condition of faith and repentance—a 
 Kingdom whose advent was good news, and which 
 was itself the suszmuim bonum, because therein God 
 in His Paternal Benignity admitted men freely for- 
 given to unrestricted fellowship with Himself, and 
 so united them in fraternal bonds to each other as 
 members of a holy commonwealth. Christ’s teach- 
 ing on both heads, the nature of His own mission 
 and the nature of the Kingdom, was thus full of 
 grace, as He Himself was full of grace, as the Friend 
 of sinners and Redeemer of men. 
 
 In the Pauline conception of Christianity it is not 
 less conspicuously the religion of redemption. Paul 
 indeed seems constantly to be occupied with the idea 
 of righteousness; but righteousness in his pages is 
 really a synonym for grace. The righteousness of the 
 Pauline epistles is usually, though not invariably, an 
 oljective righteousness, not in us but hovering over 
 us, a gift of Divine grace, the righteousness of God 
 given to faith, This may seem a very artificial idea 
 
tHE CHIEF DESIGN, OF VREVELATION. Fe 
 
 of righteousness, but that is a question of words; 
 the thing which Paul is ever thinking of is the 
 grace of God that bringeth salvation. The Master 
 and the Apostle in their respective types of doctrine 
 coincide in the main. They certainly contemplate 
 the same thing, the szszmum bonum, from different 
 points of view ; but it is the same thing both have in 
 their eye; and even the respective view-points, as 
 we shall see hereafter, are more closely related than 
 they seem! 
 
 As Paul read the Old Testament, it also had to do 
 above all things with redemption or the purpose of 
 grace, The chief thing he found there, the kernel or 
 hidden treasure of the Hebrew Scriptures, was the 
 revelation of the Promise. ‘To the ordinary Jew the 
 Law appeared the principal matter, the promise 
 retiring into the background, recognised doubtless 
 as the end to be reached by the keeping of the law 
 as the means, but completely overshadowed by the 
 importance attached to the means. But Paul in- 
 verted the order of importance, and vindicated for 
 the promise the place of supremacy. Before the 
 law in time, it was therefore also entitled to come 
 after it, superseding it when it had served its tempo- 
 rary purpose, which was simply to prepare the race 
 
 1 Some further observations on Christ’s doctrine and Paul’s 
 concerning the gift of grace, as compared with each other, will 
 be found in chapter vi. of this work, 
 
78 LHE CHIEF \DESIGNVOFSREV EEA ON: 
 
 of Abraham and the world generally, in its minority, 
 for the enjoyment of the promise when the heir 
 entered on his majority, and became at length a 
 ‘genuine Son of God. 
 
 Was Paul's reading of the Old Testament correct, 
 or did he read into it a system of ideas not really 
 there, revealed to ~his mind, not by legitimate - 
 exegesis, but by a peculiar religious experience? 
 Primé facie the latter may appear to be the true 
 state of the case. Pfleiderer accordingly affirms 
 that the Apostle’s view of the relation between the 
 law and the promise “was quite remote from the 
 historical intention of the lawgiving, and wholly 
 without ground in the letter of the law.” “Tttise 
 he says, “for the consciousness which takes its stand 
 on the historical soil of the Old Testament, simply 
 a matter of course, that the law would not be given 
 in order to increase sin through its non-fulfilment, 
 but in order to be fulfilled, and so to lead to right- 
 eousness. Nor could it appear to such a conscious- 
 ness that this aim of the law stood in any opposition 
 to the promise to Abraham; on the contrary, it 
 would appear to him a matter of course that God 
 gave to Abraham the blessing on the understanding 
 that the seed of Abraham was to render obedience 
 to the Divine will, in other words to the law after- 
 wards to be given.” Now probably such were the 
 
 2 “ Paulinismus,” p. 87. 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 79 
 
 thoughts of men at the beginning; but this does not 
 settle the question of the Divine intention in the 
 lawgiving. We must distinguish between the Divine 
 end of the law and the end which was present to the 
 minds of the instruments of revelation, e.g. Moses. 
 From the point of view of Divine teleology the 
 Apostle’s doctrine of the law is unassailable. The 
 ultimate result reveals the initial Divine intention, 
 so that we may say that what God had in view from 
 the first was the promise, and that the law entered 
 to prepare men for the reception of the promised 
 blessing by a varied discipline, to be a pedagogue, 
 a gaoler, a tutor, and a cruel husband, to make 
 Christ and the era of grace, liberty, and love wel- 
 come. The law was a lower stage in the develop- 
 ment of humanity, preparing for a higher, in presence 
 of which it loses its rights, though the good that was 
 in it is taken up into the higher, and united to the 
 initial stage of the promise to which it stood in 
 opposition. But the thoughts of the Jewish legis- 
 lator, and of his contemporaries and successors be- 
 longing to the early generations of Israel’s history, 
 may have been considerably different from those 
 of Paul, who contemplated the matter in view of the 
 result. They looked with hope on an_ institution 
 which was destined to end in failure and despair. 
 The commandment which Paul foun1 to be unto 
 death, they regarded as ordained unto life. They did 
 not see to the end of that which was to be abolished ; 
 ‘ 
 
$0 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 there was a veil upcn their faces in reference to the 
 purpose of the law. It was only as time went on 
 that the veil began to be taken away by sorrowful 
 experiences, and spirit-taught souls began to see that 
 the commandment was ordained, not so much for life 
 and blessedness, as for the knowledge of sin and 
 misery ; and that if any good was to come to Israel 
 it must be by the supersession of the Sinaitic 
 covenant through a new covenant of grace, under 
 which the law should be written, not on tables of 
 stone, but on the heart, and all iniquity should be 
 freely forgiven. 
 
 Keeping in view the slow and gradual manner in 
 which even inspired men attained to a comprehension 
 of the Divine purpose in the lawgiving, we should 
 not be surprised were there found not a little in 
 the Old Testament to bear out the impression that 
 righteousness in a legal sense is its burthen. We 
 should not even be surprised to find not a few traces 
 of the influence of a legal sfzrvzt in the literature of 
 the Old Covenant; for what would these prove but 
 this, that the child’s thoughts during the period of 
 tutors and governors were tinged by the discipline 
 under which he lived? That such traces are to be 
 found we shall see hereafter. But when due allow- 
 ance has been made for these, it still remains true 
 that the keynote of the Old Testament is grace, and 
 that the deepest current of thought runs in the direc- 
 tion of a religion of Trust in God as the Redeemer. 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 81 
 
 an a 
 
 If one wanted a single text which should most faith- 
 fully indicate the general drift of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, he might not inaptly find it in the beautiful 
 words of the later Isaiah: “Doubtless Thou art our 
 Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and 
 Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our 
 Father, our Redeemer from everlasting is Thy 
 name.” So far is legal righteousness from being the 
 deepest thought of the Old Testament writers, that 
 the word righteousness itself is often used by them, 
 as by Paul, as a synonym for grace, or for God’s 
 faithfulness in keeping His promise; as in the words 
 of the hundred and third Psalm: “The mercy of the 
 Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them 
 that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’s 
 children.” Nor is this a solitary text ; similar utter- 
 ances abound in the sacred books, insomuch that 
 some go the length of affirming that the word 
 righteousness is scarcely ever used in the sense of 
 retributive justice, but almost always is practically 
 _ Synonymous with grace. 
 
 The idea of grace is very conspicuous in the 
 prophetic literature. The God of the great prophets 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the author of the later portions 
 of the book of Jsazah’s prophecies, as also very 
 specially of Hosea, is characteristically a God who 
 assumes a gracious attitude towards His people, as 
 the forgiver of Israel’s iniquities, the healer of her 
 Spiritual diseases, the founder of a new covenant 
 
 G 
 
82 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 na cer 
 which shall be free from the faults adhering to the 
 old one. And along with this evangelic idea of God 
 goes a certain universalism, a recognition of the 
 truth that Israel has not a monopoly of God's grace, 
 that its benefits are open to all. The God who is 
 the Redeemer of Israel, addresses the whole world in 
 these terms: “Look unto Me and be ye saved, 
 all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there 
 is none else.” Israel is regarded as elected to be a 
 missionary people to spread the knowledge of the 
 true God among the nations, and so to make her 
 God the ground of her claim to the gratitude and 
 respect of mankind This is only what we should 
 expect; for a religion of grace recognises no claim 
 in any man or people to Divine favour as matter of 
 right, and therefore consistently puts all men and 
 nations on the same level. Such a religion may not 
 deny absolutely the prerogatives of a particular 
 people like Israel as an elect race; but it will 
 make these prerogatives consist in being the vehicle 
 through which God conveys His grace to all others, 
 and so regard election as merely a method by which 
 God uses the few to bless the many. 
 
 These remarks remind us that in the Scripture 
 account of Abraham’s history God is represented as 
 addressing to the Patriarch a call in which the pro- 
 phetic conception of God and of Israel's destiny is 
 already anticipated. That call contained the pro- 
 mise: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. $3 
 eee er i ee Re 
 will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou 
 shalt be a blessing: and in thee shall all families 
 of the earth be blessed.” The words throughout are 
 full of grace. God’s attitude is that of one who 
 sovereignly and freely blesses ; whether the blessing 
 be temporal or spiritual does not matter, the spirit 
 is the same in either case, They are also pervaded 
 by the spirit of universalism. The God who is to 
 bless Abraham and his descendants means also to 
 bless all nations; means to bless them by blessing 
 Abraham and his offspring. This holds true whether 
 we retain the version of the last clause of the above 
 text, given in the English Bible, or accept that pro- 
 posed by critics: “In thee shall all families of the 
 earth bless themselves.” The nations could bless 
 themselves in Israel only because they knew and 
 appreciated her state; and those who could do this 
 would be themselves partakers of the blessing, 
 
 If such a promise was really made to Abraham, 
 if he left his native abode with such a hope in his 
 breast, then it may be truly said that the revelation 
 recorded in the Bible from its very commencement 
 was a revelation of grace. -In a sense it may be said 
 that the Bible begins with the call of Abraham, all 
 that goes before, the first eleven chapters of Genesis, 
 being a preface intended to convey a general idea 
 of the state of the world when the progenitor of 
 Israel came upon the scene. Yet here, at the very 
 starting point of the history in the long course of 
 
$4 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 which the gracious purpose of the self-revealing 
 God was to be slowly evolved, we find the nature of 
 the purpose made known with a degree of clearness 
 approaching that with which it shines in the pages 
 of the prophets. But naturalistic critics tell us that 
 there is a very simple explanation of this. The pro- 
 phetic ideas of God and of Israel’s destiny are in the 
 history of Abraham, because the prophets put them 
 there. “rom the hands of prophetic revisers,” says 
 Pfleiderer, “flow those traits in the history of the 
 origins of Israel which throw back into the earliest 
 foretime the Messianic hopes and the thought of a 
 universal purpose of grace, which were both in reality 
 mental achievements of the later centuries. We in- 
 clude under these particularly the treatment of the 
 patriarchal age, and above all the life of Abraham. 
 On this territory of dawning forehistory the pro- 
 phetic narrator has operated with great freedom.”! 
 The assumption underlying this sceptical criticism is, 
 that the rudimentary initial stage in a process of re- 
 ligious development cannot possibly anticipate the 
 features of a more advanced stage, but must neces- 
 sarily present the religious element in human nature 
 under the rudest form. A comparatively pure mono- 
 theistic idea of God is wholly foreign to this early 
 stage. The development which ends in ethical 
 monotheism must start from fetish worship. In like 
 
 1 “Die Religion,” vol. ii. pp. 337, 338 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 85 
 
 manner the idea of a universal religion cannot pos- 
 sibly appear in the initial period. Universalism can 
 come only after particularism, the worship of tribal or 
 national gods, has had its day. Now these positions, 
 so confidently laid down by naturalism, are by no 
 means So axiomatic as writers like Kuenen imagine. 
 On grounds of observation, e.g., and in the interests 
 of a purely scientific study of religion, it has been 
 questioned whether fetishism be not rathera dege- 
 nerate form of an antecedent purer religion than the 
 primitive form of religion from which all religious 
 development starts.1 The truth seems to be, that 
 the early form of all historical religions is not fetish 
 worship, but a comparatively pure, though unstable, 
 monotheism. The first thoughts of men on religion 
 are better than their second, and their last and best 
 thoughts are in a sense a return to their first. In 
 accordance with this view, the initial stage of a re- 
 ligion may, without postulating any supernatural 
 revelation, contain in it in germinal form all that is 
 to come out of it. This law of development was 
 exemplified in the case of Christ, by the admission 
 of even rationalistic critics like Dr. Baur. Why not 
 also in the case of Abraham, if he was the starting 
 point of the development which culminated in the 
 ethical monotheism and universalism of Hebrew 
 
 1 This is the view advocated by Max Miiller in his Hibbert 
 Lectures, “ On the Origin and Development of Religion.” 
 
85 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION, 
 
 — 
 
 prophecy ? Why should there not appear in him the 
 blossom of which the prophetic ideal is the ripe 
 fruit? Is if thought that he came at too early a 
 period in the world’s history for this to be possible? 
 But is it not the fact, demonstrated by comparative 
 philology, that at a still earlier period the primitive 
 Aryans worshipped the one God under the name of 
 Dyauspitar-—Heaven-Father. Why then should it 
 seem impossible for Abraham to have a compara- 
 tively pure idea of God? Or is it the universalism 
 of the Abrahamic creed that seems too advanced 
 for the time? It isa well-known fact that a univer- 
 sal religion appeared: in India some six centuries 
 before the Christian era; why should not the dream 
 at least of such religion appear still earlier in 
 Chaldea? The idea of all nations being bound 
 together and blessed by one religious faith, ad- 
 vanced and modern as it seems, Is after all a simple 
 thought which might readily occur to devout minds 
 even in the grey dawn or childhood of the world’s 
 history. Wherever God is conceived of as one, there 
 mankind also may be conceived of as one. The 
 ancient Aryans who looked up to heaven and said 
 “Father,” must have looked on all men as brethren. 
 The instincts of human nature, even in savages, are 
 able to make the synthesis between one God and one 
 humanity. Hence Paul, in his address on Mars’ hill 
 to Athenian polytheists, connects together the two 
 ideas of one God, maker of heaven and earth, and 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. $7 
 
 one humanity made of one blood, evidently assum- 
 ing that the acceptance of the one idea would carry 
 along with it the acceptance of the other. These 
 ideas, therefore, cannot reasonably be regarded as too 
 advanced for Abraham, even regarding him as an 
 ordinary man; and if we regard him as an exception- 
 ally great man, one of the world’s epoch-making 
 men,—and such appear in all ages,—his capacity to 
 entertain such thoughts becomes still more credible. 
 Students of history recognise in Zoroaster a probable 
 contemporary of Abraham, and regard him as one 
 who played among his people, the Persian Aryans, 
 the important réle of a religious reformer, teaching 
 them to believe in one God ethically conceived as 
 the patron of righteousness, and maker of all good 
 things in the world.t If this view be well founded, 
 then Zoroaster was one of the world’s great charac- 
 ters appearing in the morning of human history. If 
 the Bible picture of Abraham,—in which he is repre- 
 sented as the introducer of a new pure religion, as a 
 man who by faith lived in the future, and cherished 
 the aspiration to be a benefactor to the human race, 
 —be even approximately correct, then the Hebrew 
 Patriarch is simply another to be added to the select 
 band of world-historical initiators. 
 
 But it is not necessary to ascribe so much origin- 
 ality to Abraham in order to vindicate for the self- 
 
 1 Vide Bunsen, “ God in History,” vol. i. p. 276. 
 
88 LHE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION, 
 
 manifestation of God in history, even at his early 
 epoch, the character of a revelation of a purpose of 
 grace, At no stage in the history of revelation is 
 it necessary to assume a full understanding or con- 
 sciousness, on the part of the instruments of revela- 
 tion, of the purposes for which God was using them ; 
 and least of allis this probable in the initial stage. 
 It is distinctly indicated in the New Testament that 
 the prophets did not fully understand the meaning 
 of their own prophecies; and we may well believe 
 that Abraham did not possess perfect insight into 
 the significance of the impulses that were at work in 
 his soul. For the purposes of our argument we can 
 afford to admit that the prophets, or whoever wrote 
 the patriarchal history, give in their narrative the 
 Divine significance of the events in Abraham’s life, 
 as it lay revealed to their view by the course of 
 Israel's history, rather than the meaning which these 
 bore to Abraham’s own mind. It is enough for our 
 purpose if the main outlines of the story be histori- 
 cally correct: that Abraham left his native land in 
 search of another place of abode, that the migra- 
 tion proceeded in part at least from religious motives, 
 and that the wanderer, sojourning in the strange land, 
 had a deep-seated presentiment and hope that from 
 him should spring a people destined to play a re- 
 markable part in the history of the world. Of the 
 import of these events in his life, and of the feelings 
 connected with them, Abraham himself might have a 
 
Lak CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 89 
 very dim and inadequate idea. His departure from 
 his native country might be the result of an irre- 
 sistible impulse, rather than of a deliberate purpose ; 
 the religious motive might take the form, not of 
 an altered view of God distinctly formulated by 
 _ deliberate reflection, but rather of an undefinable 
 dissatisfaction with prevalent religious beliefs and 
 practices; the hope of founding a nation peculiar 
 in character and vocation, might be nothing more in 
 consciousness than a persistent presentiment of which 
 no account could be given, a sort of fixed idea, for 
 the cherishing of which a man might be reckoned a 
 madman or a sage, according as the event fell out. 
 If this were ascertained to be Abraham’s actual state 
 of mind, then it might have to be admitted that his 
 life, as narrated in Genesis, has undergone consider- 
 able colouring in the hands of the historian. Still 
 the residuum of fact would form a sufficient basis for 
 the revelation of a Divine intention. In those facts 
 one might see revealed a purpose of God to separate 
 this man from his own people and to make him the 
 progenitor of a new race which should permanently 
 occupy the land wherein he found rest after his 
 wanderings, and which should be there an elect 
 people, worshippers of the true God, and destined 
 eventually to become missionaries of the true religion 
 to the whole earth. It was just such a Divine in- 
 tention the author of the Book of Genesis, call him 
 a prophet if you will, saw in the facts. From the 
 
90 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 point of view of such a Divine intention he wrote the 
 history, striking the keynote in the very first sen- 
 tence, which represents Jehovah as saying to Abra- 
 ham: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy 
 kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land 
 that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a 
 great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy 
 name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I 
 will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
 curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the 
 earth be blessed.” This was what God said to Abra- 
 ham, if not in so many words audible to the ear, 
 then by the impulses which He awakened in the 
 patriarch’s heart. This was what the history of 
 Abraham said to the prophet’s own spirit. It was 
 his way of reading the story, the construction which 
 his prophetic insight taught him to put on the facts. 
 And the event showed that the construction was 
 right. If God be in history at all, the prophetic 
 hypothesis is verified. The Power who is at work 
 in the world did mean in the events of Abraham’s 
 life just what the prophetic narrator says He meant. 
 In that life God revealed Himself as One having in 
 view, as His end in guiding the course of history, 
 the religious well-being of mankind, and adopting for 
 that purpose the method of election. The revelation 
 lies in the events themselves ; the purpose served by 
 the Bible narrative, beyond the mere recording of 
 the facts, is to enable us to see clearly the Divine 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION, QI 
 
 intention, to see it more clearly than we should have 
 done had we had nothing more than a bald state- 
 ment of the facts, more clearly than the hero of the 
 story himself saw it. 
 
 In the foregoing observations I have admitted that 
 the prophetic narrative of Abraham’s life puts more 
 meaning into that life than it had or could have to 
 Abraham. It is important to point out, however, 
 that the amount of light thrown on the Divine in- 
 tentions is not greatly if at all in excess of what we 
 might expect in the initial stage of revelation. The 
 narrative does not imply that Abraham possessed a 
 perfectly adequate or pure idea of God, or a full 
 knowledge as to the extent or manner of the blessing 
 to be conferred on him and his descendants, and 
 through them on the world. As respects the former, 
 the name for God in the patriarchal period, while 
 expressive of truth so far as it goes, comes far short 
 of the conception of God suggested by the crowning 
 stage of revelation. It is El-shaddai, God Almighty.’ 
 It conveys the idea that God is the Maker of the 
 ‘world, and at the same time above the world, not to 
 be confounded with nature as in the Pagan religions, 
 which practically are but different forms of nature- 
 worship. The name thus expresses a most important 
 truth ; no one can realise how important till he has 
 studied the religions of the world, and observed how 
 
 t Gen. xvii. 1°; Exod. vi. 3. 
 
92 LHECCHIEL DESIGN (OP TREVALALION. 
 
 completely God and nature are identified, to the utter 
 exclusion of all right ideas of the relations of God 
 and the world as Creator and creature, Maker and 
 made. In connection with these studies we learn 
 to appreciate at its due value the revelation of God 
 contained in the very first chapter of the Book of 
 Genesis, which sets forth God as the Creator of 
 heaven and earth, independent of the world, existing 
 before it, bringing it into being by the word of His 
 power, and making man in His own image. Still 
 this first revelation, important as it is, is rudimentary 
 in comparison with that made in after ages when the 
 purpose of grace was more unfolded. It amounts to 
 little more than a publication of the truths of natural 
 religion, a republication, we may call it, if we conceive 
 of man as having received a primitive revelation of 
 the simple elements of religion, the light of which he 
 afterwards lost. It tells us only at most that God is 
 One, that He is above the world, that He made the 
 world by His power, and that He is a Being who, 
 in His moral nature, in some respects resembles man. 
 Truths, these, not to be despised; nay, truths which 
 serve for a foundation to those which more especially 
 form the revelation of grace. Still they are nothing 
 more than foundation; they but conduct us to the 
 threshold of revelation proper. The razson a’étre of 
 revelation is not to teach us these truths, If the 
 Book which contains the record of revelation gives 
 to these truths a place in its pages, it is because they 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 93 
 
 are presuppositions which we must bring with us to 
 the study of the higher revelation. If the place as- 
 signed to such truths appear larger than seems due 
 to subordinate matters, it is because men have been 
 slow to learn even the lower truths concerning God, 
 not to speak of the higher. That God is the Creator, 
 and that He is a moral Governor, the sacred book 
 asserts and reasserts, because even these truths are 
 extensively ignored, and because till these are laid to 
 heart it is hopeless to seek to gain recognition for the 
 highest idea of God as a Redeemer. The inculcation 
 of the lower truths is a means to an ulterior ends 
 they are not taught for their own sake. 
 
 Returning from this digression, I remark that the 
 patriarchal name for God shows that the patriarchs 
 in their theology were still little in advance of the 
 standing point of a purified natural religion. And 
 when we look with a thoughtful eye into Abraham’s 
 history we find evidence that he still needed to be 
 raised above the influence of some of the super- 
 stitions prevalent among the peoples who had not. 
 retained the true God in their knowledge. I refer 
 specially here to what may legitimately be inferred 
 from the narrative relating to the sacrifice of Isaac. 
 There can be little doubt that that remarkable pas- 
 sage in the patriarch’s history stands in some relation 
 to the custom of human sacrifice, which was one 
 of the most characteristic features of pagan Semitic 
 worship, and, in the opinion of some writers, found 
 
94 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF KEVELATION., 
 
 its way into Canaan from Babylon. We may assume 
 that Abraham was familiar with the horrid practice ; 
 and it is every way likely that the knowledge he 
 possessed supplied the needful fulcrum for the 
 “temptation ” to which he was subjected. The fact 
 that the votaries. of Baal or Moloch, the Divine 
 Lord and King, were ready to make their own 
 children pass through the fire in his honour, made 
 it possible for Abraham to entertain as a Divine 
 suggestion or command the thought of offering his 
 son Isaac as a sacrifice in proof of his devotion. 
 Was it not due to his God that he should show 
 that he loved Him more than the dearest object of 
 affection, even though it should be an only son 
 through whom alone he could attain to the fulfil- 
 ment of his hope for the future? If he was not 
 willing to make such a sacrifice, did he not come 
 behind the idolaters from whom he had separated 
 himself, in the sincerity and intensity of his religious 
 zeal? One could imagine such questions suggest- 
 ing themselves to the mind of a devout man placed 
 in Abraham’s circumstances, without any Divine 
 communication. Supernatural interposition was 
 needed, not so much to put the thought into Abra- 
 ham’s mind, as to conduct him safely through the 
 temptation which it brought to him, and to lift 
 him permanently above the crude ideas of God 
 which made such a temptation possible. It is 
 probably in this direction we should look for a 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 95 
 
 solution of the difficulties connected with the moral 
 aspects of the episode, which have so much exer- 
 cised the wits of apologists. In his able work, 
 “Ruling Ideas in Early Ages,” the late Dr. Mozley 
 endeavours to vindicate the morality of the command 
 given to Abraham to sacrifice his son, by insisting 
 that it must be looked at in connection with the 
 ideas prevailing in that age respecting the absolute 
 right of fathers to dispose of the lives of their 
 children. The defence involves the admission that 
 these ideas were crude and the morality associated 
 with them very imperfect; and the plea is, that God, 
 in making a revelation, was obliged to take men up 
 at the point where He found them, and so gradually 
 lead them on to higher things. The aim of the 
 author in the whole argument is, to show that God 
 could do, or command to be done, or approve when 
 done, in one age what neither ought to be done in 
 a later, more advanced time, when men’s moral ideas 
 have undergone a change for the better, nor could 
 even so much as be believed on any evidence to 
 be the objects of Divine approbation or the subjects 
 of Divine commands. The line of thought is valu- 
 able and fruitful, and might be applied to other 
 subjects, and to the same subjects in other ways, 
 besides those to which prominence is given in the 
 work referred to. What Dr. Mozley emphasizes in 
 the case of Abraham’s offering of Isaac, is the raght 
 of a parent, according to the ideas of the time, to 
 
96 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 sacrifice the life of his son. It was then thought 
 that a man might dispose of a son as if he were 
 a thing, not a person; therefore it was possible for 
 Abraham to believe on proper evidence that God 
 required this of him; therefore also God might in 
 fact require it for a worthy end. But there is more 
 than the right to be thought of; there is the sense 
 of obligation, the idea in Abraham’s mind that he 
 ought to slay his son as an act of religious homage, 
 an idea present to his thoughts antecedent to any 
 Divine command and forming the natural basis for 
 the whole experience to be passed through. If we 
 assume this idea to have been in Abraham’s mind, 
 then we can not only understand the possibility of 
 the temptation, but can see that a very definite 
 special purpose was served beyond the general one 
 of trying his faith—that, viz. of delivering the pa- 
 triarch finally and completely from the fascinating 
 influence of surrounding superstitions, by showing 
 him that his God was one who desired indeed to 
 be loved supremely, with single-hearted devotion, 
 but who delighted not in sacrifices of blood. This 
 use of the experience was perfectly compatible with 
 the trial of faith which the narrative represents as 
 its chief purpose. That trial arose out of a conflict 
 between two duties—the duty, on the one hand, of 
 offering up Isaac in sacrifice in obedience to a Divine 
 command, and the duty, on the other, of continuing 
 to believe firmly in the Divine promise. The trial 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 97 
 
 remains the same, on any theory as to the way 
 in which Abraham came to be convinced that the 
 former of the two duties was incumbent on him. 
 Dr. Mozley’s theory is, that conviction was produced 
 by a direct Divine command, recognisable as such 
 by miraculous accompaniments. The alternative 
 theory is, that the state of Abraham’s mind in re- 
 ference to religion was such that conviction might 
 come to him through the ordinary action of his 
 conscience. In either case it might be said with 
 truth that God spoke to him. It is only a question 
 as to the mode of speaking; as in reference to the 
 design of the communication, it is a question whe- 
 ther God meant to teach one lesson only or two—a 
 general one, His unconditional power to fulfil His 
 promise, and a special one, the difference between 
 the true God and Baal in ethical character. The 
 latter was a lesson which it was worthy of the God of 
 revelation to teach, it was indeed a most important 
 contribution to the self-manifestation of God as the 
 God of grace., And it is not derogatory to the 
 character of Abraham to suppose that he needed 
 the lesson. To imagine him susceptible to the 
 fascinations of Moloch worship, is not to make 
 him “a follower and disciple of the Canaanites,”! 
 It must be borne in mind, that the very sincerity 
 
 1 Dr. Mozley adduces it as an argument against the view 
 given above, that it docs so degrade Abraham. 
 
 If 
 
98 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. 
 
 of the sojourner in the land of Canaan, as a servant 
 of God, would tend in some ways to lay him open 
 to the sinister influence of surrounding superstitions. 
 The practice of human sacrifice was an expression 
 in a perverted form of the great truth that the 
 Divine interest must take precedence of every 
 human interest. While regarding with horror the 
 manner in which effect was given to the principle, 
 the devout Hebrew could not but feel respect for 
 the earnestness which shrunk not from the supreme 
 test of subjection to its behests. But if such was 
 his feeling, we can easily see the need of some special 
 discipline to enable him to separate the spirit of 
 devotion from the offensive form in which it clothed 
 itself in prevalent religious custom; and no better 
 can be imagined than that described in the record 
 of his life. } 
 
 The foregoing observations go to show that Abra- 
 ham’s idea of God stood in need of purification and 
 development. I now remark, that if his conception 
 ee Divine character was imperfect, his knowledge 
 
 the Divine purpose, as judged by the record, was 
 by no means complete. He had a presentiment 
 that God was to bless his descendants, and through 
 them the world; but he had but dim rudimentary 
 ideas of the nature of the blessing to be conferred. 
 
 1 For some excellent remarks in the line of those offered in 
 the text, see Smyth’s “ Old Faiths in New Light,” pp. 82-9. 
 
TMK CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION. C9 
 
 Material things occupied a large place in his 
 thoughts. He left his native abode in quest of a 
 land that God was to show him; and that his secd 
 should inherit this land was the great object of his 
 hope. That a religious element also entered into 
 his conception of the blessing, may be inferred from 
 the fact that religion was one of the springs out of 
 which the migration flowed. But we are not re- 
 quired by anything in the narrative to suppose that 
 Abraham’s ideas of the spiritual side of the promise 
 were in advance of what is to be looked for at the 
 initial stage of revelation. It was the patriarch’s 
 hope, doubtless, that his children would be sincere 
 worshippers of the true God, the Almighty Maker 
 of heaven and earth, and the righteous Judge of the 
 sons of men; and he might also hope that through 
 the people that should spring from his loins other 
 nations would be brought to the knowledge of the 
 same God, and thus be led to abandon their idols, 
 Beyond this, however, his view did not greatly 
 extend. The higher truths of revelation had not yet 
 risen above the horizon, 
 
 Yet let us not imagine on this account that re- 
 velation had not yet begun to show itself in its 
 distinctive proper character as a revelation of grace. 
 The flower though not the fruitage of grace ap- 
 peared in the patriarchal revelation. And as the 
 flower is a prophecy of the fruit, it may be said that 
 in the flower Abraham saw unconsciously the fruit, 
 
100 THE CHIEF DESIGN OF REVELATION 
 
 Christ’s day, and rejoiced in it. There was grace 
 in all God’s dealings with Abraham. It was an act 
 of grace to show him the falsity of the prevailing 
 religion, and to reveal to him the pure truth of na- 
 tural religion, the worship of God the Creator and 
 Moral Governor. It was a further act of grace to 
 separate him from his people, that he might forget 
 old customs and, as a stranger in a strange land, 
 worship the true God. There was grace also in 
 the promise of a seed, and of a land in which they 
 should dwell as in a peculiar sense a people of God. 
 The covenant by which God appropriated Abraham's 
 seed as His people, and gave Himself to them to be 
 specially their God, was a covenant of grace. The 
 lesson on sacrifice was also a remarkable mani- 
 festation of grace, for while it negatively revealed 
 the Aumanity of the Divine character, it positively 
 revealed God’s delight in self-sacrifice, and thus 
 brought to light possibilities of sacrifice for God 
 Himself, which one could hardly dare to regard 
 even as possibilities until they had actually been 
 realised. The Divine oath uttered on the occasion, 
 as a passionate expression of the admiration 
 awakened by the sublime spectacle presented by 
 the patriarch offering up his son, is specially signi- 
 ficant as affording a glimpse into the inmost spirit 
 of God. Looking down on the sacrifice, God ex- 
 claims: “As J, live, this is a great heroic ydecdiais 
 
 shall not go unrewarded. Out of the son whom this 
 
THE CHIEF DESIGN OF KEVELATION., ICI 
 
 man is willing to part with shall spring a seed 
 multitudinous as the stars or the sand.” He could 
 swear by no greater, therefore He sware by Himself; 
 so, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews finely 
 points out, making Himself a Mediator, or middle 
 party between God and Abraham. God _ swearing 
 made Himself in condescension inferior to God 
 sworn by.! That is, God, in taking an oath, did a 
 thing analogous to God becoming man. The acts 
 were kindred, being both acts of condescension and 
 love. In these two acts, as in covenant-making, God 
 stoops down from His majesty to the weakness and 
 want and low estate of man. In covenant-making 
 God made Himself a debtor to His creatures, and 
 gave them a right to claim what is in reality a 
 matter of favour. In taking an oath, God submitted 
 to indignity imposed by man’s distrust, and, instead 
 of standing on His truth, put Himself under oath, 
 that there might be an end of doubt or gainsaying. 
 In becoming man, God condescended to man’s sin, 
 and submitted to be as a Sinner that sinners might 
 be delivered from moral evil. Grace appears in all 
 these acts in an ever ascending degree. 
 
 1 Heb. vi. 13,17. Note the striking expression, eyecirevcey, 
 ver. 17. 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 103 
 
OLiP Pe Ree EDN 
 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 HE chief end of revelation being to make known 
 a purpose of grace in which all mankind were 
 interested, it might have been expected @ priorz, that 
 the revelation would be made at once, fer saltum, and 
 by miracle, to all concerned. Such a purpose, one 
 would say, can brook no delay, but must be in haste 
 to bless its objects; can be guilty of no partiality, 
 but must treat all with like favour; and must reach 
 its full accomplishment, not by a slow progress from 
 lower to higher degrees of blessing, but at a bound. 
 The method actually pursued was as unlike this 
 imaginary one as possible, and more in accordance 
 with the analogy of nature and ordinary Providence. 
 Revelation took the form of an historical movement, 
 subject to the ordinary laws of historic development, 
 and exhibiting the usual characteristics of movements 
 subject to these laws. The redemptive purpose of 
 God was not ushered into the world a full-grown ~ 
 fact ; it evolved itself by a regular process of growth, 
 and the process was marked by three salient features: 
 slow movement, partial action, and advance to the 
 
 105 
 
106 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 perfect from the more or less imperfect, not only in 
 knowledge but also in morality. All these features 
 may be and have been made the occasion of objection 
 to the reality of a Divine revelation ; and it may be 
 worth while to consider how far they are compatible 
 with the idea of a revelation in general, and more 
 especially with the idea of a revelation of God as the 
 God of Grace. The present chapter shall be devoted 
 to the examination of this problem. 
 
 I begin the discussion with the general remark, that 
 it ought to raise no prejudice against the divinity of 
 an alleged revelation, that it assumes the form of an 
 historical movement. It is worthy of God to proceed 
 in this way. “It became Him for whom are all 
 things, and by whom are all things,” in making a 
 special revelation, to act in accordance with the 
 laws which He observes in making a general revela- 
 tion of Himself as the Creator and Governor through 
 nature and ordinary Providence. Adherence to this 
 method, even in a supernatural revelation, ensures 
 that this higher self-manifestation shall bear a stamp 
 of naturalness, as opposed to the magical character 
 that must attach to all Divine action which stands 
 in no relation to the course of nature. A redemp- 
 tive process from which the element of time was 
 eliminated, would have been a thaumaturgical per- 
 formance so utterly unlike the world we live in, where 
 all things are subject to the law of growth, that it 
 would have been hard for us, living in such a world, 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 107 
 
 to believe that it could be the work of the same God 
 who made and governs the universe. It would have 
 been a phenomenon of the same kind as had been the 
 deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by lifting her up 
 and carrying her through the air to the promised 
 land as an eagle carries her young till they have 
 learned to fly. It so happens, indeed, that in the song 
 of Moses, that great historical achievement is actually 
 represented under this very figure: “As an eagle 
 stirreth up her nest,” wrote the sacred poet, “fluttereth 
 over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh 
 them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone 
 did lead him, and there was no strange god with 
 him!”! And in a high ideal sense the representation 
 is true. Yet it is only an ideal; it is poetry, in which 
 all secondary, ordinary causes are lost sight of, and 
 the Divine agency alone is recognised. Nevertheless 
 such second causes were not in reality excluded. 
 God led His people from Egypt to Palestine like a 
 flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron; and the 
 process was of much longer duration than the poetic 
 figure implies. Nor did the work of delivering 
 Israel lose any of its divineness by being carried 
 on slowly and by human instrumentality. On the 
 contrary, it thereby only came to have a history full 
 of moral interest, and throwing much light on the 
 character of God. Had Israel been delivered in a 
 
 I Deut xxxta lig 123 
 
108 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 i 
 
 purely magical way, lifted up out of the land of 
 bondage and set down a few hours after in the land 
 of promise, it would certainly have been a stupendous 
 miracle ; yet it would have been a poor display of 
 the Divine character compared with that furnished 
 by the actual method. In the imaginary case we 
 should have seen only the Divine omnipotence 
 manifested for a moment; in the actual case we 
 behold a manifestation of all the Divine attributes, 
 power, wisdom, patience, faithfulness, unwearied loving 
 care—not a momentary manifestation only, but one 
 extending over a lengthened series of years, supply- 
 ing material for a history rich in pathetic stirring 
 incident which endures for aye, an imperishable 
 monument to the praise of Israel’s God. 
 
 The naturalness of the way in which God redeemed 
 Israel, it thus appears, was far from being a fault. In 
 like manner the same characteristic is no fault in the 
 method pursued in the higher work of redemption, 
 whereof that of Israel in Egypt was in some respects 
 a type. The naturalness of that method is rather a 
 point in its favour, to be emphasized by the apologist 
 as far as the facts will allow. And we might go 
 great lengths in such an argument without exceeding 
 the limits of truth. The whole process of revelation 
 was so natural that it might easily seem on first view 
 to be nothing more. That it was something more, 
 that there was a supernatural element within the 
 natural, we shall see hereafter; meantime the thing to 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. Icg 
 
 be noted is, how natural, how much like an ordinary 
 historical movement, was the course of events through 
 which God revealed and brought to its consummation 
 His purpose of grace towards mankind. In the first 
 place, the drama of revelation begins at the beginning, 
 and, though it concerns the whole human race, has 
 to do at the starting with a single individual. Such 
 a commencement shows at once how thoroughly 
 historical the process is going to be, for it is charac- 
 teristic of great historical movements, to begin with 
 individuals and to expand gradually from them 
 as centres, or to grow up from them as seeds, till 
 they become at length world-wide phenomena. A 
 revelation which begins with the call of Abraham 
 is evidently going to take the form of an organic 
 evolution, passing by a slow secular process through 
 successive stages till it reach its final phase; from an 
 individual man to a family, from a family to a nation, 
 from a nation to a representative Man in whom a 
 new beginning is made, and the universal element for 
 the first time clearly appears, and from the represent- 
 ative Man to all the nations of the earth. Surelya 
 magnificent world-historical movement, extending 
 through the ages, worthy of the first Cause and last 
 End of all, approving itself by its very leisureliness 
 to be the work of Him whose mode of action is slow 
 but sure, never hasting yet never forgetting His 
 purpose ! 
 
 Yes, it may be objected, very sublime and very 
 
TIO LHE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 God-like and God-worthy in some respects; but is 
 the delay involved in this method compatible with 
 the idea of Grace? Doubtless it is God's way, as 
 the Governor of the world, to work after the fashion 
 described. The moral order of the world, as even 
 pagan sages discerned, moves towards its end slowly 
 if surely. One day-is with the Lord, as a Power 
 making for righteousness, as a thousand years, in 
 respect of the leisurelinéss of His action; "andere 
 thousand years as one day, in respect of mindfulness 
 of His purpose. But ought not God, as a Gracious 
 Power to act in a different manner? Does not so 
 slow a movement as that which characterizes the 
 moral order of the world, exclude grace altogether ? 
 Can we who believe in grace avail ourselves of this 
 feature of Divine action; have we not adopted an 
 idea of God which is inconsistent with the fact- 
 basis ? 
 
 On a superficial view, this objection may appear 
 plausible ; but on reflection it is seen to be ground- 
 less. It does seem as if the slow process of nature 
 or ordinary Providence were too cold-blooded, so to 
 speak, for the warm temperament of Grace; as if a 
 Divine Love sufficiently intense to put itself to the 
 trouble of interposing in human affairs for the accom- 
 plishment of a beneficent design, would be unable to 
 restrain itself from hastening on with accelerated pace 
 towards fulfilment. On the hypothesis that God had 
 a gracious thought in His heart towards the human 
 
THE METHOD FORE RIGN ELAALON, It 
 
 — 
 
 facewas Iie is reported to have declared when He 
 summoned Abraham to leave his native land, how, 
 we are prone to ask, can we imagine him going 
 about the execution of his plan for the good of 
 humanity with such wearisome deliberation? Is the 
 slowness of the evolution not proof that the alleged 
 purpose is not a reality? But the sufficient answer 
 to such questions is, that Grace, however willing to 
 move quickly, must take its rate of progress from the 
 nature of the work it has on hand. To speak more 
 definitely, it must take the recipients of benefit along 
 with it, and move at a pace with which they can 
 keep up. God does not manifest Himself in grace 
 merely in order to make a display, but that those 
 to whom He manifests Himself may get the good 
 intended for them. Now, it is very possible for love, 
 by too great eagerness to show itself in action, to 
 defeat its own design to bless its objects. <A father, 
 eg.,in his inordinate affection for his child, may give 
 him all good things at once, unable to delay till the 
 child have reached the years of discretion, and so in 
 effect curse instead of blessing his offspring. How 
 often does it happen in this way that children get too 
 much of a parent’s blessing! Children, to be truly 
 blessed, must be educated for receiving, appreciating, 
 and rightly using the gifts of parental love; and for 
 this end, lapse of time, patience, waiting, is indispens- 
 able. In like manner, Divine Love, however ardent, 
 must be content to move slowly, because men need 
 
112 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 to be trained by faith and patience and moral dis- 
 cipline for the inheritance of the promise. This is a 
 familiar truth with reference to the sanctification 
 of the individual, but it is equally true in reference to 
 the redemption of the race; nay, much more so, for 
 the moral training of a race is a greatly more com- 
 plicated affair than that of an individual. It takes 
 twenty years for a child to arrive at manhood, and 
 we ought not to wonder if it take twenty centuries 
 for the human race to arrive at its majority, and to 
 be prepared by the discipline to which it has been 
 subjected all that time for appreciating the great 
 characteristic privilege of the Christian era, that of 
 standing in a relation of sonship to God. Nor does 
 the long delay, though it last for millenniums, make 
 grace cease to be grace, though it may tend to make 
 its gracious character less obvious. Grace submitting 
 to delay is only love consenting to be guided by 
 wisdom. Only on the assumption that this slow 
 method of procedure left in an unsaved state all who 
 lived in the epoch of preparation, could its gracious 
 character be seriously questioned. We shall see 
 further on that such an assumption is groundless. 
 
 As little would the gracious character of the whole 
 process of revelation be compromised, if it should 
 appear that at certain stages in its course the actual 
 Divine manifestations wore an aspect almost of an- 
 tagonism to grace, as for example in the lawgiving. 
 Paul has made this thought a commonplace by his 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 113 
 
 comparison of the law to the tutors and governors 
 under which a child is placed till he arrive at his 
 majority. The truth of the statement becomes, if 
 possible, still clearer when we regard it in the light of 
 our Lord’s parable concerning the law of growth in 
 the kingdom of God, as analogous to that of grain, 
 producing first the blade, then the ear, then the full 
 ripe corn, In the kingdom of nature growth not only 
 involves delay which exercises the patience of the 
 husbandman, but it proceeds by well-marked stages, 
 all of which must be passed through ere it reach its 
 consummation in a crop of ripe grain. And one of 
 these stages, that of the green ear, is very unlike that 
 of maturity. We see this more clearly in the case 
 of fruit than in the case of grain. How unpalat- 
 able is green fruit, with its sour juices setting the 
 teeth on edge! Yet it is a stage on the way to the 
 mellow fruit of late autumn, whose sweet taste delights 
 the eater. The acidity is opposed to the sweetness, 
 yet it is a phase in the natural process of growth 
 which has sweetness for its goal and final cause. In 
 like manner Law may be opposed to Gospel, and yet 
 be a phase in a revelation which has grace for its 
 guiding idea and terminus. The law comes because 
 it is good in its season, good for the destined 
 recipients of blessing. For grace must accommodate 
 itself to the needs of its object, and deal with him 
 as he requires to be dealt with at any given time. 
 Accommodation is an essential principle in the 
 I 
 
II4 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 method of a revelation of grace. The gracious re- 
 vealer, while ever keeping in view his ultimate design, 
 must connect the particular recipient with that design 
 in a way suited to his whole position. In accordance 
 with this rule, after the promise came the law. 
 There was first the beautiful blossom of the promise 
 in the patriarchal time, then the green fruit under the 
 law, then the ripe fruit appeared with the advent of 
 Christ full of grace and truth. By the nature of the 
 case the ripe fruit tarried long; for the legal discipline 
 which was designed to prepare men for enjoying it 
 demanded a lengthened period within which to work 
 out its effect. During the lapse of that intermediate 
 stage it might well seem as if God had forgotten to be 
 sracious. But in truth He was only taking pains to 
 insure that the ripe fruit, when it came, should have 
 2 maximum of sweetness to the human palate. The 
 whole process from beginning to end was long, very 
 long; but it issued in something well worth waiting 
 for, which could not have been so good had it come 
 much sooner, especially had it come without the 
 intervention of the legal green ear. It was well that 
 the blade of the promise came first, for men must 
 know what they have to wait for, at least dimly ; and 
 in representing it as coming when it did, the Scrip- 
 tures give a thoroughly credible account, for when 
 should the blade appear if not at the beginning ? 
 Surely not when the green ear is well advanced, as 
 those in effect say who make the promise to Abra- 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. II5 
 
 —. 
 
 ham a mere invention of the prophets. But the 
 promise having once been given, it was well also 
 that men had to bear a protracted discipline of law, 
 that they might be thoroughly weary of rules, and 
 thoroughly drilled in the exercise of their moral 
 senses, and on both accounts glad to welcome the 
 day-dawn of the Gospel era bringing redemption 
 and liberty. 
 
 The foregoing train of thought may suffice to 
 remove objections to the method of revelation based 
 on the long delay which it involved before the end 
 aimed at was reached. We may now, therefore, 
 proceed to notice the objections which may be sug- 
 gested by the second feature incident to that method 
 specified at the commencement, viz., the partiality 
 of Divine action in the earlier stages of revelation, 
 The self-revealing God proceeded by the way of 
 election, and had dealings first only with one indi- 
 vidual, and thereafter only with one nation. How 
 strange this exclusiveness, this seeming indifference 
 to all the rest of the world, on the hypothesis that 
 the purpose of grace really concerned all mankind! 
 Now, there is certainly here a superficial antinomy 
 requiring resolution, and the resolution is to be found 
 in a correct conception of the idea of election and 
 of what it involves. Election, then, does not signify 
 a limitation of Divine sympathy to all intents and 
 purposes to the elect, or a monopoly of Divine 
 favour enjoyed by them. The election of Abraham 
 
116 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 and of Israel did not imply that all the rest of man- 
 kind were left without the pale of God’s gracious 
 purpose, and could share in none of its benefits, 
 temporal or eternal. Some members of the elect 
 race might think it did; all of them would be 
 tempted so to think, for God’s purpose that the 
 Gentiles should be fellow-heirs was hid from them, 
 hid in God, as the Apostle Paul says,! and they 
 might readily mistake a relative, temporary, and 
 economical preference for an absolute, eternal, and 
 intrinsic one. But the mystery, though hid in God, 
 was not hid from Him, nor did it remain at any 
 time wholly dormant or inoperative in the Divine 
 mind. The election was simply a method of pro- 
 cedure adopted by God in His wisdom, by which He 
 designed to fit the few for blessing the many, one 
 for blessing all. That being so, the apologist’s task, 
 in addressing himself to the study of the religious 
 history of mankind, would be to inquire what a 
 gracious purpose, having in view the whole world but 
 proceeding by the method of election, would lead us 
 to expect regarding the outside nations and their 
 religious condition, and then to consider how far the 
 facts correspond to theoretical expectations, and how 
 far therefore the hypothesis of a revelation of grace 
 so conducted is historically verified. This is the 
 
 attitude which it becomes the apologist, believing in 
 
 et 
 
 1 Eph. iii. 9. 
 
 ee 
 
LAE VMETHODVOR REVALATION. DEY, 
 such a revelation, to take up in studying the phe- 
 nomena of ethnic religion. To one occupying this 
 attitude, that study will prove a much more genial 
 and hopeful one than it can possibly be to those 
 who imagine that the principle of election necessa- 
 rilyy implies, with reference to the Gentiles, absolute 
 ignorance of God and utter exclusion from all the 
 benefits of salvation. 
 
 It is impossible here to launch out upon such an 
 extensive inquiry as I have just sketched ; but I may 
 offer a few cursory remarks on the question, what the 
 idea of revelation advocated in this volume would 
 lead us to expect as to the religious condition of the 
 peoples outside the pale of the chosen race. In the 
 first. place, then, from the universality of the Divine 
 purpose, it might be confidently inferred that the 
 heathen nations were all along the object of God’s 
 benignant compassionate regard. The “mystery hid 
 in God” must have guided the whole course of 
 Divine Providence as the Ruler of the nations; the 
 purpose of grace, universal in its scope, must all 
 through the ages have influenced the Divine dealings 
 with the children of men. It would not therefore 
 Surprise us if, in prosecuting our studies in ethnic 
 religion, we found reason to think that God, while 
 revealing Himself specially and systematically to the 
 people of the election, did not altogether hide Himself 
 from other peoples, but gave them as much light as 
 might suffice to make the darkness of their night 
 
118 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 tolerable till the dawn should arrive; raising up now 
 and then, here and there, men of comparatively pure, 
 vigorous, moral sentiments, and clear religious in- 
 tuitions, whose wise thoughts and worthy life should 
 be as starlight amid the gloom of night. Nor should 
 we think it necessary in the interests of revealed 
 religion to disparage.these prophets of paganism. 
 On the contrary, we should gladly hail the lights of 
 pagan religions, both because of the guidance which 
 they gave to the peoples sitting in darkness, and 
 likewise because of the help which they yield to 
 ourselves, as an aid to faith in revelation. For such 
 an aid they do really supply. To be convinced of 
 this, we have but to ask ourselves what inference 
 might naturally be drawn, were the night of pagan- 
 ism absolutely unrelieved by the presence of spiritual 
 light. Would there not then be room for doubt 
 whether God had a purpose of grace towards the 
 nations? How reconcile the existence of such a 
 purpose with the total neglect of its objects, the utter 
 abandonment of them to darkness and misery? 
 That a beneficent being should cherish a gracious 
 purpose, and for a time not execute it fully, is 
 conceivable; but one would certainly expect to find 
 the objects of the purpose treated all along in a 
 manner that was congruous to the purpose, and 
 conveyed hints at least of the ultimate fulfilment. 
 
 - But on the other hand, the method of electicn 
 having been adopted for realizing the universal 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 119 
 
 design of Divine grace, we should be prepared to 
 find traces of marked inferiority in the pagan 
 religions as compared with the religion of the elect 
 people. The method implies that the elect people 
 must be subjected to a special discipline in an 
 isolated state, in order to become eventually a source 
 of blessing to the world; and that again implies that 
 the people who do not get the benefit of that dis- 
 cipline will thereby be put at a great disadvantage, 
 and be, in comparison to the privileged race, as a 
 street Arab to a carefully trained boy. We should 
 expect to find on the side of Israel, as compared 
 with the rest of the world, traces of the advantages 
 resulting from a carefully conducted moral and re- 
 ligious education. If such traces were not forth- 
 coming, we might very legitimately doubt either the 
 reality of the election or its utility and necessity. 
 And it is not difficult to conjecture of what nature 
 the traces must be. If the election was real and 
 requisite, then it will appear on inquiry that it is 
 very difficult for men left to their own resources to 
 find out God, still more difficult to retain Him in 
 their knowledge, and to live up to their knowledge, 
 and to make steady advances in Divine knowledge. 
 Evidences will be forthcoming that the tendency of 
 ethnic religion is not upwards but downwards, not 
 to steady progress but to degeneracy. On the other 
 hand, a reverse tendency ought to be observable in 
 the religion of the elect people. The path of revela- 
 
120 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 tion within the favoured circle ought to be as the 
 shining light, which shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day. If the facts should turn out to be in 
 accordance with these anticipations, and students of 
 comparative religion affirm that they are, then the 
 hypothesis of an election will be verified. 
 
 But, once more, while the fact of the election leads 
 us to expect traces of the evil resulting from want 
 of special religious training in the history of ethnic 
 religion, the purpose of the election would lead us to 
 infer that the heathen nations would not be aitogether 
 without the benefit of a Divine education. The elec- 
 tion was meant to prepare Israel for giving to the 
 nations the benefit of the true religion. But that 
 preparation would be to a certain extent fruitless, 
 unless the nations on their side were prepared for 
 receiving the benefit. Therefore, just because there 
 was an election, we may infer that there must have 
 been a providential guidance of the world’s history 
 in all departments of human affairs, in religion, 
 philosophy, science, art, war, commerce, meant to 
 prepare the world for receiving and making the most 
 of the benefit when the elect people was ready to 
 give it. In other words, the Pauline idea of a ‘fale 
 ness of the time” must have its truth, not merely in 
 reference to the Jewish people, but in reference to 
 the world at large. As is well known, various at- 
 tempts have been made in recent years to give to 
 this magnificent apologetic idea of the Apostle a 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION, 121 
 catholic scope, and to use his words as a compendious 
 formula for the whole religious history of mankind ; 
 the attraction of the phrase to philosophic minds 
 lying in this, that it enables them to recognise the 
 relative truth and worth of all the great religions of 
 the world, while regarding Christianity as the abso- 
 lute religion, the consummation of the great process 
 of man’s religious development. Hegel, eg., repre- 
 sents all the principal forms of religion as determined 
 by the Idea of religion, as forms which could not but 
 appear, aS appearing in no casual order, and as 
 together constituting a process which in the time 
 fixed by the Everlasting Reason and Wisdom of God, 
 culminated in the Christian religion; that is to say, 
 the religion in which God is perfectly manifested as 
 Spirit, therefore the absolute, final, perennial religion. 
 It is a fascinating conception of the world’s religious 
 history, and it is not surprising that the great phi- 
 losopher concludes the introductory sketch of his 
 “Religions-philosophie” by the remark: “This course 
 of religion is the true theodicy ; it shows all products 
 of the spirit, every form of its self-knowledge, as 
 necessary, because the spirit is living, active, and has 
 the impulse to pass through the whole series of its 
 appearances to the consciousness of itself”! A 
 similar conception of the world’s religious history 
 pervades the work of Bunsen, “God in History,” 
 
 1 “ Religions-philosophie,” vol. 1. p. 44. 
 
122 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 and the essay of Bishop Temple on the education of 
 the world, in “Essays and Reviews.” Bunsen re- 
 gards the consciousness which man has of God,—in 
 one word, religion,—as the constant motive force in 
 the history of nations ; and, believing as he does in a 
 steady onward progress in that history, he believes 
 also in a progress in men’s religious ideas from lower 
 to higher forms, until they reach in Christianity their 
 fulfilment. Temple conceives of the human race as 
 “a colossal man, whose life reaches from the creation 
 to the day of judgment,’ “passing through stages 
 answering to those of any ordinary man,—childhood, 
 youth, manhood,—and undergoing a training adapted 
 in its course to those successive stages—in his child- 
 hood, subject to a discipline of positive rules; in his 
 youth, delivered to the influence of models; and in 
 full age, left to his own discretion.” First come 
 rules, then examples, then principles. First comes the 
 law, then the Son of Man, then the gift of the Spirit. 
 This view is a commonplace so far as it applies to 
 the Hebrew race; the peculiarity of the essay is the 
 application of the theory to the Gentile races. “The 
 natural religions,—shadows projected by the spiri- 
 tual light within,—were all in reality systems of law 
 given also by God, though not given by revelation, 
 but by the working of nature, and consequently so 
 distorted and adulterated that in lapse of time the 
 divine element in them had almost perished. The 
 poetical gods of Greece, the legendary gods of Rome, 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 12 
 
 o>) 
 
 the animal worship of Egypt, the sun worship of the 
 East, all accompanied by systems of law and civil 
 government springing from the same sources as 
 themselves, namely, the character and temper of the 
 several nations, were the means of educating these 
 peoples to similar purposes in the economy of Provi- 
 dence to that for which the Hebrews were destined.” 
 I am not aware that any objection on the score of 
 principle can be taken to these fine schemes. So 
 long as the supremacy of Christianity as the great 
 goal to which the history of the world was tending is 
 recognised, and all the other religions of the world 
 are embraced under the category of preparation, the 
 believer in revelation may rest content. He may 
 even receive positive gratification from speculations 
 which tend to confirm the true conception of revela- 
 tion, as the evolution of a purpose of grace in which 
 all mankind had an interest. At the same time, it is 
 well not to allow our minds to be too much dazzled 
 by such magnificent generalizations, and for this 
 purpose to remember that they are open to a twofold 
 criticism. In the first place, such grand schemes look 
 very well on paper, but it may fairly be questioned 
 whether they can be worked out, without extensive 
 manipulation of historical facts. Then, secondly, 
 the notion of preparation does not necessarily imply 
 steady progress onwards from one degree of religious 
 development to another all the stages being good in 
 their own measure, time, and place, till the last and 
 
124 ik METHOD OF REVELATION, 
 
 highest degree is reached. We might conceive of 
 the ethnic religions as being a preparation for Christ- 
 ianity in this sense, that they were an exhaustive list 
 of experiments on man’s part to find out God, which 
 were appointed to be made that men might be 
 thereby made ready to welcome the light from above, 
 through the consciousness of the fruitlessness of their 
 own search. Paul regards the law given to Israel as 
 a vain experiment that had to be made, that the 
 Jewish people might gladly receive Christ when He 
 came full of grace and truth. Might not all the 
 religions of the world be more or less experiments 
 of that kind? It would not follow that there was 
 no Providence presiding over the world’s religious 
 history It would only follow that God had been 
 for a season suffering all nations to walk in their own 
 ways, while not leaving Himself without witness, but 
 doing them good, giving them rain from heaven and 
 fruitful seasons, the things they mainly sought after, 
 filling their hearts with food and gladness. Never- 
 theless the apologist has no interest in dogmati- 
 cally asserting that the preparation of the Gentiles 
 for Christianity must be of this purely negative sort. 
 It might, we should almost expect that it would 
 consist, not in mere fruitless experiments ending in 
 despair, and in longings like those of Plato for light 
 from above, but also in anticipations of truth, in 
 ideas spiritually of kin to those of Hebrew psalmists 
 and prophets and sages, scattered rays of light 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 125 
 
 emanating from Him who is the Light that lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world.! 
 
 If the facts of the world’s religious history at all 
 correspond to these @ priorz inferences from the idea 
 of revelation, it is evident that we have no reason to 
 take a despairing view of the spiritual state of the 
 pagan nations on account of their comparative igno- 
 rance of the true God and of His gracious will toward 
 men. Ifso, then @ fortiorz we need have no anxiety 
 as to the salvability of those belonging to the chosen 
 race who lived at the early stage of revelation, be- 
 cause of a similar though not so dense ignorance. 
 That the knowledge possessed by such in the prim- 
 itive ages was very scanty, and the light very dim, 
 we must admit; to assert the contrary, is simply to 
 deny the historical character of revelation. The 
 knowledge of God and of His will pussessed by 
 Abraham, for example, was to that of men living in 
 the Christian era but as the germ to the full-grown 
 organism, or as the acorn to the oak. He knew 
 God as a gracious God, but He did not know what 
 God in His grace was going to do. Nor was such 
 knowledge needful. It is the knowledge of God’s 
 spirit, not the knowledge of all that is in God’s 
 mind, that is saving. The older dogmatists were of 
 
 1 A view closely allied to this is worked out in a most 
 interesting manner by Dr. Matheson, in his Baird Lectures on 
 * The Natural Elements of Revealed Theology.” 
 
126 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 a different opinion, and strove to make out for the 
 earlier recipients of revelation a knowledge of God’s 
 plans and purposes little less complete than that 
 possessed by those who live in the era of grace. 
 This view is not only wide of the truth as a matter 
 of fact, but opposed to the apologetic interest of the 
 faith, as rendering it .easy for unbelievers to raise 
 formidable objections. Assuming that explicit ac- 
 quaintance with the scheme of salvation is necessary 
 to salvation, it virtually asserts that all the heathen 
 are lost, and that members of the elect race were 
 saved only by having vouchsafed to them a know- 
 ledge denied to all the rest of the world. The one 
 assertion lays the position of believers open to such 
 assaults as that of Rousseau, when he asked if it were 
 credible that God would confine communications 
 necessary to salvation to so few, and if a God who 
 commences by choosing one people and proscribing 
 the rest of the human race can be the common 
 Father of men.! The other assertion is open to the 
 obvious objection that it does not seem in accord- 
 ance with the facts as recorded in Scripture. For, as 
 Reimarus pointed out, the Divine communications to 
 Abraham did not refer to such vital matters as the 
 Atonement and the life to come, but to much more 
 worldly matters, such as the birth of children and the 
 possession of a particular country. The actual his- 
 
 } Vide “ The Confession of the Savoyard Vicar,” in Zmze, - 
 
THE METITOD OF REVELATION. oy 
 
 tory of Abraham is indeed very hard to understand 
 on any doctrinaire theory of revelation, whether it 
 be the old orthodox one, or such a view as that of 
 Mr. Arnold, which makes the didactic significance 
 of the Bible consist in the reiterated proclamation of 
 the immense importance of righteousness. If belief 
 in doctrines be so essential to salvation, it is hard to 
 see why herds and flocks, sons and lands are so much 
 more prominent than doctrines in Abraham’s life. 
 In like manner, it is hard to explain the prominence 
 of these secularities on the assumption made by Mr. 
 Arnold, that “ Probably the life of Abraham, ¢he 
 Jriend of God, however imperfectly the Bible tradi- 
 tions by themselves convey it to us, was a decisive 
 step forwards in the development of these ideas of 
 righteousness.”! The author of “Literature and 
 Dogma” obviously feels that from his point of view 
 the life of Abraham has been very unskilfully written. 
 No wonder, for surely a writer sharing Mr. Arnold’s 
 views would have given much more prominence to 
 Abraham’s lessons in righteousness, and less to those 
 material matters that occupy the foreground of the 
 picture. No theory fits in to the facts as they are 
 recorded, except that which makes revelation consist 
 in the historical evolution of a gracious purpose, and 
 which makes salvation depend, not on understanding 
 what is to be the issue and outcome of the evolution- 
 
 i “ Literature and Dogma,” p. 31. 
 
128 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 ary process, but on the fact of the gracious purpose 
 being in God’s mind. Then we can understand the 
 prominence given to such an apparent triviality as 
 the birth of an heir, for that is a necessary first step 
 in the process of development. Then also we can 
 understand the scanty amount of doctrinal instruc- 
 tion communicated to Abraham, such not being in- 
 dispensable to salvation, Then, once more, we know 
 what to say to Rousseau when he complains of the 
 proscription of the whole human race, Israel excepted. 
 There was no proscription in the case; election does 
 not mean proscription, but is a method by which one 
 is used to bless the many. And God does not need 
 to wait till the method has been fully developed be- 
 fore He can do good to the many. If His grace can 
 reach the members of the chosen race, though their 
 knowledge of His purposes be small, it can also reach 
 those without, though their knowledge be still less, 
 It may indeed be objected, that on this genial and 
 hopeful view of the compatibility of salvation with 
 much ignorance, knowledge seems wholly unneces- 
 sary, and the revelation of the mystery of grace alto- 
 gether superfluous. But the objection is easily met. 
 In the first place, no one can rationally pretend that 
 the influence of God’s gracious thoughts unknown 
 can by any possibility be equal to the influence of 
 these thoughts known. But more especially it is 
 to be borne in mind that gracious thoughts never 
 revealed are not gracious thoughts at all. It is 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 129 
 eee ee roe eee igh y) SS 
 essential to the being of grace or love that it mani- 
 fest itself. Love unrevealed is love unreal. The 
 time and the manner of revelation are matters of 
 secondary importance, affairs of method to be deter- 
 mined by love taking counsel with wisdom ;_ but 
 revelation on some method there must be, if there 
 be indeed a gracious purpose hid in God’s bosom. 
 
 Defective knowledge of God’s gracious intentions 
 in the early period of revelation thus appears to be 
 by-no means an insuperable objection to the method 
 adopted in making the revelation. The difficulties, 
 however, arising out of the moral defectiveness 
 characteristic of the same period, may appear more 
 serious. These difficulties present themselves to our 
 view more or less throughout the whole Old Testa- 
 ment epoch, the age of preparation, and may be 
 divided into four classes. There are those connected 
 with the defective morality of the agents or recipients 
 of revelation ; those arising out of actions represented 
 as being sanctioned and commanded by God ; those 
 connected with rudimentary legislation ; and finally, 
 those presented in the traces of a legal spirit in the 
 Old Testament literature, strongly contrasting with 
 the evangelic spirit characteristic of the New Testa- 
 ment. To attempt a discussion of all the topics 
 coming under these several heads, would carry us far 
 beyond our limits. I must therefore confine myself 
 to a few selected points which may suffice to illus- 
 trate the bearings of the question. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE METHOD OF REVELA TION. 
 
 ee eo 
 
 Two general remarks may be premised, bearing on 
 the whole subject. The first is, that it should not 
 surprise us if, in the course of a Divine revelation, 
 the morally perfect should be preceded by the 
 morally imperfect. It is enough if the perfect do 
 at length come, and if throughout there be a per- 
 ceptible progress towards the perfect as the goal. If 
 ‘+t should be found that such is the character of 
 the alleged revelation recorded in the Scriptures,—a 
 steady progress towards an ethical ideal eventually 
 realised,—we should then have no hesitation on the 
 score of defect in the early stages in recognising such 
 a reputed revelation as indeed divine. Revelation 
 in that case, on its ethical side, as a moral education 
 of the human race, would be in analogy with the 
 sanctification of the individual, which is not a mo- 
 mentary magical act, but a gradual work which 
 advances slowly from stage to stage till the ripe 
 fruit of Christian maturity at length appear. The 
 fact to be accentuated in connection with such a 
 revelation is, not the defect of preparatory stages, but 
 the upward progressive tendency of the movement. 
 The marks of its divineness are the ideal reached at 
 the end, and the constant advance towards the ideal. 
 Neither of these belongs to the order of nature. N@e 
 the ideal; for all admit that the character of Christ 
 and the ethical standard set up in His teaching and 
 example reach.a preternatural pitch of perfection. 
 Not the steady progress towards the ideal; for such 
 
THE METIIOD OF REVELATION. 131 
 Ss ee ee te AED 
 an advance is nowhere else exemplified, and least 
 of all among the Semitic races to which the people 
 of revelation belonged. The tendency of man, as 
 revealed in the history of nations, has ever been 
 towards moral degeneracy, both in theory and in 
 conduct; and this tendency, as is well known to 
 Students, was to an exceptional extent exemplified 
 in the religious history of the pagan Semites, The 
 facts in evidence can be gathered from the pages 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures, as can also the proofs of 
 an ever-increasing purity in the moral ideas within 
 the pale of the chosen people; and when the two 
 classes of facts are placed side by side one cannot 
 help asking the question, Whence this striking differ- 
 ence? The answer of faith is, that the difference is 
 due, not to the natural genius of the Hebrew race, but 
 to the supernatural action of God. Does it not seem 
 a rational answer ? 
 
 But can we introduce God as an agent in the 
 moral education of Israel without compromising His 
 perfection by making Him responsible for, or at 
 least bringing Him into dishonouring contact with, 
 the crude moralities of the earlier stages of the 
 pedagogic process? The answer we give to this 
 question will depend on the idea we form of Divine 
 perfection ; and the second observation I wish to 
 make is, that we ought not to regard God's, per- 
 fection from the Pharisaic view-point of mere ma- 
 jesty or negative holiness, but from the. Christian 
 
132 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 -- 
 
 view-point of gracious condescension and love. This 
 is a reflection much needing to be laid to heart, not 
 only by unbelievers, but also by believers in revela- 
 tion, For it is the fact that the idea of God en- 
 tertained by many believers is largely tinged with 
 Pharisaism. The Divine perfection, what is God- 
 worthy, is judged of “by reference, not to the idea 
 of grace, but rather to that of exaltedness above 
 the world. The habit of so judging reveals itself 
 variously ; by @ priori inferences as to the literary 
 characteristics of the Bible, viewed as a book pro- 
 duced by Divine authorship, not less than by the 
 manner in which the contents of the sacred volume 
 are interpreted. God’s book must be free from 
 everything that would be regarded as a defect in a 
 book of merely human authorship ; and if in any part 
 of the book a sentiment appears which seems incom- 
 patible with God’s holiness, it must be carefully ex- 
 plained away. Such zealous guardianship of God's 
 literary and moral reputation is on a par with that 
 exercised by Job’s friends over God’s character as 
 the moral Governor, or by the censors of Jesus over 
 His dignity when they blamed Him for associating 
 with publicans and sinners. It is a service for which 
 God does not thank them, because it is in His sight 
 no service at all, but only a folly based on ignorance 
 of His character and betraying His cause into the 
 hands of its enemies. To all such self-elected 
 guardians of His holiness and majesty God says: 
 
“Suffer Me to condescend to man’s need. I am not 
 the Being ye take Me for. My first concern is, not to 
 uphold My dignity, but to communicate the blessings 
 of My grace; and for this purpose I am willing to 
 stoop to whatever is necessary to bring Myself into 
 living connection with those whom I would bless, so 
 that they may indeed receive the benefit.” Only a 
 God of whose inmost heart such words were a true 
 reflection would make a revelation of Himself to 
 man; only when we so conceive of God can we 
 understand, appreciate, and be benefited by the 
 revelation which He has actually made. 
 
 Passing now to speak of the different classes of 
 moral difficulties, it is easy to see the bearings of the 
 preceding observations concerning the Divine per- 
 fection on the supposed injury done thereto by con- 
 tact with the moral crudity of the early recipients of 
 revelation. The objections of Reimarus on this score 
 were adverted to in the first Chapter; and that such 
 objections are not yet out of date appears from the 
 style in which the same topic is treated in such a 
 Mopeds) Phe: Bible for Young People’ It issan 
 offence to the authors of this book, that the wealth 
 obtained by Jacob through cheating is called a bless- 
 ing of God, and still more that the birthright is sup- 
 posed to be conferred upon him by the Divine will, 
 though it was obtained at first by a disgraceful ad- 
 vantage taken of a thoughtless brother, and secured 
 afterwards by a still more disgraceful fraud practised 
 
134 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 on an aged father. The occurrence of such gross 
 representations in the story of the patriarch’s life is 
 accounted for somewhat as scholars are wont .to 
 account for the immoralities in Greek mythology, 
 viz., by seeing in them traces of an early nature wor- 
 ship. “A nature god is not a morally good being. 
 And so it was possible for a man to attribute base 
 actions to his god and yet be religious; to be zealous 
 for his honour, and ready to sacrifice himself to him 
 if need were, and yet at the same time to be of a 
 very low moral type.” The character of Jacob, as 
 depicted in the narrative, is certainly bad enough, and 
 it is not our part to extenuate its baseness. In one 
 respect, indeed, our interest as apologists rather lies in 
 the opposite direction, of making the patriarch’s faults 
 appear as glaring as possible. For the more elaring, 
 the more like the ancient period they belong to, the 
 less likely they are to be the mere invention of a 
 prophetic narrator, living in an age when higher ideas 
 of morality prevailed. The crude morality befits and 
 bespeaks an early time, when the process of revela- 
 tion was as yet only commencing, But the question 
 is, Could God have close relations with such a morally 
 defective person as Jacob, such a relation as is im- 
 plied in his being the elected heir of the blessing ? 
 Now, in justification of an affirmative answer to this 
 question, we might insist on the fact that such men 
 pu fawn: seta eel pactals cane de ener 2 ee 
 
 E Vol: i: p 247. 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 125 
 
 —) 
 
 as Jacob, in spite of their defective character, are 
 often the objects of Providential preference, succeed- 
 ing in life when men of Esau-like spirit, generous, 
 impulsive, thoughtless, fail. And we might further 
 maintain that such preference was in accordance 
 with the dictates of moral reason, inasmuch as Jacob, 
 with all his grave faults, stood higher in the scale of 
 being than Esau, tested by the principle that every 
 man who exercises reflection and forethought, and 
 regulates his life by an aim worthy of a human 
 being, is superior to one who is the creature of im- 
 pulse and appetite. Judged by this standard, it 
 might be truly alleged that Jacob, though far less 
 amiable, was more moral than Esau. We might say 
 that, granting him to be a very mean man, still he 
 was a man, while his brother was only a generous and 
 likable azzmal. Then we might see in the election 
 of Jacob, in preference to Esau, to the inheritance of 
 blessing, simply the Divine endorsement of this com- 
 parative estimate. And if we did adopt this view, 
 we should not be guilty of nature worship; that is to 
 say, of believing in a god who is indifferent to moral 
 distinctions ; for the view in question does not im- 
 ply either Divine approbation of Jacob’s faults or 
 indifference to them, but simply a preference of him, 
 as on the whole, all things considered, the better 
 man—better absolutely, and better for the purpose 
 of the election which was to separate a people from 
 the rest of the world unto a high vocation. This 
 
136 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 a a Se 
 
 purpose could best be served by those who were 
 capable of appreciating the calling of God and the 
 destiny of Israel, and it might safely be affirnied that: 
 a man like Jacob, however far below Abraham he’ 
 might fall in respect to such capacity, was certainly. 
 much superior to a man of the Esau type. 
 
 There is some force, I think, in the foregoing line 
 of thought; and yet Iam not disposed to lay chief 
 stress on it, but prefer rather to fall back on the 
 category of grace, as that best fitted to help us 
 through the difficulties of the patriarchal history. 
 What we observe in the story of a Jacob, as in 
 the case of any other morally defective Old Testa- 
 ment character, is just what we see in the Gospel 
 records of Christ’s ministry—the holy One in gra- 
 cious love becoming the Friend of the sinful. In 
 neither case was there indifference to moral evil, 
 though in both such has been imputed by men of 
 Pharisaic spirit. There was simply fearless contact 
 with the morally culpable on the part of a gracious 
 Being who had a higher end in view than merely to 
 preserve His own holiness intact, even to make the 
 sinful partakers of His holiness. That God had this 
 end in view in His dealings with Jacob we ought 
 not to doubt, any more than we doubt the motive 
 of Jesus in going to be guest with men that were 
 sinners. God meant to make Jacob better than He 
 found him, and took him in hand to subject him to 
 a moral discipline that should eventuate in a nature 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 137 
 
 purified and ennobled. And the history seems to 
 supply us with evidence that the disciplinary process 
 reached its consummation, in that suggestive inci- 
 dent of the Patriarch wrestling with the angel, result- 
 ing in the change of his name from Jacob to Israel. 
 A supplanter transformed into a Prince or Soldier of 
 God, is a result worth taking pains for. Well might 
 the God of grace have to do with one chargeable 
 with grave vices of nature and faults in conduct, if 
 the issue of His dealings was to be such a spiritual 
 change! With such a possibility in view, we may 
 even imagine the Divine Being selecting as the 
 subject of His gracious influence one distinguished 
 among his fellows, not for virtue but for evil proclivi- 
 ties and habits. So Christ sought out the chief of 
 sinners, hoping to find in them the most devoted 
 disciples, basing His calculations on the principle: 
 To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much. 
 Of all the cases belonging to the second class of 
 difficulties, that, viz., of questionable actions sanc- 
 tioned or commanded by God, none is more per- 
 plexing on the score of justice than the wholesale 
 destruction of the Canaanitish tribes. ‘This instance 
 of rude morality has, moreover, a further claim to our 
 special attention on the ground of its peculiarly close 
 connection with the question as to the chief end of 
 revelation and the means adopted for its attainment. 
 For it appears, on first view, as if in this case the end 
 was sacrificed to the means, and the catholic purpose 
 
138 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 of grace compromised by the method of election. 
 God, er hypothest, has it in view to bless all the 
 nations of the earth, and He chooses a particular 
 people to be trained for being the vehicle of blessing ; 
 and here we see Him proposing to destroy a whole 
 group of nations to make room for the chosen race. 
 Could the God of grace give any countenance to so 
 ruthless a proceeding? Could a god who was capa- 
 ble of such flagrant partiality cherish so humane and 
 benevolent intentions as we have ascribed to the God 
 of revelation? Is there not here some justification 
 for the Gnostic doctrine, that the God of the Old 
 Testament and the God proclaimed by Jesus Christ 
 are entirely different beings, possessing moral at- 
 tributes utterly incompatible? That the people of 
 Israel did wage a war of extermination against the 
 Canaanites, one can easily believe, for it was the 
 fashion of the time to conduct war in such a bar- 
 barous manner. That they found it possible to 
 persuade themselves that God desired them to wage 
 such a war, is also easy to understand; for, as Dr. 
 Mozley has pointed out, the ruling ideas in those 
 ancient ages concerning justice were such that men 
 could regard as a divinely appointed duty what we 
 now could not believe to be our duty, though 
 miracles were wrought to persuade us it was. The 
 sense of justice was then a blind passion, which made 
 no distinction between the guilty and the innocent 
 who were in any way connected with them ; therefore 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 139 
 
 it would hardly require miracles to persuade the in- — 
 vaders of Palestine that, if the inhabitants of the land 
 were deserving of punishment for prevailing iniquity, 
 they might be devoted to indiscriminate destruction. 
 But the question is, How could the God of absolute 
 justice, and still more the God of grace, be in any 
 way a party to such a butchery? The question is 
 one to which it is not easy to return an answer com- 
 pletely satisfactory ; but before adverse judgment is 
 pronounced, it is necessary to bear in mind all that 
 Scripture says on the subject. The Scripture repre- 
 sentation is to the effect that while God had destined 
 the descendants of Abraham to inherit the land of 
 Canaan, yet He delayed the fulfilment of the promise 
 for this reason, among others, that the old inhabitants 
 might not be dispossessed or destroyed before their 
 wickedness had reached such a pitch that their de- 
 struction would be felt to be a just doom. According 
 to the narrative in Genesis, intimation of this policy 
 was made to Abraham himself, the Lord informing 
 the Patriarch that his descendants should not gain 
 possession of Canaan till four hundred years had 
 elapsed, because the iniquity of the Amorite was not 
 yet full) This intimation revealed the same solici- 
 tude to appear the righteous Ruler which afterwards 
 manifested itself in connection with the destruction 
 of Sodom. The Lord said, ‘ Because the cry of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their 
 sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see 
 
140 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 OO OO Oe eee ee ee 
 
 whether they have done altogether according to the 
 cry of it, which is come unto Me; and if not, I will 
 
 ” 
 
 know;” and He was willing to spare Sodom if so 
 much as ten good men were found in it. And the 
 treatment of the two messengers in Sodom on the 
 eve of the overthrow, which was such that it were a 
 shame even to speak of it, is carefully recorded, as if 
 for the express purpose of preparing all readers for 
 sympathizing with the deed of vengeance. And that 
 story in the 19th chapter of Genesis explains what 
 is meant by the iniquity of the Amorite. When the 
 whole people of Canaan had become as Sodom in 
 her fulness of bread, pride, and abundance of idleness, 
 given up to infamous and unmentionable licentious- 
 ness, at the period of the overthrow, then her iniquity 
 would be full, and then it might well appear an act 
 of charity to humanity at large to spue her out of the 
 land, and to give the country to a people that would 
 make a better use of it. Such is the account given 
 of the Divine procedure in the Book of Leviticus: 
 “Defile not yourselves in any of these things (un- 
 natural vices previously mentioned), for in all these 
 the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: 
 and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the in- 
 iquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth 
 out her inhabitants.” Here is no partiality of a 
 merely national God befriending His worshippers at 
 the expense of others, without regard to justice; here, 
 rather, is a Power making for righteousness and 
 
THE METHODLOFEREVELATION, Iai 
 
 against iniquity ; yea, a Power acting with a bencfi- 
 cent regard to the good of humanity, burying a 
 putrefying carcase out of sight lest it should taint 
 the air. Here is the Proprietor of the whole earth 
 taking a particular section of it out of the hands of 
 cumberers of the ground and giving it to those who 
 will occupy it to the general advantage; yet acting 
 patiently, giving to the perverse space for repentance, 
 as if loath to come to extremities. Such is the God 
 shown to view in this stern chapter in Israel’s history; 
 and it is the same picture in deed as that exhibited 
 in words in the familiar text: ‘The Lord, the Lord 
 God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abun- 
 dant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 
 thousands (of generations), forgiving iniquity, trans- 
 gression, and sin, and that will by no means clear; 
 visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, 
 and upon the children’s children, unto the third and 
 
 b) 
 
 fourth generation.” It is the same God who at a long 
 subsequent time shrunk from destroying Nineveh, 
 because in it were six score thousand persons that 
 could not discern between their right hand and their 
 left hand, and also much cattle, while knowing full 
 well that when Nineveh’s hour of doom came, young 
 and old, man and beast would be involved in indis- 
 criminate destruction; and, just because He knew 
 this, shrinking long from the dread werk of venge- 
 ance, dallying and procrastinating, and letting things 
 go fearful lengths before coming to extremities. Such 
 
142 LH METLIIOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures throughout; 
 slow to wrath, yet ultimately punishing wickedness 
 inexorably, visiting the iniquities which have been 
 accumulating for generations on the head of that 
 generation in which sin reaches its climax; taking 
 far more pleasure in blessing than in cursing, visiting 
 the goodness of fathers upon children even to the 
 thousandth generation, while visiting the sin of 
 fathers upon children only to the fourth; so far from 
 being chargeable with too great proneness or haste 
 to punish evil-doers, that He rather often provokes 
 in the good (as in the case of Jonah) wonder and dis- 
 appointment by not calling them to account more 
 promptly ; yet in the end executing judgment with 
 terrible swiftness on those who have abused His 
 goodness. Such is the God even of the New Testa- 
 ment, Christ and the apostles being witnesses; a 
 God most kind and good, yet capable of awful wrath 
 at last. Such a God Jehovah proved Himself to be 
 to Israel herself, not less than to Sodom and the 
 Canaanites. Such a God, once more, is the Power, 
 not ourselves, revealed in the course of all human 
 history. That Power puts out of the way with little 
 compunction degenerate and effete nations, to make 
 room for fresh vigorous races with stuff in them sup- 
 plying material for an energetic fruitful development, 
 executing its notice to quit in a very rough manner. 
 This fact might seem to offer a sufficient apology for 
 the Divine action in connection with the uprooting 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 143 
 a eg ee eR ig A, 
 
 of the Canaanites. But Strauss insists on making a 
 distinction between the ordinary course of history and 
 God's supernatural action. The moral order of the 
 world has its own peculiar characteristics, and what 
 we have to do is not to criticize these, but to accept 
 them as hard facts, and adapt ourselves to them. 
 “But when God interposes supernaturally, as all 
 methods of working are equally accessible to Him, 
 He must act in the way that is morally least objec. 
 tionable; therefore in the present case, having it in 
 view to settle the Israelites in Canaan, rather than set 
 on foot a war of extermination, fitted to de-humanize 
 the chosen people and to shock mankind, He ought 
 rather to have put into the mind of the original 
 inhabitants the impulse to emigrate to some unin- 
 habited part of the world, even if it were necessary to 
 create such an impulse.”! That is to say, God ought 
 to have revealed to the Canaanites the existence, Say, 
 of America, and put it into their hearts to set sail 
 en masse for its shores. The scheme is very humane, 
 and it might, if carried out, have had an important 
 influence on the destinies of the new world ; but it is 
 liable to two considerable objections. The mode of 
 action would have been violently, magically, miracu- 
 lous, unnatural as well as supernatural. Then, while 
 gratifying humane feeling, it would have involved a 
 total oversight of the interests of holiness, which, 
 
 1“ Wermann Samuel Reimarus,” p. 116 
 
144 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 even for the ultimate happiness of the world, were 
 the supreme interests in the case. For nothing was 
 better fitted to qualify Israel for being the vehicle 
 of moral blessing to mankind than some terrible 
 proofs at the beginning of her history of the Divine 
 abhorrence of human depravity. And this remark 
 reminds me of another consideration having an im- 
 portant bearing on the present topic. It is, that 
 according to the Biblical representation the people 
 of Israel were under the discipline of law at the time 
 they gained possession of the promised land. This 
 fact exercised a controlling influence on the manner 
 of the acquisition, requiring it to be such as would 
 serve the end of the lawgiving, the development of 
 the sense of sin, and especially of a deep abhorrence 
 of the two chief sins of the Canaanites, idolatry and 
 sensuality. The same fact also involved a certain 
 obscuration of the manifested character of God, 
 obliging Him, as it were, to descend from the eleva- 
 tion of a gracious Benefactor to the lower platform 
 of a moral Governor, dealing with Israel and sur- 
 rounding peoples in accordance with the rough 
 principles of justice revealed in the moral order of 
 the world, which is just in tendency, and on the 
 great scale, but to appearance unjust and indiscrimi- 
 nate in detail and in manifold individual instances. 
 
 It thus appears that the law, even in its ethical 
 kernel, the Decalogue, involved for God, as the King 
 — of Israel, a certain eclipsing of His gracious character. 
 
1H METHOD OF "REVELATION. 145 
 
 Still more was this the case with those parts of the 
 Mosaic law which were in themselves rude and de- 
 fective, such as the laws relative to marriage, divorce, 
 retaliation, etc. and also those regulating religious 
 ritual. I have already, in an earlier part of this 
 chapter, indicated certain lines of thought fitted to 
 show that the entrance of a legal phase into the 
 process of revelation was necessary, and that the 
 appearance of such a phase does not disannul the 
 gracious character of revelation as a whole. What 
 I wish now to point out is, that the rudimentary 
 legislation, which was our third source of difficulty, 
 while certainly concealing, did also after a fashion 
 reveal Divine grace, In giving such laws, God was 
 graciously accommodating Himself to the capacities 
 of the people whose moral education He had taken 
 in hand. The very rudeness of the legislation was 
 a proof of Divine condescension. This important 
 truth cannot be better put than it is in the Scrip- 
 tures, especially by the prophet Hosea, by our Lord, 
 and by the apostle Paul. The prophet, in God’s 
 name, says: “ When Israel was a child, then I loved 
 Hiyeana called my son out of Egypt. 4 2°. I 
 taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their 
 arms.”?! This is an oracle worthy of the prophet of 
 Divine love, and it sets God’s action towards Israel 
 in the early period of her history in a most gracious 
 
 ie Trosea xi, 3: 
 
145 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 light. In the events connected with the Exodus, God 
 as it were adopted an enslaved race as His son. 
 This son it became necessary to train so that he 
 should be worthy of his Father; and as the child 
 was found in a very rude condition, the training 
 could not be other than very elementary. God had 
 to teach Israel to walk in the paths of righteousness 
 like a nurse taking a child by the arms, and had to 
 exercise a nurse-like condescension and patience in 
 connection with the self-imposed task of Israel’s 
 moral education, and to become asa child Himself, 
 speaking in broken language and giving laws of a 
 very rude and primitive character adapted to the 
 condition of the pupil. Paul conveys much the same 
 idea when he describes the legal ordinances, with 
 special reference to the Levitical ritual, as weak and 
 poverty-stricken rudiments." The word otolyela 
 signifies literally the letters of the alphabet arranged 
 ina row; and the idea suggested is, that the Jewish 
 religion was fit only for the childhood of humanity, 
 when men were, as it were, learning their letters. The 
 figure happily conveys the truth that the rudiment- 
 ary legislation and ritual of the old economy were 
 in their time and place necessary and useful, and yet 
 were destined to be outgrown and superseded. If, 
 as some think, the apostle meant the figure to apply 
 likewise to the religions of the Gentiles, then it con- 
 ge et ee OS ee 
 
 1 Gal, iv. 9. 
 
TUE METHOD OR REVELATION. 147 
 
 veys a similar truth with regard to them also. In 
 any case the words present a very genial view of 
 the Divine character as the moral and religious Edu- 
 cator of men. God appears condescending to begin 
 at the beginning, and graciously stooping to teach 
 the merest alphabet of morals and religion, in the 
 hope of leading His pupils on gradually to higher 
 things. 
 
 In both the foregoing representations the need for 
 rudimentary training is shown, without imputing any 
 blame to the subject of discipline. The pupil is 
 simply a child, and therefore must have such in- 
 struction as a child can receive. 
 
 -In the teaching of our Lord, on the other hand, 
 the rationale of the moral defectiveness of the Mosaic 
 legislation is found in the morally rude condition of 
 the subject, which is described by the expressive 
 phrase hardness of heart (cxdnpoxapdia). To the 
 sklerokardia Jesus ascribed the presence in the Mosaic 
 statute book of a too indulgent law of divorce ;! and 
 to the same source He doubtless traced all other 
 imperfect elements in the civil code of Israel, such 
 as the barbarous law of retaliation, an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth. -This amounted to 
 saying that God gave Israel statutes that were not 
 good, because Israel herself was not good. It is a 
 very bold thought, and yet it is a thought which 
 
 Tei Att exixas, 
 
148 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 had been uttered long before almost in these terms 
 by the prophet Ezekiel. And bold as it appears, 
 almost to the extent of being injurious to the Divine 
 holiness, this representation, in reality, brings the 
 grace of God in the training of Israel more promi- 
 nently into view than even the genial analogies 
 employed by Hosea and Paul. For there is greater 
 grace in condescending to moral perversity with a 
 view to gradual improvement in character, than in 
 condescending to childish ignorance and imbecility 
 with a view to the gradual enlightenment and 
 strengthening of the reason. Christ did not shrink 
 from ascribing this greater grace to God; and the 
 secret of His boldness is to be found in His own loving 
 spirit, which shunned not contact with the sinful to 
 such an extent as to give rise to serious misunder- 
 standing, and earn for Him the honourable nickname 
 of the Sinners’ Friend. He understood the conduct 
 of the Hebrew legislator through His own, and by 
 aid thereof was able to discern grace beneath all 
 the crudities of the Mosaic statute—grace forbearing 
 with moral rudeness meanwhile, and steadily keeping 
 in view a time when the sklerokardia should be re- 
 moved, and regenerated men should be able to adopt 
 as the law of life the ideal standard of duty. 
 
 It is evident that men could not be under a legal 
 system capable of being characterized as it is by 
 
 tA eK xe ye 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 149 
 
 prophets, apostles, and our Lord, without having 
 their whole way of thinking and feeling about God, 
 man, and the world very seriously affected thereby. 
 The law involved a temporary obscuration of the 
 promise ; and it was to be expected that while the 
 obscuration lasted it should lead those who lived 
 under it to cherish ideas concerning God and human 
 life, duty, and destiny bearing a stamp of imper- 
 fection, and demanding rectification by the light 
 which came with the dawn of the Gospel era. This 
 is only to say that the child’s thoughts were like the 
 discipline he lived under. It may be worth while to 
 note in the close of this chapter, some of the chief 
 traces of the gloom of the night to be found in 
 the literature of the Old Covenant. The topic may 
 belong more strictly to the Apologetic of the Scrip- 
 tures than to the Apologetic of Revelation ; but as 
 the phenomena in question are among the most 
 interesting and impressive evidences of the imper- 
 fection inseparable from the early stages of a pro- 
 gressive revelation, a brief reference to them cannot 
 be considered irrelevant. In connection with the 
 Apologetic of Scripture, the use of the study is to show 
 that the phenomena are such as were to be expected 
 from the method of revelation. In connection with 
 the Apologetic of Revelation, its use is to show that 
 the method of revelation was such as has been re- 
 presented, a method involving erowth and progress, 
 and therefore imperfection in the earlier stages, 
 
150 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 Among the phenomena which indicate the effect ° 
 on men’s minds of the legal discipline, may be men- 
 tioned the comparative absence of the filial spirit 
 from the sacred literature of the Old Covenant, as 
 contrasted with the New Testament. I say com- 
 parative, for I do not at all agree with those who, 
 in ancient or modern times, have asserted that the 
 filial spirit which regards God as a Father is entirely 
 absent from the Old Testament. It is well known 
 what extreme views were held by Marcion on this 
 point; and similar opinions have been expressed in 
 our own day by men occupying a very different 
 theological position from that of the Gnostic heretic. 
 In his able work on the Fatherhood of God, the late 
 Dr. Candlish says: “There is little or, I think I may 
 almost say, nothing of the filial element in the re- 
 corded spiritual experiences and spiritual exercises 
 of Old Testament believers. The Psalms entirely 
 want it. The nearest approach to it, perhaps, is that 
 most tenderly suggested analogy, ‘Like as a father 
 pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that 
 iear Him.1’” Surely this is an exaggerations 
 word “ Father” does not very often occur in the Old 
 Testament; but the filial spirit of trust in God asa 
 eracious Being, of which the appropriate expression 
 is the name Father, is certainly not so entirely want- 
 ing as is alleged. The child, though under tutors 
 
 1 Lecture III, 
 
THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 15! 
 
 ce a a SS Seg Ta 
 
 and governors, is not so utterly dominated by a lezal 
 spirit as not to know whose child it isawlenerens: Not 
 one of the Old Testament writers who does not know 
 that God deals not with men in the strict rigour of 
 justice, but is merciful and gracious, and that only on 
 that ground can any one hope to stand before Him. 
 
 But while this is true, it is not less true that there 
 is a certain obscuration of the filial consciousness 
 discernible in the utterances of Old Testament saints, 
 which is due to two closely connected causes; viz., 
 the influence of the legal covenant, and the habit of 
 judging God’s purposes by the course of outward 
 events. The law and the theocratic conception of 
 God connected therewith fostered in the minds of 
 Israelites a habit of regarding God as a dealer out 
 of rewards and punishments proportioned to men’s 
 acts. Hence, when outward events were untoward, 
 there came a cloud between God’s face and the 
 soul of the devout man, and an inner conflict arose 
 between two classes of thoughts, one suggested by 
 theory on the one hand, and one suggested by a good 
 conscience on the other; theory telling him that in 
 unhappy circumstances he ought to regard himself 
 as the object of Divine displeasure for his sins, a 
 good conscience telling him that there was nothing 
 in his conduct that could account for the frown of 
 Providence. We see this conflict vividly represented 
 at large in the Book of Job, and shortly in the forty- 
 fourth Psalm. 
 
152 LHE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 Closely connected with the unfilial tone of Old 
 Testament piety is the guerulousness characteristic 
 thereof in view of the dark mysteries of human ex- 
 perience, The spirit of sonship is cheerful, buoyant, 
 optimistic; the legal spirit, on the contrary, is gloomy 
 and desponding. Clouds of sadness and depression 
 accordingly frequently darken the Old Testament 
 sky. Psalmists doubt whether God be good to the 
 righteous, seeing how bad men prosper, and good 
 men are plagued all the day long. Prophets demand 
 why they that deal treacherously are happy, and 
 marvel that One believed to be too holy to regard 
 evil with complacency, or even with indifference, 
 should look on unmoved when the wicked devoureth 
 the man who is more righteous than he, and suffer 
 the innocent to be caught like fishes in the sea in 
 the net of an Eastern despot bent on universal con- 
 quest.1 This querulousness was one of the results 
 of the legal discipline, which put the people of Israel 
 on this footing: “Do right, and it shall be well with 
 thee ; do wrong, and it shall go ill with thee.” It was 
 a truth, but it was only a partial truth. It does go 
 well on the whole with nations that keep God’s com- 
 mandments, but not uniformly or to the full extent of 
 human wishes. It is an affair of tendency, and there 
 are many exceptions, qualifications, and drawbacks; 
 and over and above this the legal covenant does not 
 
 —— 
 
 1 Habakkuk i. 13. 
 
2 
 J 
 
 LTHE METHOD OF. REVELATION, 15 
 
 exhaust the relations between God and man. These 
 things, however, Israelites did not understand. They 
 took the covenant as strict truth and as the whole 
 ‘truth, and they were therefore very much astonished 
 to find that experience did not correspond to promise ; 
 and their feelings were embittered, and their ideas 
 confounded, and a painful perilous spirit of doubt 
 regarding the righteousness and the reality of Divine 
 Providence visited their minds, 
 
 A third element in which we can trace the in- 
 fluence of the legal discipline in the Old Testament 
 is what may be called the wor/dliness of its life 
 theory. Felicity is placed largely in outward good. 
 The method of reaching happiness is mainly outward, 
 as that of the New Testament is mainly inward. 
 Broadly stated, this contrast holds good ; though here, 
 as in regard to the absence of the filial spirit, we 
 must beware of extreme statements. The conception 
 of a felicity not dependent on external state, but 
 consisting in inward peace of mind springing out of 
 a faith in God not to be shaken by any untoward 
 events, is not foreign to the Hebrew writings. No- 
 where in the whole Bible does it find more beautiful 
 and pathetic expression than in some utterances of 
 Psalmists and Prophets. The closing portion of the 
 eventy-third Psalm, and the concluding stanzas of 
 Habakkuk’s sublime prayer, beginning respectively 
 with the words, “ Nevertheless I am continually with 
 Thee,” and “Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,” 
 
15} THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 may be cited as examples. But the Psalmist and the 
 Prophet who indited these charming lyrics did not 
 reach the imperturbable serenity to which they give 
 so graceful expression without a struggle. The man 
 who at last finds in God in all circumstances a source 
 of strength and a satisfying portion, had doubted 
 whether God were good to Israel; and his doubt was 
 due to his placing happiness in things without, instead 
 of in God alone as the Summum Bonum. And the 
 hind-footed prophet who has at length acquired the 
 power of bounding securely from rock to rock like a 
 chamois on the Swiss mountains, is a man who had 
 fuund it hard to reconcile the holiness of God with 
 the seeming heartlessness of His attitude towards 
 human affairs; and the origin of his perplexity was 
 the same as in the case of the Psalmist. These men 
 of God had both looked for happiness without first, 
 and only after being disappointed in that direction 
 did they have recourse to the “method of inward- 
 ness.’ And the method of outwardness was that 
 which came natural to Israel, as we can see from 
 many a Psalm and from the Proverbs of Solomon, 
 And this habit of thought was fostered by the law 
 which promised material, temporal felicity as the 
 reward of obedience to the commandments ; long life 
 to children who reverenced thei: parents; full basket 
 to the man that feared the Lord ; national prosperity 
 so long as Israel was faithful to the covenant. 
 “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, wealth 
 
TUE METHOD, OF REVELATION. 155 
 and riches shall be in his house.” “ Blessed is every 
 one that feareth the Lord ; thy wife shall be as a fruit- 
 ful vine by the sides of thine house; thy children like 
 olive plants round about thy table. Thou shalt see 
 the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, 
 thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon 
 Israel.” Such are samples of the law-bred world- 
 liness, or, to use a less invidious expression, “ this- 
 world-ness” of the Hebrew, in which the child under 
 tutors and governors appears as yet unable to com- 
 prehend the nature of his inheritance, and looking 
 upon the things which are seen and temporal, not 
 on the things which are unseen and eternal ; inso- 
 much that the hope of future glory after the tribula- 
 tions of life are past, which made affliction seem light 
 to Paul, scarce occurred to his thoughts, and had it 
 been suggested as a source of consolation, would 
 probably only have made him melancholy. 
 
 Yet another trace of legal influence discernible in 
 the Old Testament may be mentioned, viz., what we 
 may without offence call the windictive spirit. That 
 this is a characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 as compared with the teaching of Christ and the 
 Apostles, was recognised even by Tertullian, the great 
 opponent of Marcion. In his treatise “De Patientia,” 
 he speaks of that virtue as an addition to and supple- 
 ment of the law, and as the only thing that had been 
 wanting to the doctrine of justice. “ For surely they 
 demanded an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, 
 
156 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 for not. yet was patience on earth, because faith was 
 not; meanwhile, impatience was taking advantage of 
 the licence of the law, which was easy to be done in 
 the absence of the Lord ot patience.”4 The great 
 Puritan theologian, Dr. Owen, expresses a similar 
 opinion in his treatise on the 130th Psalm. “This 
 duty of forgiveness is more directly and expressly 
 recognised in the New Testament than in the Old. 
 
 . Hence we find a different frame of spirit 
 between them under that dispensation and those 
 under that of the New Testament. There are found 
 among them such reflections on their enemies, their 
 oppressors, their persecutors, and the like, as, although 
 they were warranted by some actings of the Spirit 
 of God in them, yet being suited to the dispensation 
 they were under, do no way become us, who by Jesus 
 Christ do receive grace for grace. . . . For alljoug 
 obedience, both in matter and manner, is to be suited 
 to the discoveries and revelation of God to us.” 
 The fact and its explanation are as represented by 
 these distinguished doctors of theology. ‘The spirit 
 of forgiveness had not the same full possession of 
 the hearts of Old Testament worthies which it 
 attained in those who yielded themselves up to the 
 teaching and spirit of Christ ; and the cause was the 
 habit fostered under the legal economy of regulating 
 the life too exclusively by the law of retaliation, an 
 
 i “De Patientia,” cap vi. 
 
THE METHODCOF REVELATION. 157 
 
 ee ern e e aceees nee a 6 - 
 
 eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which in 
 principle is a good law for the State, but not the 
 highest law for the individual. The judge, if called 
 on, is bound to give redress for wrong, but I am not 
 bound to ask redress. I am free, in many cases, if 
 I will, to suffer wrong ; and if I be filled with the 
 Spirit of Christ, I will often do so, and seek to over- 
 come evil with good. 
 
 Such are some of the more salient characteristics 
 of the literature of the ancient covenant traceable 
 to the influence of the Mosaic legislation. It is well 
 to understand how such phenomena are to be dealt 
 with. On the one hand, they are to be frankly 
 acknowledged ; on the other, they ought not to be 
 looked on as stumbling-blocks to faith, as if they 
 were fitted to bring into doubt the reality of the 
 revelation of grace, or the claims of writings in which 
 such blots appear to enter as constituent parts of the 
 record of such a revelation. For if we recognise the 
 compatibility of the legal dispensation as a whole 
 with a revelation of grace, as a stage in the course 
 of its development, such recognition covers all details 
 which can be shown to be the natural effects of the 
 dispensation. It is inconsistent to say it was right 
 that the law should come, that by its discipline it 
 might prepare the heir for the promise, and at the 
 same time to be scandalized when you find the child’s 
 thoughts taking their complexion from the system 
 under which he lived; especially when it is con- 
 
158 THE METHOD OF REVELATION. 
 
 sidered that the direct aim of the system was, not 
 to teach him to think imperfectly, but rather to pre- 
 pare him for the era of perfection that was coming. 
 The law was not given to make men cherish dark 
 views of God, worldly views of life, and vindictive 
 feelings towards those who had done them wrong. 
 It was given to educate conscience in the sense of 
 righteousness, and for that end it represented God 
 as a Holy Sovereign rather than a Benignant Father, 
 insisted on the connection between conduct and 
 happiness in this life, and in all departments of life, 
 and gave prominence to the duties men owed to each 
 other, and were entitled to demand from each other. 
 The defects in religious feeling, in the motives to 
 good conduct, and in temper, which characterized the 
 men who lived under the legal system, were accom- 
 panying incidents of the system, not ends which it 
 proposed to itself. You cannot come to Mount 
 Sinai without feeling more or less the solemn gloom 
 and terror its environment inspires ; nevertheless the 
 people of Israel were not gathered to the Mount of 
 Lawgiving to have their hearts filled with such 
 emotions, but to get introduced into their life blood 
 the steel-drops of moral law, without which neither 
 individuals nor nations come to much in this world. 
 
TTT ECON GLAONAO Le IIR A CLES LN 
 REVELATION. 
 
 159 
 
GEA PT heel va 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN 
 REVELATION. 
 
 aes chief end of miracle and prophecy, according 
 
 to the traditional view handed down to us from 
 the older school of apologists, is to supply proofs 
 or credentials of revelation. This view is the natural 
 accompaniment of a doctrinaire conception of revela- 
 tion. Revelation, according to that conception, is 
 the communication of a body of truths which reason 
 could not have discovered, and to a large extent 
 cannot even verify. Such a revelation stands in need 
 of some evidence outside the system of doctrines 
 claiming to be revealed, fitted to justify belief in the 
 validity of the claim, and the consequent reception 
 of the doctrines as given supernaturally from heaven. 
 This need, it was to be expected, the divine Revealer 
 would recognise and provide for. But what more 
 satisfactory provision could be made than that 
 supplied in biblical miracles, supernatural acts of 
 Divine power, and in the predictive prophecies, super- 
 natural manifestations of foreknowledge? These 
 miracles and prophecies, therefore, are to be re- 
 
 161 M 
 
162 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 carded as signs annexed to revelation to assure us 
 that God is indeed speaking to us. This mode of 
 viewing miracle and prophecy still holds its ground 
 in some influential quarters. The excellent Lectures 
 on Miracles by the late Dr. Mozley, forming the 
 Bampton series for 1865, may be cited as a con- 
 spicuous instance of the advocacy of this view at a 
 comparatively recent date. Dr. Mozley’s mode of 
 comtemplating the subject is very clearly indicated in 
 the following sentences from his first lecture. “There 
 is one great purpose which divines assign to miracles, 
 viz., the proof of a revelation. And certainly, if it 
 was the will of God to give a revelation, there are 
 plain and obvious reasons for asserting that miracles 
 are necessary as the guarantee and voucher for that 
 revelation. A revelation is, properly speaking, such 
 only by virtue of telling us something which we could 
 not know without it. But how do we know that that 
 communication of what is undiscoverable by human 
 reason is true? Our reason cannot prove the truth 
 of it; for it is by the supposition beyond our reason. 
 There must be, then, some note or sign to certify to 
 it and distinguish it, as a true communication from 
 God, which note can be nothing else than a miracle.” 
 The author of “Supernatural Religion” adopts the 
 same view both of revelation and of miracle, and falls 
 back on Dr. Mozley as an authority in justification 
 of his doing so. Christianity, the Bampton Lecturer 
 being witness, consists of a system of inscrutable 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 163 
 ee) ee ee nee aa rer te 
 mysteries, undiscoverable by reason and incompre- 
 hensible to reason, which therefore have no self- 
 evidencing power, but can be accredited only by 
 miraculous deeds wrought by the agents of revelation.} 
 The anonymous author referred to was very glad, 
 doubtless, to have so respectable authority for such a 
 representation of revealed religion. It made his task 
 as a destroyer comparatively easy. He had but to 
 make such a vigorous onslaught on miracles as would 
 suffice at least to fill the minds of readers with grave 
 doubts and perplexities respecting the possibility and 
 the verifiableness of the supernatural in general, in 
 order to gain the end of unsettling conviction and 
 detaching minds from the faith. For revelation, so 
 conceived, has nothing in itself to commend it to 
 men’s acceptance ; it is utterly devoid of self-evidenc- 
 ing power; its only prop is miracle, and that being 
 knocked from under it, or rudely shaken, the whole 
 superstructure tumbles to the ground. Yea, on such 
 a view of revelation, the philosphical argument 
 against miracle is likely to be reinforced by a prac- 
 tical argument to this effect : What is the worth of a 
 religious system which consists of mere undiscover- 
 able and unintelligible mysteries, which have nothing 
 in themselves tending to produce faith, no inherent 
 persuasive power? Is such a system worth the 
 trouble taken to accredit it as a Divine revelation ? Is 
 See ssi ht ee or eel VE Be ae 
 
 1 Vidz first and following pages of the work referred to. 
 
164 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 it to be believed that God did take such trouble as is 
 implied in the series of miracles wrought by Him 
 directly or indirectly for that end? I do not suppose 
 the author of “Supernatural Religion” meant to 
 represent Christianity in a disadvantageous light in 
 order to serve the purpose of controversial tactics. 
 The probability is, that he did not know any better 
 way of viewing the subject ; and his ignorance is 
 excusable when it is considered in what company he 
 errs. But the fact is, that no mode of conceiving 
 of Christianity so effectually plays into the hands of 
 unbelief as the one in question; and the use made of 
 it in good faith by this formidable opponent shows 
 how important it is that apologists should take care 
 not to state the question in such a way as gives 
 advantage to antagonists, as I think the eminent 
 defender of miracles has done in the passage above 
 quoted. In the interest of faith, it is urgently 
 incumbent on the apologist to make the relation 
 between revelation and miracle appear more intimate 
 and vital. The traditional view of the relation as 
 purely external, creates an injurious prejudice against 
 revelation, by fostering an exaggerated idea of its 
 need of attestation. The prejudice is as unfounded 
 as it is injurious. For, to see how different this hard 
 outward view of Christianity, as a system of mysterious 
 doctrines forced on our acceptance by miracles, is 
 from that presented in the Bible, it is enough to recall 
 to our thoughts the familar utterance of the Apostle 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 165 
 
 Paul: “This is a credible saying, and worthy of all 
 acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
 save sinners.”! Paul regarded this truth, which is the 
 essence of the Gospel, as one intrinsically credible, 
 and in itself so welcome to the sin-burdened heart, 
 that one is not disposed to demand, or sensible of 
 any great need for, an imposing array of miracles to 
 compel belief in it, as if it were a thing which, with- 
 out miracles, would be obstinately disbelieved, or 
 regarded at least with sceptical incredulity. That 
 mighty miracles were wrought by Him who came 
 into the world, he of course believed ; but he did not 
 look on these as indispensable credentials, without 
 which he should have regarded the fact of Christ 
 coming on a redemptive errand as neither credible 
 nor acceptable. That fact, on the contrary, while not 
 a truth discoverable by reason @ priori, appeared 
 to him one which, once revealed, was fitted to com- 
 mend itself alike to reason, conscience, and heart ; 
 for what more worthy of God than such compassion 
 towards sinful, erring men? what more welcome to 
 the burdened conscience than deliverance from the 
 sense of guilt and the dominion of sin? what more 
 acceptable to the heart than a sinners’ friend like 
 Jesus, who could love even unto death, and so earn 
 as His guerdon the enthusiastic devotion of those 
 He came to save? 
 
 et i Oe 
 
 1 y Timothy i. 15. 
 
166 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 Our quarrel with the traditional view of the 
 function of miracle is, not that it is wholly false, but 
 that it is altogether inadequate, and gives the first 
 place to that which is secondary and subordinate, and 
 so leads ultimately to a wrong conception of the very © 
 nature of miracle. Dr. Mozley cites sayings of Christ 
 in proof that He admitted the inadequacy of His own 
 mere word, and the necessity of a rational guarantee 
 to His revelation of His own nature and commission. 
 The texts do certainly show that our Lord referred to 
 His own miraculous deeds as available evidence in 
 support of His claim to be one sent from God. But 
 they do not show that He looked on these, viezwed 
 simply as miracles, as the main evidence of His claims. 
 As matter of fact He did not so regard them ; how 
 far He was from doing this, may be learnt from His 
 uniform answer to such as asked Him for a sign that 
 might set their doubts at rest, which was a refusal. 
 Such refusals might in some cases be accounted for 
 by the fact that the sign-seekers were not asking in 
 good faith, but were merely seeking an excuse for un- 
 belief. But in other cases, as, eg., in that of the mul- 
 titude at Capernaum, who asked, “What dost Thou 
 for a sign, that we may see and believe Thee ? what dost 
 Thou work?! this explanation cannot be resorted 
 to, for these sign-seekers were admirers, and in their 
 way, for the moment, disciples of Jesus. The reason 
 
 1 John vi. 30. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 167 
 
 of the refusal is to be found in this, that the seekers 
 of a sign wanted to see some prodigy that stood in 
 no intrinsic relation to Christ’s work as Saviour, but 
 was a mere arbitrary wonder wrought for the express 
 purpose of accrediting the worker, and serving no 
 other purpose. The theory of the sign-seekers seems 
 to have been, that the less moral significance a miracle 
 possessed, the less useful it was, the better fitted was 
 it to serve the purpose of evidence. To turn stones 
 into bread, and then immediately to reconvert them 
 into stones, had been to them a better proof of 
 Christ’s claims to men’s faith and discipleship than 
 the thing He had just done, the feeding of thousands 
 of hungry persons in the wilderness. Such prodigies 
 Jesus never wrought, ever sternly refused to work ; 
 and His refusal is a condemnation of the purely 
 evidential view of the function of miracles. For 
 on that view it is in the miraculousness of miracles 
 that their value as evidence lies; and this is one of 
 the gravest objections against the traditional theory, 
 that it leads to a distorted and caricaturing concep- 
 tion both of miracle and prophecy. For evidential 
 purposes, it is the thaumaturgical element in miracle 
 and the predictive element in prophecy that is of chief 
 value. Hence we find Mr. Arnold, in the chapter of 
 “Literature and Dogma” which relates to the argu- 
 ment from miracles, selecting, as an imaginary typical 
 miracle, the conversion of a penx into a pen-wiper. 
 With this typical miracle he finds it very easy, as we 
 
168 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 shall see, to put the fool’s cap on the old English 
 method of using miracles as external signs wrought 
 with a view to accredit a doctrinal revelation—a 
 method, unfortunately, not yet fallen into desuetude, 
 the English mind being very conservative and prone 
 to keep in the beaten path. Perhaps Mr. Arnold’s 
 chapter on Miracles will very materially help con- 
 servative minds to arrive at the conclusion that a way 
 of conceiving the nature and the function of miracle 
 which cannot be typified by the thaumaturgic feat of 
 converting a pen into a pen-wiper, is on all grounds 
 much to be desired. 
 
 There is such a way, and it is one naturally 
 arising out of the view of revelation advocated in 
 this work. Revelation consisting in the self-mani- 
 festation of God in human history as the God of a 
 gracious purpose,—the manifestation being made 
 not merely or chiefly by words, but very specially 
 by deeds,—the thought readily suggests itself 
 that the true way of conceiving miracles, and also 
 prophecy, is to regard them, not as mere signs 
 annexed to revelation for evidential purposes, but 
 as constitutive elements of revelation, as forming 
 in fact the very essence of the revelation. Let us 
 revert, in illustration of this statement, to the 
 miracles of our Lord. Christ’s miraculous deeds 
 were all useful, morally significant, beneficent works, 
 rising naturally out of His vocation as Saviour, 
 performed in the course of His ministry in the 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 169 
 
 pursuit of His high calling, and just as naturally 
 lying in His way, as unmiraculous healings lie 
 in the way of any ordinary physician. In a 
 word, Christ’s miracles were simply a fart of His 
 ministry, and He appealed to them in evidence, 
 not as something external added to His work as 
 a seal,—the nature of the miracles being of no con- 
 sequence, provided only they were miracles,—but 
 as an integral portion of the work, the evidence of 
 which was really as internal as that of His teach- 
 ing, which by its intrinsic wisdom and grace came 
 home to men’s minds with persuasive force and 
 moral authority. In perfect accord with this view 
 is the place assigned to miracles by Jesus Himself, 
 in His reply to the Baptist’s messengers: “ The 
 blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the 
 lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are 
 raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached 
 unto them.”! Miracles of healing are put on a 
 level with preaching the good tidings to those who 
 most needed them, and their evidence is of the same 
 findaee lor the reply does™ not? mean 72 Telleejohn 
 that I evangelize the poor, and that I also work 
 miscellaneous miracles as supernatural evidence of 
 the truth of what I preach when I announce to 
 them that I am He of whom the prophets spake, 
 come from heaven to fulfil the hope of Israel, 
 
 ' Matthew xi. 5. 
 
170 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 and to bless the sinful and miserable. It means 
 rather: Tell John Iam come full of grace in word 
 and also in deed, as becomes the Anointed One of 
 ancient prophecy. Bid him compare the facts of 
 My ministry in both departments with the prophetic 
 oracle beginning with the words: “The Spirit of the 
 Lord is upon Me,” and then judge for himself 
 whether prophecy and fact do not correspond. 
 
 The true view, then, of our Lord’s miracles, is 
 that they were an integral part of His ministry, 
 and therefore of the revelation of grace made 
 therein, not mere credentials of that ministry and 
 revelation; that in so far as they were evidential, 
 they were so just as His ministry in word was, and 
 that the evidential value of all alike and all together 
 lay in this, that they were a revelation of God in 
 the fulness of grace and truth. And the same 
 observations apply in great measure to all the 
 miracles in the Bible, those of the Old Testament 
 not less than those of the New. A small propor- 
 tion of the former were of the nature of bare signs 
 intended to serve the purpose of accrediting God’s 
 messengers, or of aiding weak faith to believe in 
 God's promises; but, with the exception of these, 
 all the rest were something more than evidential 
 appendages. The miraculous birth of Isaac was 
 not a mere sign, it was an important step in the 
 onward march of revelation. The plagues of Egypt 
 were not wrought to make Israel believe that 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 171 
 
 Jehovah was the true God, but to effect the de- 
 liverance of Israel out of Egypt. Their evidence 
 was internal to revelation, not external; in them 
 God was in the act of revealing Himself as the 
 Deliverer. The signs in the land of Ham, and 
 those afterwards wrought in the wilderness, were 
 not credentials appended to some system of doc- 
 trines, but direct manifestations of a gracious mind 
 working itself out in Providence in favour of the 
 oppressed race of Abraham. 
 
 In view of these undeniable facts, it becomes 
 evident how far Mr. Arnold’s miracle of the change 
 of a pen into a pen-wiper is from being a fit type 
 of the miracles recorded in Scripture. And with the 
 true view of these miracles and their function in 
 our minds, we can read with equanimity the words 
 in which, under cover of a patronizing attitude of 
 indulgence towards the ignorant multitude, Mr. 
 Arnold treats miracles with contempt, and ridicules 
 the use to which they are put by defenders of re- 
 vealed religion. ‘That miracles,” he says, “when 
 fully believed, are felt by men in general to be a 
 source of authority, it is absurd to deny. One may 
 say, indeed: Suppose I could change the pen with 
 which I write this into a pen-wiper, I should not 
 thus make what I write any the truer or more con- 
 vincing. That may be so in reality, but the mass 
 of mankind feel differently. In the judgment of 
 the mass of mankind, could I visibly and undeniably 
 
172 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 change the pen with which I write this into a pen- 
 wiper, not only would this which I write acquire 
 a claim to be held perfectly true and convincing, 
 but I should even be entitled to affirm, and to be 
 believed in affirming, propositions the most palpably 
 at war with common fact and experience.”! It is 
 for the traditional school of apologists to answer this 
 as best they can. I do not say that Mr. Arnold 
 is invulnerable even from their point of view. He 
 does, however, hit them hard, and make their argu- 
 ment appear in a rather ridiculous light. But as 
 for us, the polite irony of this modern Athenian does 
 not touch us at all, For we regard miracles as 
 integral parts of revelation, and not as bare arbitrary 
 signs, like the change of a pen into a pen-wiper. 
 And we know of no miracles of that sort; on the 
 contrary, we regard such prodigies as the kind of 
 miracles which the Jews desired Jesus to work, 
 but which He resolutely refused to work. Had 
 the miracles of Jesus been like Mr. Arnold’s imag- 
 inary one, I am afraid they would not have had 
 the effect of gaining for Him implicit credence, even 
 in affirmations palpably at war with common fact 
 and experience. They might indeed have won for 
 Him a temporary popularity, but only to insure a 
 Nemesis of ultimate contempt and oblivion, the fate 
 which awaits all professors of thaumaturgic arts, 
 
 ! “ Literature and Dogma,” p, 128. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 173 
 
 But the miracles neither of Jesus, nor of the Bible 
 generally, are of that sort; and unless for the pur- 
 pose of bringing into discredit the traditional mode 
 of putting the argument from miracles, the suppo- 
 sition of a pen changed into a pen-wiper in connec- 
 tion with this topic is an irrelevance, I had almost 
 said an impertinence. 
 
 The mode of conceiving the function of the Bible 
 miracles has an important bearing, not only on the 
 nature of these, but on the question as to the 
 possibility of removing them from the Bible with- 
 out materially diminishing its value for the purposes 
 of education. This question I alluded to in the 
 close of the first chapter, in giving an account of 
 Mr. Arnold’s views as to the chief end or use of 
 the Bible, contenting myself with simply stating it, 
 and reserving the discussion of it for a future oppor- 
 tunity. We have now come to the point at which 
 we can with advantage consider that postponed 
 topic. Can miracles then be, indeed, separated from 
 the Bible without changing its character or lessen- 
 ing its value? Now we remember Mr. Arnold's 
 opinion on this point, and his confident claim to 
 have demonstrated his thesis, as set forth in the 
 passage previously quoted. He regards miracles as 
 a4 blot on the Bible, which all its admirers would 
 wish to remove from its pages, as one would wish 
 to clear a friend from any stain on his reputation. 
 And he takes credit for having performed this ser- 
 
174 LZHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 ———_s 
 
 vice to the Bible, by demonstrating at length that, 
 from beginning to end, its burthen is the supreme 
 importance of righteousness. The preciousness of 
 the revelation contained in the older part of the 
 book, the revelation made to Israel of “the im- 
 measurable grandeur, the eternal necessity, the 
 priceless blessing of that with which not less than 
 three-fourths of human life is indeed concerned— 
 
 5) 
 
 righteousness,” remains the same, whether we believe 
 the stories about the miraculous passage through 
 the Red Sea and the miraculous demolition of 
 Jericho’s mighty walls, or regard them as mere 
 unhistorical legends. Now, on Mr. Arnold’s view 
 of the chief end of the Bible, his statement may be 
 admitted to be partially true. Grant that the Old 
 Testament contains only the record of a so-called 
 revelation of the importance of righteousness, and 
 not only the miracles named, but all other miracles 
 become comparatively useless. Comparatively only, 
 not wholly ; for displays of Divine righteousness in 
 miraculous judgments on evil doers and oppressors 
 like the Egyptians, and miracles of deliverance 
 wrought for the oppressed, might greatly help to 
 deepen Israel's sense of the truth that verily there 
 is a Power in the world, not ourselves, making for 
 righteousness. I do not, however, anxiously insist 
 on this, because I rather desire to emphasize the 
 previous question, viz., whether Mr. Arnold’s account 
 of the chief end of the Bible be correct or adequate. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 175 
 
 How far miracles can or cannot be dispensed with, 
 will largely depend on the answer to this question. 
 Granting that toa didactic revelation of righteous- 
 ness, miracles are comparatively superfluous, are 
 they of as little consequence to a revelation of grace. 
 made by acts rather than by words—by acts of con- 
 descension, by acts revealing a special purpose, by 
 acts forming a series knit together by the unity of 
 a pervading plan, by acts culminating naturally in 
 the Incarnation as the xe-plus-ultra of Divine con- 
 descension? No; for in that case the miracles per- 
 form an organic function in the revelation, constitute 
 the heart and essence of the revelation. That grace 
 cannot be manifested in any degree without miracle 
 I do not affirm, for I admit that in the moral order 
 of the world the rudiments of grace as well as of 
 righteousness are recognisable. But I do say that 
 the maximum of gracious possibility cannot be 
 manifested without miracle, and that the more the 
 miraculous element in the Bible is conserved, the 
 more clearly does it appear that in that book we 
 possess the record of a gradually unfolding gracious 
 purpose. The more the acts by which God mani- 
 fests His gracious will, stand out from the common 
 course of nature, the more manifestly they serve 
 the purpose intended. Take away miracle from a 
 revelation of grace, and the revelation can hardly 
 be known for what it is. Assume that it was merely 
 a fancy that led Abraham to expect to become the 
 
176 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 founder of a nation destined to inherit a particular 
 country, selected to be their home by Providence ; 
 assume that the son through whom this dream was 
 realised was born in the ordinary course of nature ; 
 assume that, by a lucky combination of accidents 
 of an untoward nature, the Egyptians were made 
 glad to be rid of their bond-slaves; assume that 
 in all the incidents connected with the Exodus © 
 and the wilderness-life there was nothing out of 
 the natural course, though possibly a certain amount 
 of the unusual; assume that in the conquest of the 
 promised land there was no power at work in favour 
 of Israel save the power of the sword and of brave 
 hearts ;—and the consequence is, that in the whole 
 history of the so-called chosen race, there is no clear 
 revelation of a gracious purpose presiding over the 
 course of events, and making all things work to- 
 gether for its own fulfilment. With the miracles 
 retained as an essential part of the story, a gracious 
 purpose towards a chosen people is indubitable ; 
 without them it is very doubtful indeed. Remove 
 the miraculous, and what remains is only a singular 
 combination of events, having no causal connection 
 with each other, by which it came to pass that an 
 Eastern sheep-owner became the father of a nation, 
 small comparatively in numbers, but considerable 
 in importance and notable in history. The result 
 may create surprise, and suggest the thought of 
 some controlling influence at work, shaping events 
 
LHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 177 
 
 so that they might have this issue. But it is not 
 more surprising than the products of nature, which 
 exhibit in a wonderful degree an aspect of design 
 suggesting a Designer, but not stringently proving 
 it so as to exclude the contrary opinion. Retain 
 the miracles, and the gracious purpose is stringently 
 proved, and the contrary opinion excluded as un- 
 tenable. The miracles and the purpose thus stand 
 or fall together. To certify, beyond all doubt, a 
 gracious purpose, miracle is necessary. I do not 
 say, I do not need to say, that all the remarkable 
 events connected with Israel’s history were in the 
 strict sense miraculous. Given as much of miracle 
 as makes evident the fact of a gracious purpose, then 
 we can afford to admit that this or that link in the 
 chain of events whereby the purpose was fulfilled was 
 not supernatural, save in the intentional use of it for 
 such fulfilment, because God can and does work out 
 His purposes by ordinary as well as by extraordinary 
 Providence. But unless some part of His working 
 be supernatural, it is always possible to deny that 
 conscious Divine purpose and a living gracious Pro- 
 vidence are revealed in human affairs. The only 
 thing verifiable is a neuter Power, or blind tendency 
 working retributively for righteousness, or electively 
 for the benefit of favoured individuals or races. 
 The need for miracle to overcome doubt, becomes 
 still more apparent when the moral condition of 
 
 man is taken into account. The sin which creates 
 N 
 
178 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 the necessity for a revelation of grace, also makes 
 the recipient of revelation indisposed to believe that 
 the Divine thoughts towards him are thoughts of 
 peace, unobservant of the traces of grace in nature 
 and Providence, therefore slow to understand the 
 loving-kindness of the Lord. An evil conscience is 
 sceptical concerning Divine benignity, prone to fear 
 and apprehensive of the worst, ready enough to 
 “recognise the traces of the Judge, backward to 
 discern the countenance of the Father. The trusting 
 spirit which rests in the truth of the Divine Father- 
 liness has first to be created; there is an antecedent 
 distrust to be subdued by a special display of love 
 so signal as to render unbelief, on the part even of 
 the most faithless, all but impossible. This special 
 display we discover in the miraculous deeds of God 
 recorded in the Bible. These deeds God wrought 
 to make His grace manifest and undeniable to 
 sinful men; and not otherwise, as Rothe has well 
 remarked, could He have made it manifest to such 
 recipients of His favour. 
 
 In full accordance with these views as to the ne- 
 cessity of miracle in connection with a revelation of 
 grace, are the representations of Scripture. A marked 
 emphasis is laid by the Bible writers,—psalmists and 
 prophets,—on the marvellousness of God’s works, in 
 connection with thanksgivings for His grace. “Re- 
 member His marvellous works that He hath done; 
 _ His wonders and the judgments of His mouth.” The 
 
LHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 179 
 
 wonders referred to are those wrought in the land of 
 Ham; and the psalmist accordingly closes his song of 
 praise by declaring these wonders to be a fulfilment 
 of God’s gracious purpose and promise. “For He 
 remembered His holy promise, and Abraham His 
 servant. And He brought forth His people with joy, 
 and His chosen with gladness: and gave them the 
 lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour 
 of the people; that they might observe His statutes, 
 and keep His laws.” } 
 
 Still more remarkable is the emphasis laid on the 
 miraculous power of God by the unknown Prophet 
 of the Exile. Having in his view the second great 
 manifestation of God’s redeeming grace towards 
 Israel, the deliverance from captivity in Babylon, the 
 prophet claims for the Divine Redeemer, in the most 
 absolute manner, a power of miraculous initiative. 
 The God of this new deliverance needs to be, and 
 accordingly in the prophetic idea He is, one capable 
 of doing new things. Not only so: He is capable of 
 doing new things in new ways. The prophet claims 
 for God a twofold originality: not only in the matter 
 but also in the manner of His wondrous works. 
 Whereas of old the miracle consisted in making a 
 way through the sea, the new miracle is to consist in 
 an achievement of an opposite kind, viz., in making a 
 way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. It 
 
 ' Psalm cv. * Isaiah xliii, 18, 19. 
 
 — 
 
1830 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 is a poetical representation, doubtless, but it is more, 
 even the pregnant suggestion of the deep philosophi- 
 cal truth, that the God of grace is utterly exempt 
 from bondage either to the fixed course of nature or 
 to the past course of history. He is not obliged in- 
 His action to keep within the groove of natural law, or 
 to conform to ancient precedent. His power was not 
 exhausted in the first creation, nor His invention in 
 the means by which in former times he accomplished 
 His ends. There is no limit to His power, no limit 
 to His capacity for new ideas. “He fainteth not 
 neither is weary, and there is no searching of His 
 understanding.” 1 Surely a most worthy conception 
 of God, superior far to that cherished either by philo- 
 sophic naturalism or by theological conservatism, 
 one of which denies to God the power of doing 
 absolutely new things, and the other, while ascribing 
 to God miraculous power, virtually denies to Him the 
 power of doing new things in new ways, and makes 
 Him the slave of old modes of action, obliged to 
 repeat Himself, and debarred by venerable custom 
 from every form of activity that wears the aspect of 
 innovation. The prophetic conception is the most 
 congenial to the revelation of grace; and wherever 
 strong faith in such a revelation,—faith worthy to be 
 called evangelical,—prevails, this conception of God 
 will be welcome. Witness Christ Himself, who 
 
 1 Isaiah xln23: 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 181 
 
 thought it no reproach to His Gospel that it was 
 novel—a new wine and a new garment; and Paul, 
 who, with obvious reference to the prophetic oracle 
 above alluded to, claimed it as a mark of the Divine 
 origin of Christianity, that it made all things new.! 
 
 It thus appears that miracle cannot be separated 
 from the Old Testament without changing its cha- 
 racter and lessening its value. In removing the 
 miraculous, you change the fact-basis from which 
 your idea of the chief end of revelation is formed. 
 The Hebrew Bible, as the record of a so-called reve- 
 lation, may still remain a very excellent book ; and 
 it may be a very good service rendered to society 
 ‘in these sceptical times, to show how much edifying 
 matter remains after the Zeztgerst has expurgated 
 from the old book all that it does not relish. All 
 I mean to say is, that the Hebrew Bible is quite a 
 different sort of book after the process of expurga- 
 tion; and the revelation of which it is the record is 
 of an altogether altered, and may I not say much 
 ifetiot.scharacter.; And if (this) be. true off ‘the 
 Hebrew Bible, it is if possible still more emphatically 
 true of the New Testament. Mr. Arnold thinks he 
 can accomplish the feat of purging the New Testa- 
 ment of miracle without detriment to its intrinsic 
 worth, by treating the miraculous narratives, with 
 exception of the healing miracles (which are deemed 
 
 Ae ZAC ORVenL 7, 
 
182 Z7HE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 capable of being reduced to natural events by means 
 of the as yet little studied science of Moral Thera- 
 peutics) as legendary tales due to the pious cre- 
 dulity and miracle-mongering spirit of the honest but 
 often mistaken reporters, and by laying stress on 
 those gospel sayings which, with his critical acumen, 
 he can certify to be the genuine /ogia of Jesus. The 
 essence of Christ’s religion is quite independent of 
 miracles, for it consists in these two things : a method 
 of attaining the reward of righteousness, and a secret ; 
 the method, inwardness, the secret self-denial. Now 
 here, again, a part, and not the most important part, 
 is taken for the whole. That Christ did teach the 
 ethical doctrines Mr. Arnold ascribes to Him has 
 been already admitted. But the proclamation of 
 these truths, as I have also already pointed out, was 
 not the whole of His mission. Whether we take the 
 Synoptists, or Mr. Arnold’s favourite Evangelist, the 
 author of the fourth gospel, as our authority, we must 
 come to this conclusion. The Synoptists put into 
 Christ’s mouth what the keenest critical acumen must 
 recognise asa genuine saying, oft-repeated it would 
 seem, “ the Son of Man came to save the lost.” John, 
 in the prologue of his gospel, says: “the Word was 
 
 1 On the manner in which naturalism disposes of the Healing 
 Miracles, vide my “ Miraculous Element in the Gospels” 
 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1886), where the whole subject of 
 ‘miracles is treated of at length. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 183 
 
 made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and 
 truth.” The foremost idea of all the evangelists is, 
 “Jesus Christ a manifestation, in its fulness, of Divine 
 grace.” Now the question is: Can you separate 
 the miraculous from the gospels, and retain this as 
 the leading idea of Christ’s ministry—Divine grace 
 revealed in fulness? No: the Incarnation itself is 
 involved in the idea; for if the Incarnation is not 
 true, then the revelation of grace falls short of what 
 we can conceive it to be. And how congruous to the 
 idea of God become flesh and dwelling among men 
 full of grace that forth-flowing of Divine power in 
 all directions to beneficent effects, to which Jesus ap- 
 pealed in proof that He was Christ! Without these 
 miracles,—for so I must continue to regard them, 
 with all due deference to “moral therapeutics,’— 
 Jesus had been a living contradiction ; full of grace as 
 a copious gushing spring, yet a well without water. 
 He must do miracles, not in order to prove formally 
 that He is what He claims to be, but to be consistent 
 with Himself, true to Himself, like Himself. What 
 can the spring do but flow? and what should Incar- 
 nate Grace do but Je gracious, according to the 
 measure of His power, doing good in every possible 
 way as one full of the enthusiasm of humanity ? 
 
 To this, however, it may be replied: Yes, in every 
 possible way; but the question is, What ways are 
 possible ? Must not physical miracles be excluded 
 as impossible? Even after they are excluded, are 
 
184 Z7M/E FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 there not left in the gospel narratives materials for 
 constructing the idea of avery gracious Saviour, at 
 once able and willing to help us in our manifold 
 infirmities? Have we not still a perfectly holy and a 
 perfectly loving being, who, both by His holiness and 
 by His love can lay hold of the sinful and lift them 
 out of their degradation into a very heaven of peace 
 and purity? Such in effect is the Christ recently 
 offered to our faith and worship by Dr. Abbott with 
 an earnestness of conviction deserving of our highest 
 respect! But whether we can rationally or perma- 
 nently rest in such a Christ, is another question. A 
 Christ perfectly loving, who does no miracles such as 
 those recorded in the Gospels, is certainly no contra- 
 diction, if miracles are impossible; for love cannot 
 be expected to work impossibilities. But is a Christ 
 perfectly szz/ess, yet incapable of physical miracles, 
 not a contradiction? The only legitimate ground 
 for the assertion that Christ could not work physical 
 miracles, is that taken up by philosophic natural- 
 ism—that the miraculous in every form is impos- 
 sible. But is not a sinless being a miracle, not less 
 really that it is a miracle in the moral instead of 
 in the physical sphere? It is so regarded by all 
 naturalistic theologians, such as Keim, who accord- 
 ingly does not hesitate to ascribe to Jesus moral 
 
 1 Vide “Oxford Sermons ;” also, “Through Nature to 
 Christ.” 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 185 
 
 defects, while fully acknowledging His general ex- 
 cellence. Unquestionably this is the philosophi- 
 cally consistent view to which all deniers of the 
 miraculous must ultimately come. The alternatives 
 we have to choose from, therefore, are: a Christ 
 miraculous in His person, character, and work ; or 
 a Christ miraculous in none of these respects, not 
 even in respect of character, but at most only a 
 remarkably good, wise, and humane man. Such a 
 man is doubtless something to be thankful for; but 
 he is hardly what humanity needs for its Saviour 
 and Lord. He who is to occupy that high posi- 
 tion must be divine and sinless; and none who 
 with full intelligence see in Christ the Wonderful in 
 these two respects, can long hesitate as to the other 
 elements of wonder. It does indeed take some 
 courage in these scientific times to continue to believe 
 in the Gospel miracles, however historical the narra- 
 tives may appear; and it requires, perhaps, more 
 courage still to hold fast the oldfashioned faith un- 
 abashed by the grand oracular manner in which Mr. 
 Arnold, inspired by the Zeztgezst, settles the vexed 
 question of miracles by a wave of the hand so to 
 speak, or, to speak literally, by a single quotation 
 from Shakspeare. “It is,” says the apostle of modern 
 culture, “‘ what we call the time-spirit that is sapping 
 the proof from miracles; it is the Zezégezs¢ itself. 
 Whether we attack them or whether we defend them 
 does not much matter; the human mind, as its 
 
185 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 ee ee 
 experience widens, is turning away from them.” ! 
 If this be indeed so, then to continue believing in 
 miracles is to run the risk of being voted a Philistine, 
 and to defend one’s opinion is a waste of time. But 
 for our comfort let us remember that the Zeitgeist is 
 a sprite of changeable humour, and that the faith in 
 miracle has been again and again discarded as out 
 of date, and taken up again as faith in Divine grace 
 revived ; a fact corroborative of our instinctive con- 
 viction that miracles and a revelation of grace go 
 together. 
 
 But at this point we are reminded of the dictum of 
 Spinoza, that miracles, far from revealing the highest 
 truth concerning God, do not reveal even the lowest 
 and most elementary, not even the fact that God 
 exists ; the proof being, that if miracles mean events 
 whose causes are unknown, they are simply things 
 incomprehensible, therefore things from which we 
 can learn nothing ; and if they mean events contrary 
 to nature, they tend rather to breed scepticism as to 
 the Divine existence than faith in God, inasmuch as 
 what is contrary to nature is contrary to the first 
 notions on which our belief in the existence of God 
 is based.2 Now, as Dr. Mozley has pointed out, 
 Spinoza regards a miracle as a mere marvel, begin. 
 ning and ending with itself, And it cannot be denied 
 th: ae 
 
 1 & 
 
 Literature and Dogma,” DAZ. 
 * Vide chapter i. p. 37. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION 18} 
 
 that when so regarded a miracle is an event to which 
 no significance can be attached. The only effect of 
 an isolated prodigy, is to make beholders stare. But 
 it is altogether otherwise with a miracle viewed in 
 relation to other events which tend to give it mean- 
 ing, say, such a miracle as the healing of the blind 
 man, taken in connection with a previous intimation 
 given by Christ of an intention to restore to him 
 his sight. Dr. Mozley remarks, that “the evidential 
 function of a miracle is based upon the common 
 argument of design as proved by coincidence. The 
 greatest marvel or interruption of the order of nature 
 occurring by itself, as the very consequence of being 
 connected with nothing, proves nothing; but if it 
 takes place in connection with the word or act of a 
 person, that coincidence proves design in the marvel 
 and makes it a miracle; and if that person professes 
 to report a message or revelation from heaven, the 
 coincidence, again, of the miracle with the professed 
 message from God, proves design on the part of God 
 to warrant or authorize the message. The mode in 
 which a miracle acts as evidence, is thus exactly the 
 same in which any extraordinary coincidence acts: 
 it rests upon the general argument of design, though 
 the particular design is special and appropriate to 
 the miracle.”! This passage explains how a miracle 
 may reveal something of God, even when regarded as 
 
 16% Bampton, Lectures, = p..24 
 
1838 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 a sign expressly wrought for an evidential purpose. 
 Even an arbitrary miracle like that supposed by 
 Mr. Arnold, by being previously fixed on and pre- 
 announced as to be wrought for the purpose of accred- 
 iting a divine messenger, would thereby cease to be 
 a mere prodigy, and become a revelation of Divine 
 thought. But the value of miracles as sources of 
 knowledge concerning God, is greatly enhanced when 
 they are regarded, not as signs attached to, but as 
 integral parts of a revelation, and further, not as 
 isolated displays of power, but as interdependent 
 members of a great organism of revelation in which a 
 Divine purpose is immanent throughout. Suppose 
 that the miracles of Christ had been mainly of the 
 nature of prodigies wrought for the avowed and pre- 
 announced purpose of substantiating His claims, In 
 that case they would of themselves have revealed 
 nothing about the worker except that He was in pos- 
 session of very remarkable power, and that He wished 
 to be taken and might reasonably be taken for what 
 He claimed to be. But the actual fact is, that Christ’s 
 miracles were direct revelations of Himself, revela- 
 tions of the inmost thoughts of His heart, insomuch 
 that in their absence we should with difficulty believe 
 Him to be what He claimed to be; not for the 
 reason given by Dr. Mozley, that to proclaim Himself 
 God’s eternal Son, the Saviour of the world and the 
 head of the Divine kingdom, without substantiating . 
 His claims by miracles, would indicate madness or 
 
THE FUNCTION. OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 189 
 
 insanity ; but because in that case, as already indi- 
 cated, He would be in contradiction to Himself, and 
 present the spectacle of a character assumed, but not 
 sustained or played out. On the other hand, with 
 the recorded miracles as an integral portion of His 
 history, we feel that Christ presents to our view a 
 thoroughly consistent harmonious character, in which 
 every feature we looked for is fully developed, and 
 all bear out the title, “God manifest in the flesh in 
 the fulness of grace.” 
 
 The true key to the Spinozan doctrine as to the 
 valuelessness of miracles for the purpose of reveal- 
 ing God is a speculative conception of the universe 
 which excludes miracle as impossible. Miracles can 
 prove nothing only to those to whom they them- 
 selves cannot be proved. Every man who believes 
 in miracles as matters of fact sees in them this much 
 at least: a supernatural power or will at work. A 
 miracle believed in as an actual occurrence, reveals 
 the presence of a non-natural causality; that is to 
 say, of a will; for will is the only supernatural 
 power with which we are acquainted. Men of a 
 sceptical temper, however, will hardly be persuaded 
 that a miracle in the strict sense, z¢., an event 
 which could not have had a natural cause, has 
 occurred. We could conceive such men witnessing 
 some of the miraculous events in our Lord’s life 
 and finding themselves unable to deny the “sensible 
 fact,’ and unable to account for it; yet hesitating to 
 
190 ZHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 draw the inference that it had a supernatural cause, 
 and contenting themselves with regarding it as an 
 inexplicable phenomenon. This is, indeed, the 
 position taken up by Baden Powell, in his essay on 
 miracles, in “Essays and Reviews.” His thesis is 
 that no testimony can reach to the supernatural, or 
 prove more than that something extraordinary and 
 perhaps unaccountable has taken place. That it is 
 due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on 
 the previous belief or assumption of the parties. This 
 dogma either amounts to the truism that the senses 
 do not actually perceive the supernatural cause, but 
 only supply material for a rational inference as to the 
 presence of such a cause, or it signifies that no testi- 
 mony can establish a fact for which no other than 
 a supernatural explanation can be suggested. That 
 the writer referred to had the latter thought in his 
 mind is clear from these words: “The proposition 
 that an event may be so incredible intrinsically as 
 to set aside any degree of testimony, in no way 
 applies to or affects the honesty or veracity of that 
 testimony, or the reality of the impressions on the 
 minds of the witnesses, so far as it relates to the 
 matter of sensible fact simply. It merely means 
 this, that from the nature of our antecedent con- 
 victions the probability of some kind of mistake or 
 deception somewhere, though we know not where, 
 is greater than the probability of the event really 
 happening in the way, and from the causes, assigned,” 
 
* THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 191 
 
 In other words, two doors are open to the sceptic 
 who wishes to escape from the supernatural. The 
 one, This fact admitted to be such as witnessed or 
 reported, may have had a natural cause; the other, 
 This fact for which as witnessed or reported no 
 natural cause can be conceived, may not have 
 happened as it appears, or has been reported. The 
 senses of witnesses may have been deceived. For 
 one who is resolved always to make his escape from 
 faith in miracles by one or other of these doors, 
 the dictum that testimony cannot reach to the super- 
 natural really means there is no supernatural to be 
 reached. On the other hand, when the supernatural 
 is regarded as real and accessible, miracles will be 
 considered at least possible. It will not be assumed 
 that escape may always be effected by one or other 
 of the doors indicated. There may stil!, of course, 
 be a very praiseworthy desire to verify the miraculous 
 fact. But a fact of the kind will be deemed verifi- 
 able, and when verified it will be held to be evidence 
 of a supernatural cause or will at work. 
 
 This, however, does not amount to much in the 
 way of revelation, especially when it is considered 
 that according to the Bible doctrine, miracles may 
 be wrought not merely by the will of God, but also 
 by other supernatural agents, not even obedient to 
 God, but acting contrary to the interests of His 
 kingdom. It has been thought by opponents of 
 revelation that this fact is fatal to the evidential 
 
192 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 function of miracles. This, however, is too sweep- 
 ing an inference. The fact merely shows that 
 some consideration of miraculous manifestations is 
 necessary in order to eliminate doubt as to the 
 character and purpose of the Being who is at work. 
 This is certainly the case. The mere fact that a 
 supernatural power has been displayed does not of 
 itself indicate with whom I have to do. It simply 
 shows that I am in contact with a higher will of 
 some kind, good or evil. Whether good or evil, 
 remains to be determined by the nature of the 
 transactions. I learn with whom I have to do in 
 miraculous acts, just as I learn with what manner of 
 persons I have to do in my intercourse with my 
 fellow-men. Here the law applies: “by their fruits 
 ye shall know them.” Christ appealed to that law 
 in connection with His own miracles. “If I cast out 
 devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of 
 God is come unto you.” It will be seen that this 
 sort of evidence is cumulative. in its effect. The 
 revelation of the moral character of the higher 
 will that is at work is made gradually ; it becomes 
 clear as the number of acts are multiplied, and as 
 their mutual connection becomes apparent, evincing 
 the existence of a purpose indicative of a certain 
 mind. It is thus we come to know the moral 
 character of human wills; it is just in the same 
 way we come to know the character of a super- 
 human will. One act of miraculous power suffices to 
 
LHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 193 
 eer ee PA ee Speer inet sn ek 
 reveal the presence of a higher will, and to start the 
 enquiry, what sort of a will is this which I see work- 
 ing? It is possible that the very first act may reveal 
 the nature of the will, just as there are single actions: 
 performed by men which leave us in little doubt 
 as to what manner of men they are. But in con- 
 nection with acts performed by supernatural agency, 
 it is natural that we should be slower in coming 
 to a conclusion, and need a number of acts, all of 
 kindred import, to reveal the moral character of the 
 source of power. Such seems to have been the case 
 of Christ’s disciples. They believed in Him after a 
 fashion on the very first display of miraculous power ; 
 but their first faith was provisional and stood in need 
 of confirmation. And it received the confirmation 
 which it needed, from every new exercise of miracu- 
 lous power by their Master, until at length it was 
 established beyond the possibility of being shaken, so 
 that even when their now well-known Leader spoke 
 in a way which shocked hearers and sent multitudes 
 of lightly attached disciples away in disgust, they 
 could calmly abide with Him, and say ; “We believe 
 and are sure that Thou art the Holy One of God.” } 
 In a similar way was the faith of Israel in Jehovah 
 established. When Israel’s God began that course 
 of action which had for its aim and issue the 
 Exodus, the question was raised: Who is this that 
 
 ? Tohn vi. 7o: 
 
1964 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELA TION. 
 
 is showing Himself-to us? Moses told them at the 
 outset: “I Am hath sent me unto you.” That was, 
 so to speak, the hypothesis to be verified inductively 
 by subsequent events. By the time they got to the 
 farther shore of the Red Sea, the emancipated slaves 
 could have little doubt that a friendly divinity had 
 been at work on their behalf, and were prepared’ to 
 sing the song of triumph led by Miriam: 
 
 ‘The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my 
 
 salvation, 
 
 He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation. 
 
 My fathers’ God, and I will exalt Him.” 
 
 The sympathy with the oppressed against the op- 
 pressor, displayed in the whole course of the Exodus, 
 revealed a beneficent Being. The wonders wrought 
 in the land of Ham revealed a mighty Being. The 
 overthrow of the Egyptian host and of Egypt's great 
 king, and the contempt poured on Egypt’s gods by 
 the demonstration of their impotence, showed the 
 beneficent higher Power to be the King of kings and 
 God of gods. 
 
 These examples suggest the thought that the know- 
 ledge of God through His extraordinary Providence, 
 is reached in the same way as the knowledge of 
 God through His ordinary Providence. All theists 
 believe that we may competently attempt to learn 
 something concerning God from nature and from 
 history. Some even who are not theists admit that 
 we may form from the same sources some conclu- 
 
 \ 
 ww, 
 
LilE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN KEVELATION. 195. 
 
 sions regarding the existence of a moral order of the 
 world. And all, theists and non-theists, admit that the 
 knowledge thus acquired is the result of an inductive 
 process. A single event in Providence or history may- 
 be of very dubious significance ; many isolated events 
 are of very indeterminate character, leaving room 
 for the question: Is God indeed good to Israel, does 
 He really care for the right ; is He not rather a Being 
 to whom right and wrong, good and evil, are matters 
 of indifference, so far removed from the world that 
 such distinctions are invisible to His eye? But when 
 a large and a connected view of history is taken it 
 becomes apparent to the enquirer that there is in- 
 deed a God that doeth righteousness, “a Power, not 
 ourselves, making for righteousness.” Just so is the 
 character of God read off from the phenomena of 
 extraordinary or miraculous Providence. Isolated 
 miracles, like isolated events in the ordinary course 
 of history, may leave it doubtful who or what 
 manner of being the agent is; but the doubt is. 
 eliminated as the series of miraculous acts lengthens, 
 and the purpose by which the whole series is per- 
 vaded becomes increasingly clear, till at length the 
 beneficent power who has been at work is openly 
 and fully revealed. It would be hard for Abraham 
 to recognise the suggestion to sacrifice Isaac as 
 a voice coming from a God who was his gracious 
 Benefactor. It would need a second voice, rescuing 
 at the last moment the destined victim, to indicate the 
 
196 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 source of the first. But taken altogether the Divine 
 acts of self-manifestation to the patriarch could 
 leave no room for doubt in his mind that the Being 
 with whom he had to do was his Friend. God's 
 dealings with Abraham, on review, could not but 
 appear luminous with a gracious purpose. In like 
 manner one or two isolated miracles out of the whole 
 number of wondrous works wrought by Christ might 
 excusably puzzle the beholder. But no candid mind 
 surveying the whole series could have made the 
 suggestion that these miracles were wrought by the 
 power of Satan or of any of his servants, Celsus can 
 hardly have been in earnest when he insinuated that 
 the miracles of the gospel were like the tricks. of 
 magicians. At all events, by making the suggestion 
 he gave his Christian opponent the opportunity of 
 offering a very complete and crushing reply. “ Show 
 me,” said Origen, “the magician who calls upon the 
 spectators of his prodigies to reform their life, or who 
 teaches his admirers the fear of God, and seeks to 
 persuade them to act as those who must appear 
 before Him as their judge. The magicians do 
 nothing of the sort, either because they are incapable 
 of it, or because they have no such desire. Them- 
 selves charged with crimes the most shameful and 
 infamous, how should they attempt the reformation 
 of the morals of others? The miracles of Christ, 
 on the contrary, all bear the impress of His own 
 -holiness, and He ever uses them as the means of 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 1097 
 
 Winning to the cause of goodness and truth those 
 who witnessed them. Thus He presented His own 
 life as the perfect model, not only to His immediate 
 disciples, but to all men. If such was the life of 
 Jesus, how can He be compared to mere charlatans, 
 and why may we not believe that He was indeed 
 God manifested in the flesh, for the salvation of 
 Surcace:” + 7 
 
 In the foregoing observations I have virtually 
 disposed of a problem which, in the older apolo- 
 getic treatises, is thus formulated: Do the miracles 
 prove the doctrine, or does the doctrine prove the 
 miracles? The question arises out of the fact that 
 in the Scripture it is contemplated as a possible case 
 that miracles might be wrought by agents of evil 
 bias, and showing their evil bias by teaching false 
 doctrine. It is a question which concerns those who 
 regard miracles chiefly as evidential signs, attached 
 externally to a doctrinal revelation, much more 
 nearly than those who look on miracles not as mere 
 Bitsy) Ul aS “SOurces» of doctrine. ©The: problem; 
 however, remains for them also, but in an altered 
 form. For them doctrine and miracles go together 
 as manifestations of character or purpose, like the 
 words and deeds, faith and life, of an ordinary 
 human agent. In all manifestations of character, 
 
 1 Origen, ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” i. 68. Pressensé, ‘“‘ Martyrs and 
 Apologists,” pp. 619-20. 
 
1o8 LHE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 whether by word or by deed, in the case of ordinary 
 agents, or in the case of extraordinary, there may be 
 an element of ambiguity, and the problem is to show 
 how that element of ambiguity is to be eliminated, 
 so that the character, spirit, aad purposes of the 
 agent may be certainly known. And our answer is, 
 that the ambiguity is gradually eliminated as the 
 mind of the agent unfolds itself in action. Whether 
 the actions through which character is revealed be 
 natural or supernatural, makes no difference. 
 
 This being so, it will be at once apparent what 
 an advantage it must be to be placed in a position 
 whence it is possible to survey the whole series of 
 acts whereby God manifested Himself to the world 
 as the God of grace. This is our case, and being so 
 placed we are in some respects more favoured than 
 the first recipients of revelation, who had the oppor- 
 tunity of witnessing some of God’s wondrous works, 
 Our first impression, probably, is that we who live 
 in an age so far removed from the years of the right 
 hand of the Most High, are at a great disadvantage 
 as believers in revelation compared to those to whom 
 God manifested Himself directly as the Revealer. 
 We fancy that they had in it their power to be much 
 surer that a revelation was actually being made 
 than we can be that a revelation has been made. 
 But this is to a large extent a delusion. The evi- 
 dence to us that a revelation has been given is the 
 character of the revelation viewed as a whole, in- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 199 
 
 cluding miracles and prophecies as part and parcel 
 thereof. To a theist it is intrinsically credible that 
 the living loving God in whom he believes will 
 reveal Himself in history, in the fulness of His 
 grace. He does not pretend to demonstrate a priori 
 that God must do so, but with his conception of 
 God he will not be incredulous as to the fact of His 
 having done so; and, if on a conjunct view of the 
 alleged revelation in its whole lengthened course, 
 he find the self-manifestation of God in grace God- 
 worthy, he will accept the revelation as a veritable 
 one, until very cogent reasons have been adduced 
 why he should not. Now this is the actual state of 
 the case. The alleged revelation, as it lies before 
 us recorded in the Book, is God-worthy. And as 
 it lies there, a completed revelation, we are in a 
 position to feel the force of the internal evidence 
 arising out of its God-worthiness, with far more effect 
 than the first recipients. They had the advantage 
 of being eye-witnesses of God’s miraculous self- 
 manifestation as the omnipotent, omniscient One; 
 in regard to that we are dependent on their testi- 
 mony, and on the historical record, which cannot 
 produce as great a degree of certainty as seeing for 
 one’s self yields. But, on the other hand, we have 
 the compensating advantage that the completed 
 drama of revelation is before our eye, revealing in 
 all its moral sublimity the gracious condescension 
 of the Most High, stooping down to the level of 
 
200 LHL FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 His sinful creatures, “to revive the spirit of the 
 humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite 
 ones.” And the result is that, unless our conception 
 of God be such as to render that drama of grace 
 impossible, the sublime spectacle produces conviction, 
 and we take the whole to be what it gives itself 
 out for, a veritable supernatural Revelation. We, in 
 the end of days, when the long process of evolution 
 is complete, far removed from the time when God 
 made Himself known to the fathers, are, compared 
 to them, like men who contemplate the whole 
 cosmos as an evidence of a Divine Designer, com- 
 pared to persons whose attention is engrossed by 
 a single striking instance of design. The men of 
 revelation had under their eye single instances of 
 Divine grace revealed in miracles and prophecies, 
 or, at most, a limited number of instances. We, 
 on the other hand, have before our eye a complete 
 system of Divine self-manifestations, spread over 
 thousands of years, made to many different indi- 
 viduals ; and observing the harmony which pervades 
 the whole, and the gracious mind that gives unity 
 to the long series, we feel as strongly convinced 
 that we have here God manifesting Himself in grace, 
 as in contempating the cosmos of nature we feel 
 assured that therein is revealed a wise and bene- 
 ficent Maker and Preserver of all. 
 
 In the whole of the preceding discussion we have 
 been regarding miracles as something more and 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 201 
 
 higher than evidential signs of a doctrinal revela- 
 tion ; as constituting, not merely proving, a revela- 
 tion. It may be well in conclusion to temanic 
 though it scarcely needs to be formally pointed out, 
 that miracles may imply much more about God 
 than they expressly reveal, and may sustain, as the . 
 foundation of a doctrinal edifice, much more than 
 they contain. Besides revealing a positive purpose 
 of grace, they may teach, by implication, essential 
 truth concerning the nature of God, e,¢., the doctrine 
 of His Personality. This statement will be illus- 
 trated and vindicated more fully when we come 
 to consider the doctrinal significance of revelation , 
 meantime I take occasion to refer to an objection 
 brought by Lessing to the competency of miracles to 
 reveal or justify belief in eternal truth. In a tractate 
 on “The Demonstration of Spirit and of Power,” 
 the demonstration of spirit meaning prophecy, and 
 the demonstration of power miracles, he maintains 
 the thesis, that history, even miraculous history, can 
 never be the basis of faith in eternal truth. Without 
 calling in question the historical value of the sacred 
 writings, he affirms that as no historical truth can 
 be demonstrated, so nothing can be demonstrated 
 through historical truths. “That is,” he goes on to 
 say, in large capitals, as if the statement were of 
 vast moment, “ accidental historical truths can never 
 be the demonstration of necessary truths of reason.” 
 The real drift of this famous dictum is that revela- 
 
202 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION, 
 
 tion is of very little importance, because through 
 such a revelation as we have in Scripture we could 
 not be sure of anything being true unless we had 
 other means of attaining unto certainty, viz., reason. 
 The only function left to revelation on this view 
 is that of suggesting thoughts to be afterwards veri- 
 fied by reason. The position laid down with such 
 oracular confidence is thoroughly characteristic of 
 the eighteenth century, and specially of the Auf- 
 klaring period, whether we have regard to the 
 conception of revelation as having for its aim to 
 put in circulation abstract ideas, or to the mean 
 estimate implied therein of the value of history. It 
 might be sufficient to say in the way of reply that 
 the end of revelation is not merely or chiefly to 
 put in circulation ideas of reason, but to reveal God 
 Himself in an aspect which the human mind can 
 recognise as God-worthy, but which it could not 
 without revelation be sure of; not merely because 
 the truth revealed is so majestic we hardly dare to 
 entertain it, but also because that truth without 
 revelation by action would not be true, inasmuch 
 as grace which is never manifested in deeds, is no 
 grace at all. Not that we hold God bound to mani- 
 fest Himself in grace; we recognise fully the Divine 
 freedom and sovereignty. Nevertheless, God being 
 what we know Him to be, the manifestation of 
 Himself in grace, given the fact of sin, might be 
 said to be a matter of course; and equally a matter of 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 203 
 
 course might we regard the self-manifestation of God 
 as Fatherly love irrespective of the fact of sin; 
 such a revelation being to a sinless world what a 
 revelation of grace is to a sinful world! The truth. 
 that God is love is not a necessary truth like the 
 truths of mathematics, nor a merely accidental truth 
 like the historical fact of the invasion of Britain by 
 aus Czesar. It? resembles” rather” the truths of 
 physical science, such as the law of gravitation or 
 the composition of light, truths for the discovery of 
 which observation is necessary, yet truths which once 
 ascertained are as certain as any proposition in 
 Euclid, though not in the strict sense necessary 
 truths, 
 
 Such is the nature of the truth expressly revealed 
 by miracle and prophecy, viz., the Divine purpose of 
 grace. But I have said that truths of an essential 
 or necessary character, such as the Divine Person- 
 ality, may be implied in a miracle-revelation; it 
 is therefore needful to consider the question raised 
 by Lessing, how far historical miraculous facts can 
 avail to sustain faith in such truths. Lessing argues 
 thus. Suppose I have nothing to object to the 
 statement that Christ raised a dead man, must I 
 therefore hold it as true that God has a Son, His 
 equal in essence? If I have no objection to make 
 to the historical truth of the statement that Christ 
 
 1 So Schweitzer, 
 
204 THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 Himself rose from the dead, must I therefore regard 
 this risen one as the Son of God? That Christ, 
 against whose resurrection I can offer no historical 
 objections of weight, gave Himself out on account 
 of His resurrection as the Son of God, and that 
 His disciples on that account held Him to be such, 
 I heartily believe. But now with these historical 
 truths to spring into an entirely different class of 
 truths, and to desire of me that I should alter all 
 my metaphysical and moral ideas in conformity 
 therewith ; to suggest to me that I must change all 
 my fundamental ideas of the essence of God—if that 
 is not a petaBacts eis GdXO yévos, I do not know 
 what Aristotle meant by the expression.! To this 
 attempt to rob historical facts of all moral and 
 theological significance it is enough to reply, that 
 what Lessing objects to in his own case, as an un- 
 reasonable demand, has been realized in thousands of 
 instances. Facts believed changing men’s whole way 
 of thinking about God, man, and the world, and the 
 relations of these to each other, their whole theory of 
 the universe, in short, is not so rare a phenomenon 
 that philosophers should hold up their hands in 
 astonishment at the very idea as absurd. This 
 was what happened when the nations were converted 
 to Christianity. What was it that led men to cast 
 
 1 From the above-mentioned tractate, “ Ucber den Beweis des 
 -Geistes und der Kraft.” 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 205 
 
 away idols and to worship one God, Maker and 
 Upholder of the world, and to believe in the life 
 eternal, with such firmness that fear of death was 
 utterly banished from their breasts? It was the. 
 Christian body of facts, recorded in the Gospels ; 
 the belief in Jesus Christ incarnate, crucified, risen, 
 for the world’s salvation. It was not, as has been 
 well pointed out, a fine scheme of truths of reason, 
 such as that God is one, and that the human soul 
 is immortal, which made the early Christians so ob- 
 stinate in their resistance to temptations to apostasy 
 and so brave to endure martyrdom. “The stress of 
 that compulsion which carried so many men, women 
 and youths through the endurance of tortures, even to 
 death, and which brought so many apostates, pallid 
 and trembling, to the tribunals, there to clear them- 
 selves, at the cost of their souls, of the fatal suspicion 
 —this compulsion sprang wholly from the perfect 
 conviction they had of the certainty of that dody 
 of facts, which constituted, and in which consisted, 
 Sieuercliogious. belief he body :of facts, mote an 
 opinion of the truth of principles, was the impul- 
 sive cause of that endurance of suffering.”! So 
 notoriously true is this that it is hard to believe 
 that Lessing was seriously persuaded of the truth 
 of those facts which he sought to isolate from his 
 philosophical and theological creed. Believe the 
 
 1 “The Restoration of Belief,” p. 66, 
 
206 7ITE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 
 
 resurrection of Christ, and yet retain one’s precon- 
 ceived ideas of God, say those of Spinoza, to which, 
 according to the testimony of Jacobi, Lessing was 
 more than half inclined ? Impossible! Spinoza did 
 not believe in the resurrection of Christ, and he well 
 knew why ; his idea of the essence of God made it 
 impossible that he should. Lessing did not with his 
 whole heart believe in Christ’s resurrection any more 
 than Spinoza; else he could not have imagined it 
 possible to treat such an event as one having no 
 speculative significance, no bearing on the theory of 
 the universe. The true attitude of Lessing towards 
 the “facts” of Christianity comes out towards the 
 end of the treatise already referred to, where he 
 states that he believes Christianity for its own sake 
 quite irrespective of the question whether the history 
 related in the Gospel be true or not. “The moral 
 truths of Christianity are the ripe fruit of so-called 
 miracles and prophecies. Why should I not satiate 
 myself with them? What does it matter to me 
 whether the tale be false or true; the /rwdts are 
 excellent.” 
 
 So it comes to this at last; let us take the moral 
 essence of Christianity which commends itself to our 
 minds, and trouble ourselves no more about the 
 history. The history is but the shell, this is the 
 kernel; let us enjoy the sweetness of the kernel 
 and throw the shell without regret aside. But the 
 question 1s: Does the kernel remain, after the so- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLE IN REVELATION. 207 
 
 called shell is cast away? It may, on the eighteenth- 
 century idea of what the kernel consisted in; ab- 
 stract ideas of reason, about God, duty and immor- 
 tality; or on the notion of Christianity current in- 
 our own day, as consisting simply in an ethical spirit. 
 But if, as we have contended all through, it be God 
 manifesting Himself in grace, then we cannot part 
 with the shell without at the same time parting with 
 the kernel. Self-revealing grace ts history, or tt ts 
 nothing at all, It is supernatural facts to begin with 
 working themselves into the course of human history, 
 originating great historical movements not otherwise 
 tosberaccounted for. In short, it) is not a. case of 
 kernel and shell. It is a case rather of stone fruit, 
 like a cherry or a peach, from which you cannot 
 remove the stone without fatally injuring the fruit. 
 You may think the history a mere useless stone 
 that may be cast away without loss. But in ex- 
 tracting the stone you wound the tender flesh, and 
 through the wound the precious juice escapes. } 
 
 1 The above view of the miraculous, as merely the shell, has 
 recently been advocated by Dr. Abbott in a work entitled “ The 
 Kernel and the Husk ” (1886). Dr. Abbott retains the spiritual 
 miracles, such as the Incarnation and the Sinlessness of Jesus, 
 and rejects only the physical miracles, which he regards as 
 lexendary. This half-way position will, we are persuaded, very 
 spcedily be found to be untenable. 
 
tee FIV CLILONG OF MPROPHEGY (IN: 
 REVELATION. 
 
 209 P 
 
Se 
 
CHAPTER VW, 
 
 eld yee li IV GL OLY ROL ERO PLLC Vali 
 REVELATION. 
 
 N the older apologetic, as I observed at the com- 
 
 mencement of last chapter, prophecy takes rank 
 with miracles as an evidential sign attached to a 
 doctrinal revelation. In this connection stress is, 
 of course, laid chiefly on the miraculous element 
 in prophecy. The prophets are conceived of as fore- 
 tellers of things to come, and their prophecies as 
 miracles of foreknowledge, giving proof that they 
 were entitled to speak to men in God’s name as 
 authoritative teachers. In this evidential way of 
 regarding prophecy much of what was most cha- 
 racteristic in the work of the prophets falls into the 
 background. The great business of the apologist 
 is not to find out the prophet’s place and function 
 in the history of revelation, and with reference to his 
 own time, but simply to discover as many as possible 
 specific predictions which can be shown to have been 
 accomplished in subsequent history. It is, obviously, 
 a matter of indifference to this argument what 
 the subject of prophecy may be. The particular 
 
 2I1 
 
212 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 a ae eee 
 
 prediction may be one analogous to the miracle of 
 changing a pen into a penwiper, a mere prodigy 
 of foreknowledge, it will still serve the purpose of 
 revealing the presence of a supernatural element. 
 Such a way of regarding prophecy degrades it to 
 a level with heathen divination, and hence it has 
 justly fallen into discredit with recent writers of 
 unexceptionable orthodoxy. By no one has it 
 been more emphatically repudiated than by the late 
 Principal Fairbairn, who in his excellent work on 
 Prophecy speaks of the habit of treating prophecy 
 merely as a branch of the evidences, taking account 
 of nothing but what it contains of the miraculous, 
 as having “impoverished much of our prophetical 
 literature, and stricken it with the curse of barren- 
 ness.” The statement is strictly true, nor does it 
 tell the whole truth as to the mischief wrought by 
 the narrow and one-sided view so energetically con- 
 demned. The exclusively evidential use of prophecy 
 exercises a most serious disturbing influence within 
 the provinces of criticism and interpretation. Its 
 interest being to multiply the number of remarkable 
 specific predictions, its bias in all questions of date 
 and authorship is to adopt, without regard to the 
 state of the evidence, that view which makes the 
 writing contain the largest amount of the miraculous. 
 Then, as the force of the argument depends largely 
 on the explicitness with which the predicted event is 
 pre-announced, the apologetic bias naturally inclines 
 
CHE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION ° 213 
 to that way of interpreting individual prophecies 
 which makes them like history written before the 
 event—clear, definite, unmistakeable—and fosters 
 generally a misconception of the prophetic style. 
 which opens the door to a fanatical and irrational 
 mode of interpreting unfulfilled prophecy fitted to 
 bring the whole prophetic literature into contempt 
 —the appropriate territory of theological quacks, to 
 be shunned by all sensible men. In the special 
 department of Messianic prophecy the tendency of 
 the evidential school is to disregard entirely the 
 historical method of interpretation, and to adopt 
 that view of the prophecies which makes them ob- 
 viously and exclusively refer to Christ. No good 
 can come out of this apologetic special pleading even 
 to the cause in whose interest it is practised. Its 
 only effect is to give such writers as Mr. Arnold an 
 opportunity to turn the whole argument into ridicule, 
 an opportunity of which the author of “ Literature 
 and Dogma” has fully availed himself. In his ironi- 
 cal patronising way he says: “It must be allowed 
 that while human nature is what it is, the mass of men 
 are likely to listen more to a teacher of righteousness, 
 if he accompany his teaching by an exhibition of 
 supernatural prescience. And what were called the 
 ‘sional predictions’ concerning the Christ of popular 
 theology, as they stand in our Bibles, had and have 
 undoubtedly a look of supernatural prescience. The 
 employment of capital letters and other aids, such 
 
214 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 as the constant use of the future tense, naturally and 
 innocently adopted by interpreters who were pro- 
 foundly convinced that Christianity needed these ex- 
 press predictions, and that they szst be in the Bible, 
 enhanced certainly this look; but the look, even 
 without these aids, was sufficiently striking”! It 
 is a flippant caricature of the “Argument from Pro- 
 phecy,” but there is just enough truth in it to make 
 one sensible of the necessity of forming a concep- 
 tion of prophecy which can be made subservient to 
 the purposes of apologetic without having recourse 
 to the exegetical devices held up to ridicule. This 
 accordingly is the task to which we have now to 
 address ourselves, as the first step in our endeavour 
 to ascertain the function of prophecy in the history 
 of revelation. 
 
 The most outstanding feature of prophecy, then, 
 to which all others must be subordinated, and by 
 which all others are best understood, is its ethical 
 character. The prophets were not principally fore- 
 tellers, or prognosticators of future events ; and what- 
 ever predictions occur in their writings, and whatever 
 use can be made of these for evidential purposes, 
 the raison d’étre of this remarkable class of religious 
 teachers was not to supply materials for the apologist. 
 The prophets were before all things preachers of 
 righteousness and mercy to Israel, specially to their 
 
 1 Page ro, 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 215 
 
 contemporaries in Israel. Any one can satisfy 
 himself of this simply by an attentive reading of 
 the prophetic books, with open unprejudiced mind. 
 Everywhere we find these prophets, from Isaiah to_ 
 Malachi, sternly reproving sin and threatening sin- 
 ners with condign punishment; exhorting to obedi- 
 ence to the Divine will, and promising the reward of 
 prosperity to those who do well, and striving to cheer 
 the hearts of those who fear God in evil times, 
 by drawing bright pictures of better days to come. 
 And in all they say and do in fulfilment of their 
 vocation, their obvious aim is to make a moral im- 
 pression on the men among whom they liven cis 
 preachers of righteousness and grace they utter pre- 
 dictions, telling men what will be the reward or the 
 penalty of their conduct under the government of a 
 righteous God, and what good is in store for the 
 world in connection with the purposes of Divine love, 
 But in uttering their predictions they have in view 
 not men living in ages after using these as arguments 
 for the truth of revelation, but people nearer them- 
 selves, sinners and saints living in the same land as 
 their neighbours and fellow-countrymen. They are 
 emphatically preachers to their own time, and they 
 express themselves in the language best fitted to 
 impress their contemporaries, depicting the future in 
 colours adapted to their circumstances, so that from 
 their style you can form a guess as to their age. Is 
 the evil of the present disunion? they represent the 
 
216 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 future as bringing back national unity and peace; is 
 it the misrule of ungodly kings? then the blessing 
 promised is a King who shall reign in righteousness. 
 Is the burden under which Israel groans the heavy 
 yoke of a conqueror? the consolation offered is 
 the advent of a time when the oppressed shall exe) 
 free, and exercise dominion on their oppressors. Is 
 the curse of the present captivity in a foreign land? 
 the comfort for the afflicted people is the good 
 tidings of approaching restoration proclaimed by one 
 crying in the wilderness, “ Prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our 
 God.” Is the heart of Israel heavy because the holy 
 and beautiful house where her fathers worshipped 
 God is burned with fire, and the altar and the daily 
 sacrifice is taken away? the prophet seeks to revive 
 her drooping spirit by a gorgeous description of a 
 new temple, where offerings shall be presented to 
 Jehovah by a holy priesthood in behalf of a erateful 
 penitent people. Evermore the future is described so 
 as to suit the present need, and harmonize with the 
 surroundings and the hopes and fears of the men to 
 whom the prophetic message is primarily addressed, 
 and on whom it is meant to act as a source of in- 
 spiration. 
 
 This mode of speaking, this way of depicting the 
 future in terms suggested by the present, is mani- 
 festly congenial to the ethical character I have 
 ascribed to prophecy. Those who wish to influence 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECVGINGREVELATION,, 217 
 
 their age must speak to the age in language which it 
 can understand, sympathize with, and be moved by. 
 Hence arises a necessity for the prophet, in speaking 
 of the future, to describe it, not as it shall be in all. 
 respects, but as those whom he addresses would wish 
 it to be. On this principle our Lord acted when He 
 promised to His disciples that they should sit on 
 thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It was 
 a way of saying: Ye shall have a place of impor- 
 tance in the kingdom of God, suited to their present 
 ideas, and therefore fitted to inspire hope. A more 
 exact, less sensuous, mode of expressing the truth 
 would have made little impression on their minds. 
 Our Lord, knowing that His language conveyed but 
 a rude idea of the actual fact, nevertheless used it, 
 because his aim was not merely to predict, but to 
 produce a moral impression. Whether the prophets 
 knew that the future would not correspond closely to 
 their picture is another question. Probably they did 
 not. But whether they did or not, it is certain in 
 any case that their language is figurative and pic- 
 torial, and that their prophecies are far enough from 
 answering to the description of prophecy given by 
 Bishop Butler, when he characterized it as “nothing 
 but the history of events before they come to pass.” } 
 
 Prophecy justly describable in these terms would 
 certainly serve apologetic purposes excellently well. 
 
 1 Analogy,” Part II. chap. vii. 
 
218 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 Se a 
 It would have been very gratifying to the professed 
 apologist to have had at his command prophetic 
 descriptions of the future written in such plain 
 explicit realistic terms, that the correspondence be- 
 tween prediction and fulfilment should be self-evident 
 and undeniable. It is certain, however, that the fact 
 for the most part is not so, and that many of the 
 prophetic oracles are couched in such terms as almost 
 exclude the possibility of literal fulflment. From 
 the apologetic point of view this is disappointing ; 
 but when we consider the subject from the ethical 
 viewpoint we feel that the prophetic style is in 
 harmony with the chief end of prophecy. And this 
 suggests the remark that the two views of prophecy, 
 the apologetic and the ethical, are not only distinct, 
 but to a certain extent mutually exclusive. The 
 more prophecy is fitted by its style to serve the 
 ultimate apologetic use, the less it is fitted to serve 
 the immediate parenetic purpose; and conversely, 
 the better it is fitted to make a moral impression on 
 those to whom it is immediately addressed, the less 
 likely is it to supply the apologist with convincing 
 arguments wherewith to silence gainsayers. It is 
 important to understand this law, because failure to 
 do so may lead us into serious error in one or other 
 of two opposite directions. On the one hand, ob- 
 serving the non-correspondence between many of the 
 prophecies and any events lying behind us in the 
 course of history, we may with a certain school of 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 219 
 
 interpreters expect a literal fulfilment in the future, 
 even in cases when the very idea of such fulfilment is 
 grotesque. On the other hand, believing such literal 
 fulfilment to be now impossible, and observing that. 
 no such fulfilments took place at the time when they 
 might have been possible, except to a very limited 
 and inadequate extent, we may rush to the con- 
 clusion of sceptical critics, that there is nothing 
 supernatural in prophecy, and regard the prophetic 
 oracles simply as glowing idealising pictures of the 
 future drawn by men of ardent poetic temperament, 
 very natural and very beautiful, but without any 
 foundation in reality. At the present time the latter 
 of these two errors is the one chiefly to be guarded 
 against. It is specially important, therefore, to bear 
 in mind that if many of the prophecies have not 
 been and never will be fulfilled in the sense in which 
 they would naturally be understood when they were 
 uttered, the reason is not to be sought in the im- 
 possibility of supernatural knowledge, but in the 
 nature of the prophetic vocation. However real the 
 supernatural may be, the prophets could not have 
 spoken to purpose otherwise than they did; there- 
 fore the fact of their speaking so cannot legitimately 
 be cited in proof that the supernatural element is a 
 chimera. The prophetic style is undoubtedly such 
 as to make it possible for writers of naturalistic 
 proclivities, with a certain measure of plausibility, to 
 represent the prophetic delineation of the future as 
 
220 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 2 ee i 
 “a kind of fairy tale” which the prophets told them- 
 selves and their fellow-countrymen for consolation 
 under distressing circumstances; very pathetic, and 
 very natural, “having the rights of poetry, but 
 having no pretensions to prosaic truth and reality,” ! 
 There is so much plausibility in the representation as 
 to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to con- 
 vince an unbeliever in the supernatural that he is in 
 error. But by bearing duly in mind the nature of 
 the prophetic calling, we may at least keep ourselves 
 from being imposed on by naturalistic plausibilities, 
 while going a considerable way in agreement with 
 unbelieving interpreters as to the actual character- 
 istics of the prophecies. We can believe it possible 
 that in these oracles a Divine supernatural element is 
 immanent, a genuine vitally important message from 
 God by the mouth of His prophets to us on whom 
 the ends of the world are come, though, it may be, 
 couched in words which, as understood by their 
 contemporaries, and possibly even by themselves, 
 were a very rude adumbration of the reality. 
 
 To those who read the prophecies only with an eye 
 to apologetic or edifying uses, such a view will doubt- 
 less appear unsatisfactory, and those who entertain 
 it may even seem liable to the suspicion of being in 
 secret sympathy with rationalism. The fear of this, 
 however, must not be permitted to arrest honest 
 ne I Me 
 . 1 So Mr. Arnold. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 221 
 
 endeavour to ascertain by an inductive process the 
 actual characteristics of Hebrew prophecy. We may 
 rest assured that though the result of such an inquiry 
 may be to introduce considerable modifications in the 
 method of proving revelation, it will not be to rob us. 
 of revelation itself. The whole subject of prophecy 
 needs reconsideration in order to rescue it at once 
 from the sacrilegious hands of unbelief, and from 
 the irrational treatment which it has often received at 
 the hands of faith; and to those who undertake this 
 arduous task let us give a hearty God-speed. The 
 work is only just commencing, and the Church may 
 have to wait long before it is accomplished. Already, 
 however, some things have become tolerably clear 
 and gained general acceptance among believing theo- 
 logians of the new prophetic school. In common 
 with theologians of the naturalistic school, like 
 Kuenen, they hold what is called the organic or 
 historical theory of prophecy, according to which the 
 prophetic oracles were addressed to the present, were 
 rooted in the present, were expressed in language 
 suited to the present and pointed to a good in the 
 near future forming a counterpart to present evil, 
 or to an evil in the near future which was to be the 
 penalty of present and past sin. But they hold 
 likewise, and here they part company with the un- 
 believing interpreter, that a large part of prophecy 
 had a divinely intended reference to the Christian era, 
 that is, was pervaded by a more or less pronounced 
 
222 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 Messianic element. Yet they do not allow the 
 Messianic aspect of prophecy to overshadow the 
 immediate historical sense, but regard that sense as 
 something to be ascertained irrespective of the sense 
 which we learn to put on prophecy in the light of the 
 New Testament. In the words of a most distin- 
 cuished member of the school: “It is only when we 
 survey, from the standpoint of the fulfilment of the 
 counsels of God in Christ Jesus, the whole of Old 
 Testament prophecy and the progress of its historical 
 development, that we can come to a full understand- 
 ing of the teleological significance of any single 
 prediction, but what we gain by this means is a 
 determination of the relation of prophecy to its ful- 
 filment, not an explanation of the contents of the 
 prophecy itself.”? It is held that what we do not 
 learn until the period of fulfilment cannot be in the 
 prophecy itself; that the meaning first given to 
 prophecy when considered in the light of fulfilment, 
 and the sense in which the prophets themselves and 
 their contemporaries understood it, that is, the his- 
 torical sense, must be regarded as perfectly distinct. 
 Out of the organic conception of prophecy as 
 advocated by Riehm and others, arises naturally the 
 view that the representations of the future given by 
 successive prophets are not separate fragments of one 
 picture capable of being combined into a harmonious 
 
 1 Riehm, “ Messianic Prophecy,” pp. 6-8. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 223 
 
 whole, but rather independent pictures, or to use 
 another figure, successive steps in the growth of an 
 organism. The opposite view is that advocated by 
 theologians belonging to the older school of prophetic 
 interpretation, such as Hengstenberg. Hengsten- 
 berg’s theory was, that revelations were made to the 
 prophet in a state of ecstasy ; that he sawthe future 
 in a vision; that in vision he saw events of the 
 remote future as well as of the near, but without any 
 perspective indicating distance; that the historical 
 colouring drawn from the present was mere colour- 
 ing, figurative language understood to be of no im- 
 portance, so that the sense which results after the 
 colouring has been rubbed off is the true meaning of 
 the prophecy and of the prophet ; that while it was 
 possible for any one prophet to see in vision the full 
 picture of the future, each prophet described only a 
 part, so that the total picture is to be got by piecing 
 together all the separate parts. In opposition to this 
 ingenious theory, it is contended by the new school 
 that ecstasy was not the only or the usual condition 
 of the prophet when he received revelations; thata 
 vision was not the principal medium of revelation, 
 but rather thoughts already existing in the prophet’s 
 mind brought into distinct consciousness by the 
 Spirit of God; that the prophet’s view was restricted 
 to the near future, and that he expected the. speedy 
 accomplishment of his prophecy while remaining 
 isnorant of the day and hour; that the terms in 
 
224 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 which he described the future were not regarded by 
 him as mere colouring, to be rubbed off in order to 
 get at the essential element of the prophecy; and 
 that the successive representations of the future given 
 by different prophets were each severally distinct 
 wholes, ze future, not a mere aspect of it, as seen by 
 the individual prophet. The two theories are very 
 diverse, and without deciding dogmatically between 
 them I may remark that, from the co-existence of 
 such widely divergent views as to the nature of 
 prophecy, each supported by able advocates, it is 
 evident that there is ample scope and urgent need 
 for painstaking, patient investigation. To emphasize 
 this fact, and to protest against premature dogma- 
 tism, seems to be the chief duty of the hour, and it 
 cannot be more effectively done than in the words 
 of one whose own contributions to prophetical studies 
 well entitle him to speak with authority. “It is,” 
 says Bertheau, “a problem of theological science, 
 by a strict examination of all the phenomena con- 
 nected with Old Testament prophecy, to lay the 
 foundations for a doctrine as to the nature of pro- 
 phecy, and to fix the general principles correspond- 
 ing to the historical state of the case, according 
 to which the rich and manifold expression of the 
 prophetic spirit and the living forms of prophecy can 
 be exhibited and arranged. The problem is not yet 
 solved, nor will it be soon. With the words ecstasy, 
 vision of an image, with the demand to conceive the 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 225 
 
 prophets as describers of pictures, the formula is not 
 found by use of which the door may be opened to 
 the hidden depths of prophecy.”} 
 
 Among the questions relating to prophecy on 
 which much diversity of opinion yet obtains is that 
 as to the conditional or unconditional character of 
 the prophetic representations of the future. Did the 
 prophets predict what they believed certainly should 
 be, or only what would be in given circumstances? 
 The question is forced on us by the consideration 
 that many of the prophecies as matter of fact were 
 not fulfilled. What account is to be given of these 
 unfulfilled prophecies? Are we to say simply that 
 the prophets in these instances were mistaken ? This 
 is in effect the solution offered by the naturalistic 
 school. The prophets, they hold, were firm believers 
 in the moral government of God, and so were firmly 
 persuaded that under that government every man 
 and nation would be dealt with according to deserts, 
 Hence they confidently predicted prosperity for all 
 who did right, and ruin for all that did wrong. In 
 so far as there really is a moral order in the world 
 their predictions would come true, but as the moral 
 order is far from perfect,—little more indeed than a 
 tendency,—it was a matter of course that prophetic 
 expectations should often be falsified by events. 
 The prophets in their predictions reasoned from 
 
 1 Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie,” vol. iv. p. 607, 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 premises only very partially true, and their conclu- 
 sions, therefore, were as often wrong as right! Other 
 writers, admitting the facts thus unceremoniously 
 accounted for, explain them by insisting on the 
 conditional character of prophecy. On this view 
 all the promises of future good to Israel would 
 have been fulfilled had Israel complied with the 
 prescribed conditions. All prophecies relating to 
 the chosen people are conditioned by the two 
 principles: “ Zion shall be redeemed with judg- 
 ment, and her converts with righteousness,’ and 
 “there is no peace to the wicked.” The failure of 
 many prophecies promising good to Israel is suffi- 
 ciently explained by the sad complaint, “Oh that 
 thou hadst hearkened to My commandments, then 
 had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness 
 as the waves of the sea.” Had Israel hearkened 
 to God’s commandments, every good word of God 
 spoken to her by the prophets would surely have 
 come to pass.? This view is certainly very congenial 
 to the ethical character of prophecy. It was con. 
 gruous to the vocation of the prophet as a preacher 
 of righteousness to his time to make the fulfilment 
 of his prophecies dependent on the good behaviour of 
 the people, and there can be no doubt that in many 
 
 1 So Kuenen, and, to a certain extent, Richm, though not be- 
 longing to the naturalistic school. 
 2 So Bertheau in “Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche Theologie,” vol. iv. 
 
 p. 344. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 227 
 
 instances he consciously did so, No one who has 
 not a pet theory to defend, like Hengstenberg, who 
 had but one object in view, viz, to play the part of 
 champion of supranaturalism, will dream of disput- 
 ing the point. It may, however, very legitimately be 
 doubted whether the theory of conditionality explains 
 all the facts; whether we may say without qualifi- 
 cation that had Israel done what God required, all 
 the promised blessings would have been bestowed on 
 her exactly as foretold. It is at least a feasible sug- 
 gestion, that limitation of prophetic vision must be 
 taken into account in explanation of the non-ful- 
 filment of such prophecies as promised to penitent 
 Israel the reunion of the two kingdoms into one, 
 the complete recall of the Babylonish captivity and 
 the restoration of all the exiles to their own land, 
 the conversion or subjection of all the surrounding 
 nations, so that the chosen people might dwell in 
 safety, with no envious or malicious neighbours to. 
 make her afraid.) 
 
 Whether prepared to go this length or not, all 
 sober and unprejudiced students of prophecy must 
 at least acknowledge the presence of a conditional 
 element in the prophetic picture of the future. The 
 truth seems to be, that there are two classes of pro- 
 phecies, one conditional, the other unconditional, or 
 conditioned only as to time and mode of accomplish- 
 
 1 So Riehm, “ Messianic Prophecy,” p. 154, 
 
228 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 ment. A further fact of importance to be noted is, 
 that in these two classes of prophecy, the prophet 
 appears in two distinct attitudes. In the conditional 
 prophecies he appears as the prophet of moral law, 
 in the unconditional as the prophet of grace. The 
 vocation of the prophet is not fully understood unless 
 he be regarded under this twofold aspect: as exer- 
 cising a function on the one hand in relation to God 
 as. moral Governor, on the other in relation to God 
 as the God of a gracious purpose. The prophets 
 were at once preachers of righteousness, asserting the 
 reign of moral law over all men; and preachers of a 
 gospel, proclaiming a sovereign purpose of grace that 
 should certainly be fulfilled irrespective of human 
 conduct,—a purpose concerning Israel in the first 
 place, but not exclusively,—a purpose to bless Israel 
 that she might be a blessing to the whole earth. 
 The two functions, as actually exercised, were inti- 
 mately blended together, but they are in nature 
 distinct, and may be regarded apart. To the pro- 
 -phecies uttered by the prophet as the preacher of 
 Divine grace belong those distinctively denominated 
 Messianic; to the prophecies of law and righteousness 
 belong those which pre-announce the destinies of 
 nations and cities, such as Babylon, Egypt, Nineveh, 
 and Tyre. In all the latter class of prophecies is 
 proclaimed, with sublime emphasis, the eternal truth 
 that there is indeed a moral order of the world, that 
 verily there is a God that doeth righteousness in the 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY 1N REVELATION. 229 
 
 earth. It is in this aspect of their vocation that 
 the Hebrew prophets are an object of intense interest 
 to such writers as Carlyle and Arnold, who, while 
 making no profession of faith in a supernatural 
 revelation, have a firm belief in a Power in the world 
 making for righteousness. Such cherish and express 
 a sincere respect for those ancient preachers of eternal 
 duty and fearless denouncers of iniquity, who kept 
 telling their contemporaries of all classes that God’s 
 will must be done, and could be disobeyed only 
 under terrible penalties. They are not even un- 
 willing to admit that, in their capacity of preachers of 
 righteousness, the prophets uttered some remarkable 
 predictions which were substantially fulfilled. Men 
 like the Hebrew prophets, it is acknowledged, can 
 divine, for there really is a moral order of the world, 
 and men who with their whole soul believe in it, and 
 who understand the moral phenomena of their age, 
 may to a certain extent, sometimes even to a surpris- 
 ing extent, read the future in the present. Thus the 
 predictions of doom, subsequently fulfilled, admitted 
 to be genuine, are resolved into natural products of 
 insight into, and faith in, the laws which regulate the 
 moral government of mankind. Believing students 
 of prophecy, while conceding that some predictions 
 may be thus accounted for, deem it impossible to 
 reduce all to mere displays of sagacity, and see in 
 certain outstanding oracles the undeniable results of 
 supernatural enlightenment, supplying materials for 
 
230 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 a cogent apologetic argument. The argument is 
 competent, but after the most has been made of it, it 
 is not the one to which the foremost place is due. 
 The most inviting and fruitful field for the apologist 
 is the region of Messianic prophecies, embracing 
 under that head all those in which the za desideria, 
 the hopes, the ideals of the godly in Israel find 
 expression, those, in other words, which embody what 
 has been called the Hebrew Utopia. So defined they 
 are a large group, endlessly varied in character, and 
 of unparalleled beauty and interest, the most remark- 
 able utterances of the kind in the whole literature 
 of mankind. Believers and unbelievers alike acknow- 
 ledge the incomparable charm of these Hebrew 
 oracles of faith and hope, but to very different 
 intents. Unbelief sees in them merely fairy tales 
 which the prophets told themselves to comfort their 
 hearts under the sorrows of the present ; Aderglaube, 
 extra belief rendered natural if not necessary by the 
 shortcoming of the moral order of the world from 
 the ideal of a perfect moral government. The power 
 that makes for righteousness does not make all the 
 righteous happy, and all the wicked miserable. The 
 prophets seeing this, and unable to reconcile them- 
 selves to the actual moral order as the best possible, 
 or to be looked for, invented a system of compen- 
 sations in the future in the form of a perfect Divine 
 kingdom, a Messiah, and a life to come. Behold the 
 Messianic prophecies! Very beautiful, and having 
 
pie LUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION.~ 231 
 
 the rights and the worth of poetry, but nothing more, 
 being mere added beliefs born of undying hope, 
 through which— 
 
 “Mercy gave to charm the sense of woe, 
 Ideal bliss that truth could never know.” 
 
 So regards Messianic prophecy Mr. Arnold, natur- 
 ally enough from his point of view, according to 
 which the one idea in the Bible is the Power making 
 for righteousness. On that view the truly valuable 
 part of the prophetic literature is that which asserts, 
 with passionate earnestness, the reality of the moral 
 order of the world. All that remains, the so-called 
 Messianic element, must be relegated to the category 
 of poetic invention, valuable chiefly as showing how 
 deep and strong was the faith of the prophets in the 
 power that worketh for righteousness. Undoubtedly, 
 even on this view there is much in the prophetic 
 books of perennial importance to mankind ; and, as 
 I said before in connection with miracles, so I say 
 here in connection with prophecy: it may be a good 
 service to the world to show what a valuable book 
 the Bible will be, even when faith in the supernatural 
 has finally forsaken the earth. But as the Bible is 
 a very different book in its whole scope and aim, 
 according as you exclude or retain the miracles, so 
 is it avery different book according to the view you 
 take of Messianic prophecies. If you regard these 
 simply as fairy tales, then the prophets will speak to 
 
232 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 you only of righteousness. If, on the other hand, 
 you regard these prophecies as a system of ideals, 
 shadowing forth a summum bonum destined to be 
 essentially realized, then the prophets will speak to 
 you of Divine grace as well as of Divine righteous- 
 ness, and what they say as preachers of grace will 
 no longer be regarded as mere poetic inventions, but 
 as genuine oracles uttered by Divine inspiration. In 
 this light does faith regard the Messianic prophecies, 
 as ideals essentially realized in Christianity, and in 
 these prophecies so regarded it finds not merely an 
 important contribution to the argument for revela- 
 tion, but a most important constituent part of revela- 
 tion itself viewed as the self-manifestation of God in 
 grace. 
 
 ~ The last observation conducts us to the proper 
 subject of this chapter, viz. the function of Hebrew 
 prophecy in connection with revelation. A full dis- 
 cussion of this topic would require us to consider 
 prophecy under a twofold aspect ; not only as related 
 to the promise, but also as related to the law. The 
 latter aspect having already been incidentally referred 
 to, I content myself here with a few observations on 
 -a single point connected therewith. One great 
 service rendered by the prophets in connection with 
 the law, was the assertion of the supreme importance 
 of the moral element in comparison with the ritual, 
 in opposition to the prevailing tendency to place 
 the ritual above the ethical. What a prominent place 
 
Pie LUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 233 
 
 the protest against this tendency held in the pro- 
 phetic world, is manifest from the most cursory 
 perusal of the prophetic writings, which abound with 
 passages whose burden is, “to obey is better than 
 sacrifice.” In such utterances the prophets were 
 the pioneers of Christianity as the religion of the 
 spirit; and the preparers of a religious revolution 
 whose issue was to be the abolition of ritualism, and 
 the inbringing of the worship of the Father in spirit 
 and in truth. The prophets themselves were not in 
 conscious conflict with the ritual law, but only with 
 the undue importance attached to it in comparison 
 with the great matters of duty as set forth in the 
 Ten Words. They looked on sacrifices and religious 
 ceremonial generally simply as promises to pay the 
 sterling gold of obedience; and what they could not 
 endure was that promises should be put in place of 
 performance, should be supposed to be performance. 
 But while this is true, there can be little doubt that 
 by their energetic protest against the superstitious 
 overvaluing of ritual, the prophets were unconsciously 
 heralding the advent of a time when the relation 
 between God and His people should be of a purely 
 spiritual character. There are even traces of a clear 
 conscious insight into the truth that ritualism could 
 not be the final form of religion. Perhaps the most 
 distinct is to be found in Jeremiah’s oracle of the 
 new covenant, in which three blessings are specified 
 as the characteristic marks of that covenant in com- 
 
234 THE HUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATIONS 
 
 parison with the Sinaitic one: viz., God's law of duty 
 written on the heart instead of on stone tablets as 
 in the old covenant; the knowledge of God so sim- 
 plified that one should not need to tell his brother | 
 wherein it consisted; and the full and perpetual 
 forgiveness of sin. ‘The second of the three blessings 
 points, I think, to the abolition of the ritual law, 
 and the reduction of religion to the simplest and 
 purest spiritual service! In making these remarks 
 I do not prejudge the critical question as to when 
 ritual took its final shape in a written form. It is 
 enough for my purpose if, as may safely be assumed, 
 an oral law relating to religious service, which men 
 could learn from the priest’s lips, was in existence 
 long before the prophetic period, and even from the 
 times of Moses. 
 Passing from this topic to speak of the function 
 of prophecy in relation to the promise, I remark that 
 there is every reason to think that the prophets 
 believed in a gracious purpose of God towards Israel, 
 and felt it to be an important part of their duty to 
 keep Israel in mind thereof, by way of consolation 
 in adversity and strengthening against temptation to 
 apostasy. One broad fact, which everywhere obtrudes 
 itself on our attention in reading their writings, is 
 
 1 For a statement and defence of this view, see an article by 
 me in the Expositor, vol. ix., on Feremiah’s Oracle of the New 
 Covenant, 
 
GerOUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN KEVELATION. 235 
 
 enough to settle the point. The prophet’s eye is 
 ever turned towards the future; his heart seeks 
 consolation, not in the memories of the past, but in 
 the hope of better days to come. In this respect 
 the Hebrew prophet stands in marked contrast with 
 the prophets and poets of other peoples. The golden 
 age of Pagan poetry lies behind; the golden age of 
 Hebrew prophecy lies ahead, in the future. The 
 contrast deserves consideration in connection with 
 the naturalistic hypothesis, that necessity was the 
 mother of prophetic hopes. Unhappy in the present, 
 the spirit sought refuge in an imaginary better after- 
 age. A plausible theory indeed; but why did not 
 the same law operate in all similar cases? Why 
 - does not necessity produce ideal hopes in all peoples 
 suffering under calamities? The exceptional fact 
 seems to demand an exceptional cause; and what 
 more satisfactory explanation can be given than that 
 the prophets knew of a Divine purpose towards Israel, 
 and through her towards the world, which they be- 
 lieved would certainly be fulfilled ? or, to put it more 
 definitely, that the call of Abraham and the promise 
 to Abraham were for them objects of firm faith ? 
 If we assume this, the whole matter becomes very 
 simple. Then we can understand how, while regard- 
 ing themselves as ministers of righteousness, they 
 should regard themselves as still more ministers of 
 erace. Especially can we understand how, when on 
 a review of the past history of the nation, they saw 
 
236 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION 
 
 everywhere traces of a break-down of the Sinaitic 
 covenant—the nation faithless to God, God visiting a 
 faithless nation with punishment—they should turn 
 with increasing predilection from law to promise, 
 and find in the latter a ground of hope which they 
 now despaired of finding in the former. May we 
 not see the evidence of such a mental attitude in 
 the words with which Micah closes the book of his 
 prophecy : “Who is a God like unto Thee, that par- 
 doneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of 
 the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His 
 anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. He 
 will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; 
 He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast 
 all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt 
 perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abra- 
 ham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from 
 the days of old.’ Naturalistic criticism tells us that 
 the “truth to Jacob” and the “mercy to Abraham” 
 had no objective reality, but were subjective products 
 of the prophetic spirit, written into the ancient his- 
 tory. Unbelievers in the supernatural need to take 
 up this position; but on this view prophetism re- 
 mains a phenomenon unexplained. The course of 
 Israel’s religious development is, as has been well 
 
 ——————__. 
 
 1 Mich, vil. 18-20. 
 ? So PHeiderer, “ Die: Religion,” vol ai. “p>. 337-855 enam 
 extract at p. 84 of this work. 
 
Mee eerOUNCTION OF PROPALCY IN REVELATION, (237 
 said, top-heavy ; the overgrowth of prophecy being too 
 great for the root assigned to it in the early ages. 
 
 Coming at a time when the gospel of the promise 
 was needed, and when it was likely to be appreciated, — 
 the prophets whose oracles are recorded in the 
 prophetic books rendered in various ways important 
 service, not only as emphatic proclaimers, but more 
 especiaily as interpreters, of God’s gracious purpose. 
 They did this, in the first place, by presenting an 
 idea of God in harmony with that purpose. That 
 the prophets performed a distinguished part in the 
 development of Israel’s idea of God is admitted on 
 all sides. Naturalistic writers even exaggerate the 
 service they rendered in this connection, giving them 
 credit for purging the Hebrew idea of the Divine 
 Being of national particularism, and promoting 
 Jehovah to the honour not merely of supremacy 
 among the Gods, but of sole possession of Deity ; 
 in other words, for teaching the world the sublime 
 doctrine of ethical monotheism. This view does 
 less than justice to the ages that went before, inas- 
 much as there is no good ground for the assertion 
 that, previous to the prophetic era, Jehovah was 
 simply a national God. The contrary is proved by 
 the words of Exodus xix. 5, which Ewald calls the 
 gospel of the Old Testament. ‘“ Now therefore, if 
 ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My cove- 
 
 1 Smyth, “Old Faiths in New Light,” p. 31. 
 
238 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 nant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me 
 above all people: for all the earth is Mine; and ye 
 shall be unto Mea kingdom of priests, and an holy 
 nation.” Still it remains true that in the history of 
 revelation one very special function of prophecy was 
 to assert over against idolatrous tendencies, the 
 monarchy of Jehovah, and to set forth with force 
 and vividness the -attributes of the one true God, 
 crowning the edifice with the illustrious attribute of 
 grace; so giving to the world an idea of God, which 
 the unknown prophet of the exile justly declares to 
 be Israel’s glory.1 And having referred to that 
 prophet, I may remark that it is not necessary to 
 travel beyond his prophecies to know what manner 
 of a being Israel’s God is. The God of those marvel- 
 lous oracles is, in the first place, a Creator both 
 in nature and history, in both spheres bringing into 
 existence things that previously were not. He is 
 the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Maker 
 of Israel; the Maker also of great characters like 
 Cyrus, who are raised up at critical periods to play 
 a signal part in human affairs. He is, further, a 
 Ruler who has all human destinies under His control, 
 and who rules over all in righteousness, herein differ- 
 ing from all the gods worshipped by other Semitic 
 peoples, who, while also conceived as rulers, Baalim, 
 were not rulers in righteousness. He is yet again 
 
 2 Isaiah lx. 19." “ Thy God> thy glen 
 
LUE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 239 
 
 not only a righteous Ruler, but the supreme Ruler, a 
 Sovereign without a rival. This truth the prophet 
 proclaims when he represents Jehovah as saying, “I 
 form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, 
 and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things ;” 
 words in which some have discovered a reference to 
 the religion of the Persians, the good feature of which 
 was that it believed earnestly in a morally good God, 
 who loved right and hated wrong, and made all good 
 things; and its weak feature that it regarded many 
 things in the world as the workmanship of another 
 being, who, if not the equal of the good Spirit, was 
 at least independent of Him, and His perpetual 
 rival; not deeming it otherwise possible to guard 
 from taint the moral character of Deity. But the 
 brightest attribute of Israel’s God remains to be 
 mentioned. He is not only a just God, but a 
 Saviour ; not only a Power making for righteousness, 
 but a beneficent Being who deals not with men after 
 their sins, who, in sovereign love, forms and executes — 
 eracious purposes, and who illustrated this attribute 
 of His character in the election of Israel, and in 
 his whole dealings with Israel in the course of her 
 history down to the date of her captivity in Babylon ; 
 and was about to illustrate it anew by a second 
 great act of deliverance. And not only is Hea 
 Saviour for Israel, but for the whole world. Israel 
 has been chosen to be a missionary of the true reli- 
 sion to the whole earth, to be a light to the Gentiles, 
 
 ~ 
 
240 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION 
 
 teaching them how to think of God, and bringing 
 to them the joy of God’s salvation. “Look unto 
 Me,” saith the God of this prophecy, ‘and be ye 
 saved all the ends of the earth, for I-am Godjame 
 there is none else.”. Jehovah is not the God of the 
 Jews only, but of the Gentiles also; therefore He 
 saith, “ Behold Me, behold Me,” unto nations that 
 had not hitherto been called by His name. 
 
 Here surely was a sublime conception of Deity in 
 which Israel might legitimately boast! It is the 
 glory of the Hebrew prophets to have given adequate 
 expression to Israel’s faith. ‘This is honour enough, 
 without claiming for them the credit of originating 
 the idea. This they certainly did not do. The pro- 
 phets did not create Israel’s God, neither did Israel 
 herself create-Him. On the: contrary, Isracliwe 
 created, formed into a peculiar people by her God, 
 and taught the knowledge of His character by her 
 marvellous history. God gave to Israel that lofty 
 idea of Himself; gave it not by abstract statements 
 of theological truth, but above all by deeds, by the 
 call of Abraham, by the events connected with the 
 deliverance out of Egypt, and the settlement in 
 Canaan, by the guidance of Israel’s history through 
 many crises in subsequent ages. The idea was the 
 reflection of a character manifested in a continuous 
 course of action in the evolution of a gracious pur- 
 pose. But for this Divine action, not the most gifted 
 of Israel’s sons, not even the prophets themselves, ’ 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 241 
 
 eee 
 
 had been able to form such a lofty idea of God as we 
 find in the prophetic writings, and especially in those 
 of the later Isaiah, and of Hosea the prophet of 
 Divine love. The idea was not an zuvention, but a 
 revelation made gradually through history, and reach- 
 ing its full-orbed lustre in the prophetic epoch. I 
 forget not that the prophets were inspired ; but their 
 inspiration did not enable them to originate a new 
 idea of God. It rather assisted them to read aright 
 the historical revelation of the Divine name and 
 nature. 
 
 A second service rendered by the prophets as 
 ministers of the promise was the proclamation of 
 the truth, so apt to be hidden from Israel’s view by 
 her election, that in that promise all nations had an 
 interest. Universalism, the sense of the solidarity of 
 mankind, the conviction that, in spite of all appear- 
 ances to the contrary, God cared for all peoples, and 
 would ultimately make them all partakers of the bless- 
 ings of His grace, is, by general acknowledgment, one 
 of the most outstanding and striking characteristics 
 of the prophetic system of thought. In the judgment 
 of naturalistic criticism, this universalism is a pro- 
 phetic discovery or invention; to one who believes 
 in a revelation of grace, it is simply an emphatic 
 recognition cf a truth underlying Israel’s vocation 
 from the first. The originality of the prophets here 
 lies not in the discovery of an absolutely new truth, 
 but in the energy with which they grasped, and the 
 
 R 
 
242 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 oe 
 
 enthusiasm with which they expressed, an old com- 
 paratively overlooked one ; and in doing this they 
 contributed very materially to the better compre- 
 hension of God’s gracious purpose. For it is beyond 
 question, as I have already hinted, that the election 
 of Israel, her vocation to be a peculiar people, in 
 proportion as it was earnestly believed in, would tend 
 to foster the conceit that the chosen race had a mono- 
 poly of Divine favour ; that, in fact, such a monopoly 
 was the very meaning of the election. It would be 
 difficult for members of the peculiar people to under- 
 stand that election was simply a method, whereby 
 one was being trained to bless the many. Hence one 
 of the tasks devolving on the few to whom was re- 
 vealed the secret of the Lord, would be to teach the 
 chosen people this lesson, which they were so slow 
 to understand, and to remind them of the mystery 
 of love to the Gentiles hid in the Divine bosom. 
 This task prophets and psalmists faithfully performed, 
 as is witnessed by beautiful lyrics like the sixty- 
 seventh and eighty-seventh Psalms, and by many a 
 golden oracle to be found scattered like gems over 
 the pages of the prophetic literature. As a fruit of 
 the same ministry of witnessing to the catholicity of 
 God’s gracious purpose, we may regard some other 
 portions of the Old Testament, in which one judging 
 of canonicity by the narrow test of edification might 
 have difficulty in discovering any claim to form a 
 part of the sacred collection; the book of Job for 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 243 
 a ll dle ROE RR aE acs eel a) Sa 
 example. That book has little to teach us; it is 
 remarkable for darkness rather than for light ; we see 
 in it only certain non-Israelitish mien engaged in a 
 comparatively fruitless discussion on the ways of 
 Divine providence. But if the test of canonicity be, 
 as surely it ought to be, sudserviency to the chief end 
 of revelation, then the right of the book of Jobstoga 
 place in the canon cannot reasonably be disputed. 
 For one canonical function, at least, the book cer- 
 tainly does perform, that, viz., of bearing witness to 
 God’s interest in men without the pale of the elect 
 nation. A similar observation may be made with 
 reference to the whole chokmah literature, the human- 
 istic character of which, evinced by the absence of all 
 distinctively Israelitish reference, may seem at first 
 sight to make its presence in the Hebrew canon an 
 anomaly. The humanism of the chokmah literature 
 is the very ground of its claim to be there, and the 
 very essence of its canonical function, serving, as it 
 does, to remind the chosen people that God was not 
 their God only, to the exclusion of all the rest of 
 the world. On similar grounds we can regard with 
 equanimity critical discussions respecting the literary 
 character of such a book as that of the prophet 
 Jonah. Whether it be history, or whether it be 
 parable, that book bears witness to the catholicity 
 of Divine grace, and in performing that important 
 canonical function, it fully vindicates its title to a 
 place in the literature of revelation. 
 
244 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 The greatest service rendered by the prophets, as 
 ministers of the promise, remains to be mentioned, 
 It consisted in conveying an idea of the good to 
 be brought to Israel, and to the world, by the final 
 fulfilment of God’s gracious purpose. The oracles 
 in which the nature of the sammuim bonum is fore- 
 shadowed, constitute together, as already said, what 
 are called the Messianic prophecies, the name being 
 in strictness applicable to those prophecies only in 
 which the hopes of the future are made to centre 
 in a Person whose sublime mission it should be to 
 satisfy the spiritual longings of humanity, but legiti- 
 mately and conveniently applied also to all prophecies 
 descriptive of the benefits to be ushered in by the 
 Messianic age. These prophecies are very various 
 in their character, and exhibit the ideal good under 
 almost every conceivable point of view; at least 
 under every point of view naturally suggested by the 
 history and the institutions of the chosen people. 
 The promise to Abraham that his seed should bring 
 blessing to all nations supplied one ready starting- 
 point, and suggested the idea of a world-wide com- 
 monwealth, having its centre in Zion, and for its 
 metropolis Jerusalem, and presenting the goodly 
 spectacle of a universal brotherhood, and a catholic 
 Church worshipping One God made known to the 
 ends of the earth by the missionary activity of Israel. 
 Such is the picture of the golden age presented in 
 the psalms above referred to, and in the oracle of 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 245 
 
 the mountain of the Lord’s house} and in the magni- 
 ficent description of the latter-day glory, in the six- 
 tieth chapter of Isaiah. Other stems upon which the 
 Messianic hope could be grafted were the institutions 
 of the priesthood and the kingship. Both these in- 
 stitutions might legitimately be brought into connec- 
 tion with the gracious purpose of God towards Israel. 
 For the elect nation, like every other nation, needed 
 organisation, and for its well-being as a state re- 
 quired priests to transact for it in things pertaining 
 to God, and kings to exercise over it just government 
 as the visible representatives of the invisible King 
 Jehovah. The prophets recognised the legitimacy 
 of both offices, though they used great freedom in 
 criticising the manner in which priestly and kingly 
 functions were performed by many occupants of office. 
 They could therefore, without impropriety or incon- 
 sistency, introduce the ideals of a perfect king and a 
 perfect priest into their picture of the golden age, 
 and the shortcomings of actual kings and priests 
 made such ideals very welcome. Hence we find 
 many of the prophecies take the form of predictions 
 of the advent of a King who should reign in right- 
 eousness, and confer upon an oppressed and down- 
 trodden people all the blessings of good government. 
 As a type of this class may be cited the oracle 
 concerning the rod out of the stem of Fesse. In that 
 
 Mp leagiie. 1?) Niical iv. 2 Isa. xi. 
 
246 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 ee si Oe eee 
 prophecy the Messianic King is connected with the 
 royal house of David. This, as is well known, is 
 a frequently recurring feature in the prophecies in 
 which the ideal takes the form of a king. The reason 
 is, partly that David was the nearest historical approx- 
 imation to the ideal of a theocratic king, and partly 
 that he had received a promise that his seed should 
 exercise perpetual dominion in Israel.t 
 
 There are prophecies of a perfect priest as well as 
 of a perfect king. These may be considered to have 
 their root in the Levitical priesthood, though some 
 of them might conceivably be brought under the 
 category of the Messianic kingship, the priestly office 
 of Messiah being regarded as an attribute belonging 
 to Him asa King. In this view the theocratic king 
 is not only the representative of the invisible ruleg, 
 but the representative of the people before God. 
 As Israel was a kingdom of priests, He in whom 
 the nation culminated might not inappropriately be 
 endowed with the highest priestly honours. On this 
 principle the remarkable oracle concerning the Mel- 
 chisedec priesthood has been interpreted as referring 
 in the first place to one of Israel’s historical kings.’ 
 One advantage resulting from this view is, that 
 when the priesthood is included under the kinghood, 
 
 ay oe eee 
 1 On the reality of this Promise, vzde “ Old Testament Pro- 
 phecy ;” the Warburton Lectures for 1876-1880. By Kev. 
 Stanley Leathes, D.D. Lectures v. and vi. 
 2 E.g., by Riehm, véde “ Messianic Prophecy,” pp. 71-3. 
 
eer UNCLION OF PROPEECY IV REVELATION.- 247 
 
 there is less risk of the Messianic prophecies being 
 supposed to refer to different persons ; the two ideals 
 may then most naturally be conceived as meeting in 
 one person. But there certainly are some prophecies 
 in which the priestly order appears distinct from the | 
 kingly.. This holds true especially of the latest 
 prophecies, ¢g., those in Zechariah. There, beside 
 Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, stands the high 
 priest Joshua, in a position of honour altogether 
 novel; and, corresponding to that position, Messiah 
 is represented as a Priest in whom the ideal of that 
 sacred office is realized, in the oracle of the Branch} 
 In this prophecy it remains doubtful whether the 
 Messianic priest and the Messianic king are, in the 
 prophet’s mind, one person or two distinct persons, 
 We have thus in the prophetic writings, prophecies 
 foreshadowing an ideal msszonary activity, an ideal 
 kingship, and an ideal priesthood, with all that should 
 accompany these good things, a universal religion, a 
 kingdom of God, a blessed fellowship between God 
 and man. Whether the first of these ideals, the pro- 
 phetic, refers to an individual or to a community, 
 and whether the second and third, the kingly and 
 priestly, refer to two persons or to one only, are 
 questions that may legitimately be asked; but all 
 three ideals enter into the prophetic representation of 
 the future. They are not all to be met with in each 
 
 1 Zech. vi. 
 
248 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION, 
 
 of the prophets. One gives one, another another, 
 and the close relation between prophecy and history 
 appears in the correspondence between the kind of 
 ideal presented by a particular prophet, and the 
 circumstances of the Hebrew nation when he pro- 
 phesied. The prophets of the Assyrian period think 
 of the Messiah as a king, finding in Him one who 
 should be able to cope with the great monarchs of 
 the earth. In the prophecies forming the second part 
 of the book of Isaiah, which whether written at the 
 time of the exile, were at all events written for that 
 time, there is no word of a Messianic king. The 
 “servant of God” of these prophecies is a prophet, 
 whose vocation is to give light to the Gentiles, and 
 who in the discharge of his office is destined to suffer 
 much at the hands of an unbelieving world. After 
 the exile, when the work of engrossing interest was 
 the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration of 
 the temple-worship, the priestly office came to the 
 forefront, and the Messianic ideal took the form ofa 
 priest sitting on a throne, and exercising influence 
 with God in behalf of the people. 
 
 But while the Hebrew prophets, according to their 
 varying temperaments and circumstances and the 
 diverse revelations made to them, present the Mes- 
 sianic hope under different aspects, they all concur in 
 making on our mind one general impression. With 
 one voice they say: the present form of religion and of 
 the kingdom of God is not the perfect or the final one, 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 249 
 
 The perfect is yet to come; all that has been or is, 
 even in Israel—priesthood, kinghood, religious ritual 
 —is imperfect and therefore transient. The perfect, 
 the religion of the spirit, the true priesthood and 
 kinghood are in the future. In one other thing all 
 agree. They not only say, the Perfect is yet to come, 
 but they say, te Perfect shall come, the ideal shall 
 be realized. These prophecies of ours are not mere 
 dreams, mere idle tales which we tell ourselves and 
 our brethren to amuse our sad minds. They are the 
 word of the Lord which endureth for ever, and as 
 such they must be fulfilled. If the Scriptures contain 
 the record of a veritable revelation this prophetic 
 faith ought to be true. For just at this point a 
 marked difference ought to be observable between 
 ethnic and revealed religion. The ideals of Pagan 
 religions may, to a large extent, be poetic dreams, 
 never destined to be realized ; but the ideals of re- 
 vealed religion ought to be realized, and by their 
 fulfilment be proved to be no dreams of the pro- 
 phet’s heart, but revelations from heaven. That 
 these ideals should be enclosed in temporary husks, 
 destined to be cast aside when the era of fulfilment 
 comes, is not a matter to cause surprise. We will 
 not expect every word of the prophet to be fulfilled 
 to the letter; neither will we lay too much stress 
 on remarkable individual details, looking for exact 
 correspondence between these and events occurring 
 in the era of fulfilment. We will simply ask: have 
 
250 ZHE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 the prophetic expectations been realized in the main 
 or have they not? Have the new covenant, and the 
 spiritual worship, and the universal religion, and the 
 Divine Prophet, Priest, and King come, or do we still 
 look for them, and look for them in vain? 
 
 The short and simple creed of the apostolic Church, 
 that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, is an affirmative 
 answer to the question, to the effect that Jesus is the 
 Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, and that in 
 Him and in the religion which He founded all the 
 ancient hopes of the Hebrew nation were essentially 
 fulfilled. This answer the catholic Church in every 
 age has endorsed, and the cordial acceptance thereof 
 is one of the marks by which the position of faith is 
 sharply distinguished from that of unbelief. In con- 
 fessing this truth all believing theologians are at one; 
 and the fact is to be emphasised in view of the differ- 
 ences of opinion which prevail among them as to the 
 best method of proving the doctrine accepted in com- 
 mon. On this latter point two widely contrasted 
 views are held. One lays the stress of the argument 
 on the remarkable special predictions concerning the 
 Messiah, such as those relating to the birth from 
 a virgin and the rising up of the Messianic Deliverer 
 out of Bethlehem. On the other view, the wisest 
 method of proof is to begin with the great general 
 outlines of Messianic prophecy, with the aim of 
 showing that in Christ Old Testament ideals are 
 gathered up in a centre and in the highest sense 
 
TUE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY 1N REVELATION. 251 
 
 realized, reserving specialties for the conclusion, and 
 using them thus, not as the foundation, but as the 
 copestone of the edifice of faith. This view naturally 
 commends itself to those who are convinced that 
 every one of the special predictions had a primary 
 reference to some historical event or character much 
 nearer the prophet’s time ; an opinion which, as held 
 by believing theologians, is not meant to deny that 
 these predictions had also a divinely intended refer- 
 ence to Jesus Christ, which, from a doctrinal point of 
 view, may be the more important. But this latter 
 position, as held by the school of interpreters I now 
 speak) of, is the effect, not.the ground of faith: 
 Having satisfied themselves on other grounds that 
 in Jesus Messianic prophecy is fulfilled, they are pre- 
 pared to recognise a divinely ordered teleology imma- 
 ment in all prophetic utterances, a teleology where- 
 of the prophets themselves were, to a great extent, 
 unconscious. Apart from the question of interpreta- 
 tion, this change of front seem best fitted to serve 
 the present interests of apologetic. For unbelief finds 
 it much easier to dispose of the individual predictions 
 on which the older apologists rested their case, than 
 to explain away the correspondence between Chris- 
 tianity and Hebrew prophecy in the great general 
 outlines. The distinction between primary and 
 secondary prophecies—that is, between those whose 
 first and perhaps exclusive reference is Messianic, 
 and those in which a primary reference other than 
 
252 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 Messianic cannot be denied, and only a secondary 
 reference to Messiah can be maintained—this dis- 
 tinction is very unstable and unsatisfactory. The 
 distinction of course implies that only the primary 
 prophecies can be the basis of faith; and the argu- 
 ment, as between the apologist and his opponent, 
 resolves itself into a wrangle about individual pro- 
 phecies and their proper interpretation. How un-. 
 satisfactory the issue of this debate is likely to be 
 we may learn from these words of Mr. Arnold; 
 “Who will dispute that it more and more becomes 
 known that these prophecies cannot stand as we have 
 heregiventhem? . . . That the passage from Gen- 
 esis with its mysterious Shiloh, and the gathering of 
 the people to Him, is rightly to be rendered as follows: 
 ‘The pre-eminence shall not depart from Judah, so 
 long as the people resort to Shiloh (the national 
 sanctuary before Jerusalem was won), and the na- 
 tions (the heathen Canaanites) shall obey him.” * 
 This one instance may suffice as a sample of the way 
 in which the Messianic reference is eliminated. I do 
 not mean to say that the interpretation given is right, 
 and that the apologist must yield the point. There 
 is more probably in many individual prophecies than 
 the children of the Zeitgeist find. But if not right, 
 Mr. Arnold’s interpretation is at least plausible; and 
 of all similar cases plausibility may be predicated to 
 
 1 “Titerature and Dogma,” pp. III-I14. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 253 
 a a de re at Sal 
 
 such an extent as leaves the unbelieving interpreter 
 with a very complacent conviction that he has truth 
 on his side. It is surely therefore wise to give pro- 
 minence to the view that even if all the remarkable 
 special predictions and so-called primary prophecies 
 were explained away one by one, there would still 
 remain ample solid ground on which to construct 
 a weightier, if less simple argument, tending to show 
 that in Christianity we have the glorious fulfilment 
 of a Divine purpose of grace, whereof predictive 
 intimations and foreshadowings are to be found in 
 every page of Hebrew prophecy, in every glowing 
 picture of the good time coming. 
 
 That in Jesus were fulfilled the best aspirations 
 and hope of the Hebrew race is, to a certain extent, 
 admitted by naturalistic critics ; but in a way which 
 utterly fails to do justice to the facts. Here, also, 
 Mr. Arnold may be taken as a representative man. 
 In his opinion the fusing together of the various 
 ideals of Old Testament prophecy was a procedure 
 warranted neither by strict interpretation of the texts, 
 nor by any real Divine purpose, but was simply 
 an original stroke of genius on the part of Jesus, 
 a happy audacity. This, however, it certainly was, 
 The bright idea struck Him to take the suffering 
 servant of later Isaiah and make him one with the 
 Messianic King who was to come forth out of Jesse’s 
 roots, and with the Son of man coming with the 
 clouds of heaven, and so to set Himself to found 
 
254 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 i 
 
 a kingdom, not by might nor by power, but by the 
 force of truth and of meekness and patient love. 
 And the idea succeeded, and success justified the 
 audacity and the innovation. Attempts at such a 
 combination of apparently incompatible ideals had 
 been made before, which is not surprising, “for the 
 true line of Israel’s progress lay through it. But not 
 he who tries makes an epoch, but he who effects, and 
 the identification which was needed Jesus effected.” * 
 
 This is plausible, but not satisfactory. It cannot 
 content any thoughtful, serious man, no matter what 
 shilosophical school he belongs to, to be told that 
 Christ’s success was a happy hit, and His relation to 
 the Old Testament a self-constituted and arbitrary 
 one. One cannot help thinking that the happy 
 combination of Old Testament ideals in Christ’s con- 
 sciousness was grounded on the eternal truth of 
 things, and that His success was the fulfilment of a 
 purpose of the living God, shadowed forth in those 
 prophetic ideals. As to the former point, it is by 
 no means clear that the prophets themselves had no 
 suspicion of the truth that the ideals might meet in one 
 person.? But grant they had not, and that for want 
 of such insight they thought of their ideals as mu- 
 tually exclusive ; may we not regard the combination 
 of these in the consciousness of Christ as the result of 
 
 nn nn 
 
 1 “ Literature and Dogma,” p. 96. 
 2 Vide Isa. liii. ; specially ver. 12. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 255 
 eee ee rece s OF er ae 
 a more than prophetic knowledge, and the marvellous 
 success of His work, in spite of its entire contrariety 
 to the spirit of the world, as the’ experimental proof 
 that the combination was not only legitimate, but 
 divinely intended? Have we not, in fact, in Christ 
 not only the fulfilment of the prophecies, but the 
 filling up of them, the supplement of their deficiency, 
 the last and highest prophecy as well as the realiza- 
 tion of all prophecies that went before, gathering 
 their scattered rays into a focus, and yielding a 
 Messiah not one-sided, but all-sided, and proving 
 Him to be the true Messiah just by the union in 
 Him of all prophetic ideals ? 
 
 Such is the view of the fulfilment of Messianic 
 prophecy which commends itself to those in our day 
 who, while firmly believing with the Church of all 
 ages that Jesus is the God-given Christ in whom His 
 promises are Yea and Amen, nevertheless feel that 
 modification of the old argument is demanded by 
 modern criticism and exegesis. They see in Christ 
 and Christianity the flower and fruit, and in ancient 
 prophecy the bud. They see in Jesus of Nazareth 
 and His religion all Old Testament religious ideals 
 realized. Not only so, they see in Christianity more 
 than they believe it possible to see in Hebrew pro- 
 phecy, apart from the light shed on it by fulfilment. 
 They not only find in prophecy an evidence of 
 Christ’s Divine mission, but they find in Christ a_ 
 key to the understanding of prophecy, a key to the 
 
256 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 OOo es ee 
 riddle of the ancient oracles, a clear unfolding of 
 what they dimly hinted at. Christianity contains for 
 them all that the prophets taught, and more, “ just as 
 the living plant contains the life, and more than the 
 life, of the seed; just as the day contains the light 
 of dawn and more light. Prophecy is the seed, the 
 twilight glow; Christianity is the life, the full day.” + 
 According to this view Christ is, in the first instance, 
 His own witness; and instead of being proved con- 
 clusively by prophecy, interpreted apart from the 
 light of the Christian era, to be the Christ, He first 
 enables those who believe in Him to understand 
 aright the prophecies, and to see in the correspon- 
 dence of these, rightly understood, and His personal 
 character and history, the evidence of a Divine pur- 
 pose running through the previous ages and finding 
 its fulfilment in Him. And such, indeed, to a great 
 extent, is the actual state of the case. The pro- 
 phecies are not such, that by the mere citation of 
 them you can shut a man up to the belief that Jesus 
 of Nazareth is the Christ. They are rather such that 
 when, on other grounds, a man is disposed to receive 
 Jesus as the Lord and Saviour, what in them was 
 enigmatical before, becomes luminous with meaning. 
 
 a 
 
 1 Adeney, “ The Hebrew Utopia,” a Study of Messianic 
 Prophecy, p. 354. An excellent book, by one belonging to the 
 modern school of apologists whose position I have attempted 
 to indicate. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELA LTON. C257 
 
 The proof from prophecy is not mathematically 
 stringent ; a mind not spiritually prepared to feel its 
 force can evade it. For special predictions other 
 fulfilments than those supplied in the life of our 
 Lord can be sought out; and with reference to 
 general prophecies embodying the Messianic ideals, 
 the position can be plausibly taken up, that the ideals 
 were not conceived by the prophets as meeting in 
 one person, could not indeed, being in their nature 
 incompatible. How far prophecy is from being 
 irresistible evidence, is sufficiently apparent from the 
 reception actually given to Jesus by His contem- 
 poraries ; who, though familiar with the letter of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, scouted His claim to be the Mes- 
 siah as altogether preposterous. Even in the case of 
 the few who believed in Him, faith was not the effect 
 of the proof from prophecy. Believers did not first 
 study the prophecies and then come to Jesus as 
 disciples ; they first came to Jesus, and then learnt 
 how to interpret the prophecies. The proper inter- 
 pretation of prophecy was not the cause, but the 
 effect of their faith. And the same thing holds good 
 in the experience of Christians generally. “ Prophecy 
 serveth not for them that believe not, but for them 
 which believe.”? We come to Christ, drawn by His 
 
 * “It must, however, not be forgotten that the office of 
 prophecy is not to convert but to convince; not to lay the 
 foundation, but to confirm those in whom it has already been 
 laid ; for we are told, on sufficiently high authority, that pro- 
 
 5 
 
2383 THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 
 
 own native attractions, and we learn in. His school 
 
 how to read the Old Testament. It does not follow — 
 
 from this that the prophetic argument is of no value. 
 Prophecy does indeed speak first to faith, but then 
 its deeper meaning is revealed from faith to the pro- 
 duction of higher, stronger faith. Prophecy may fail 
 to lead an unbelieving man to Christ; but when one 
 has become a believer, he is confirmed in his faith 
 by the inner harmony between the spirit of prophecy 
 and the doctrine of Christ. And, as his faith grows 
 in intelligence, his sense of the extent to which the 
 testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy becomes 
 deepened. At first he may be impressed only by the 
 correspondence between a few of the broad features 
 of prophecy and the history of Christ and Chris- 
 tianity: the new covenant of Jeremiah’s oracle, the 
 
 phecy serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which 
 believe. Let us not seek, therefore, to make prophecy, or the 
 study of prophecy, do a work for which perhaps it was not 
 designed. Let us not endeavour to make it sustain or support 
 the whole superstructure of the Christian fabric. That it is one 
 of the converging evidences of the Christian faith we are only 
 too thankful to remember. Let it not be supposed that it is the 
 only one, and let us not reason as if it were. Christianity is an 
 historic religion, and its central weight rests upon a small group 
 of facts, those, for instance, which are gathered together in the 
 Apostle’s Creed. If the main facts of the Christian creed are 
 not accepted, it is utterly useless to appeal to prophecy. If we 
 do not accept the verdict of history, we shall certainly reject the 
 testimony of that which claims to have anticipated history.”— 
 Stanley Leathes’ Warburton Lectures, pp. 10, 11 
 
 > 
 
THE FUNCTION OF "PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 259 
 spiritual religion insisted on by all the prophets, 
 the extension of the true religion to all nations, the 
 mission of “the servant of Jehovah” as the herald of 
 the new era, and his sufferings in the performance of. 
 the duties of his high calling. The spirit of prophecy 
 may thus mean, to begin with, the best things, the 
 choice passages in the prophetic writings, containing 
 anticipations of the Christian religion. But by-and- 
 by it comes to mean much more that this—even: the 
 soul animating the prophetic oracles from beginning 
 to end; not merely the flower, but the sap which per- 
 vades the whole plant ; not merely a few out-standing 
 passages, but the drift and tendency of the entire 
 literature. The whole Old Testament now appears 
 an organism of which Christ is the final cause. When 
 this position is reached, one can afford to regard with 
 great equanimity discussions as to the meaning of 
 particular predictions, because he understands that “in 
 the argument from prophecy we have to do with a 
 forest, not with a single bough or a basket of leaves ; 
 with the whole trend of a coast, not with the single 
 headlands or inlets of the sea; with a zone of con- 
 stellations, not with scattered stars.”4 And yet, just 
 on that account, he can now believe that even these 
 special predictions for which unbelieving criticism. 
 thinks it has discovered a non-Messianic inter- 
 pretation, have a divinely intended reference to 
 
 Sr © ee 
 
 1 Smyth, “ Old Faiths in New Light,” p. 228. 
 
260 7THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION 
 
 Christ. The remarkable correspondences between 
 some of these predictions and events in the life 
 of Christ, which at first may have seemed purely 
 accidental and surprising, appear now as natural as 
 the correspondence which subsists between the struc- 
 ture of an organism and its environment, or between 
 the features of a son and those of his father. In like 
 manner that the history of Israel, the experiences of 
 individual members of the chosen race, and the Levi- 
 tical institutions, should be foreshadowings of the good 
 things to come with Christ, appears from the view- 
 point of faith not at all incredible. When we have 
 once accepted the doctrine that in Christ was fulfilled 
 a grand redemptive purpose of God for which all 
 previous history was a preparation, we cannot have 
 any difficulty in believing that a Divine teleology was 
 immanent in all the outstanding features of Israel’s 
 eventual story: in her religious services, in the lives 
 of her best kings, in prophetic utterances referring 
 primarily to events and circumstances connected with 
 the prophet’s own time. Typical meanings of ritual 
 institutions and double senses of prophecies are 
 doubtless mysterious things, which, in the hands of 
 unwise interpreters, may easily degenerate into the 
 magical and absurd; but the radical objection of 
 unbelief after all is not to these, but to that which 
 they presuppose, a Divine purpose of grace cherished 
 from the earliest ages, never lost sight of, gradually 
 evolved in the course of time, and finally reaching 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PROPHECY IN REVELATION. 261 
 
 its consummation in Jesus Christ. To none but 
 those who doubt the purpose is the Messianic refer- 
 
 ence of the whole Old Testament a serious stumbling- 
 block. 
 
THE DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF 
 REVELATION. 
 
 263 
 
GUAR Thea Vl 
 
 PEE OOCTKINAL SIGNITICANCE Cf 
 RE VELA LON: 
 
 N the first chapter we saw that two diametrically 
 
 opposed opinions concerning revelation have been 
 entertained: the one, that it is wholly doctrinal ; 
 the other, that it has nothing to do with doctrine. 
 The truth lies between these extremes. Revelation, 
 though not in the first instance doctrinal, never- 
 theless has a doctrinal significance which was un- 
 folded with increasing clearness as the process of 
 revelation advanced towards its consummation. And 
 not only does it issue in doctrine; it presupposes 
 doctrine. The tree of revelation has a speculative 
 root, as well as a foliage and fruitage of positive truth. 
 Every religion has its own way of looking at God, 
 man and the world; in other words, reflectively or in- 
 stinctively every religion has its characteristic theory 
 of the universe. Christianity is no exception. As the 
 religion of redemption it is anything rather than 
 speculative, a fact, not a theory; nevertheless, it pre- 
 supposes certain views concerning the great subjects 
 of speculation, which no one can help cherishing who 
 believes in a revelation of grace, and which can be 
 
 265 
 
266 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 deduced, @ priori, from the Divine fact given to faith. 
 If Christianity be true, if it be indeed the case that 
 God has revealed Himself in history as the God of 
 grace, bringing His love to bear as a redemptive 
 force on the sins of mankind, then certain inferences 
 follow concerning God, and concerning the object of 
 His loving care. These speculative presuppositions 
 of the religion of redemption, though not formally 
 taught, are tacitly assumed and everywhere implied 
 in the Scriptures, and may be gathered therefrom by 
 inductive inquiry. But even without consulting the 
 Scriptures we can determine for ourselves the specu- 
 lative implicates of revelation, so far at least as to be 
 able to answer the question, How does the Christian 
 theory of the universe differ from that of Pantheism, 
 or of Paganism, or of Deism, or of Materialism. My 
 chief aim in this closing chapter, is to vindicate the 
 apostolic assertion that the Bible is profitable for 
 doctrine, that it possesses value not merely as a means 
 of moral and religious edification, but moreover as an 
 aid towards determining the didactic significance of 
 the central fact of revelation. But it may be a useful 
 introduction to the discussion of this thesis, to con- 
 sider briefly what we can learn for ourselves from the 
 bare idea of revelation as the self-manifestation of 
 God in grace, or of Christianity as the religion of 
 redemption.! 
 
 t On this subject the reader may consult Delitzsch, “System 
 _der christliche Apologetik.” 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 267 
 
 Among the self-evident or demonstrable presup- 
 positions of Christianity are the following :— 
 
 1. That God is an ethical Personality. The God 
 who reveals Himself as a God of grace cherishes and | 
 executes a purpose of love. But to cherish a purpose 
 and to love are acts of a Personal Being. 
 
 2. That man also is a moral Personality, and occu- 
 pies a most important place in the universe. He is 
 the object of God’s care; God is mindful of him };- 
 God seeks his love; has for His aim in redemp- 
 tion to establish a fellowship between man and 
 Himself. Man, therefore, must be a person and 
 not a thing, for there can be no fellowship between 
 things, or between a person and a thing, but only be- 
 tween persons.! And as a moral personality man is 
 not merely a part of the world, but stands above the 
 world, supernatural in his being, and possessing the 
 high dignity of a son of God, a dignity which he 
 retains even amid his moral degradation, because 
 even then he is an object of Divine care. 
 
 3. That sin is a reality for God; in other words 
 that God is a Holy Being. All slight, minimizing, 
 apologetic, optimistic conceptions of sin as a trivi- 
 ality, an infirmity, a necessity, or as the negative side 
 of good—“good in the making’”—are incompatible 
 with honest faith in an economy of redemption. 
 
 1 Delitzsch pithily remarks that there can be no fellowship 
 between God and the mountains, 
 
268 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 Both the theology and the anthropology of this faith 
 exclude such thoughts. Moral distinctions cannot, 
 like binary stars to the unassisted eye of man, be 
 invisible to the eye of a God who has manifested 
 Himself in history as a moral physician. God does 
 not attempt the impossible or the unnecessary ; 
 therefore sin can be neither a fatality nor a trifle to 
 Him. Then the place which faith assigns to man in 
 the universe equally forbids such slighting thoughts 
 of his moral shortcomings. To take a genial view 
 of sin may appear humane, but it is not respectful 
 to the sinner. It is to treat human nature with con- 
 tempt, to regard man as a being so weak that it is 
 vain to expect virtue from him; as a victim of neces- 
 sity who only deludes himself when he imagines he 
 is free; as a thing, not a person; an animal, not a 
 rational being. 
 
 4. That God is the Maker of the world, the 
 Creator of matter not less than the Father of our 
 spirits. In the Pagan theory of the universe, matter 
 is eternal, and in a sense independent of God. This 
 view the believer in a religion of redemption cannot 
 accept, for more than one reason. First, because it 
 compromises God’s character as personal, and His 
 position as the supreme. Personality demands that 
 God should be independent of the world, and supre- 
 macy demands that the world should be dependent 
 on Him. The two demands are satisfied only by the 
 doctrine of creation as involving a beginning of the 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 269 
 
 world. If we suppose the raw material of the world, 
 the ry, to have been eternal, God may still be in- 
 dependent of the world, but He cannot be supreme, 
 for the world exists independently of Him. He is 
 not in that case the Creator of the world, but only 
 the shaper of chaos into a world of order, a cosmos. 
 If, on the other hand, we assume an eternal process 
 of creation, so excluding the idea of a pre-existing 
 uncreated ty, then we save the Divine supremacy 
 at the cost of Divine independence. Creation then 
 becomes a process of necessary emanation, excluding 
 freedom, and God becomes confounded with the 
 universe as the original ground out of which all being 
 by an incessant and necessary process flows, the 
 natura naturans of Spinoza’s system. The alter- 
 natives before us are Manichean dualism or Panthe- 
 ism. God is either one of two, or He is not even 
 one; He has not even the privilege which we 
 enjoy of being an independent personality, a whole 
 over against the world; but is either a part of the 
 world, or the world itself under a certain aspect. But 
 a still stronger reason for the doctrine of creation 
 is to be found in the necessity for excluding the 
 notion that matter is the source of moral evil, as 
 incompatible with faith in redemption. If matter be 
 the cause of sin, as Greek philosophy taught, then 
 - redemption, as Celsus justly held, is impossible. 
 The only possible redeemer in that case is Death, 
 This Pagan doctrine, therefore, must be eliminated 
 
270 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 if redemption is not to be made void; and the most 
 effectual way to neutralize it is to believe that 
 matter is God’s creation, and therefore good, that 
 the Redeemer of man’s soul is also the Maker of 
 his body, and that, therefore, the latter, so-far from 
 being the source of inevitable sin, is itself capable 
 of redemption. This, therefore, the believer in a 
 revelation of grace*firmly holds as an essential part 
 of his creed, 
 
 The foregoing are amongst the more obvious 
 elements of the Christian theory of the universe. 
 Less certain, yet equally congenial to the central 
 truth of faith, are those which follow. 
 
 5. There is a close connection between the moral 
 evil in the world, and the physzcal. What the precise 
 connection is it is rather difficult to determine. It 
 may be hazardous to affirm that physical evil uni- 
 ‘versally is the God-appointed penalty of moral evil. 
 Schleiermacher lays down the position that the col- 
 lective evil in the world is to be regarded as penalty 
 of sin, social evil directly, natural evil indirectly. 
 The meaning of the thesis so far as it relates to natu- 
 ral evil is, that objectively considered such evil is not 
 caused by sin, but subjectively considered it is the 
 penalty of sin, because without sin it would not be 
 felt to be an evil. According to Schleiermacher the 
 physical world cannot be altered by sin, therefore 
 death, which belongs to the order of nature, did not 
 come into the world after sin, but the whole world 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 271 
 
 appears different in consequence of sin. This view 
 is certainly in accordance with the genius of Christ- 
 lanity, as a religion which contemplates all things 
 from an ethical point of view. That religion takes 
 an ethical view of God, of man, and of human con-— 
 duct ; how congruous to its general way of looking 
 at things that it should bring the whole aspect of 
 nature under the same category, and regard the 
 present state of the physical universe as in a pre- 
 established harmony with the moral condition of its 
 human inhabitants. The hypothesis does not neces- 
 sarily imply that the order of nature was altered after 
 sin entered the world; it need imply only that in 
 the teleology of the creation regard was had in the 
 framing of nature to the foreseen event of sin. Death, 
 decay, violence may have been in the world not only 
 before man sinned, but before man existed. But 
 they were because he was ¢o be; prior in time they 
 were posterior to man’s sin in creative intention, 
 God made the world, that is to say, such that it 
 might be a fit abode for a race of morally fallible 
 beings, with all the materials necessary for their 
 moral discipline, with evils of diverse sorts to be 
 regarded as penalties of sin, and also with manifold 
 benefits indicative of Divine patience, summoning to 
 repentance, and inspiring in the penitent hope of 
 pardon. This view of the universe harmonizes best 
 with the tendency of Christianity in all things to 
 subordinate the natural to the moral, as opposed to 
 
272, DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 the religions of heathenism, which subordinate the 
 moral to the natural. It has the further recommen- 
 dation, that it steers a middle course between Optim- 
 ism which sees no evil in nature, and Pessimism 
 which sees in it no good; between the rose-coloured 
 theories of the Deists and illuminists of last century, 
 who resolutely refused to see a dark side in nature, 
 and the sombre views of a Schopenhauer, who sees 
 in nature so much evil that the universe might well 
 be mistaken for the work of a devil rather than of a 
 good God. Christianity sees in the world both evil 
 and good: evil because man hath sinned, and God 
 desired that man sinning should discover sin to be 
 a bitter thing; good because God is gracious and 
 dealeth not with men after their sin; the evil and 
 the good bearing witness to two economies of judg- 
 ment and mercy which, however, are radically only 
 parts of one redemptive economy, working in differ- 
 ent ways towards the fulfilment of God’s gracious 
 purpose in Christ, to which the whole constitution of 
 nature and the whole course of history are subser- 
 vient. 
 
 6. The present state of things is not final. The 
 faith of redemption teaches us to expect a palin- 
 genesis, a renovation of all things, the introduction 
 of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness, the advent of an zon when the crea- 
 tion shall be emancipated from the bondage of vanity 
 and corruption, and when her groaning and travailing 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 272 
 en en Wen cas al 
 shall issue in the birth of a renovated world, bring- 
 ing redemption even to man’s body, and completed 
 sanctity to his spirit ; bringing renewal not merely to 
 the individual, but to society—not merely to man, 
 but to physical nature. Already Christianity has 
 achieved much; it has caused God’s kingdom to come 
 on this earth in at least a rudimentary way, confer- 
 ring many benefits on humanity, participated in even 
 by those who do not believe in Christ or so much as 
 know His name. It conferred blessing on the world 
 even before Christ’s advent, as the hidden ground of 
 God's patient bearing towards our race from the first. 
 But when all has been reckoned up which Christian- 
 ity has done for men in spiritual and temporal re- 
 spects, for individuals and society, for Christendom 
 and for Heathendom, for pre-christian and for post- 
 christian ages, it comes far short of what shall be. 
 _ We look for results more worthy of the love of God, 
 more commensurate with the moral grandeur of the 
 act by which the foundations of the new order of 
 _ things were laid, more clearly demonstrating that 
 Christ is the centre of the universe, in whom all 
 things both in heaven and in earth are gathered up. 
 We do not, indeed, expect the grand consummation 
 to come soon. For we observe that Providence works 
 leisurely and is never in a hurry, one day being 
 with the Lord as a thousand years to us, so that He 
 takes His promise as calmly the day it is made, as 
 we take events which happened a thousand years 
 
 ay 
 
274. DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 ago; and, therefore, our faith does not fail on dis- 
 covering reason to think that millenntums may elapse 
 before the work of redemption shall have reached its 
 full development. Nevertheless we, according to His 
 _promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. For we observe 
 that this also is a feature of God’s providential 
 working : that while He never hurries, He also never 
 forgets; though He works slowly yet worketh He 
 surely, a thousand years being to Him as one day 
 to us, so that at the end of a thousand years He 
 remembers and is in earnest with His purpose, as 
 we remember and lay to heart our purposes the very 
 day they are formed. 
 
 To these speculative presuppositions of Christianity 
 some add the doctrine of a Fall, and the doctrine of 
 the Trinity. They are certainly both congruous to 
 the central conception of revelation, but it may be 
 doubted whether, apart from the Scriptures, we could 
 deduce them from the mere idea of Christianity as 
 the religion of redemption. Schleiermacher, while 
 regarding Christianity as a state of completed fellow- 
 ship between God and man brought about by Christ, 
 denies that a fall, and by implication an unfallen 
 state, are involved therein. He views Christianity 
 not as a restoration, but as the completion of the first 
 creation, which in his opinion did not culminate in 
 a sinless man, but simply in a human being endowed 
 with the bare rudiments of personality, to whom 
 
 i ee ee ie 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 275 
 
 sin was a certain if not an inevitable éxperience— 
 a mere matter of course. In advocating this view, 
 Schleiermacher is manifestly influenced by the desire 
 to maintain harmony between faith and the claims 
 of science and philosophy. Nevertheless, it must be 
 admitted to be a perfectly legitimate opinion from 
 a speculative point of view. The fact of a Divine 
 interposition for the redemption of mankind from 
 the power of moral evil does not necessarily shut 
 us up to any particular view as to the origin of sin. 
 Schleiermacher’s hypothesis for the solution of that 
 hard problem. may be false in point of fact, but it 
 is not incompatible with faith in a revelation of 
 grace. As regards the doctrine of the Trinity, when 
 we look at redemption as a completed fact involving 
 the Incarnation, and the institution of the Church as 
 a society animated by Christ’s spirit, it is impossible 
 not to feel that, in connection with the revelation of 
 grace, God manifests Himself under a plurality of 
 aspects, as Father, Son and Spirit. But whether the 
 Trinity so given be a trinity of manifestations or of 
 Persons, a trinity as conceived by Sabellius or the 
 Trinity set forth in the creeds, neither reason nor the 
 Christian consciousness by itself could determire. It 
 is, therefore, only what was to be expected when 
 we find Schleiermacher, whose method of determin- 
 ing what is to be regarded as matter of faith is 
 an appeal to the Christian consciousness, teaching a 
 merely Sabellian Trinity , 
 
276. DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVEITATTON 
 
 Conscious of inability to advance further in our 
 unaided endeavour to ascertain the didactic import 
 of revelation, we gladly turn to that sacred literature 
 which was given by inspiration for instruction and 
 for discipline in righteousness. But here our way is 
 barred by certain moderns, who tell us that it is vain to 
 go to the Bible in quest of objective truth ; one party 
 affirming that the sacred book contains no materials 
 for the construction of any doctrine whatsoever, and 
 was never intended to supply such; another, while 
 admitting the availableness of the book for doctrinal 
 purposes, denying the absolute truth of any doctrines 
 thence deduced. Of the former class Mr. Arnold 
 is the best known representative, of the latter, Dr. 
 Mansel. Mr. Arnold carries his agnostic attitude to 
 the extreme length of denying that the Bible teaches 
 us anything concerning God, even that He is per- 
 sonal. God, we are given to understand, is simply a 
 personification of that righteousness to which the 
 temperament of the’ Hebrew led him to attachumy 
 preponderating importance. The fact-basis of the - 
 personification was the observation that there is a 
 Power, not ourselves, in the world making for right- 
 ousness. This much is implied in the Bible forms 
 of speech, but nothing more; no definite opinion 
 concerning the nature of God, such as that He is 
 personal, or that he is the Intelligent Author and 
 Governor of the world. The Bible writers meant to 
 affirm no more than is admitted by Strauss, viz., that 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. pi: 
 
 there is a moral order of the world; they had no 
 theory as to the cause of this order, 
 
 In taking up this position, Mr. Arnold assumes 
 that the only source of information concerning 
 Jehovah, or the Eternal, accessible to the Bible-writers, 
 was nature and ordinary providence. He altogether 
 ignores the miraculous element, and along with that 
 the gracious aspect of God’s character whereof the 
 the miracles are the fact-basis. But the question is: 
 can we retain these and still affirm that the Bible 
 implies no particular view of the Divine nature and 
 character? That we can legitimately make such an 
 affirmation concerning the Bible, as conceived by 
 Mr. Arnold, is admitted ; for on that view the fact- 
 basis of all Scripture representations which are to be 
 regarded as of permanent value is simply that moral 
 order of the world which, as we have seen, is recog- 
 nised by men of all schools, even by atheists. But 
 can we Say the same thing of revelation as we con- 
 ceive it? We cannot; for the fact-basis, here is not 
 merely the moral order of the world, which forms 
 part of the course of nature, but supernatural mani- 
 festations of God, not regarded as facts at all by Mr. 
 Arnold, and which cannot be recognised as facts by 
 any man who is nota theist. Assuming the reality 
 of the fact-basis of the Bible name for God,—the 
 Redeemer,—we learn these things from it. Firs¢, 
 God is a Being who cherishes purposes, sets Himself 
 ends to be worked out by a process of historical 
 
273 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION, 
 
 evolution, Second, God is a Being who, while usually 
 working according to the course of nature, and always 
 so shaping his action that it shall enter easily and 
 harmoniously into that course, is yet not chained 
 down to the fixed order of things, but is so far 
 above the world, and free in his relation to it, that He 
 can at will produce results which nature itself could 
 not accomplish. In these two inferences combined 
 we have the idea of Personality, so abhorred by 
 Pantheism and so ridiculous in Mr. Arnold’s eyes. 
 God has conscious purposes which He freely fulfils, 
 sometimes by natural causes, sometimes by super- 
 natural; in other words, if we believe the narratives 
 in the sacred book to be historical, we must conceive 
 of God as self-conscious and self-determining, that is 
 as personal, If we reject the attribute, we must reject 
 the alleged facts by which its ascription to God is 
 justified and demanded. That is to say, we cannot 
 with Mr. Arnold deny the Personality of God with- 
 out also with him mutilating the Bible, and cutting 
 out of it everything miraculous. Of course by the 
 method of mutilation you can make the Bible teach 
 just as little as you like. But if the question be what 
 notion of God is suggested by the Bible, then it must 
 be taken as it stands, and being so taken, it will be 
 found to yield a very different idea of God from that 
 extracted from it by the author of “Literature and 
 Dogma,” an idea into which Personality as defined 
 enters as an essential ingredient. 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANGE OFF REVELATION. 2979 
 
 But the Scriptures do not merely teach by necessary 
 and omnipresent implicat.on, that God is personal. 
 They exhibit Him as an ethically perfect Personality. 
 The purposes which the Bible ascribes to God are 
 gracious ones; the acts it represents Him as perform- _ 
 ing are acts of mercy and faithfulness in the further- 
 ance of a benignant design. The writers have intense 
 faith in the reality of Divine love, and they record 
 facts which supply all the proof of its reality that 
 is possible. It is certainly true that they labour 
 in expression when speaking of Divine love. Mr. 
 Arnold remarks of the language of the Bible, that it is 
 literary, not scientific ; words thrown out at an object 
 of consciousness not fully grasped, which inspired 
 emotion. It is a just observation, but not in the 
 sense the author intends, The Bible writers do throw 
 out words at God, very specially when they speak of 
 His love. Paul speaks of heights, depths, lengths, 
 breadths, in connection with Divine love, without 
 indicating to what he refers ; crowding thought and 
 intense emotion here, as often elsewhere, making ship- 
 wreck of grammar.! Psalmists speak of multitudes 
 of tender mercies, and represent God’s mercy as in 
 the heavens. Prophets declare that God multiplies 
 pardons, and back the daring affirmation by the 
 reflection that in the magnanimity of forgiving love, 
 God rises in His thoughts and ways as far above men 
 
 1 Vide Lightfoot on Galatians, at the place chapter ii, 3-10, 
 
280 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 a OR 
 as heaven is above the earth. These are samples of 
 phrases thrown out at Divine charity, but not in the 
 sense that they are fine words to which no correspond- 
 ing reality exists in the Divine nature, but rather in 
 the sense that the Divine reality is great, sublime, 
 beyond conception or expression. A very substan- 
 tial difference. Mr. Arnold’s words thrown out are 
 rapturous phrases flung at a cloud which a man in a 
 heated state of imagination mistakes for a mountain. 
 The phrases quoted from the Bible are uttered by 
 men who find themselves in presence of a veritable 
 mountain range, and who cannot get words that 
 shall adequately express the feelings of admiration 
 awakened by the majestic sight. 
 
 Passing from Mr. Arnold to Dr. Mansel, we find 
 him, in his Bampton Lecture on “The Limits of 
 Religious Thought,” laying down the position that 
 God cannot be known in the truth of His being, and 
 that what is “revealed” concerning God in the Bible 
 tells us not what God in His own nature is, but only 
 what He desires that we should believe concerning 
 Him. The revelation is only a quasi-revelation. This 
 theory of modified agnosticism is advocated in an 
 apologetic interest, the design of the Lecturer being 
 to cut away the ground from below opponents of 
 revealed truths by demonstrating the incompetency 
 of speculation on such transcendent themes. The 
 human mind can know nothing really about God; 
 therefore it cannot know that the mysterious doc- 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 281 
 
 trines of the faith are false. There is, however, 
 reason to fear that what was meant for defence is, in 
 effect, a betrayal of the cause of revelation. As Mr. 
 Maurice put it pithily, the refutation of unbelief costs 
 too much, the cost being the revelation in defence of 
 which the refutation was elaborated. For if revelation 
 be guasz, what is the value of it? Is it a revelation 
 eemalleeen li the idocttines of Scripture’ tellaussnot 
 what God is, but what He would have us believe him 
 to be, how can we know that He even wishes us so 
 to think? Is not the wish also quasi? Everything 
 on this hypothesis is quasi. We have a quasi revela- 
 tion of a quasi wish that we should believe certain 
 propositions as quasi truths concerning a Being who 
 in very deed is utterly unknowable. Can we wonder 
 that men should decline to accept this system of 
 quasis and make-believes, and prefer, with Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer, to take up the position: if the absolute 
 cannot be known, then it is incompetent to make any 
 affirmations concerning it, and the only logical posi- 
 tion is theological nescience. If, therefore, we are 
 to hold by a revelation at all, and to escape from 
 naturalistic agnosticism, we must believe with all our 
 heart that God can be known truly, though not ade- 
 quately—known especially on the moral side of His 
 being. This certainly is the faith of the writers of the 
 Bible, and between this and the agnostic creed there 
 seems no tenable standing ground. It is possible 
 that the resolute maintenance of the knowableness of 
 
282 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 —  ——— 
 
 God, and of that which goes along with ‘t, the essen- 
 tial identity of the Divine nature and human nature, 
 may increase the pressure of difficulties connected 
 with particular doctrines. But it is folly to seek 
 escape from such difficulties by adopting the sceptical 
 tenet that morality is not the same thing for God 
 that it is for men. Yet such is the position taken up 
 by the Bampton Lecturer, in an apologetic interest. 
 There is an absolute morality, we are told, based 
 upon the nature of God; but what that morality is 
 we cannot imagine. But if we cannot know what the 
 morality is, how can we know that there is a morality 
 for God at all? If Divine morality is not identical 
 with human morality in £zzd—of course they cannot 
 be identical in all particulars—to speak of an abso- 
 lute morality is simply to put together two mutually 
 cancelling words. Unless we can say that love means 
 for God what it means for man, we had better not 
 say that God is love at all; for the statement conveys 
 no intelligible idea. Far from being a revelation, 
 it is not even sense. On the whole, the chief value 
 of Dr. Mansel’s well-meant effort is to present to the . 
 world a reductio ad absurdum of an apologetic method 
 which reduces revelation to mystery, and relies on a 
 system of external evidences which give no aid to 
 faith or rest to the heart, but at most avail to shut 
 the mouths of gainsayers. 
 
 The Bible, then, is indeed profitable for doctrine. 
 The benefit, however, is not to be attained without 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 283 
 
 pains on the learner’s part. For the Bible does not 
 supply us with a ready-made summary of the doc- 
 trinal import of revelation, stating in so many propo- 
 sitions what knowledge the self:manifestation of God 
 in grace conveys concerning God Himself, concerning 
 man the recipient of His grace, and concerning the 
 blessings which by His grace God confers on man. 
 This propositional or scholastic way of teaching is 
 not at all the manner of the Bible. Nowhere in the 
 sacred book do we find in tabulated form a state- 
 ment even of the more essential truths of revelation, 
 not to speak of the more detailed doctrines of the 
 second order of importance which have been ex- 
 tracted from the Scriptures by the learned investiga- 
 tions of theologians. We do find there an exact 
 summary of duty; but there is no table of credenda 
 answering to the table of moral laws given in the 
 Decalogue, setting forth, ¢g., that the God of revela- 
 tion is a Trinity in Unity ; that man is a being made 
 in God’s image, but fallen from the ideal of his nature 
 through sin, and so depraved that without Divine aid 
 he cannot fulfil the end of his being; that the benefits 
 which God in His grace confers on sinful man are 
 the free pardon of sin and the renewal of his moral 
 nature; and that the former is conferred for the sake 
 of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnate and cruci- 
 fied, and the latter communicated through the gift 
 of the Holy Spirit as the immanent source of sancti- 
 fication. In view of the innumerable controversies 
 
284 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 a ee eee 
 
 that have arisen in the course of the Christian ages as 
 to what is to be believed. and the melancholy effect 
 which these controversies have had in disrupting the 
 Church into a thousand fragments, it may seem a mat- 
 ter for wonder and regret that it did not please God to 
 give in the sacred book a distinct, clear statement of 
 all that was necessary to be believed in order to salva- 
 tion, and as a basis for the fellowship of saints—a 
 sum of saving knowledge not to be subtracted from 
 or added to. But it may be questioned whether it 
 were possible to frame a sum of doctrine expressed in 
 language that should exclude the possibility of doubt 
 or dispute as to its meaning, on the part even of the 
 stupid, the subtle, or the perverse. In any case, such 
 ‘a doctrinal summary has not been vouchsafed. The 
 Bible conveys to us its didactic lesson in a very occa- 
 sional, indirect, and indefinite way. Its method is 
 literary, not dogmatic. It teaches, as it were, without 
 intending to teach; relates a history, and leaves us to 
 infer the lesson; indites a psalm expressive of the 
 sentiments awakened in the writer’s mind by con- 
 templation of the manifestation which God has made 
 of Himself, and leaves us to find out by poetic sym- 
 pathy the thought embodied. The Bible contains all 
 sorts of literature—histories, prophecies, poems lyric 
 and dramatic, proverbs, parables, epistles. All are 
 profitable for doctrine, but none are dogmatic; all 
 are excellent for religious edification, but disappoint- 
 ing from the point of view of scholastic theology. 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 285 
 
 Not even the epistles of Paul can properly be charac- 
 terised as dogmatic in the scholastic sense. The four 
 great epistles are full of doctrine of the most import- 
 ant character, but it is conveyed in an occasional, 
 abrupt, vehement way, by a man engaged in a great 
 controversy as to the meaning of Christianity,— whose 
 bosom is agitated by strong emotion, and whose 
 _ language is a faithful reflection of his feelings— 
 eloquent, but inexact; crowded with deep, grand 
 thoughts, but with thoughts that struggle for utter- 
 ance, and are sometimes only half uttered in broken 
 sentences in which grammar is shipwrecked on the 
 rocks of heroic passion. The writing is noble, Divine, 
 inspired in every sense of the term, most profitable 
 for doctrine; but how different from the style of 
 dogmatic theology, with its careful definitions, and 
 minute distinctions, and cold, passionless, scientific 
 diction ! 
 
 ais account of the; Bible, if it do. not, as some 
 think, prove that it is neither fitted nor intended to 
 teach doctrine, may, at, least, seem to justify despair 
 as to the possibility of extracting from it the due 
 doctrinal use. This, however, is an exaggerated view 
 of the difficulty of using the Scriptures for doctrinal 
 purposes. What has been said as to the style and 
 manner of the sacred writings does not necessarily 
 signify more than this—that to use these writings for 
 such purposes is a delicate task, demanding for its 
 right performance much pains, patience, and wisdom. 
 
286 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 This is certainly true, and cannot be sufficiently laid 
 to heart. The Bible is 4 precious gift of “Godmam 
 man, containing the record, the interpretation, and 
 the literary reflection of the revelation of His grace in 
 history. But it is a gift which imposes on those who 
 receive it in faith a heavy responsibility. It does not 
 tell us in a prepared form of words the didactic signi- 
 ficance of its own contents. It leaves us to ascertain 
 that for ourselves. And it is our duty to address 
 ourselves to the task with all diligence and earnest- 
 ness ; for what nobler or more urgent work can we 
 engage in than that of mastering the thought of so 
 unique a volume? But we must enter upon this 
 study with profound humility, mindful how much has 
 been left to ourselves, and mindful also of the risk we 
 are exposed to of performing our part not wisely, but 
 foolishly. We may miss the meaning altogether, and 
 read into the book our errors instead of taking out 
 of it God’s truth. We may stop short before we have 
 ascertained even the most essential truths of faith, 
 or we may carry the work of formulating Scripture 
 teaching to excessive lengths, to the effect of compro- 
 mising the dignity of the sacred book, and weaken- 
 ing in men’s minds the reverend esteem in which it 
 ought to be held. The risk of miscarriage somehow 
 is so great that we do well to read with the prayer 
 in our heart—“ Send forth Thy light and Thy truth.” 
 The actual miscarriage in past ages has been so vast 
 and so disastrous that we may not take amiss the 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 287 
 
 rebuke and scorn of the world. When Shimei cursed 
 David, a fugitive from his throne, the object of male- 
 diction, conscious of his own shortcoming, said : “ Let 
 him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him.” In like 
 manner, when the apostle of modern culture tells 
 professional theologians that they are incompetent, 
 bungling interpreters of Scripture, and that literary 
 men, acquainted with the best products of genius in 
 all languages, are far fitter for the delicate task than 
 they, it becomes those to whom the reproach is ad- 
 dressed to submit to it in silence, sensible of the 
 wrong that has been done to the Divine word by its 
 professional expounders, 
 
 In making these observations I do not mean to 
 suggest that Mr. Arnold, or any man of like gifts 
 and spirit, is entitled to sit in judgment on theolo- 
 gians by profession, While readily acknowledging 
 that divines have come grievously short in their 
 endeavours to gather the main sense of Scripture, 
 and that their profession exposes them to certain 
 biassing and blinding influences, I cannot regard 
 the discursive reading of a litterateur as the fittest 
 possible preparation for the interpretation of the 
 sacred writings. If the organ of insight into the 
 Bible be not theological lore, still less is it mere 
 literary taste. The true qualification for the sound 
 understanding of the Divine book is an enlightened 
 Christian consciousness, a mind believing in redemp- 
 tion and pervasively influenced by that faith, No 
 
288 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 man can even begin to understand the Bible who 
 does not believe in God’s grace, and to whose 
 vocabulary the very word is a stranger. And our 
 insight into the meaning of holy writ will be in 
 proportion to the strength of our faith in Divine 
 grace, and the measure in which it has proved in 
 our experience an emancipating power, bringing 
 liberty to our reason, our conscience, and our heart. 
 While grace is not believed in, or while it is believed 
 in feebly, there is a veil on the face which hides the 
 glory of the Lord as reflected from the sacred page. 
 To understand the Scriptures is above all things to 
 understand the loving-kindness of the Lord; and it 
 may be taken for granted that he who has narrow 
 thoughts of God’s love, and of the purposes of that 
 love towards mankind, no matter what the extent 
 of his learning may be, has but a very dim appre- 
 hension of the drift of the Scriptures. And as a 
 mind in which the love of God has been shed abroad 
 by the Holy Ghost is the aptest to discern the scope 
 of the Scriptures as a whole, so is it best able to 
 determine what amid all that is taught there are 
 the things of chief concern. It discerns, as if by 
 instinct, what doctrines are most intimately connected 
 with the great central truth of the purpose of grace. 
 The scholastic dogmatist can determine by proof- 
 texts that this or that dogma is de facto taught in 
 Scripture ; but the doctrines are all alike to him— 
 
 that they are scriptural is the one consideration in 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 289 
 
 his eyes. But the Christian mind can determine 
 with some degree of probability which of all the 
 doctrines that Biblical theology, by its learned ap- 
 pliances, can extract from the Bible, are of vital 
 importance to faith and life. While accepting all 
 Scripture as profitable for doctrine, it finds in certain 
 teachings of Scripture the food of its life. It can 
 classify doctrines according to their value, and its 
 principle of classification is relationship to the central 
 truth of God’s grace. The nearer to that the more vital. 
 
 The dogmatic spirit may be jealous of this power 
 of discernment ascribed to the believing mind, and 
 may even see in the claim advanced on its behalf an 
 attempt to set the “inner light” above the written 
 word. This however would be a crass misunder- 
 standing. It is one thing to make the Christian 
 consciousness judge of the ¢ruthk of Scripture teach- 
 ing, quite another to make it judge of its compar- 
 ative value. Surely it is not presumptuous to claim 
 for faith the power to discern that the doctrine of the 
 incarnation is of more importance than a doctrine, 
 based on texts, concerning the exact constitution 
 of Christ’s person; or that the fact that Christ died 
 for our sins is of more moment than any theory 
 of atonement, claiming for itself Scripture support ? 
 Not only may the Christian mind distinguish i4 
 between doctrines at once as to certainty, and as 
 to importance, but it must. The healthy life, both 
 of the individual believer, and of the Church, depends 
 
 U 
 
2900 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 on such distinctions being made, and made wisely. 
 What injury, is it asked, can neglect to classify 
 doctrines as to their importance, occasion? The 
 individual Christian in his indiscriminate zeal for 
 doctrines, for the specialities of his own creed, as 
 distinct from the catholic verities held by all be- 
 lievers, may forget to his loss that the kingdom 
 of God is not meat or drink, or say Calvinism or 
 Arminianism, but righteousness and peace and joy in 
 the Holy Ghost. The Church, through the same zeal, 
 may be unnecessarily divided into mutually exclusive 
 sections, as it is this day to the astonishment of the 
 world and the grief of all Christ-like men. In their 
 attempts at classification of truths in the order of 
 importance, Christians, whether acting individually 
 or collectively may, probably will, err. But that 
 does not excuse neglect of the task. The work has 
 to be done, and it has not been done to our hand, and 
 greater evil may result from leaving it unattempted, 
 than from doing it in a way that falls far short of 
 perfect wisdom. 
 
 To draw up an exhaustive list of the great funda- 
 mental truths which, like planets, revolve around the 
 Sun of a revelation of grace in the firmament of | 
 Scripture, is certainly a task from which, apart from 
 the fear of criticism or contradiction, one may very 
 excusably shrink. Yet there are some truths which, 
 without pretending to exhaustiveness, we may with 
 some measure of confidence characterise as of ex- 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 291 
 
 ceptional importance. To such belong the doctrine 
 of God as manifested in the revelation of grace, the 
 doctrine which unfolds the nature of the gift of 
 grace, and the doctrine concerning man as God’s 
 grace finds him and as that grace exhibits him after 
 it has wrought its full effect upon him. As regards 
 the first, the Church in all ages has confessed that God 
 is manifested in the economy of grace as a Trinity 
 in Unity. This truth, as was to be expected, does 
 not come clearly to light till the epoch of fulfilment. 
 It is from the New Testament that we learn con- 
 cerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 In the unfolding of the doctrine a place of supreme 
 importance belongs to the great event of the Ja- 
 carnation, itself a truth of cardinal importance, as 
 exhibiting Divine grace in action up to the full 
 measure of gracious possibility. No man knew the 
 Father till the Son came and revealed Him, so the 
 Gnostics read the remarkable text in Matt. xi. 27. 
 It is a true saying, though not in the sense they 
 put on it, which was that the God of the Old 
 Testament was an altogether different God from 
 Him whom Jesus made known. The God of the 
 Old Testament is, as we have seen, a God of grace. 
 Nevertheless, speaking comparatively, no man knew 
 the Father till Jesus declared Him. When Jesus 
 came the Fatherhood of God became once for alla 
 fundamental truth of theology, not merely in virtue 
 of His teaching that truth, though that fact exercised 
 
292. DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION, 
 
 a signal influence in giving currency to the doctrine, 
 but still more by His self-manifestation as the Son 
 of God, He offered Himself to the” worldmasms 
 Divine being who had come to earth to seek the 
 lost. Yet He represented Himself as standing in 
 the relation of Son to God as Father. Hence be- 
 lievers in Him learnt to distinguish in God, Father 
 and Son, and to think of the Divine Being as no 
 abstract unity, but as involving plurality. The Son 
 coming in the flesh became the Exegete of God both 
 as to His nature and as to His mind,—in the one 
 respect, in so far as He made known the existence 
 of relationship in God; in the other, in so far as He 
 dwelt among men, Himself a genuine man, “the Son 
 of Man” full of grace, and showed to them that love 
 was the very centre of God’s moral being. 
 
 But the revelation of Paternity through Sonship 
 does not exhaust the knowledge of God communi- 
 cated to men by Christ. For He spake tojgiie 
 disciples of a Spirit of truth and purity, Source of 
 illumination and holiness, who should be with them 
 after He had Himself left the world. Of this spirit 
 He spake as another, distinct from His Father and 
 from Himself, yet standing in most intimate relations 
 _to both; proceeding from the Father, and in the 
 experience of believers taking the place of Him- 
 self, His alter ego.t It is true this doctrine of the 
 
 Ley ohn xiv, 410; 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE UF REVELATION. 2093 
 
 Spirit occurs chiefly in the representation of Christ’s 
 teaching contained in the fourth gospel, which to 
 many in these days is an utterly untrustworthy 
 source of information as to the words actually spoken 
 by our Lord, or at the very least a highly-coloured 
 medium; though, strange to say, Mr. Arnold, for 
 certain reasons, prefers it to the synoptical gospels. 
 But if we are driven from John we can take refuge 
 in Paul. For Paul’s acknowledged Epistles contain 
 the same doctrine of God as that which we gather 
 from the four gospels. Paul knows of the grace of 
 the Incarnation, and speaks of it in terms at once 
 explicit and pathetic.1 He also knows of a Divine 
 Spirit conceived of not merely as _ transcendent, 
 source of miraculous charisms, but as zmmanent, 
 dwelling in the Church and in the individual be- 
 liever as a source of ethical influence, promoting 
 the illumination and sanctification of the body of 
 Christ. This Spirit he calls now the Spirit of God, 
 anon the Spirit of Christ, yea, he sometimes identifies 
 the immanent Spirit with Christ, saying, the Lord ts 
 the Spirit,? a view exactly coinciding with that sug- 
 gested in the fourth gospel, where Jesus in one part 
 of His discourse says: “I will pray the Father and 
 He will give you another Comforter, even the Spirit 
 Or truti; and a little further on: “I will not leave 
 
 aac Ot Vill, 0; 
 2 2 Cor. iii.17. See also ver. 18, ka@ws dwd Kupiouv mvevparos, 
 
294 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 you orphans, I will come to you,”! implying that the 
 other Comforter as a fact of experience will be Christ 
 Himself spiritually present. Are we to look on this 
 doctrine of Paul concerning Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost, and especially concerning the immanent Spirit, 
 as his own invention, the product of his fertile 
 brain working on the original datum that Jesus was 
 the Christ crucified for sin, accepted by him at his 
 conversion? How much more probable that in 
 these letters of his we have a trustworthy reflection - 
 of the faith current in the Church some twenty years 
 after the crucifixion, and current because it in turn 
 was a trustworthy reflection of the apostolic tradition 
 concerning the teaching of Christ. That the doc- 
 trines of the Incarnation and of the Holy Spirit are 
 not by any means so prominent in the synoptical 
 representation, as in that of the fourth gospel, need 
 be no reason for doubt as to the historicity of the 
 latter. Even inspired men know only in part, and 
 one may know more than another, and a later writer 
 is likely to know more than an earlier, as time and 
 events develop the significance of words spoken by 
 Him to whom all bear witness; and therefore it 
 is very credible that the most advanced account of 
 our Lord’s doctrine is not an advance beyond His 
 words, but towards them and towards a more perfect 
 comprehension of their meaning,—a development not 
 
 1 John xiv. 16, 18. 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 295 
 
 beyond but up to the stature of the great Master. 
 But suppose it were otherwise, and that the doctrine 
 of Paul and of the author of the fourth gospel con- 
 cerning God was a development beyond the letter of 
 Christ’s utterances, due to the action of their minds 
 on the data of His gospel, what would the fact 
 amount to? Simply to this; that men who believed 
 the gospel of God’s grace found themselves compelled 
 to think of God as a Trinity; that is to say, that 
 the doctrine of the Trinity, far from being the idle 
 speculation that some account it, is simply the form 
 under which all must think of God who sincerely 
 believe in a Revelation of Grace. Apart from such 
 faith that doctrine may appear a mere unintelligible 
 mystery ; to those who believe it may still appear 
 mysterious, but it will be something more,—darkness 
 produced by excessive light, grace dazzling by its 
 brightness. 
 
 Of the nature of the gift of grace, of “the things 
 that are freely given to us of God,”' the Scriptures 
 contain manifold intimations. Hebrew prophecy 
 shows us the forms under which the summum bonum 
 presented itself to view in the era of preparation and 
 hope. The New Testament makes us acquainted 
 with the aspects under which the same thing was 
 presented to faith by our Lord and by apostolic and 
 other authors of New Testament writings. Four 
 
 1 y Cor, iii, 12. Ta bd rot Oeod xapio evra tyiv. 
 
 4 
 , 
 
296 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 leading types of doctrine on this subject may be 
 distinguished. The gift of grace is exhibited as 
 the Kzngdom of God, as the Righteousness of God, 
 as unrestricted Fellowship with God, and as Eternal 
 Life. The first is the keynote or watchword of our 
 Lord's teaching in the synoptical representation, the 
 second is the great theme of Paul’s teaching, the 
 third is the leading thought of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and the fourth takes the place of the first 
 in the Johannine account of our Lord’s doctrine. It 
 would be an interesting and instructive study which 
 proposed for its aim to develop the significance of 
 each of these respective view-points and their mutual 
 relations. That they are distinct is evident at a 
 glance, The peculiarity of the first is that it exhibits 
 the summum bonum as a social thing. The gift of 
 grace, whatever it may be, is not given to men as 
 isolated individuals, but as citizens of a sacred 
 commonwealth. This doctrine is thoroughly con- 
 genial to a revelation of grace, for it implies that 
 men cannot be blessed in solitude, but only in and 
 through brotherhood, as sons of God and members 
 of one Divine family. We are therefore not surprised 
 to find that all that Jesus taught concerning the 
 kingdom, bears on its face that the kingdom of God 
 isa kingdom of grace. He said that the kingdom » 
 was for the humble, the childlike, the poor, the 
 publicans and sinners, for all who only repented and 
 believed, How could he say more emphatically that 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 297 
 
 the kingdom was a kingdom of grace, a society over 
 which God ruled as a gracious Father, and whose 
 members, whatever their previous characters may 
 have been, were all dear to Him as sons? 
 
 Paul’s view of the gift of grace is thoroughly dis- 
 tinctive. Jesus had said: “Seek ye the kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness.” The two things named 
 were the highest goods of life in the esteem of all 
 devout Israelites. They desired the kingdom, and 
 they sought after righteousness. Paul sought after 
 both, and he speaks of both in his writings; but 
 whereas Jesus, also speaking of both, yet spake chiefly 
 of the kingdom, Paul, on the other hand, spake 
 chiefly of the righteousness of God. The righteous- 
 ness of God is the great theme of his principal epistles, 
 It is a striking form of words, and does not mean 
 what an inexperienced reader would almost certainly 
 suppose. By the righteousness of God, Paul means 
 not the righteousness which conforms to the Divine 
 standard, or which God demands, but the righteous- 
 ness which God gives, It is a synonym for God’s 
 free grace, bestowing on men forgiveness, and treat- 
 ing them as righteous irrespective of sin. It is closely 
 connected in Paul’s system of thought with the 
 death of Christ. That death Paul regarded as an 
 atonement for sin, the death of the just for the 
 unjust, of the sinless for the sinful; therefore, as he 
 tells us in one of his epistles, it was a standing part 
 of the gospel which he preached in every place, that 
 
298 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 Christ died for our sins. His doctrine concerning 
 man’s relation to God was that, because of Christ’s 
 death, the believing n:an is in God’s sight as one 
 who never sinned: righteous, a son, accepted in the 
 Beloved. A believing man so treated by God in His 
 grace, is a man in possession of the righteousness of 
 God. This doctrine appears at first not only dis- 
 tinct from that of Christ, but foreign and uncongenial. 
 Yet there is more affinity between it and the doctrine 
 of the Master than appears on the surface. That 
 God pardons men for Christ’s sake is a doctrine 
 identical with that which Jesus Himself taught when 
 He said, “This is My blood of the New Testament, 
 which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” 1! 
 That pardon and acceptance for Christ’s sake should 
 be called the righteousness of God, may seem an 
 artificial mode of speaking, but that is a question 
 of words ; the thing so named is acceptable and in 
 harmony with the teaching of Christ. At another 
 point the Pauline doctrine seems to recede from that 
 of Christ, in this respect, viz., that in Paul’s system 
 the swmmum bonum seems to be an affair of the 
 individual ; while in Christ’s teaching, as we saw, it 
 is a social thing. But here, also, the two systems 
 approach each other more closely than is apparent 
 on the surface. For in Paul’s view the believer does 
 not obtain the blessing of righteousness in a state 
 
 — 
 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 26. 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 299 
 
 of isolation, but as a member of a spiritual organism 
 of which Christ is the head, and Christians the body. 
 This solidarity of believing men with one another 
 and with Christ is the basis of Paul’s doctrine of 
 objective or “imputed” righteousness, and that 
 which redeems it from the charge of artificiality, or 
 the still more serious charge of questionable morality. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the supreme boon 
 of Divine grace appears as unrestricted absolutely 
 free communion with God. It is set forth as the 
 very mark or distinctive characteristic of the era of 
 the Jetter hope, that under it we can draw nigh to 
 God, with true heart, in full assurance Off faith. 
 Christianity is the religion of access, as distinct from 
 the Levitical religion, which was one of distant re- 
 lationship: God’s honour carefully guarded; man 
 standing afar off worshipping in awe. There is now 
 no veil within which none may enter except the 
 priests, no second veil beyond which none may 
 penetrate save the high priest, and he only once a 
 year, and not without careful precautions against the 
 consequences of an approach not according to rule. 
 The veils are rent asunder, and the distinction be- 
 tween a holy place and an inaccessible most holy 
 place is annulled. Christians may come into the 
 very presence of God, and have the freedom of all 
 ‘the chambers of the heavenly temple, their Father's 
 
 ee ee 
 
 1 Heb. vil. 19. Sai cbs xaets 
 
300 =DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 EE EE eee 
 
 house on high. Thither Christ has entered as the 
 great High Priest of humanity, but entered in an 
 entirely new capacity; not as mere representative or 
 substitute, as in the case of the Aaronic high priest, 
 but as forerunner Aaron went into the most holy 
 place in the people’s stead, going into a place where 
 they might not follow him. Jesus, our Priest after 
 the honourable order of Melchisedec, enters the 
 heavenly most holy place as our pioneer, to prepare 
 a place for us as He said to His disciples. This 
 forerunnership of Christ is the originality of Christ- 
 lanity as compared with the Levitical religion, and 
 it is its glory. It is the conclusive proof of its being 
 the perfect and therefore the eternal religion. A 
 religion which kept men standing at a distance 
 awe-struck, and hedged God about with mystery 
 to guard His majesty from violation, could not be 
 the final form of the relation between God and man. 
 The existence of the veil was an infallible sign of a 
 rude religion, fit only for the childhood of humanity, 
 and but a shadow of good things to come. Such a 
 religion is doomed to be outgrown, antiquated, and 
 superseded. But a religion which abolishes all en- 
 
 aa See 
 
 me LED AVII2O, unhappily translated in the Authorised Version 
 “whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus ;” as if the 
 idea of forerunner were one familiar to the Hebrews, whereas 
 it was a novelty, and as such is introduced here. The passage 
 should be rendered—“ Whither as forerunner is for us entered 
 J esusa So, substantially, is it rendered in the Revised Version. 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 30! 
 
 vious restrictions, and brings man into the most 
 intimate fellowship with God, can never be replaced 
 yee better lteissthe, bestepossivie,.and: therefore 
 ought to be perennial; the perfect, and therefore the 
 final form of man’s relation to God. Accordingly, 
 this epistle, in the most emphatic manner, claims for 
 Christianity the honour of being the eternal religion 
 in contrast to the Levitical religion, whose tran- 
 siency is asserted with equal emphasis. That Christ- 
 ianity is the eternal religion is, indeed, the chief 
 thought of the epistle regarded from the apologetic 
 point of view, as the conception of the essence of 
 religion as unrestricted access to God is the leading 
 dogmatic thought. 
 
 The great theme of John’s gospel, finally, is eternal 
 life. This life, as John represents it, is not a future 
 good to be attained after death. It is the true 
 life of man possessed now by every one who knows 
 the true God and Jesus Christ His Son. It is a 
 life independent of time and chance, consisting in 
 blessed fellowship with God through faith and love. 
 But just because the author of the fourth gospel 
 believes in this eternal life, he also believes in the 
 life everlasting. Over one who possesses eternal life 
 death can have no power; even his body is proof 
 against the law of corruption. All who love God 
 are like God Himself, everlasting. The world passeth 
 away ; but he who doeth the will of God abideth for 
 ever. Similar is the doctrine taught by Paul, and, 
 
302 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 indeed, throughout the New Testament. The con- 
 ception of eternal life is, in no case, purely eschato- 
 logical, That life is viewed as immanent in the 
 Christian from the moment he becomes a believer. 
 But its nature is conceived to be such that immor- 
 tality is involved as a corollary. Hence, just because 
 the gospel has brought to light this true life of faith 
 and fellowship with God the fountain of life, it has 
 also brought to light immortality. 
 
 The Bible doctrine concerning man is at once 
 humbling and inspiring. The grace of God is repre- 
 sented as finding men in a state of serious moral 
 corruption and consequent unblessedness. That this 
 should be so is implied in the very fact of a revelation 
 of grace. They that be whole need not a physician ; 
 if, therefore, God has undertaken in behalf of man- 
 kind the healer’s task, it may be inferred that the 
 patient labours under a grave malady. A variety 
 of significant and pathetic words and phrases are 
 employed to describe man’s condition, some very 
 sombre, others more hopeful. The objects of God’s 
 gracious compassion are described as sick, lost, blind, 
 asleep, dead, far-off, without strength, subject to 
 vanity. Such terms, on the most moderate interpre- 
 tation, studious to avoid all theological exaggeration, 
 justify a strong assertion of human guilt, depravity, 
 and wretchedness. The contemplation of such a 
 forlorn plight naturally suggests questions as to its 
 origin. The Bible contains important hints on that 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 303 
 
 subject, which cannot be overlooked by Biblical or ~ 
 dogmatic theology, but which are not so essential 
 to the doctrine of faith as those that describe man’s 
 actual condition. The supremely important fact is 
 that sin is here, not how it originated. It was the 
 fact of sin that made a revelation of grace necessary, 
 and it is that fact above all things which we, the 
 beneficiaries of God’s grace, need to lay to heart. 
 No man can be a true believer in a revelation of 
 grace who does not lay the fact to heart; the same 
 thing cannot be affirmed concerning one who is 
 perplexed by the problem of the origin of sin. Even 
 if the Scriptures had contained no intimations on 
 that subject, the need for a Divine interposition in 
 man’s behalf would have remained the same, making 
 the same demands on our faith and gratitude. 
 
 In proportion as the Bible humbles men by its 
 picture of his natural condition, it exalts him by the 
 prospect it holds out before him. The two parts 
 of its doctrine of man must be looked at together 
 to be justly appreciated. The Bible takes a sombre 
 view of the reality of human character because it has 
 a high ideal of man’s nature and destiny. It would 
 not humble him so low if it did not mean to exalt 
 him so high. The exaltation abundantly compen- 
 sates for the humiliation. Man, as the recipient of 
 Divine grace, is the son and heir of God; all things 
 are his now and for ever. Being justified by faith, he 
 has peace with God, and rejoices in the hope of the 
 
304. DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION, 
 
 glory of God. Not only so, he rejoices also in tribu: 
 lations, because they contribute to the development 
 of his character, and therefore to the confirmation of 
 his hope. Not only so, he rejoices above all in God 
 Himself, as his chief good, the bliss of heaven, the 
 Comforter amid present afflictions, by His benignant 
 providence making all things work together for 
 good. These are great benefits, but they do not 
 exhaust the privileges of the justified. Christians 
 have the further honour to be fellow-workers with 
 God in the grand problem of the transformation of 
 the world into the kingdom of heaven. Theyvarem 
 chosen generation, and they have been chosen that 
 they may show forth the virtues of Him who called 
 them out of darkness into light, letting their light 
 shine before men so that men, seeing their good 
 works, may glorify their Father in heaven. They 
 are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the 
 leaven in the dough. 
 
 These, then, are among the more essential truths 
 of the revelation of grace. God manifested as a 
 Trinity through the Incarnation of Christ, and the 
 mission of the Comforter. Men found by God lost, 
 impotent, dead, alienated,—lifted up by His grace into 
 a region of holiness and blessedness ; forgiven for the 
 sake of Him who was crucified for sin; admitted to 
 intimate fellowship with God, and made partakers 
 of eternal life; united into a holy commonwealth, in 
 which they are related to God as sons, to each other 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 305 
 
 as brethren, exhibiting in their mutual converse 
 the communion of saints, and, as a spiritual society, 
 having for their high vocation to bring about the 
 consummation of the desires which Jesus taught His 
 disciples to cherish for the advancement of God’s 
 glory, the coming of His kingdom ever more exten- 
 sively, and the doing of His will on earth as it is 
 done in heaven. 
 
 It is a short creed; yet he who sincerely owns 
 these truths is a true Christian, accepted of God, a 
 member of the kingdom of God, and worthy to have 
 part in the fellowship of saints; in the best catholic 
 sense of the word, an orthodox believer. Hitherto the 
 fellowship of saints has been broken up and largely 
 nullifed by sectional creeds, in which the doctrine 
 of faith is mixed up with the theology of the schools. 
 Perhaps this was inevitable, but it may fairly be 
 questioned if it ever was legitimate, or anything but 
 a calamity due to human infirmity and sin. In any 
 case, the present condition of the world and of the 
 Church forces upon thoughtful men, earnestly con- 
 cerned for the realization of the Divine ideal, the 
 question whether the past state of things ought to be 
 perpetuated. The Church is enfeebled by divisions 
 and controversies which render the communion of 
 saints little more than a name, and reduces her 
 spiritual influence to a minimum; Christianity, in 
 consequence, seems to have lost its self-propagating 
 power, and to have become a spent force, destined no 
 
 Xx 
 
306 =DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 lonzer to give rise to important developments. Utter 
 unbelief, originating from scientific, philosophic, or 
 social causes, judging from all observable symptoms, 
 seems to be spreading on every side. Can nothing 
 be done to remedy this state of matters? Must we 
 continue aS we are, each sect holding fast by its 
 peculiar dogmas, and all the sects regarding each 
 other with a suspicious eye, and trust to the mil- 
 lennium for the cure of all present evil? Or shall 
 we go to the opposite extreme, and, to accommodate 
 the sceptical spirit of the age, discard all dogmas and 
 doctrines alike, and reduce Christianity to the Deistic 
 Trinity, God, duty, and immortality, as the only 
 religious certainties? Both views have their advo- 
 cates in the religious world, but it is not likely that 
 deliverance will come from either of these quarters. 
 The shope of the “future seems to lie neithereaee 
 creedless Church nor in a Church clinging supersti- 
 tiously to all traditional dogmas, but in a Church 
 which has the will and the wisdom to distinguish 
 between the essential and the non-essential in reli- 
 gious belief, between catholic Christian certainties 
 and matters of doubtful disputation; in other words, 
 between doctrines. of faith and theological dogmas. 
 The emphasis with which this distinction is insisted 
 on is the index of the value which the Church sets 
 on faith as distinct from opinion; and that again 
 is the measure of spiritual power. A Church which 
 neglects the distinction, or declines it as illegitimate, is 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 307 
 
 a Nebuchadnezzar’s image, compounded of gold, silver, 
 brass, iron, and clay, and possessing the strength only 
 of the weakest part ; or it may be likened to a child, 
 to whom a penny seems as valuable as a shilling or a 
 sovereign—a sure mark of imbecility. It is certainly 
 no part of true wisdom to despise pence, but, on 
 the other hand, it is to be remembered that there 
 is a penny-wisdom which implies pound-folly. The 
 tithing of mint, anise, and cummin may be attended 
 to with such scrupulous care that justice, mercy, and 
 faith are forgotten. 
 
 The distinction between doctrines of faith and 
 dogmas of theology is one which should come into 
 play in all departments of the Church’s work; in the 
 preaching of the word, in the conduct of missions, in 
 the construction of confessional documents, and still 
 more in the catechetical instruction of the young. In 
 these days the question is sometimes asked whether 
 preaching should be doctrinal or not. Opinion and 
 practice differ on the point. In the judgment of 
 some the less doctrine, the less definite religious 
 belief, the better the sermon. The taste of others is 
 for sermons saturated with a theological system and 
 expressing all truth in terms of the system. Edifi- 
 cation is best promoted by the preacher who avoids 
 both extremes. Sermons should be doctrinal but not 
 theological ; the truths of faith should underlie, and 
 even form the staple of all preaching, but these truths 
 ought to be set forth in simple, untechnical terms. 
 
308 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 Among the wise counsels in the Directory for Public 
 Worship, prepared by the Westminster Assembly, is 
 one to the preacher not to trouble the minds of his 
 hearers with “obscure terms of art.” 
 
 It is hardly necessary to point out what an im- 
 portant qualification for success in missionary enter- 
 prise it must be to be able to distinguish between 
 the essential and the non-essential in belief, in 
 teaching the heathen the elements of the Christian 
 religion. Above all mena missionary ought not to be 
 a theological pedant. This, however, is a mere com- 
 mon-place, not needing to be insisted on. It is when 
 we proceed to assert the applicability of the distinc- 
 tion now in view-to the construction of creeds and 
 catechisms that we are most likely to encounter 
 gainsaying. We are so accustomed to separatism 
 in religion, or to what may be called the club-theory 
 of church-fellowship, that it seems to us almost 
 axiomatic that a creed should embrace all the theo- 
 logical propositions to which we attach importance 
 Yet nothing is more certain than that if the visible 
 Church ought to exhibit, in the widest sense possible, 
 the fellowship of saints, such fulness is neither pos- 
 sible nor desirable. The more catholic the com- 
 munion the less comprehensive the creed. If we aim 
 at catholicity in Church fellowship we must be con- 
 tent with a creed embracing only the essential truths 
 of faith to which enlightened Christian fidelity re- 
 quires us to bear witness. This principle, thoroughly 
 
DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 309 
 
 carried out, would involve considerable retrenchments 
 in all the Reformed confessions. 
 
 Catechisms, being intended for the religious in- 
 struction of the young, ought to contain only the 
 sincere milk of the word, expressed, as far as possible, 
 in Scriptural terms. In the catechisms of the seven- 
 teenth century, milk is mixed with strong meat, 
 doctrine with dogma, Scripture language with the 
 terminology of the schools. The milk is, that God 
 gave Christ to be a Redeemer of sinners, and the 
 Scriptural way of stating the truth would have been 
 to say, “God so loved the world, that He gave His 
 only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ But the 
 catechism offers the child strong meat instead of 
 milk, by stating the truth in terms of the dogma 
 of election. Again, the milk is, that Christ exercised 
 the office of a priest by dying on the cross for our 
 sins; the strong meat mixed therewith is the dogma 
 of satisfaction. The aim of a catechism so con- 
 structed is to make the catechumens not only 
 believers, but dogmatically orthodox. The result, in 
 a time like the present, is apt to be recoil from 
 orthodoxy, and, along with that, apostasy from the 
 faith. 
 
 in making these observations I am not to be 
 understood as hinting that immediate attempts at 
 reconstruction of creeds and recasting of catechisms 
 are either likely or desirable. No one indeed would 
 
310 DOCTRINAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVELATION. 
 
 desire that such work should be taken in hand till 
 the scope of the distinction between doctrine and 
 dogma is fully realized, and the distinction itself, in 
 all its breadth, frankly accepted. But though the 
 work may be long deferred, there is no reason why 
 one should not freely express his thoughts on the 
 subject, and leave them to work as a leaven in men’s 
 minds. In all probability the Church has many long 
 ages before it, and one may devoutly dream of the 
 glory that is to accrue unto God therein as these 
 ages roll on, and muse on the conditions under which 
 that glory is to be advanced. Among these, in the 
 judgment of many earnest men, reconstruction of 
 the Church on a new, wide basis, must take its place 
 To this opinion I humbly subscribe. The Church 
 is now weak, and among the causes of her weakness 
 are doubt, division, and dogmatism. To renew her 
 youth, and make a fresh start in a career of victory 
 she needs certainty, concord, and a simplified creed. 
 
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