nmm msm ■;iU V' ;::': > mivmii LiBRpY | —-k-OF-w-— J A BO-BROWED BOOR IS BORROWED CAPITAL THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library n l* +' L 3 1376 i ! ; f/ V. i U m © OCT 281392 / 1" r\ "t NOV 0 ft L161—0-1096 - ■ , \* ;i I r- \ ' . \ \ r _ v. v \ \ / •A 'V. V \ HKvr. * \ •: • i . • 1 WORKS BY JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. Discourses upon the Old and New Testaments. In 25 volumes. Each volume complete in itself. 8vo, cloth, per vol. $1.50. ' Rev. C. H. Spuegeon : “Dr. Parker has begun a stupendous work in this People’s Bible; but its accomplishment lies within the possibilities of his fertile mind, should life and health be spared. He condenses wonderfully, and throws a splendor of diction over all that he pours forth. His track is his own, and the jewels which he lets fall in his progress are from his own caskets; this will give a permanent value to his works, when the productions of copyists will be forgotten.” APOSTOLIC LIFE, as Revealed in the Acts of the Apostles. Discourses upon the Acts of the Apostles. In three volumes. 8vo, cloth, each $1.50. The Congregalionalist, Boston: “ They are exceedingly stirring sermons in the best sense.” The Christian Union, New York: “ Sermons rich in life and power, pungent, practical, faithful and fearless.” The Interior, Chicago : “ Dr. Parker’s style is always incisive, vigorous and original, and when he has a clear conception of the mind of the Spirit, as it is revealed in the Word, few men can fasten a truth more firmly on the minds of their readers or hearers.” THE INNER LIFE OF CHRIST. Discourses upon St. Matthew’s Gospel. In three volumes. (1) “These Sayings of Mine.” (2) “ Servant of All.” (3) “ Things Concerning Himself.” 8vo, cloth, each $1.50. The Examiner, New York : “ In many respects these are model sermons. They are addressed to the mind, feeling, necessities of ordinary men. They are fresh, vigorous, instructive, and tend to make men wish to be¬ come better. They are full of points. They are weighty with the Gospel.” The Literary World, London : “ Most preachers’ texts are nails and their sermons tack-hammers. With Dr. Parker, his text is a bolt and his ser¬ mon a sledge-hammer.” FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, New York. THE BIBLE: DISCOURSES UPON HOLY SCRIPTURE . BY JOSEPH PARKER, D.D., Minister of the City Temple, Holborn Viaduct, London. “ THE INNER LIFE OF CHI’JST,” ETC. } VOL. V. JOSHUA—JUDGES V* NEW YORK: FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 18 and 20 Astor Place. 1887. tzo.^l CONTENTS. PAGE DEUTERONOMY— “HANDFULS OF PURPOSE ** , , . . I THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH . . . 1 4 THE PENTATEUCH AS A WHOLE. . # . . .29 THE BOOK OF JOSHUA— THE MAN AND HIS CALL • • • • • • 45 ASPECTS OF HUMAN CHARACTER • • • • 62 UNANIMITY . • • 7 i THE SPIRIT AND PURPOSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE • • 80 THE NEW SYMBOL • • , • • • • • 88 UP TO THE BRINK • • • • • • • 97 MEMORIAL STONES • 107 COMING UP OUT OF JORDAN • • * • • 116 MEMORABLE EVENTS • • • • • 126 SIGNS OF THE TIMES • • • • • • 136 DISCIPLINE . • • • • * • • i 47 HINDERED BY SIN * • • • • • • i 5 6 CURIOUS CONJUNCTIONS • • • • • • 163 ACHAN A REPRESENTATIVE MAN • • • • 172 THE TAKING OF AI SPIRITUALISED • • • • 179 592382 IV CONTENTS . PAGES THE BOOK OF JOSHUA — Continued. THE GIBEONITES • • • • * • • • 186 THE LORD’S ARTILLERY . , • • • • • x 95 FIVE MODERN KINGS • • • • • • • 202 TYPES OF CHRISTIAN WARFARE • • • • • 2 11 A RECORDED LIFE . • • • • • • • 220 Caleb’s claim • . * . • • • • • 228 DISTRIBUTION . . • • • • • • • • 237 DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND . • • • • • 244 AFTER REST • • • • • • • 254 “HANDFULS OF PURPOSE ” • • • • • 273 EXCURSUS • • • • • • • 29 O THE BOOK OF JUDGES INTRODUCTION # 305 ADONI-BEZEK . . • • • • • • • 3°8 TRIBUTARIES . . • • e m % • • 3 X 3 DIVINE AND IIUMi 4 N INFLUENCE • ♦ • • • 324 OTHNIEL . # . • 333 EHUD • • • • 339 SHAMGAR . . , • 344 DEBORAH AND HER SONG. 9 • • • • 348 35 6 INDEX THE PENTATEUCH ( Continued ). “HANDFULS OF PURPOSE,” FOR ALL GLEANERS. “ Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God.” —Deut. i. 32. •Note the possibility of partial faith. —There may be very considerable credence in divine promises, yet there may be one weak point.—In this as in other respects the law holds good : he that offends in one point offends in all. —Faith is no stronger than its weakest point.—We must not expect to realise divine blessings if we bring a crippled faith to the exercise.—It is sometimes supposed that faith is one act, and that as such it is either strong or weak. —All consciousness and all spiritual history distinctly disprove this theory. —We may have a general faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and yet encounter with 'Strong doubt some particular injunction or promise which appeals to our self-sacrifice.—We may believe in other men praying and have doubts about our own prayers.—We may have general faith in Christian doctrine and yet be lacking ii} the par¬ ticular faith which applies that doctrine to actual life.—We should examine the whole line of faith day by day to see 1 which points are weak and to amend them accordingly.—What if we believe God and do not practise godliness ?— Where is faith then ? “ Your little ones . . . shall go in thither.” —Deut. i. 39. God’s purposes are not to be broken off. — Vvfherever they appear to be broken off it is only in detail and momentarily: the great line still stretches onward towards the com¬ pletion of the eternal decree.—It is not in the power of man to frustrate the purposes of heaven.—Why do the heathen rage ?—The generations are one as to the divine intention, though multitudinous in their particular de¬ tails; the divine thought, therefore, cannot be judged here and now or at any particular break in history, it must be judged when all is completed and sealed.—The first shall be last and the last shall be first.—Those whc are little now may be great hereafter. —The little are not condemned be¬ cause of the sins of their ancestors.— Our fathers have failed, but that is VOL. V. 1 2 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. no reason why we should not succeed. —God’s regard is continually fixed upon character, and never upon mere personality.—Heaven is for the good and for none else, so all wealth, power, fame go for nothing in view of that grand realisation.—There is always a promise laid up for humanity. Better things are yet to grow upon the earth, and fairer lights are yet to shine on human history.—The future has a continual influence upon the present. —Posterity ought to do something for contemporaries, where the mind is alive to the influence of actions and the certainty of harvest coming after seed-time. “ There was not one city too strong for ns:' — Deut. ii. 36. This is a human testimony to divine promise.—Every city appeared to be too strong, yet in the strength of the Almighty the most powerful cities were as straw before fire.—What is true of cities is true of temptations.—There need not be one temptation that can distress the tried Christian.—If left to himself every temptation would be too much for him ; but he is never left to himself; he is fighting God’s battle ; he is not at the war at his own charges, but at the cost of God, and under the security of heaven.—When we reach the better land we shall be enabled to repeat this testimony according to the variety of the circumstances through which we have come.—It will apply to difficulties of every kind,—personal, social, spiritual : the testimony will be that throughout the whole scheme of life he that was for us was more than all they that were against us.— My soul, hope thou in God 1 “ Thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness ."— Deut. iii. 24. This is what is always happening. —The broadest revelation is but a beginning of the disclosure of divine riches.—Even if there be no more seed given, the possibilities of growth and development are infinite.—At the last we shall feel that we have but begun to see the greatness of God.—This is the glory of the Bible : no man can read it through with the feeling that he has exhausted its whole meaning. —The Bible grows by being read.— Without doing any violence to words or to historical forms it is felt that again and again new meanings sur¬ prise the soul like unexpected light.— The same rule holds good with regard to providence, or the daily ministry of life.—There comes a day in every man’s history when he sees the beginning of the greatness of God in the outlining and direction of his own life.—Looking back to his fancy, his weakness, his poverty, his friendlessness it may be, he is surprised to find how out of the very dust of the earth God has made • a man.—It is a singular testimony but universal in the Christian Church that God is never regarded as a dwindling quantity or as a contracting revelation ; he is always represented as sur¬ prising students, believers, worship¬ pers, with new resources.—He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.—When man has overtaken God he will himself be God. —It is of the very essence of God that he should be unsearchable and his wisdom past finding out.—This should be an encouragement to us in our spiritual education. — Progress should be the law and the motto of every process of spiritual inquiry.— There is always some unattained height, some unmeasured orb, sorhe un¬ traversed ocean.—“ I count not myself to have apprehended.”—Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.—All human education is but a series of beginnings.—Finality “ HANDFULS OF PURPOSE.” 3 in religious progress is impossible, and where it is supposed to have been attained the supposition risks the destiny of the soul. “ Behold . . . not go .” —Deut. iii. 27. This was what was to occur in the case of Moses. He was to have a sight of the promised land, but he was not to go into it.—This was no exceptional act on the part of God ; on the contrary it is what he is always doing as the ages move onwards.—There are men who see what they will never per¬ sonally enjoy; and however much their impatience may wish to turn sight into still closer uses, they are filled with ecstatic joy even by the vision of the good things which are yet to come.—In this way we should live in one another and for one another. —Moses could return from the moun¬ tain and say that he had seen the good land ; even that message would be a comfort to those who were weary, and in whom wonder was fast turn¬ ing into doubt.—There must always be men in a progressive age who see further than others.—As some see the time when men shall learn war no more.—Others see the time when there will be no need for any man to say to his brother, “ Know the Lord,” for all shall know him from the least unto the greatest. — This method of divine providence is educa¬ tional, inasmuch as it shows that not to go does not prevent the enjoy¬ ment of the soul in the prospect of realised promises. It is something to submit gracefully to a subordination of the individual, and to accept gladly benefits which are intended for the whole commonwealth.—There is no tone of impatience in the statement of Moses when he hears the Lord’s pro¬ position.—We must accept our place whether we are seers or literal travel¬ lers.—It is no small pleasure to see even in dream or in assured hope the beautiful summer which is yet to spread its glories over the whole land. —The enjoyment is, indeed, intensely spiritual, but not, for that reason, the less real.—Moses may have had a fuller realisation of the promised land than the children of Israel; they had to endure the battle and the fatigue, and to win their way inch by inch: Moses saw the land, and knew that every foot of it would be given to the people whom he had led. —Aged Christians must take this standpoint.—Exhausted ministers must content themselves with the view that is before them, and leave others to secure that view in all its detail and literal value.—The oldest man should have the keenest sight into the beauti¬ ful future.—He uses his old age mis¬ chievously who uses it as a period of languor or sleep : the oldest man should have the most cheerful voice in the church. “ So we abode in the valley .”— Deut. iii. 29. Places have moral interest.—Some¬ times the valley is in the highland, and is therefore only a valley relatively: as compared with valleys far away down it may actually be a very high mountain.—The lesson we have to learn is to abide in the place assigned by Providence.—There is a subtle tone of submission and patience in the text. There is no complaining as to the lot. —The valley is accepted as a sanctuary. It was a valley of God’s making, and therefore was to be regarded as a place on which he had expended special care.—In the valley we may have shelter .— In the valley we may have harvests .—In the valley we maj T have 4 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. security .—It is the business of the Christian to discover the advantages of his position rather than to moan over its disadvantages.—There is an¬ other valley in which we shall not abide, but shall pass through it under the comfort of the rod and the staff of the divine Shepherd.—Some persons seem never to get out of the valley; they literally abide in it as men abide in a home.—Who are we that we should chide the Providence which has made such appointments? How do w r e know how much the dwellers in the valley are saved from ? Who can tell what compensations fall to their lot?—The text is not supposed to teach the kind of contentment which it is almost impossible to distinguish from indifference. Such contentment is no virtue. The true contentment is that which accepts the hard lot without repining, knowing that God has some good purpose in its appoint¬ ment, and assured that even the hardest position may be turned to noble uses. —When our superiors attempt to keep us in the valley we may well inquire as to their authority: when God means us to abide in the valley we may be sure that he will not forsake us in our lowest estate. 44 The Lord hath brought you forth . . . out of the iron furnace .” —Deut. iv. 20. Imagery is sometimes the most real method of representation. There was neither furnace nor iron in the case in any literal sense, and yet the moral experience of the people could not better be represented than that of having spent no small portion of their life in a burning fiery furnace.—Sorrow creates its own imagery.—What is exaggeration to one man is literal truth to another.—We are indebted to sorrow for the sublimest imagery.— The Psalms are full of prool that such is the case.—The divine power is always magnified by spiritual wor¬ shippers.— l'hey do not look upon history as a series of chances, but as a line along which the divine Being moves with dignity and beneficence.— He allows men to be thrown into the iron furnace, and has profound reasons for so doing; it is not his pleasure that they should be there, but it is certainly for their good that they should know the ministry of fire : the Lord knows exactly how long we have been in the furnace : he knows precisely what benefit has arisen from our being there: he knows when to liberate us from distress and despair.—There is no furnace too deep for the Lord to penetrate.—Though the furnace be of iron he can melt it and lead forth the captive with a new song in his mouth. —Do not regard furnaces as of men’s construction, or as expressing the triumph of evil principles.—There hath no temptation happened unto you that is not directly sent of God, in the sense of trial and discipline.—He who has come out • of the furnace can speak most tenderly of the power and com¬ passion of God.—Not to have been in the furnace is not to have been in one of the most fruitful schools appointed by Providence for the education of mankind.—To have been in the furnace is to have learned the holy art of sympathy. To have been comforted ourselves is to be qualified to give comfort to others.—He who has dug most graves can speak most tenderly to the bereaved.—He who has stood in the midst of desolated acres without losing his confidence in God is by so much qualified to preach the duty and the joy of resignation.—The whole human race will one day be led out of the furnace, but not until the lessons of that tremendous discipline have been fully learned and applied in all the “ HANDFULS OF PURPOSE.” 5 progress and duty of life.—Through¬ out the whole of the Scriptures it is the Lord who is magnified and not man who is praised for having found out some secret way of escape.—To know the Lord as a Deliverer in great crises and straits is to be assured that, in all the minor difficulties and trials of life, his presence shall be our protection and our hope. M I must not go . . . but ye shall go .”— Deut. iv. 22. This is a brave speech on the part of an old man. Such speeches ought to be uttered by the most advanced Christians to-day.—This man utters his speech without complaint.—It seems impossible to reconcile the imperfect revelation granted to some men with the goodness of God.—They come so near seeing the perfect light, and yet die without beholding the noontide glor}?.—It would have been very dif¬ ferent with the people had Moses been a man of another spirit; querulous, discontented, complaining against God. —The spirit of progress rejoices in the progress of others.—We are not to limit the revelation of God by that which we see ourselves.—We must look to the future of the race and see in that future something brighter than has yet shone upon our own vision.— That thought may be applied to theo¬ logical thinkers.—There is nothing final in theological investigation.— Interpretation will show the progres¬ siveness even of the Bible itself.— The greatest students of the book die exclaiming to the younger men, “Ye shall go over, and possess the good land.”—The thought should also be applied to Christian workers as well as to Christian students.—Though we die without reaping the harvest, the harvest will surely be reaped by others. —We should so live that when we come to die our last speech may be one of encouragement to the men who are following.—The man who dies thus does not die at all, in any de¬ grading sense.—Moses, though dead according to the flesh, lived in all the power of the spirit, and was a continual inspiration to the people whom he . had led so many years in the wilder¬ ness.—There is always a good land to be possessed; a land of larger liberty; a land of larger knowledge; a land of surer trust in divine realities. —The spirit of the Church must be a spirit of conquest; when it drops from this noble elevation it inflicts upon itself a most humiliating dis¬ ability. * “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers , but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” — Deut. v. 3. There is a general revelation in¬ tended for all men through all time.— There is also a special revelation given to individuals, and limited by precise periods of duration.—All moral revela¬ tion—that is, revelation dealing with righteousness, truth, duty—is universal and everlasting.—Jesus Christ an¬ swered the lawyer who temptingly questioned him, “What is written in the law ? how readest thou?”—Whilst it is true that some portions of the Bible were written for individuals, and were limited by local circumstances, it is surprising how many of these • apparently merely local texts assume a relation to our individual necessities. —Wherever this is the case we have been mistaken in calling such passages local and limited.—The heart often creates its own Scripture. When the true soul reads the Bible and sees in it an anticipation of his distresses and a remedy for his sufferings, he is 6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. entitled to believe that the passage was written for himself as if he had been the only individual in the world.—We are not to go in quest of these passages as if with an intention to force them into new meanings, but when they open naturally to the touch of necessity and pain we are certainly entitled to accept their doctrine and their solace. —It is beyond all doubt that every law bearing upon purity of spirit and goodness of conduct was written for the benefit of the whole race through¬ out every age of its development.— This is at once the glory and the defence of the Bible.—It abides through all time; the Word of the Lord en- dureth for ever.—The Bible is a book addressed to humanity, and therefore it is at home in every land and in every language.—It has been remarked upon as a notable and suggestive circumstance that no book is so avail¬ able for purposes of translation into all tongues as is the Bible.—Every man whose soul is hungry has, by virtue of his hunger, a right to this tree of life.—Let every one beware, however, how he takes the consola¬ tions and omits the commandments.— This would be a felonious use of the Scriptures.—The Bible is not to be read as a compliment to our feelings, but as a stimulus to our whole nature, that the man of God may be thoroughly instructed and perfected in all holiness. —Many men are particular about having the covenants confirmed who do not appear to be quite so particular about having the commandments obeyed. “ The Lord loved yon." —Deut. vii. 8. The word love is an Old Testament word.—It would not be difficult to show that the tenderest expressions ever used by heaven to earth are re¬ ported not in the New Testament but in the Old.—It is not enough for the people to know that their Lord is almighty, because power may become a terror.—Not only power bclongeth unto God but also mercy: this is the complete aspect of the divine nature. —That the Lord loved Israel was shown by long-suffering, by hopeful patience, by pouring down blessing upon blessing, notwithstanding the in¬ gratitude of the people ; it would seem as if even sin itself was hardly allowed to block out the light of heaven.—The love of God is the true interpretation of the history of man in all its move¬ ment towards nobility and spiritual sovereignty and rest.—Nothing but love could account for the continu¬ ance of the world under all its sinful¬ ness and ingratitude.—It is love that explains the greatest revelations of God.—It is love that explains the Cross of Jesus Christ.—It is love that ex¬ plains the assured progress of redeemed and sanctified souls.—The love of God excludes all other claims to his at¬ tention and interest: thus we are not allowed to say that God’s favours come to us on account of our merit, or ancestry, or excellence above others; whatever we have is of the free mercy and love of God.—The love which explains all the past is the surest guarantee of all the future.—Love never changes.—What is true of divine love in the soul is true of that same love in God himself; it hopeth all things, endureth all things, believeth all things, it never faileth.—It is our joy to believe in a God of love; nay, in our highest moods we do not regard love as an attribute of God, but we say God himself is love.—Love does not exclude discipline.—Love does not exclude anger.—But on the other side, neither discipline nor anger changes or diminishes the love of God. —“Good when he gives, supremely good ; not less when he denies.” “HANDFULS OF PURPOSED 7 “ The faithful God.” —Deut. vii. 9. Considerable instruction is supplied by noting the qualifying terms which arc often attached to the divine name. —We read of the living God, the mighty God, the glorious Lord God, and in the text of the faithful God.— Sometimes the qualifying terms are rather repellent than attractive, as, for example, “ the great and terrible God,” and in Daniel we read of the “great and dreadful God.”—These terms do not occur in the New Testament, yet even in the later books of revelation God is described as “ a consuming fire,” and in the Apocalypse we read of “ the wrath of the Lamb,” so that there is a line of consistency in the Old Testament and the New as regards the description of the character of God. —Perhaps there is no word which is more profoundly comfortable than the word “ faithful ” as applied to the divine Being.—It would appear as if “love” were more attractive and soothing, but this is an appearance only. Faithfulness is love; without faithfulness love itself would be im¬ possible, because it would become a mere sentiment, liable to be cooled and changed by passing circumstances. It should be observed that even in the Old Testament, in the very text in which the divine Being is described as the great and terrible God, he is further described as “ keeping covenant and mercy for evermore with them that love him and observe his command¬ ments.”—God is not the less loving because he is u great and terrible.” —The Apostle Paul is very fond of applying the word “ faithful ” to God and to Jesus Christ, thus: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”—“ The Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.”—“God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.”—“ God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”—The Apostle John, too, in a remarkable passage, avails him¬ self of the same descriptive term : “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”—Thus forgiveness itself is an expression of faithfulness and justice, and therefore may be accepted as essential and ever¬ lasting.—If God is faithful himself, he expects faithfulness in others.—He praises faithfulness in those who have completed their course of life honour¬ ably : “ Well done, good and faithful servant.”—He would see himself in others.—Faithfulness means consist¬ ency, permanency, reality of thought and service, and is absolutely intole¬ rant of all fickleness, self-regard, men- pleasing, and time-serving.—“ Be thou faithful unto death.” u to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself .”— Deut. ix. 1. This would seem to be an inversion of the doctrine of proportion.—We forget, however, that there is a pro¬ portion of quality as well as a propor¬ tion of quantity.—Force is not to be measured by bulk.—The helm is very small compared to the whole ship, yet it turns the vessel’s course. The man is very small physically in relation to the mountain which is thousands of feet high, yet the man is master of the mountain. The rider is small in strength compared with the horse he rides, yet the steed obeys the touch of his hand.—We constantly see how apparently little things rule obviously great bulks and quantities.—The true sovereignty is in the spirit.—This is the seat of the highest miracles that are wrought; such miracles simply | illustrate the sovereign influence of 8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. mind over matter.—How little is man as to mere arithmetical measurement compared with the great globe; yet God has put all things under the hands of man: “ All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.”—Let us reason upwards towards moral power: the power of ideas, impulses, sympathies, convic¬ tions.—The time will come when moral forces will be regarded as the true sovereignties. Towards this consum¬ mation Christ has been working from the beginning. The sword shall be beaten into a ploughshare, and all violence shall be deposed by the quiet¬ ness of power.—Carry this a step higher into the religious region, and draw frcm the whole reasoning the inference that the religious nature is the most influential of all.—Truth shall take captive all the superstitions, idolatries, misconceptions, and false worships of the world.—We must admit what may be called even the smallest truth ; let it have free course, and it will overturn the most ancient thrones and dominions which have been claimed by the powers of dark¬ ness.—Even the light of a candle will break up the darkness which fills the largest building.—In the strength of these thoughts and hopes every Christian should toil gladty, delight¬ ing himself with the pleasures of ex¬ pectancy, knowing that the whole earth shall be filled with the know¬ ledge of God. “ The Lord hearkened unto me at that time also ."— Deut. ix. 19. The memorable prayers of life.— Times of conscious conquest.—Who cannot recall periods in which the Lord by consent allowed himself to be overthrown, as if in war and wrest¬ ling, by the tender violence of love ?— These great memories stimulate us to renewed endeavours in prayer and service.—We date our best endeavours from our latest conquests.—Only the good man can say whether prayer can be answered or not.—Moses here pledges his word as to the reality of answered prayer. — To destroy this answer we must first discredit Moses. —This is the real reply to those who would discuss the virtue of prayer.— This is not a question which can be settled in controversial terms, or within the narrow grounds of verbal defini¬ tion ; the inquiry must be addressed to the praying soul itself; the praying Sjoul has never feared to say that its supplications have been rewarded with great answers.—Family history may be inquired into to bear evidence upon this matter. What of sickness ? What of deliverance in the time of vital perplexity ? What about the dispersion of clouds that hung like an infinite night over the ^whole life ? What of sudden and unexpected answers to questions which we ex¬ pected would cut us like swords ?—A man must be very wise who can answer all such questions offhandedly, and dispense with the idea of the per¬ sonality and intervention of God in the shaping and direction of human affairs. “ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart! —Deut. x. 16. What God wants is moral purity.— We cannot live in rites and ceremonies. —It was well to begin with the out¬ ward, but the meaning was that we should go forward to the inward and spiritual.—Nor was this revelation of the spiritual purpose long delayed; even in the Old Testament we read, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your “ HANDFULS OF PURPOSE: 9 heart, ye men of Judah.”—Nothing would be more convenient or more pleasant to the carnal man than to merely observe some outward laws and regulations; but the word of the Lord is sharper than any two-edged sword, and its business is done in the innermost heart of man. “ He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. . .. Circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.”—There is, therefore, an evangelical or spiritual circumcision. —“ In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.”—If we have escaped that which is physically painful, we have come into that which is spiritually disciplinary.—“ Rend your heart, and not your garments.”—Man himself is called upon to do this, not that he has the ability to complete the circumcision, but any desire which he shows to begm it will call the almightiness of God to his aid. u For ye are not as yet come to the rest'' —Deut. xii. 9. Still, it is of infinite value to the soul to know that there is a rest.—A man is helped through the week by knowing that he is coming to a period when labour will be suspended, and quietness will be at least rendered possible.—If we are stimulated by beginnings, we are comforted by promised endings.—To be told that there is no termination to the road we are upon, discourages us for advancing even the next few yards; but to be told that every few } T ards traversed will bring us nearer the end, where we may expect home and rest and security, is really to nerve us for service and danger.—Heaven is not promised as an appeal to our selfish¬ ness, but as a comfort to our weakness and a sure reward of all obedience and excellence in human life.—Even the Apostle looked forward to the close with the highest gratification and thankfulness, seeing, as he did, the crown of righteousness which was laid up for him, and knowing that he should join the general assembly and church of the firstborn.—A man need not work the less energetically on Monday because he sees in the distance the quiet Sabbath-day offering him harbour and refuge.—There is a period of strife which is to be succeeded by a period of rest. But what rest can he have who has never known the strife? Is not all pleasure, in some degree, by contrast? The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, simply because he is a labouring man and has earned the repose which his exhaus¬ tion needs.—What heaven can they have who have made earth into a mere sleeping-place or garden of delights, having walled out, so far as it is possible to human wealth and vanity to do so, all darkness and necessity and trouble?—What a home-coming must the true soldier have who is con¬ scious of having fought patriotically and daringly in the interests he went out to ^erve!—A beautiful picture is given of the ending from all toil and strife in the good cause.—-“And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.”—Christ himself was encouraged by the disclosed termina¬ tion of his toil and suffering.—He knew that he must reign until he had put all enemies under his feet.—For the joy that was set before him, he endured the Cross, despising the shame. Here every good worker may be com- 10 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. forted and stimulated: if the work were to go on for ever, it seems as if our poor strength would regard its continuity with despair; but not know¬ ing how soon it may end, and knowing that all faithfulness will end in heaven, the soul is encouraged to put on its strength, and to do with its whole might whatsoever it may find to do.— “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” 11 . . . when he giveth yon rest from all your enemies round about. . . . Then there shall be a place! — Deut. xii. io, II. There are temporary rests on the road of life.—The battle is sometimes suspended, and we know not when it may be resumed.—Some spiritual use is to be made even of temporary cessations of difficulty.—The religious use which was to be made in ancient times of periods of rest expressed itself in the building of altars and the offering of sacrifices.—Ancient life seemed to be divided between war and worship.—In reality that distribu¬ tion would seem to be continued throughout all time.—The Christian is either in the field of battle or in the house of prayer.—Even rest is not to be spent slothfully, but is to be enjoj^ed with a religious purpose as well as to be inspired by religious thankfulness. —When Jesus Christ offered his disciples rest, it was only for a limited time. His words were, “ Come ye into a desert place, and rest a while,”—not rest a long time, and certainly not rest for the remainder of your days, but rest a while—take a breath, stand still for a moment, and then resume with energy the pursuits of life.—The holiday is only to make the subsequent labour more energetic and hopeful.—We are not to use rest as a confection which would give us distaste for labour.— Nor are we to use rest as a kind of opiate which would disable the very powers it affects to renew.—Even rest may be a form of labour, or, at least, it may be so enjoyed as to give the soul promise of renewed endeavour to redeem human life and bless the human lot, now so full of sadness, and now so enfeebled by weariness.—It is but cowardice for men to run away from labour that they ma} 1 - enjoy inglorious ease.—When merchant-men succeed in laying by sufficient to maintain themselves in comfort, they should be planning some new sphere of ac¬ tivity, so that they may bettdr serve their day and generation when they are released from the wear and tear of the drudgery of life.—No man is to say to his soul, Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry; he is rather to say, I have no further care about the body; now shall my soul have full swing in the highest and best activity. —This is the true preparation before the Sabbath—the Sabbath of heaven. . . as he is able! —Deut. xvi. 17. This is the law of giving in the Old Testament, and it is the law of giving in the New Testament.—It is a just and equitable law.—It devolves a su¬ preme responsibility upon the giver.— It makes him an accountant in the sight of God.—He has to add up his resources and diligently to consider their sum, and then to give as he may be able.—This law does not relate to money only, but to time, influence, and sympathy.—Nothing would be so easy for many men as to buy themselves off, by the gifts of money, from all further service. Simply because of the abundance of their wealth, money is as nothing to them, and the giving of it is not felt.—It is only when the giving is touched with the pain of sacrifice that it becomes of any value I “HANDFULS OF PURPOSE." n in the sanctuary.—Still, most of us have to begin with the donation of money, but no man has to end with it. —There is no niggardliness in the promises of God in relation to the true giver, of whatever nature his gifts may be.—“ Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”—“He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” —Jesus Christ noticed what gifts were thrown into the treasury, and he re¬ garded them all in the light of propor¬ tion.—“God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labour of love.” —Not a cup of cold water is to go unrewarded if given to a disciple in the name of Christ.—These grand moral standards of gift and service constitute a powerful defence of the heavenly origin of the Bible. . . . then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.” —Deut. xxv. 3. This was the law of punishment as laid down by Moses.—The stripes were to be not more than forty, because if there were more—that is to say, if they were given at random—the man who received them would become “vile” in the sight of the man who inflicted them.—A measure of punish¬ ment is rendered necessary by the quality of the man who is punished.— Man is not to be regarded as a beast of burden. Even when he has done wrong he is a man still, and a man capable of restoration and re-adoption into good citizenship.—Thus mercy is wonderfully mingled with law even in the Old Testament.—When God cor¬ rected his people he said he would “correct them in measure.”—Where the punishment ends hope is to begin. —This is really the meaning of all controversial chastisements, losses, and difficulties of every kind.—They do not come with overwhelming and destructive force; they come “ in measure,” and with a purpose of mercy; and as to how we receive such visita¬ tions, that will depend upon the spirit in which we view them; if we view them as chastisements only, or the ex¬ pressions of an arbitrary will, we shall quail under them and be driven into despair ; but if we look aside from the chastisement into the purpose it was meant to elucidate or enforce, then we shall kiss the hand which lifts the rod.—When the sufferings of Bildad seemed to be intolerable, the exclama¬ tion was : “Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight ? ” The Apostles, too, when apparently left without regard either from God or man, betook themselves to the same line of reasoning: “We are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.”—Parents should take notice of this law of measured correction.— So should all magistrates and judges. —God himself regulates his discipline by it, and expects that every man on whom the rod falls will bethink himself and turn and repent.—Man should never be so treated as to cause his manhood to be ignored.—Contempt should never be either the reason or the result of any course of punishment. —When penalty ceases to be connected with hope, it ceases to be righteous.— Behold the goodness and the sove¬ reignty of the Lord.—Blessed are they who have accepted the chastisement and have turned it into a renewal of hope and an assurance of ultimate purification. SELECTED NOTE. “ We find that in the guidance of the human race, from the earliest ages downwards, more especially in the lives of the three patriarchs, God prepared the way by revelations for the covenant which he made at Sinai with the people of Israel. But in these preparations we can discover no sign of any legendary and unhistorical transference of later circumstances and institutions, either Mosaic or post-Mosaic, to the patriarchal age ; and they are sufficiently justified by the facts themselves, since the Mosaic economy cannot possibly have been brought into the world, like a dens ex machina , without the slightest previous preparation. The natural simplicity of the patriarchal life, which shines out in every narrative, is another thing that produces on every unprejudiced reader the impression of a genuine historical tradition, This tradition, therefore, even though for the most part transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth alone, has every title to credi¬ bility, since it was perpetuated within the patriarchal family, “ in which, according to divine command (Gen. xviii. 19), the manifestations of God in the lives of our fathers were handed down as an heirloom, and that with all the greater ease, in proportion to the longevity of the patriarchs, the simplicity of their life, and the closeness of their seclusion from foreign and discordant influences. Such a tradition would undoubtedly be guarded with the greatest care. It was the foundation of the very existence of the chosen family, the bond of its unity, the mirror of its duties, the pledge of its future history, and therefore its dearest inheritance ” ( Delitzsch ). But we are by no means to suppose that all the accounts and incidents in the book o^ Genesis were dependent upon oral tradition; on the contrary, there is much which was simply copied from written documents handed down from the earliest times. Not only the ancient genealogies, which maybe distinguished at once from the historical narratives by their antique style, with its repeti¬ tions of almost .stereotyped formularies, and by the peculiar forms of the names which they contain, but certain historical sections—such, for example, as the account of the war in Gen. xiv., with its superabundance of genuine and exact accounts of a primitive age, both historical and geographical, and its old words, which had disappeared from the living language before the time of Moses, as well as many others—were unquestionably copied by Moses from ancient documents.” GENERAL REVIEW. PRAYER. Almighty God, let there be in our hearts a light brighter than noonday. We would that the Son of man might live within us his life of light, and cause all our life to burn with his glory, so that men passing by may take knowledge of us that we have lived with Jesus, and that we no longer live ourselves but that Christ liveth in us. For this miracle we pray. We ask for no change in thy great creation which we cannot follow because of our littleness and dimness of sight; but we ask for a miracle within, a transformation which we can realise as to its results, though quite unable to tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. We would be born again. We would see with new e} r es and hear with new hearing, and answer all the appeals of thy providence with new voices. We would be startled by our new selves; we would wonder at the music of the new voice; we would be soothed by the tones of the new intercession. Withhold not this sign from us! Grant this token from heaven! We shall know it well, for there is none like it, nor can it be simulated with perfectness. We bless thee for any love of light we have. Once we loved darkness rather than light. Thou hast brought us out of darkness not only into light, but into a marvellous light—like light upon light, day upon day, until shamed darkness has fled away, and all heaven burns with glory. Help us evermore to walk as children of the day and not of the night, to speak the language of light, and to be found always amongst those who are not afraid or ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. We owe ourselves unto that Gospel : we were dead, and are alive again; we were lost, and are found; and now, in possession of this immortal life, we stand up before thee a ransomed host, our hearts kindling with gratitude, our lives prepared for sacrifice. We will not think of the troubles thou hast caused us to pass through, for the joy is greater because of the sorrow. Men forget the night in the morning; the reaper forgets the seed-time in the golden harvest, when his barns are too small, when his fields are rich with corn ; so do we forget oui trouble in our gladness. The trouble was but for a moment; the joy is an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. This thou hast taught us by divine ministry; for hast thou not taught thy servant to say that where sin abounded grace did much more abound? so that even sinners began to sing; their crime had vanished like a black, windy night, and their adoption had excited within them the spirit of worship and the angel of music. We forget our hunger at the feast; we soon forget the cold in which we shivered when we stand at our Father’s board, and are under the light of our Father’s blessing. Make us rich with wisdom, wealthy H THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. in understanding; give us the unsearchable riches of Christ as our treasure; then when the drought cometh we shall not see it, and when the springs are dried up there shall be a secret fountain in the sanctuary. We bless thee for all the way along which thou hast led us—now in the deep valleys, now full of sunshine and summer gladness; here an inviolable palace, there a grave-stone rich with memories, and yonder a bright place where we feasted well, and sang loudly, and wished the day were twice as long. For all the road we thank thee. It has been educational; we have been receiving stimulus by all the progress we have made; and now that we are here, putting up another Sabbath milestone, we will say,—Hitherto hath the Lord helped us, and as for the rest of the road, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint. Keep us as the apple of thine eye. Receive special thanks and blessings, from all who have special thanks and acknowledgments to make to thee—for individual blessings, for family life, for business prosperity, for direction, guidance, sympathy, and hope. The Lord look upon the country; it is ours, and we love it, and pray for it. But all lands are thine. We pray continually that the glory of the Lord may cover the whole earth. We stand here, but we live everywhere : we touch a point, but pray for a whole circumference—the entire family of man. Liberate the slave; break the arm of the tyrant; cause sudden night to fall upon those who are in eager quest of things forbidden, and prosper every good man and upright cause and true purpose ; and bring all into the great millennial light, the grand era of Christian reign, when the Lord shall be enthroned, and all men shall know in their hearts that the night is gone and the morning has come. Amen. THE GREAT QUESTIONS OP THE PENTATEUCH. I T is instructive to notice the exact position of the first question in the Bible. It has come to be quite a common and simple thing for us to ask questions. We think nothing of it. Some men hardly think of anything. Many suppose that they have a perfect right to ask questions. There is a morality in question¬ asking, and, therefore, a limit. Persons will say, with assumed or sincere feeling, Surely we have a right to ask a question ? The answer to that innocent suggestion is a broad and emphatic denial. Persons are accustomed to call certain questions “ harm- less.” There is no harmless question that has an unavowed motive behind it, or that seeks to serve an ulterior but undiscovered purpose. The most “harmless” questions and suggestions to be found in the whole range of the Bible are the utterances of the devil! He was perfectly “ harmless ” 1 The mark of interrogation he softened into a dying cadence; the evil suggestion he conveyed with armfuls of flowers, rich with colour THE GEE AT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH. 15 and fragrance. When the devil spoke to Jesus the words were of the most “harmless” nature; when he accosted our first parents it was with the civility of a “ Good-morning/’ with the calculated courtesy of a spirit that has an object. But the words are without stain or suggestion of evil. At first they were but an inquiry ; and to ask a question of a human being in a human voice is surely the very first element of civility. Where is the first mark of interrogation in the Bible ? Who instituted that punctuation ? Up to that time we had been content with comma and semicolon and period : who introduces this crooked mark ? You will find that the first question is in the very first book of the Bible:—“And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. iii. 1). Question-asking has been the ruin of the world. Yet it is so simple that every man thinks he has a right to it. He reflects not that to ask a question is to put out boundaries, to seek intellectual enlargement at some possible moral cost. Question-asking either begets discontentment or fosters it. Men would be better if they asked no questions, except those that obviously limit themselves as to their moral purpose, or that indicate the urgency and sanctity of a prayer. One question begets another. Questions can never be answered. The mischief is that question-asking is considered a sign of intellectual progress; within given limits it may be justly so regarded, but there is a limitation to interrogative inquiry, and we should be careful about the limit before we put the question. There comes to be quite a trick of question-asking, which is often mistaken for genius ; so men become proud of it: having put one difficult question, and seen how the interlocutor is utterly puzzled, another is invented, because the cheapest of all cleverness consists in asking questions and composedly waiting for replies that can never be given. By asking a question you may ruffle a mind : by putting an inquiry you may poison a life; the question may be harmless in words, but most fruitful of baleful issue in the outworking of all the processes which it begins. Here is a new form of human conversation. Up to this point we have had next to no conversation ; the man and woman have been created, but as to wnat passed between them we i6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE, know next to nothing; it is the third party who excites new intellectual ferment or disquietude, or who quietly troubles the life with an inquiry, and then vanishes. We may ask questions of ourselves, sharp, penetrating, accusatory questions; we may stimulate ourselves by inquiries keen as double-edged swords; but there is a question-asking that is profanity, because it touches upon the impossible and vexes the mind by chafing against the infinite limitation, the eternal boundary, on which is written, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. Let a man encounter that utterance with Why ? and he is lost. The moment he says Why? he has overleaped himself; he has passed the altar-line; he is no longer safe. If he did say Why ? he should say it timidly, reverentially, with the awe and the wonder akin to prayer; but he should not put the word as a question to which he demands an answer before he will believe, or adore, or serve the Spirit of creation. Nor is this intellectual timidity : it is intellectual self-restraint, which is the highest intellectual courage; it is the very heroism of faith. It says, The world is larger than I comprehend. I have not time to settle all the questions which vex even the surface of life; I must therefore live a day at a time, and take one step at a time, and not turn over a page until I have read the page preceding; and thus I will be led and educated from point to point. The devil often comes into the mind in the form of a question, and comes in with some civility, because of the frankness and perfect courtesy of the inquiry. He asks questions about the books we read, the prayers we pray, the events we endeavour to construe into moral significance. Upon the altar, where we have been since child¬ hood, he simply writes with black finger a mark of interrogation; I not a word is said, but the query looks us in the face and makes us afraid, because our hearts are greater than our heads, our moral emotion and desire in excess of our intellectual education: and this must always be so, because feeling is the universal language, and is not within the sphere of debate, controversy, or intellectual contention. Search into the origin of question¬ asking. Be suspicious of all inquiries that are “ absolutely harmless.” Nothing is so easily disturbed as the angel of faith —not disturbed through fear; but, because of a sensitiveness akin to the sensibility of God, the fall of a leaf in the night-wind is heard, a sound of a distant step is detected. A sigh may take THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH. 17 an interrogative form; a prayer may be but an aspect ol scepticism. Watch the question-gate ! It is an element in the bad renown of the devil that he began the battle by asking a “ harmless question.” Who put the next inquiry ? You will find that the next question was put by Jehovah himself:—“And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou ? ”— (Gen. iii. 9)—an extraordinary inquiry when searched into ; an impossible inquiry from certain points of view. Is Omniscience blind ? Did he who formed the eye not see ? “ Where ” does not always relate to locality; it is a wide word, full ot solemn and tender suggestion. A man may be standing face to face with you, but be separated- from you in heart by the diameter of creation. “ Where art thou ? * is not a mere inquiry of position, or relating to measurable points, but where art thou morally, sympathetically ? where art thou in purpose, in supreme desire, in settled and chastened motive ? A man may be in the sanctuary, and yet far from the altar. This is a novel question. Where art thou?—yesterday at the gate meeting me, waiting for me; here, as it were, first, longing for the light to come back again; why this change ? what has occurred? Who told thee thou wast naked? A man is not naked until he is told that he is naked. It is the ear that makes the sound which is struck and elicited in the infinite wilderness. Now question-asking introduces a new element into human intercourse and human responsibility. Already here is a great white throne; the judgment is set, and the question is asked which will determine the destiny of the world. Everything depends upon our answer to this simple inquiry. Does human liberty begin here—at least in some new phase ? or is human liberty bounded by this inquiry ? Has not a man a right to be either here or there, outside the garden or inside, on the right hand or on the left ? May he not walk east or west, as he pleases ? Why this Voice that asks as to locality, or purpose, or sympathy, or moral attitude and relation ? Temptation had not long been in the world when judgment followed it. Where men will ask questions, or allow questions to be received into the mind, they have begun a criticism which VOL. V. 2 i8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. God will continue. The question-asking cannot be all on one side. God may not ask for information : he asks that in answering his inquiry man may accuse and confound himself. Remember how true it is that men realise certain positions upon being told of them. Happily, this tells in both ways. Say to some poor soul who is blind, and groping, and wondering, “ Behold, he prayeth,”—and he may actually pray. You have supplied him with a form of words which exactly expresses his feeling. He knew not what he was doing; he was upon a border-line; he seemed to see men as trees walking, and to see new lights and gleams in the sky—a mystic writing in the clouds—and he felt his hands rising upwards as if to seize some nearing blessing; but he knew not what he did until an angel said, “ Behold, he prayeth.” Say to some earnest student, who ‘dare not so much as lift his eyes unto heaven, but who, closing them, looks on high with inward vision alight with the tender gleam of hope—say to him, “Thou art also a Christian : thy speech betrayeth thee, thy look identifies thee ; thou art also a follower of the Son of man,” and the very suggestion may be the one spark that was needed to cause his courage to flame up in testimony and holy avowal and witness. Yesterday the man knew not that he was naked. Some one must have told him. So we have the first question directly traceable to the enemy, ' and the second question directly falling from the lips of Jehovah. Is there any more question-asking ? Who asks another great question ?—the angels. We may call them angels : we cannot tell who they were; they were mysterious personalities ; they were representative of those mystic influences which are con¬ tinually playing around human life, exciting wonder, or fear, or joy—persons without names, influences without nameable bounds, ministries that allure, or deter, or sway, or repel; and we cannot tell by what authority the}’' speak; yet they work miracles, they feed multitudes, they quiet the sea. Three of these mysterious personalities are before us. They ask a ques¬ tion in reply to human unbelief:—“ Is anything too hard for the Lord ? ”—(Gen. xviii. 14)—the thing we always forget. Having learned it to-day, to-morrow we shall forget the solemn lesson. We follow our ej^es, and call it faith; we believe THE GEE AT QUESTION'S OF THE PENTATEUCH ig mightily concerning things which are already in our clutch, but such belief is not accredited to us as faith. What we have to consider in the difficult circumstances of life is—the Lord’s power. It is perfectly clear that we may be in a deadlock ; the walls are thick, the doors are of iron, the key is lost, and we cannot escape; but the question is not for us at all. Therein is our mistake—that we suppose the circumstances to be bounded by our personality. Through all the winds of time, all the currents of the centuries, there comes this all-exciting yet all-quieting inquiry — u Is anything too hard for the Lord ? ” He gives, he takes away ; he shakes the prison; he conducts the ministries of life : the Lord reigneth. Christians will say so in theory : they would dispute with any man who offered to deny it: but who believes it ? Not only have we come to the last loaf, but we have come to the last little piece of the loaf, and we are all an hungered ; that is the time when the question is to come to us with the power and sanction of a faith —“ Is anything too hard for the Lord ? ” So to say, we disappoint God of his opportunities: we will persist in out¬ running him; and thus he allows our weakness to go first in many instances. The thing to be done is to leave him a clear field, bounded east, west, north, and south by absolute necessity: there is the divine sphere; but whilst we are looking around and exciting our poor ignorance and weakness, and persisting in doing something, God may not work. He often waits until we are asleep, and takes our sleep as a kind of faith. He says, in effect,—I must not be too hard with them : they are question-askers; they were early serpent- bitten: bitten through an interrogation, and the poison has been awful in effect; they cannot believe : I must wait until they t are dead asleep, and at midnight I will work some wonder for them; even then, when they begin to rub their eyes in a new wakefulness, they will ask questions, and wonder who did it, as if they were in a dream; and they will attribute the whole incident to a species of somnambulism ;—still, they were made yesterday: they dwell in dust, in clay of the earth ; their breath is in their nostrils; I must account sleep as a kind of faith, and unconsciousness as a species of trust; I will not forsake them, I will set a miracle at their bedside, 20 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. so that when they awake they may begin to believe. Thus vve are drawn on little by little, line by line. Blessed be God, we have come a long way from the first point in many instances. Some are now, in mid-life, beginning to pray; they say they see it now. It has taken them full fifty 3'ears to begin to see men as trees walking, but they now do so begin ; and they attest their faith by a new tone in the voice, by a new aspect of kindness, by a new gait in the world as they pass along; they are more upright, their very stature seems to have increased, there is a fearlessness of a subtle kind about their down¬ sitting and their up-rising; they say they see it now! Will they use their sight to-morrow under a new set of circum¬ stances ? No; they will be as blind as ever then. But the Lord knoweth we are dust—a wind that cometh for a little time, and then passeth away—question-askers, who mistake interroga¬ tion for revelation, and a power of scepticism as a sign of intellectual progress. Thus we have had three interrogators—the serpent, Jehovah, angels. Will not man ask some question little or great ? Shall there be no human element in all this interrogation ? There are human questions in the Bible, as for example :—“ Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?”—(Gen. xviii. 23) —the first time we have heard so solemn a question from human lips. The question is being asked to-da}\ It does seem as if Providence were marked by indiscriminateness. A man is killed at the altar: if so, does not that destroy the theory of particular providence ? A man has fallen down dead in church. Impossible ! if God be so careful of his loving ones. The righteous have been thrown down in the streets, and the wicked have plundered them, and passed on and enjoyed the booty with a fool’s laugh ; virtue has been pinched with poverty, vice has multiplied its balance at the usurer’s :—" Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked ? ” It looks so. The one soul in the house that prayed is dead, and they who laughed at the suppliant live to turn the memory into jesting. “ Wilt thou destroy the righteous and not the wicked ? ” would seem to be a question justified by some limited aspects of Providence. These are mysteries—not created by the Bible, but found outside the Bible and independently of the Bible, and are to be adjudged THE GEE AT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH 21 and determined apart altogether from Christian faith, if-'we will have it so. Blessed be God, they can be otherwise adjudged within the sanctuary, by the help of Christian faith ; and then there comes a light upon all the gloom, and if the midnight is not sunny, it is so full of stars that it cannot be called darkness. * Let us now turn to some questions which were put directly to Almighty God Himself. Since question-asking has begun, who can tell to what lengths it may go? We have just seen that the devil put the first question, and began that dangerous method of intellectual development, and that he is in no wise less guilty because the first question was, from an outside point of view, perfectly harmless as to words. One of the great questions put by man to God was this: “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” (Gen. iv. 9). There are two tones in that inquiry. The one is a tone of amazement. God’s investigation into the destiny of Abel seems to have amazed with unutterable astonishment the murderer of his brother. The inquiry came upon Cain like a revelation. He did not comprehend the fact that society is one, that humanity is one, that we are responsible socially for one another to a very high degree—for one another’s strength, progress, honour, and specially responsible for one another’s life. So the inquiry may be taken as an expression of astonishment, meaning—“If I had known that I was my brother’s keeper and had to be called to account because of my brother, I should have looked after him; I should have been careful about him; nothing should have been keener than my criticism of my own spirit and action towards him; I am wonderstruck; I knew not that I was my brother’s keeper.” But that is not the natural tone of the inquiry; that only constitutes one of those mean excuses of which inventive minds may take advantage in the hour of accusation and judgment. We must not practise the unworthy trick of amazement too much. Even astonishment may cease to be a miracle. We may be far too much amazed, and in astonishment we may fritter away any supposed claim we had to frankness and innocence and simplicity of mind. There is an amazement that is self-condemnatory. What is the natural tone of the inquiry ? It is one of peevish reproach. The question ought to be asked with great keenness and 22 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. poignancy of voice. It is the inquiry of an offending man who is conscious of guilt and afraid of punishment, and who yet wishes, with an apparent defiance, to keep back the arm that would smite him in return. All sin leads to peevishness of manner. The bad man is never profoundly serene. He knows not the poetry or the order of fully-rounded composure and contentment—the fall of a leaf frightens him out of his simulated propriety; the closing of a door, the opening of a window, the touch of a child, an unexpected question,—these continually alarm and extort from him fretful inquiries, petulant remarks, impetuous criticism. Thus sin .riddles the character through and through, punctuates it, makes it full of holes, takes away all its solidity, continuity, strength, and nobleness. A peevish voice may mark the course of sin, avowed or unavowed. It is singular how character comes out in vocal tones, in menial attitudes, in exclamations of surprise or petulance. That was the natural tone of Cain’s inquiry. He asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” in a tone which means, “ What have I to do with him ? He is capable of taking care of himself; I cannot always be going about after my brother ; he is a man as well as I am; he must beware of all dangers and of all surprises, and bring himself home again after the journeying of the day,”—a speech too independent to be candid, too defiant to be religious, too hurriedly spoken with hot lips to express the conviction of a solid affection, or the desire of fraternal solicitude. Cain will not plead guilty, nor will he avow innocence in so many words ; he will avail himself of a question—a question so large as to be an open gate through which he may escape the judgment of God. Understand that this question was put to the Almighty as the result of an inquiry of his own. God made inquest for blood. The first speech was made by the Almighty himself. Instead of being met frankly and lovingly it was met by an inquiry. This is the method of sin in all time: it seeks to put the judge off the scent; it attempts to divert the mind, to distract the attention, to suggest a new possibility ; and, with some claim of a haughty kind to independence, it seeks to enclose the soul within walls which must not be violated even by the Judge of the whole earth. Let us read our own character in this kind of questioning. We have lost the straight line: we have ourselves \ THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH 23 become as crooked as the interrogation with which we punctuate our utterances. God meant us to be upright, plain of speech, real in soul and heart, sound in motive, having nothing to hide ; and we have resorted to the cunning of a question, to the evasion of an “ innocent ” inquiry. Another question put directly to the Almighty himself was propounded by the astounded Abraham :—“ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. xviii. 25.) This question was indeed put to three men who visited him ; but it is our joy to believe that one of those personalities represented the Lord God himself. There was a mystery about the Third Man which none could understand. The same Man comes up again and again in Biblical history, and works wonders in the lives of men —now by dreams, now by mental visions, now by disturbing impressions, and anon by events which man did not begin, and which man cannot perfectly control. For this reason we hesitate not to say that the question was addressed to the Eternal himself. A wonderful word occurs in this question. Wonderful words are startled out of men by marvellous ministries of a supernatural kind. Here is one of -the grandest words in all human speech. That little word is u right.” What is u right ” ? Who can define it ? All men can define it within, in the court of conscience, and receive the sanction of judgment and reason ; but who can define it outwardly and to another so as to bind that other by his definition ? We must not escape from the pressure of this inquiry by taking refuge in the impossibility of one man defining right for another. Every man knows what right is. When he begins to quibble about the etymological definition he begins to shew that he knows himself to be wrong. This is a marvellous fact in the constitution of men who have lived under Christianising influences—and it has often appeared in nations to which the name of Christ was utterly unknown—that there should be a spirit in man that knows right from wrong, that feels it, that, how poor soever may be the faculty and use of speech, yet in the soul there is a sense that says, This is right, that is wrong ; Thou shalt, thou shalt not. Herein the commandments have their supreme hold upon our moral attention. They are indisputable. The moment we hear them, we hear, so to say, our mother-tongue. We know it, arise to it, and say, That is 24 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. right; whatever may be said upon the other side is of the nature of a quibble, a fool’s criticism; it is without solidity and reality, it will not bear the pressure of life all round ; these great com¬ mandments thundered from the mountain are right: we affirm them, and confirm them, and answer back again, This is right. Abraham knew from observation, from experience, that the Judge of the whole earth would do right. Some have discovered a tone of doubt in this inquiry. There may be such a tone, for who can altogether escape the plaguing action of doubt within the mind ? He would be a bold man who would say that there was no doubt in this inquiry, who would affirm that conscience was not alarmed in the case of Abraham. Yet there is surely another tone in it. Abraham has life enough behind him to justify complete confidence in God. By such life alone can such con¬ fidence be established. We cannot have theoretical confidences, metaphysical trusts and dependencies; we are not sufficiently trained and chastened to seize such filmy supports and insub¬ stantial claims and guarantees. The time will come when we shall value the spiritual and be able to see it and penetrate to its real meaning; but now we want fact, history, things that have really occurred under our eyes, within our touch, that we can affirm beyond all disputation, to which we can call witnesses whose word is an oath, whose affirmation is a bond. Thus has God trained us, and we ourselves ought to have a lifetime to fall back upon in the presence of all great doubts and all startling wonders or new phases of providence. When the heavens are black, and not a star struggles through the gloom; when the sea is in infinite trouble, and the rocks crack under our feet, giving way because of some sudden shock, we should be able to say, reading the Bible of our life,—This is right, this will be justified ; at present all is mystery, but suddenly the Lord will come to his temple, and where there is darkness there shall sit the morning—the queen of light—the very benediction of God. What is our life¬ time worth if we cannot talk so ? We must not refer even to the Bible itself, solely, for proofs of this; we must refer to our own experience in addition. Our own experience will confirm the Bible, will annotate it with vivid comment; but to read the Bible only in the presence of stupendous events and crises may be but to vex inquiring minds. The Bible may come better THE GEE AT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH. 25 afterwards. Christians should be able to sajr, Fear not: be calm; the God whose I am and whom I serve will bring this storm to peace, will overrule these events, and out of tumult will bring solemn and heavenly harmony. Then may come the ancient testimony, the witness of patriarchs and sages long dead; but all such testimony must be accentuated by personal experience, must live because of the speaker’s own energy. We cannot live upon dead men : we cannot always be quoting their words and simply resting upon their authority; we must be able to confirm it, and explain it, and repeat it in modern tone and expression, and so make the Bible the newest of books, by lifting up its mysteries into newness of expression and reality. We have said that wonderful words are startled out of men. Probably Abraham, when he began his question, did not know how it would end ; but how sorrow makes men eloquent; how great occasions change the countenances of men and make them shine with light, and express eagerness, expectancy, or devoutness, as the case may be; how little we knew what we should say until the great storm drove around us in mighty whirl and tempest and rain ! It was then that our heart found its tongue; then that our understanding became as a flame; and then that our lips were as a rock from which streams of eloquence flowed. Men must be trained by severe trials and great crises, and have their questions verified by the very stress of the circumstances which tried their faith. We learn a new language in new circumstances. The climate changes the customs of a people. Let a change take place in the temperature, and that change repeats itself in all the action of civilisation : men address themselves to the altered temperature whether in an access of heat or an increase of cold. Civilisation repeats the sun. Modern living human nature practically recites what is passing in great nature; it may be without speech, but the reproduction is certainly accomplished So it is in all the breadth of human education. Let God burn upon a man’s life like a hot sun, and the man answers the blistering heat by an attitude or an exclamation. Let the Lord’s cold smite man in the face—great morsels of ice, great showers of snow—and man shudders back his reply to the inclement heavens. Let a man’s life be assailed, and great judgments be brought to his knowledge, and he will ask questions, and introduce 26 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE . into those questions words of the noblest and solidest kind. Thus are we trained ; thus are we vexed into new progress ; thus are we driven up many a hill and along many a valley. “ This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes! ” One more question will satisfy our inquiry as to the kind of interrogation that may be addressed directly to the Almighty. Said Moses: When I go to Egypt and speak to the children of Israel, they will say to me, Who sent thee ? what is his name? What shall I say? (Exod. iii. 13). That is a grand historical picture!—a man about to be sent, but who will not go until he has his credentials: a strong man conscious of weakness, not unwilling to plead infirmitjq somewhat inven¬ tive, it may be, in the multiplication of excuses ; but all this must be made up by a name, a password, a secret masonry:— How shall I shake .hands with the strangers ? What shall I give them to show that I am no common man or mere adven¬ turer ? When they ask me quietly, What is his name ? what shall I say ? I could invent names, but must not; give me a name they will know at once : if they have never heard it before, yet it shall be so grand, rich, complete, that the moment they hear it they will say—Never did man invent that appellation. What is thy name ? We know things and persons by names. Names may be only momentary conveni¬ ences ; still, they are conveniences, and cannot be dispensed with. Entrust _ me with thy name! And what a name it was !—“ I AM THAT I AM ! ” Say that to the children of Israel, and they will hear in it the boom of a sea over which they have sailed; whisper that name to them—-if such a name will accommodate itself to a whisper—and the host will answer, “ That is verily the name of our God.” We are at liberty to ask such questions as Moses. They must be marked b}' reverence; we must mean what we say. There is a flippant interrogation that gets no reply. Sometimes we ask questions without putting them into an interrogative form. A question may be suggested as well as plainly put. A prayer may be a great inquiry without the mark of interrogation ever occurring in the solemn speech. Man can be in an attitude of groping, lighting a candle, and sweeping the house diligently for a piece THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF THE PENTATEUCH. 27 that is lost. Man can be uttering words, and leaving God to punctuate them. The heart can hurry through a speech which may be incoherent to ears that cannot hear the inner music, but which is perfectly continuous and complete to the ear of listening heaven. Yet are we forbidden to ask questions ? That depends upon the nature of the inquiry, as we have just seen. Men may ask certain questions in a certain way, if they do not hinder divine progress. Never make a question an excuse. Never turn a question into a mystery, and say, This is the end, and advance is therefore impossible. There are questions which the heart will dictate, and which the judgment will know to be right. He is evasive in mind, he is ignoble in temper, who supposes that he does not know when he is asking a right question. Do not attempt to puzzle God, to multiply mysteries, to invent or create them. If we ask God for a clean heart and a right spirit, we know we are asking a question that is proper, and that God waits to answer. Beware of merely intellectual inventiveness in the sanctuary. Beware of that busy faculty which can always excite doubt and disturb the mind, and lead away the attention, or fasten it upon false issues. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding; and let no soul attempt to do itself the infinite dishonour of putting questions which it does not want to have answered, or of raising inquiries the reply to which it can never understand. There is enough to be done. Life is too solemn, because too short, to be frittered away in vain interrogation. If we search the Scriptures, and ask the Holy Spirit to be with us, ruling our temper into quietude, and creating within us a spirit of docility, we shall understand as we read : light will come up out of the Word—down upon the Word. In God’s light we shall see light, and our one question will be—“ Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? ” PRAYER. Almighty God, thou hast given a \vondei*ful setting to our life. Even the poorest man may behold thy heavens and look upon all the host thereof, and wonder concerning their meaning and their destin}^. Thou hast filled the earth with beauty and the air with music, so that we stand in the midst of revelation, and if we be not blind and deaf we must hear messages from God. We bless thee for all this setting of our life * it is helpful. We hear speech from many an unexpected quarter; we listen, and, lo, it is as if angels sung to us in the dark night-time; and even in the mighty wind there is a tone of tenderness, which means health and purity, renewed life and invigorated hope. Help us to read the symbols, to understand somewhat of the meaning of the types; then shall our mind be stored with sacred wisdom, and our heart shall be as an instrument of music on which divine fingers shall discourse. Enable us to see beyond nature to nature’s God; give us that penetrating look which sees beyond the veil of the visible and beholds somewhat of the mystery and glory of that which is unseen. Thus may we be drawn upward by a gracious compulsion; thus may we be unwilling to tarry in a place too small for us. May we accept the hospitality of God, and move upward to the larger, brighter spaces, the wider liberties, the service without weariness, the worship without tedium. That we have such thoughts as these is of thy goodness; their very presence in the soul shows that we are not forsaken of Heaven; we are still in the land of the living and in the sphere of religious hope. Touch us as thou wilt and in what measure thou wilt, but let thy touch bring us nearer to thyself. May we be among those who grow upward and heavenward, from beholding external and natural beauties to beholding the mystic splendours of the inner heavens; and not of those who having looked upon thine handiwork are by reason of manifold and aggravated sin condemned to outer darkness. Let our lives continue to be precious to thee. Still think it worth thy while to water the earth and to send the warmth of the sun upon its smoking soil; still care for us, and send the seed-time and the summer and the harvest and the restful and nourishing winter with its blessed sleep; and thus help us by outward ministries, by natural appeals, by sustenance for the body and suggestions for the mind, to attain to higher heights and worship at the highest altar; and through all the way of the world, and sin and danger and death, may we be led to the Cross—the great Cross of sacrifice, the mj'stery of redemption, the problem of atonement by the shedding of blood. Lead us into this mystery it appals us it THE PENTATEUCH AS A WHOLE . 29 affrights us, and then it grows upon our attention and confidence and love, until we are enabled to say to the dying Christ,—my Lord and my God! Amen. THE PENTATEUCH AS A WHOLE. AVING studied the Pentateuch in detail, beginning at the X X beginning and concluding with the final word, it may be profitable to inquire somewhat into the teaching of the books in their unity. The five books of Moses—often called the Pentateuch—are placed in our hands, and if we have read them through we are at liberty to inquire into the meaning of the Pentateuch as a whole: to ask what impression it has made upon the mind; how far it has established any claim to be considered an inspired book; what are its supreme qualities and characteristics—qualities and characteristics which separate it from all other books and give it a unique place in the library of the world. We cannot have run through the Pentateuch even hurriedly without having been in some measure struck by the simplicity of its theology. The Pentateuch is full of God. The Deity over¬ flows the wondrous writing. God is so near his creatures : he speaks to them, as it were, face to face; he is familiar with them though always retaining the augustness of his Deity, and never relaxing the majesty proper to his being and duration; he comes down to earth, walks upon it, talks to men, tells them what his will is, elects them to service, enriches them with promises, points out their respective destinies. In the Pentateuch God is a God nigh at hand, and not afar off. The Pentateuch is a kind of nursery book : everything is written in such large letters ; the pictures are innumerable, most vividly coloured, appealing to the eye with very broad claims to attention. Everything is upon a great scale, most vivid, most graphic; it is impossible to pass by wdthout being arrested by noble figures, by marked events, by startling claims and appeals. We say sometimes that there are no children in the Pentateuch. Let us consider the thought and see whether in reality there were any thing but children in the five books of Moses. What else could there be? Adam was a child. The world was begun with a child-man; not with an 30 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. infant, so far as the beginning of biblical history enables us to judge. When man comes upon the page, he comes on in full stature, with the breath of God living in him, and so affecting his features as to make them shine with the subdued majesty of God. The book is adapted to the earliest ages of manhood. We repeat, it is a species of nursery-book, full of capitals, full of pictures, eventful, short in its statements, striking in its representations. Yet there is nothing shallow in all the matchless simplicity. It takes the sun in heaven and all the chemistry of earth to grow the tiniest flower that lifts up its head in the green mead. Nothing is thrown in as make-weight and as of no consideration. Were there only one little flower promised to grow upon the earth to the end of time, that very promise would involve the maintenance of the astronomy of the universe as we know it; so when even simplicity seems to be simplest in the striking records of Moses, the simplicity is the. last expression of eternal power, eternal wisdom, eternal beneficence. It required God to take hold of the historian’s hand when he wrote the very first verse in Genesis. No human fingers unaided by divine energy ever penned that most startling and bewildering of all sentences. Nor is mystery wanting in connection with simplicity. The word “ God ” assumes plural forms. It creates a kind of grammar all its own. Who can number the plural <