effected. It has been well said-"those mountains of Israel, that little corner of the world so often despised: so often wholly passed over was yet the citadel of the world's hope, the hearth on which the sparks that were yet to kindle the earth were kept alive. There the great reaction against the world's sin was preparing." These outside nations then did not fairly come within the scope of the Bible story. The world might be ringing with the achievements of their great captains and the ground shaking under the tread of their innumerable legions, yet the writers of this strange book are deaf to it all. They pass by mere annals and give us real history. For what is real history? Not a number of unconnected facts, but a record of the onward march of humanity towards a well-defined end. This the Bible does give us as it is given nowhere else. It begins with the first dawning of hope in the midst of the world's sin, and reaches to that hope's final fulfilment in the coming of Christ and the redemption from sin. Briefly put, this is the history we find binding the different books of the Bible into one. It tells us that man by his own act was reduced to a state of guilt and misery, but that no sooner did sin enter into the world than the promise entered too. A Deliverer "of woman born" should rescue the race from its apostacy from God; the "seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head." The promise is given and then the oracle is silent for centuries. That promise was clear as far as it went,-clear but imperfect, and in process of time it was taken up again. This time we find that the Deliverer is to be in the line of Abraham, though with no restriction of benefit to his race, for in him were all the families of the earth to be blessed. Later again it is made known that of Abraham's seed the line of Jacob is chosen; and later still the rays of light converge yet more and more to a focus, and the Deliverer is to come of the house of David. The very place of his birth is shadowed forth; many circumstances concerning his character and history are made known. He is to be a lawgiver, as was Moses; a priest, though not of Aaron's line; a king of no mere earthly kingdom. When he comes partition walls between the nations will be thrown down. His authority will be moral and spiritual, exercising dominion where other kings have none, in the hearts and consciences of men. This is the key of the Old Testament history as it is the key of all history. It is the one thing which lends significance to all the biographies, to all the struggles of the nation of Israel. Abraham, and Jacob, and David would have simply been ordinary names in history, even if they had appeared at all, were it not for the great vitalizing fact that through the line of these men the Lord Christ was to come; the land of Israel would have been no more than other lands in human interest could the prophet not have said to one of its villages "But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting." This one thought is woven into psalm and prophecy, into history and biography. Growing as the dawn grows to broad daylight, becoming clearer and clearer while the ages pass away is the announcement of the coming King. In the darkest times of the nation's history this hope burns most brightly. Take this out of the Old Testament and you take the foundations out of the building. And the remarkable thing is that four hundred years after these voices of the prophets are silent the New Testament takes up only in fuller, richer tones, this announcement of a Deliverer. There is no sudden break in the line of continuity, with a departure into an entirely new set of ideas. The New Testament tells us that He did come, as the Old Testament said He would. In Him centres every line of history and prophecy. And when He appears He claims for Himself to come as fulfilling the older Revelation, and in the Christian Church commences that new kingdom in the world of which prophets and psalmists had spoken long ages before. Thus there is a clear connected line running through all the history of Scripture. How did it get there-by chance? Who can calculate the chances against that? By concert and agreement on the part of writers? But they were centuries apart and that was simply impossible. No other writings can be produced which written through successive ages point ever to one definite end. The only thing like it is in the great stone-book of nature, the great geologic record of the rocks where we find one form of life rising over another through successive ages each more perfect than the last till man appears, the over-lord of creation on the earth. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began ; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran It is thus with Scripture and Christ. The Son of God is the realization of the aspirations of an entire literature. Through song and story, through psalm and prophecy, this divine harmony goes with ever grander swell until it reaches its climax in the announcement of the angels-" Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord"—until the final burst of exultation— "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." unity along the line of There is no absolute neither do the writers Secondly. Let us now look for the moral teaching of Scripture. modification of doctrine or tone, oppose one another's teaching. Christ taught us in the latest age of Scripture concerning the Divine Being that He is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. But this is precisely what the earliest announcements prepare us for. There is to be no graven image set up for worship, and the people are enjoined to take good heed unto themselves, for they saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. The spirituality of the Divine nature is the same from first to last, and that in the face of continued tendencies on the part of men to idolatry. The mercy of God again was never so fully unfolded as it was in Christ, but was never more beautifully expressed in words than when the Lord descended in the cloud on Sinai and proclaimed the name of the Lord-"The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." In both Testaments we learn that while God is glorious in holiness, while He will by no means clear the impenitent, that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." The course of His Providence is seen working through cloud and darkness towards the uplifting of His children to nobleness both in the Book of Job and in the Epistles of Paul. The God of Enoch and Moses is the God of Elijah and Daniel, and also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As it is with God so it is with man-there is one account of him all the way through. The fall of man into evil, and the consequent depravity of his nature, underlies the writings of Moses, the books of the prophets, and the Epistles of Paul. His religious experience is identical-the spiritual life always expresses itself in sorrow for sin, in the utterance of prayer with the sense of dependence upon and delight in God. We are separated by long ages from David's time, yet Christian men feel to-day that David's Psalms express the deep strugglings and longings of their hearts better than they can express them themselves. From first to last, from Abel to Noah, and from Abraham to Paul, faith in God is counted for righteousness. By faith, through all those ages, men walked as pilgrims on the earth, made the noble choice of duty rather than pleasure" through faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Yet we must specially note that while the truths taught are substantially the same, there is gradual development and progress in the teaching. We begin with simple rudimentary forms of truths and we go on to profound spiritual teaching which even the most spiritual in all ages feel to be far in advance of them. God began with man at the most elementary point, for you must give truth to men as they can take it. You must begin at the level of those you are trying to lift up. "I have," said Christ, "many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." So God began training Israel with all sorts of ceremonies and restrictions. They are to bring such and such sacrifices; they have to dress in this way, not in that; they may eat this, but not that. Minute directions on all sorts of subjects were given. But under all this literalism there was a living spirit, a moral training. They were being trained to see that distinction which is eternal - the distinction between righteousness and sin. And the spiritual element is more and more exalted above the ceremonial, the more enlightened men even in Israel penetrating to the spirit instead of stopping at the letter. When King Saul wished to compound for disobedience to God's command by offering sacrifice instead, Samuel asked this searching question, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. When David in the anguish of his soul is confessing his sins unto God, he says, Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not 66 |