Israel which the Holy Spirit has created in the Old Testament that stands above all human partiality.* It is here alone that the man of God stands before the great favorite and says, "Thou art the man!"

But, on the other hand, because the spirit of man is the living organ of operation, we see in the holy writers all the noble affections, powers, and efforts of human nature. We see, as Luther says, into the heart of God's saints ;t we here find the right word, the right point of view, the right way of conquest, and the right consolation for every storm and for every temptation that beset us. The Prophet, with an inflexible earnestness that will alleviate nothing of the truth, proclaims the divine judgment impending over his people in order to unite, in the same moment, with the stricken people in their sorrowful lamentation. Micah i, 2ff. 8.

Again, the arduous industry and painstaking fidelity of the historical writers of the Old and New Testaments testify to this introduction of the human into God's work.§ Luke, as he says at the beginning of his Gospel, makes known all things from the beginning that had been collected on the history of Jesus, (Luke i, 1-4,) and all the evangelists and prophets are so painstaking in their respect for what is communicated, has occurred, and has been heard, that they prefer to invite upon themselves the charge of an apparent contradiction, and leave to the shallow minds of subsequent centuries to make the supposed new discovery, rather than to take their own authority for changing a single word.

They also pass before us in the most varied individualities: in the Old Testament the law-givers, heroic kings, teachers of wisdom, preachers of repentance, and proclaimers of salvation; in the New Testament the scripturally learned Matthew, the sharply defining Mark, the broad-hearted Luke; John, in whose heart there arose the light of eternity even though he

Comp. M. Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs und Babels, p. 5. 1857. Also Pascal, Pensées, II, p. 70. Berlin, 1836.

Comp. Luther's Preface to the Psalter, frequently printed, for example, in Kurtz's Literaturgeschichte, II, p. 197.

Comp. H. Müller, Geistl. Erquickstunden, I, p. 121; and elsewhere. Dresden, 1814. Monod, Ausgewählte Schriften, VIII, 124ff. VI, 18ff. Bielefeld, 1862.

§ Comp. K. Sack, christliche Apologetik, p. 88f. 1829.

still walked upon the earth; Paul, the conqueror of the world, and the practically edifying James. Each one is different from all the rest; each is a holy man of God in his own way, with his own knowledge of God, and with his own picture of Jesus in his heart; and yet through them all there pervades the same Spirit, which announces the same truths from the beginning of Genesis to the close of John's Revelation. These truths are synonymous in whatever passage we find them, and are presented in progressive clearness and profundity.*

"But," says one who wishes to hold me to this point, "I would like to believe that this is true; I would like to perceive this one Holy Spirit. But as I look at the Holy Scriptures they crumble before me, just as every other book, into single human words; I see nothing of the Spirit." Laplace spoke on this wise when he said that he had penetrated the heavens and many stars, and yet had found no God. The Spirit is invisible, and he who has nothing from it in his heart will find it nowhere; man only perceives that to which he is inwardly related. Dr. Strauss has written a biographical series of highly gifted men, who went down because of their internal vacillation and want of moderation. We mean his biographies of Hutten, Schubart, and Märklin, which, indeed, are excellent books. But a child can relate the life of Jesus with better understanding than he who has broken all the gospels to pieces in order to build again with their ruins. In the same way one may cut up the Passion Music into single tones, the Sixtine Madonna into brush strokes, and the Strasburg Minster into stones, and yet by this useless undertaking he will certainly not be able to find either the genius of Bach, or of Raphael, or of Master Erwin, for the very reason that the spirit is invisible. But if even in art we must assign what is undiscoverable by man in the sphere of the beautiful to the inspiration of genius derived from God, (Exod. xxxi, 2ff.,) how much more will we have to say here—where the question is one of salvation, blessedness, and that which is not discoverable by man in the realm of the true and the good—that inspiration has exercised authority? And in the sphere of art the genius of individual masters has brought into being, by their living creations, standards of the beautiful that have varied with the varying

Comp. Herder, Werke zur Religion und Theologie, XII, 162ff. 1829.

times;* but in the Holy Scriptures we find a literature pervading twenty centuries, whose living creations do not offer one standard of truth here and another there, but all present one harmony of revelation and one edifice of doctrine. Thus it is plain that we cannot speak here of individual revealing geniuses, but that there must be one inspiring Spirit, which is elevated above all times, and to which the difference in times merely serves as a means to extend its radii in always more exact designation from the center to all parts of the circumference. And such a Spirit is only the Spirit of God.

In these conclusions I have assumed the internal connection of the Holy Sciptures, by which they constitute an articulated organism, a body, as it were, for the soul of revelation. In fact, every impartial observer can see that this harmonious adaptation proves itself. It is not limited to the affinity of the doctrinal import in the individual books, but it is historical. The conclusion of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament cannot be understood without its foundation and development in the Old Testament; and if the attempt should be made to interpret the profound words of the prophets without their fulfillment in the New Testament, they would not become simply pious wishes, but altogether unintelligible. A connection between prophecy and fulfillment which, according to the allusions of Jesus, every-where distinguish the New Testament writers, particularly Matthew and John, encompasses the whole Bible. And that prophecy has grown out of a divine guidance of the world's destiny, and particularly out of that of the people of Israel. History itself appears plainly as prophecy and is described as such; and the grandest sign of it is, that he who here speaks is at the same time the one who acts, who governs the fate of humanity. As the laws and rules of the world (Isa. xlv, 18, 19) are created by God that it may become a theater for the deeds of men, so have also the destinies of men their own laws and rules, and the Lord lays down his own ordinances clearly and plainly in his revelation. The revelation by deeds and that by words go hand in hand. Thus God was worthy of revealing himself by continuous deed and word, for God is living. A God who did not reveal himself would

Comp. my Abhandlung über kritische Massstäbe in der Tonkunst, in the Deutsche Musik Zeitung, (Vienna.) No. 43ff. 1862.

be as good as none at all--he would be dead. In the beginning of the Scriptures it is the seed of the woman, all humanity, in whom the promise is concentrated. As early as the ninth chapter of Genesis the promise becomes more special, and is confined to the descendants of Shem; from the twelfth chapter of Genesis it is confined to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in chapter xlix, to the tribe of Judah; and in 2 Samuel, chapter vii, it is from the house of David that the eternal King of God's kingdom shall come. And all these stages are marked by great turning points in the history of God's kingdom; by the fall, the flood, the call of the patriarchs, the death of Jacob, and the kingdom of David. Then, further on, there ripens, amid the sufferings of the Babylonian captivity, the knowledge that the world must be redeemed from sin by substitutional suffering; and finally, we are led over into the New Testament by the prophecy of Zechariah, that the revealed God himself shall be pierced, and from his wounds there shall flow a fountain for the atonement of the sins of the world. Zech. xii, 10; xiii, 1. This fulfillment is the very blossom of the institutions of office in the Old Testament-the priesthood, the kingdom, and the highpriesthood—whose multiplicity and incompleteness join together in the one perfect Christ. Side by side with this there proceeds from the outset the opposition to God in the world; the defiant nations build a tower of Babel at the beginning; and Babel remains historically and symbolically the name for the Godhating nations from the beginning of the Scriptures to the end of John's Revelation. But as the unity of sin was disintegrated at the tower of Babel into the diversity of languages, so has the diversity of tongues again been united at Pentecost, in Jerusalem, in the little group of twelve Apostles. They were understood by all who heard them; they said to one another, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born." Yes, this connection of the Scriptures spans the whole history of the world. This becomes plainest when we consider the opposition of the heathen world at the time of Christ, though it may also be seen elsewhere.* It was just at the great turning point in time-when the Semitic kingdom of the Assyrians began to crumble to pieces, and the Median Indo-Ger* De Pressensé, "History of the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church," (German ed.,) I, p. 114ff. 1862.

mans entered the history of the world in the east, and the Roman Indo-Germans entered it on the banks of the Tiber in the west that the greatest of the prophets, Isaiah, spoke of the Messiah's reign over all nations, and of the time when the heathens shall no more go to their oracles but to the sanctuary of Jehovah to receive law and doctrine.* Isaiah ii. And as in the history of the world, so also in the Scriptures themselves, are the clasps and rivets by which the great whole is held together, marked plainly enough. The beginning of John's Gospel (ch. i, 1) unites with the beginning of the first account of creation, Gen. i, 1; Matthew i, 1, to the beginning of the second, in Gen. ii, 4; Mark i, 1, 2, to the conclusion of the Old Testament, Mal. iii, 1; and our Lord himself connects the beginning of his labors as a teacher (Matt. v, 1ff.) with the beginning of the Book of Psalms. Psa. i, 1.

This is only a small selection from the abundance of witnesses to the grand organism of the Holy Scriptures, in comparison with which all the later influence of God's Spirit is merely reproductive: every thing is perfectly original and new in its place; and from this organism we cannot sunder the smallest member without destroying the harmony of the whole.t In fact, not merely the single writings, but the present form of their collocation, is a masterpiece of divine purpose far excelling all human art; and the sense of unity and necessity in this wonderful diversity, which could not escape William von Humboldt, must become more and more an historical certainty and a strongly established conviction the more profound are our inquiries. And the most learned man in the Scriptures whom our evangelical Church has produced, J. A. Bengel, has said with propriety that this observation is incorporated with the rule that the entire Scriptures, § and not merely individually extracted portions, must be the ground of our life and faith. |

*Comp. M. Niebuhr, the work already quoted, p. 170f.

Comp. Staudt, "Fingerzeige in den Inhalt und Zusammenhang der heil. Schrift, second ed. Stuttgart, 1863.

"Briefe an eine Freundin, I, p. 132. 1848.

Comp. Goltz, "Die Theologische Bedeutung J. A. Bengels und seiner Schule." (Reprinted from the "Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie,") p. 7ff; and Oetinger, "Bibl. Wörterbuch," published by Hamberger, p. xxvi. 1849.

It is on this ground that the right of historical criticism, which has lately been contested in a manner equally groundless and bitter, receives its real light and