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consider the light thrown upon social arrangements and institutions by the revelation of the moral will of God. Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, cries Amos, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth'. It was their hold upon law, their inspired sense of the claims of an objective moral order embracing all nations in its scope, that enabled the prophets to predict. It is in their abhorrence of insincerity, in their consciousness of moral proportion, that they are so uniquely qualified to guide Christians whose lot is cast amid the complex conditions of the modern social system. There is indeed significance in the fact that in spite of their ardent zeal for social reform they did not as a rule take part in political life or demand political reforms. They desired, it has been justly said, not better institutions but better men. They were in fact conspicuous as religious leaders—men who, feeling themselves commissioned to speak in God's name, were deeply convinced that the divine purpose must be commensurate with human life, must cover the whole field of social action and interest. They were perpetually rebuking that strange self-deceit which besets human nature in every age-the supposition that the province of religion can be severed from that of social life and duty, and that there are departments which lie outside the regulative influence of faith. The prophets were the spokesmen of a righteousness which is everywhere valid; they proclaimed the supremacy of an irresistible will, not to be ignored either by men or nations except at their own infinite peril.

Two points are noticeable in the social doctrine of the Old Testament regarded as a whole. First, it is to be observed that the polity of ancient Israel is not based on individualism. It has lately been maintained that the Old Testament is dominated by the conception of collectivism 2, and it is at least true that to the prophets the nation and not the individual

1 Amos ix. 8.

2 W. S. Bruce, The Ethics of the O. T. p. 22.

is the recipient of promises, the possessor of covenantal status and privileges. Their tendency is to individualize the nation, and to represent its corporate vocation and responsibility as dependent on a quasipersonal relationship to Jehovah. Certainly the idea. of individual rights remained for a long period undeveloped. The highest prayer of the devout Israelite was that he might see the felicity of God's chosen, and rejoice in the gladness of His people, and give thanks with His inheritance1. The salvation for which he looked was national rather than personal; the highest good for which he waited was a kingdom, the kingdom of God. The thought of personal well-being was overshadowed by 'the contemplation of the divine sovereignty. The sense of belonging to the true Israel has in the later history of Judaism sustained individuals under the pressure of untold disasters, and has perhaps even mitigated the sense of personal shortcoming 3. The whole tendency of the Old Testament is in harmony with the revelation of nature and with the social ideals now dawning upon us: its main thought is the comparative insignificance of the individual life in relation to the divine purpose for humanity as a whole. Secondly, it is evident that the idea of a spiritual kingdom took deep root in the Hebrew mind, and the conviction that no material forces could either help the fortunes of the elect people, or hinder the supremacy of God's righteous will. The contact of the Hebrew state with the great world-powers was an epoch in religious history. It taught Israel to realize its own special vocation; it also proved that forces were at work in the world more effective and enduring than even the highest products of human ambition, energy, and skill. As one after another the vast empires which had been founded on violence fell into decay and vanished from the scene,

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the spiritual leaders of the elect nation came to understand that what is eternal and heavenly must owe its being to God; that the true kingdom of humanity must be based not on forces of this world—greed, self-assertion, or the right of the strongest, but on the foundation of faith, justice, and truth. And certainly one chief office of the Old Testament is to teach the modern mind to read history aright, by showing what are the true factors that mould, sustain, and perfect human society; that they are moral and spiritual, not material; that character is the most powerful social force, that courage, mercy, and self-control are the real instruments of lasting social amelioration. The chequered story of Israel's career carries with it the lesson that while the kingdoms of this world are built up by the natural energies of man, and must inevitably ' have their day and cease to be,' the kingdom of God is the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. The fruit of the Spirit in man accomplishes what the excellences and virtues of nature cannot achieve. The transfiguration of society can only result from the indwelling of God Himself in individual souls.

6. I must be content with a very brief allusion to one more function of the Old Testament, namely, to assist us in the right interpretation of the New 2. It is an important aid in tracing the history of ideas, and in determining the significance of particular terms. Augustine somewhere observes that a Christian ought to study the prophets in order that he may not forget why he believes. It is equally necessary to read the Old Testament to gain an intelligent idea of what we believe. The content of our faith, as distinguished from its form, is largely revealed in the Old Testament. Such terms as the Christ or the kingdom of God are charged with the

1 Heb. xi. 10.

2 Cp. Kirkpatrick, The Divine library of the O. T. p. 126.

3

C. Faust. Man. xiii. 18.

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memories and associations of a long religious history. The ideas of righteousness,' ' atonement,' 'redemption,' 'propitiation,' which play so large a part in New Testament theology, have their roots in an immense and complicated system of mediation, apart from which their significance can only be imperfectly understood. The full connotation of such a phrase as the Son of God can only be ascertained in the light of Hebrew and Judaistic thought and feeling. Nor must we forget that there are many points of contact between the language of the New Testament and the Talmud-that vast 'microcosm,' as it has been called, which is the most characteristic product of post-exilic Judaism'. Some of the leading ideas of the New Covenant were 'household words of Talmudic Judaism. It is the glory of Christianity,' says Emanuel Deutsch, ' to have carried those golden germs, hidden in the schools and among the "silent community" of the learned, into the market of humanity. It is unnecessary to multiply instances. in illustration of this point. But it is an important consideration that our estimate of the New Testament revelation as a whole will depend upon the idea we have gained from the Old Testament of the needs and weaknesses of human nature. We have to read the New Testament in the light of our knowledge of Hebrew modes of thought, and also with a due sense of the cravings that needed satisfaction, the sorrows that lacked assuagement. Some of our Lord's own utterances, such as the promise of rest to the heavyladen, or of living water to the thirsting soul, or of life to the dead, or of dominion to the meek, imply wants and experiences in the spiritual life of His hearers which need to be patiently studied before the true significance of His words, who spake as never man spake, can be

1 Nicolas, op. cit., pref. p. vii, says very justly: 'I importe, dans l'intérêt même de la parfaite intelligence de l'œuvre de Jésus Christ, de pénétrer le plus profondément qu'il est possible dans l'histoire religieuse et morale du judaïsme immédiatement antérieur?

2 See his Literary Remains (London, 1874), p. 27.

3 See Valeton, Vergängliches und Ewiges im A. T. pp. 8 foll.

understood. Whatever enables us to understand the historical conditions under which the writings of the Old Testament were produced gives us a deeper insight into the nature of New Testament ideals, and the meaning of evangelical faith. For if it be true, as Wellhausen has said, that 'the Gospel develops hidden impulses of the Old Testament',' it is clear that any real advance in comprehending the genius of Christianity depends to a great extent upon more accurate knowledge of Hebrew religion and literature and also of the boundless and little-explored field of Talmudic Judaism and Rabbinic theology. Closer acquaintance indeed with all pre-Christian systems will heighten our sense of the assimilative power of the Gospel. It will reveal to us the useless or corrupt elements which were excluded by Christianity, the forms which perished because they were rotten, the systems which could not stand the test of that fire which Christ came to send upon the earth. But it will also make manifest the truth and nobility of that which the new religion claimed as its own, or used, and transfigured in the using. And here lies the peculiar value of those historical and critical studies which have enabled to distinguish between the different elements contained in early Christianity-between ideas carried forward from Judaism and ideas transplanted from the sphere of Hellenic thought. We have learned, partially at least, what elements Christianity found ready to its hand in the teaching of prophets and psalmists, what it owed to Alexandria and to Greece, and what is due to the work and personality of its Founder. Thus we shall come to recognize more

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2 Luke xii. 49.

1 Prolegomena, p. 509. 3 See a noble sermon of Mr. Stopford Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, no. iv.

Cp. Sanday, The Oracles of God, serm. ix. Valeton, op. cit. p. 9, observes: 'Mit dem Christenthum auch eine neue Sprache entstanden ist, und zwar eine Sprache, die ebensoviel griechisch ist wie israelitisch. Wir haben ja allerdings jedes Dogma nur in einer mehr oder minder philosophischen Form, die der griechischen Welt entlehnt ist; der religiöse Kern aber ist aus Israel genommen.'

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