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law in the universe. The relation of faith to God and to the facts of life is essentially the same in every age. There are facts and circumstances in history which have a representative character, which exemplify the operation of a moral principle and are accordingly prophetic1. A particular spiritual experience necessarily repeats itself because the needs and trials of human nature in successive generations remain constant and unchanged, and because God is eternally self-consistent in His character and in His dealings with mankind. And it may be observed, in conclusion, that the typical character of Israel's history corresponds to the prophetic character of its religion. In a typical transaction, object, or person a law of the spiritual world is to be observed in actual operation. In prophecy the intellect of man, guided by the divine Spirit, lays hold of the law and brings it to the light. Thus, while the continuity of revelation makes the institutions and the history of Israel actually typical or symbolic, it is the office of the prophetic faculty to exhibit its inner significance. There is every reason a priori to suppose that the sacred writers or compilers were controlled by the Holy Spirit in their selection, and even in their omission 2, of particular incidents and events. They were guided 'to record them in such a way that over and above the direct moral and spiritual instructiveness they should be susceptible of a parabolic interpretation too3.'

1 Alexander of Hales in his Summa Theologiae (i. q. 1, mem. 1) makes a striking remark: 'In sacra scriptura ponitur historia non ea ratione seu fine ut significentur singulares actus hominum significatione sermonum, sed ut significentur universales actus et conditiones pertinentes ad informationem et contemplationem divinorum mysteriorum significatione rerum. . . . Introducitur ergo in historia sacrae scripturae factum singulare ad significandum universale.'

2 Thus the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues from the silence of Scripture in vii. 3, not surely, as Prof. Hommel insists, from another version of Genesis, now lost. The remark of Augustine about the Gospel narratives may be applied to those of the Old Testament: Tanta facta sunt quanta tunc fieri debuerunt; tanta scripta sunt quanta nunc legi debuerunt' (serm. in dieb. Pasch. ccxl).

3 See art. in Ch. Quart. Review, above mentioned.

Having dealt with these preliminary points we may turn to the consideration of the permanent function which the Old Testament seems designed to fulfil in the education of Christian faith. In discussing this subject, we shall naturally bear in mind the peculiar needs and circumstances of our own day.

1. The main purpose of the Old Testament is to be inferred from consideration of the primary element in our Lord's own teaching. He came into the world for the express purpose of revealing to men the mind, the character, and the will, of Almighty God. He pointed men to the Scriptures as a true source of divine knowledge. Their readiness to accept Himself would be proportionate to the anticipations they had already formed of God. If they read the ancient Scriptures aright they would be prepared for a disclosure of the divine life and character, crowning and not contradicting the recorded revelations of the past. Diligent search of the Scriptures would train and develope certain preconceptions, which were likely to welcome the manifestation of the incarnate Son. The study of Israel's history under the guidance of the prophets would prepare the Hebrew mind for a revelation of grace transcending, but strictly consistent with, the wonderful dealings of God in the past.

In the Old Testament, then, we find a revelation of God's nature and character which justifies and interprets to us our faith in Christ. The message of the Old Testament, it has been said, is summed up in one word-the word God1. A personal, holy, spiritual, and gracious Being there manifests Himself. We can study His dealings with men in almost every stage of development and culture; we can watch Him educating His elect people and nurturing the heathen; we see Him as a Judge punishing sins, as a Father disciplining His children. What is the great truth which the history of Israel enforces, and which is a necessary element in the religious view of the world?

1 G. A. Smith, The Preaching of the Old Testament to the Age, p. 57.

The answer to this question is that the Old Testament impresses upon us the thought that in His moral government of the world Almighty God sets before Himself one aim, that of bringing His creatures to the highest degree of perfection of which their nature is capable. The moral perfection of man-this is the goal of human history. In the divine view of the world all else appears to be of subordinate importance. The tremendous discipline to which Israel was subjected is a measure of the supreme place assigned in the universe to moral law. The Old Testament exhibits to us the Creator taking in hand that one among His creatures which is capable of holding communion with Him and of wearing His image and likeness, carrying him through all the stages of an agelong discipline, and finally bringing His purpose to accomplishment. Nor is there anything perhaps more necessary in our day than a revival in men's minds of a just conception of the divine purpose which is slowly working itself out in national history. From the Old Testament history we learn what is the meaning of the stern discipline of war, pestilence, and famine, of national distress and signal public catastrophes, of the vicissitudes and shocks which darken the lives of individual men. All these things are divinely intended either to heighten the standard of national righteousness, or to advance the work of personal sanctification. Nothing can more forcibly bring home this lesson, at least to the generality of men, than the inspired record of God's dealings with His people in the time of old. In legend and allegory, in narrative and song, in the homely wisdom of proverbs and in the inspired interpretations of history, the spirit of faith reads one continuous lesson: This is the will of God, even your sanctification1. The passion for moral beauty, the thirst for righteousness, which fired the Puritans of the seventeenth century, was to a great extent nourished by the zealous study of the Old Testament; and in 1 I Thess. iv. 3.

these days of paralyzing moral scepticism and frequently misdirected moral energy it is well to learn once more from its pages what are the things best worth living for, and what is the consummation on which the Lord of all the earth has set His heart: namely, the exaltation of humanity into moral fellowship with the divine life.

But the Old Testament does not merely reveal and illustrate the aim of God's moral government; it also exhibits the methods and laws of His action. God is manifested as one who bears with man in his present condition in order to raise him to a higher level. God separates man from the sphere of sin and corruption in order to make him a co-operating agent in the execution of a world-wide purpose of grace; He uses man's social instincts and tendency to corporate life as the main instrument in his moral development. A kingdom of God is planted upon earth, a sphere within which the quickening forces of the divine Spirit visibly work, a centre of life and light amid the darkness of universal death. And the Old Testament history anticipates and prefigures the fortunes of the Messianic kingdom. For it is the history of an elect people, of a Church invested with a mission to mankind. In the story of Israel's lapses and revivals, distresses and failures, advances and conquests, we have a divine commentary on 'the chequered annals of Christendom 1. The broad principles of redemptive history do not change with the ages, since they reflect the very being of God and correspond to the comprehensive unity of His plan; they manifest themselves anew in the kingdom of the Incarnation, they finally triumph in the consummation of all things.

Once more, while the Old Testament history illustrates the diversity of the means by which the divine will is ultimately accomplished, we are nevertheless struck by one special feature in the narrative, namely the prominence of suffering. It has been justly observed 1 Westcott, Ep. to the Hebrews, p. 494.

that Scripture is a record of human sorrow; certainly the Old Testament teaches more emphatically than any other literature the moral necessity of suffering as a factor in man's development and in his progress from that which is natural to that which is spiritual1. In the culminating vision of prophecy, the exilic picture of the afflicted servant of Jehovah bearing the sin of his people, we see disclosed 'the innermost secret of the divine way of salvation 2. The sober solemnity which pervades the entire history of the Old Testament corresponds to the dominant aspect of human life; it is the story of faith passing through days of warfare and trial. So too the poetry and the wisdom of the Hebrews give utterance to the complaints, or reflect the perplexities, of righteous men suffering without a cause. In every part of the Old Testament the Hebrew mind is as it were being prepared for the appearance on the stage of human life of the Man of sorrows. The trials of Abraham and Isaac, the sorrows of Jacob and Joseph, the discipline of Israel in the wilderness, the wrongs endured by the first true king, the persecutions that befell holy men of Godpsalmists, prophets, martyrs, and saints; the afflictions of the righteous remnant in exile-a moment's reflexion will show us how large a part these played in the slow fulfilment of the divine purpose, how constant an element they formed in the spiritual education of mankind. Man, like Joseph, dreams of rule: he is sustained by the light of the divine blessing which whispers to him of dominion; but it is only by the way of sorrow that he attains that for which he was intended from the first. In the Old Testament the whole warfare of man upon earth is set forth. The law of man's glorification is already clearly exhibited: If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him 3.

1

Thus the study of the Old Testament tends to I Cor. xv. 46. 2 Schultz, O. T. Theology, vol. ii. p. 430. 8 2 Tim. ii. 12; cp. Rom. viii. 17.

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