background in the gradual development of the religion of Israel, and also a divinely ordered preparation for the coming of the Christ.'

(3) Superiority of the Revelation of Christ. The crowning glory of the Holy Scriptures appears in the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. He is the supreme Prophet and Apostle of our confession, for whose coming all the foregoing revelations given through holy men had prepared the way. He is the Light of the world. The gospels, the epistles, and other New Testament books supply us with the substance of his teaching in a manner too self-evidencing to be misunderstood. When we duly observe that all preceding legislation and prophecy found their fulfillment in him, we shall not be perplexed by the obvious imperfections of Israel's old-time cult. The codes of Moses and of Hammurabi contain evidences of adaptations to the hardness of the hearts of the peoples of those ancient times. Any rational conception of a progress in divine revelation must admit the shortcomings of the former ages. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were gifted above the teachers of an earlier period to declare that the old proverb of setting the children's teeth on edge because their fathers ate sour grapes should be no longer used in Israel (Jer. xxxi, 29; Ezek. xviii, 2). But Jesus Christ fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law and the prophets, so that the entire Old Testament must now be studied and tested by the light of the gospel of Jesus. Had this important truth received due attention, we might have been spared the lamentable spectacle of men strenuously maintaining, on biblical grounds, the righteousness of polygamy, and human slavery, and easy-going divorce, and capital punishment for witchcraft, and the vindictive cursing of enemies. Jesus introduced new thought, new life, and new inspiration. He now "sitteth on the throne, declaring, Behold, I make all things new." If we were not possessed of the profound conviction that the Bible is the divinely treasured literature of a progressive revelation of God in Christ, and that the completed witness and teaching of the New Testament supplies the most authoritative source and

We should, in the interests of sound apologetics, abstain from the illogical use sometimes made of these incidental connections of biblical narrative with persons and events of ancient history. The mention of Amraphel, Pharaoh, or any other king is in itself no proof of the historicity of the book of Genesis, or of any other book in which such names may occur. That question must be determined in other ways. A poem, a novel, a parable, or an allegory may make various uses of historical names and facts. No sensible person would argue that the Last Days of Pompeii and Quo Vadis are books of veritable history because they have much to say about famous historical persons and events. And yet it may be added that probably no strictly historical work, compiled from the most trustworthy sources, would supply the common reader with a more truthful picture of Roman life in those days than the celebrated novels named.

means or religious truth within the reach of man, we could never presume to write a Biblical Dogmatics.

14. The Bible and the Word of God. These Holy Scriptures, completed and crowned by the revelation of Jesus Christ, are the treasured result of religious truths spoken in various measures through many generations. Thus they also become for us a most profitable means of discipline in the truth and in all righteousness. By the help of the Spirit, who is given to guide us into all the truth (John xvi, 13), the Bible is a mighty instrument for apprehending and imparting the revelations of God. The real source of all truth and of all revelation in the truth is God himself, and in our search for a knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God we should not confound God and the Bible, as the manner of some is. The heavenly treasure deposited in the biblical records is not identical with the book itself. Like the treasure hidden in the field, and the pearl of great price, the living truth of God has its places of hiding and is not found without search and sacrifice. But when found and made one's own, the heavenly jewel becomes a source of light and comfort and a means of grace and truth. But how are we to distinguish the precious treasure from the field in which it is hidden? Field and treasure both are ours, but some men seem to insist on our saying, The field is the treasure; "the Bible is the Word of God." This shibboleth, we believe, has been a source of no little confusion and error. It is only in a loose and inaccurate way of speaking that the letter of the Scriptures may be called God's Word, and, when thus designated, it should be seen at once that we are employing a synecdoche, a rhetorical figure of putting the whole for a part. It is like naming the vessel when we mean only the treasure in the vessel. A close examination of all the scriptural texts in which the phrase "word of God," or its equivalent, occurs, will show that there is no warrant in the Bible for the dogmatic shibboleth cited above. It is very easy for a superficial reader of such psalms as Psa. xix, 7-11, and Psa. cxix to imagine that the words law, testimony, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, thy word, mean the entire scriptures of both Testaments, whereas the real reference of the psalmist is to the Decalogue, and, in his widest thought, to the laws of the Pentateuch. There is no allusion to the Prophets and the Psalms, which as yet formed no portion of the Jewish canon of Scripture. The delusive anachronism of applying the words of such a psalm to the entire Bible ministers not to intelligent study of the Scriptures, but only to ignorance and error. We should observe, further, that the messages of the prophets were usually a word of Jehovah for some person, people,

or definite occasion. Not a few of those messages, like that of Isaiah to Ahaz (vii, 3-9), have no natural reference to any other person or time. Others embody helpful promises, or solemn warnings and reproofs, which are profitable for all time, but that which is of permanent value in them is the substantial content of the message, not a written document as such. The word of Jehovah through Isaiah is also called "the vision of Isaiah," and the "burden," or oracle, "which Isaiah saw." But the book of Isaiah contains four chapters (xxxvi-xxxix) out of the book of Kings, and also a "writing of Hezekiah" (xxxviii, 9), which are nowhere called the word of the Lord. But even if the entire book of Isaiah were made up of specific oracles of Jehovah, it would not authorize us to call the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Esther "the Word of Jehovah." The phrase "oracles of God" in Rom. iii, 2 is no proper designation of the Old Testament as a whole, but, like the "living oracles" in Stephen's speech (Acts vii, 38), refers more particularly to the Sinaitic decalogue. In 1 Pet. iv, 11, the phrase denotes any utterances of apostle or preacher who declares the living truths of God. In Heb. v, 12, "the oracles of God" are no special portion of the Bible, nor the Bible itself, but the word of the gospel of Christ as preached to them that heard him. In fact, there is no passage of Scripture in which the expression "the word of God" means the biblical writings as a whole. In the New Testament the phrase is often used to designate the content of the gospel message. In Jesus's prayer we have the statement "thy word is truth" (John xvii, 17), but there is no reference here to the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, but to the word of the gospel mentioned in verses 14 and 20. Filled with the Spirit of Christ the apostles "spoke the word of God with all boldness" (Acts iv, 31). When persecution scattered them abroad "they went about preaching the word" (Acts viii, 4), that is, the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. "The word" is employed in this sense more than thirty times in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul calls it "the word of faith, which we preach" (Rom. x, 8), "the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation" (Eph. i, 13), "the word of the message of God, not the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe" (1 Thess. ii, 13). In the fullest and deepest sense the Word of God is Christ himself, and it is only as the Holy Spirit of truth takes of the things of Christ and makes them known to us (comp. John xvi, 14), that we can apprehend and appreciate the significance of such a text as Heb. iv, 12: "The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints

and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." No writings as such answer to this definition of "the word of God," or satisfy the import of Jesus' saying, "The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life" (John vi, 63). According to 2 Cor. iii, 15-18, Moses and Isaiah and Paul may be read with such a veil over the heart that the reader himself fails to see that "the Lord is the Spirit." For it is only as we discern the grace and glory of the Lord himself that we can distinguish the hidden treasure from the field, and the pearl of great price from the mother-shell in which it found its setting. The results thus acquired will be no questionable dogma, empty of spiritual content, but intelligible facts of the greatest value for instruction in righteousness.

15. Necessity of Sound Interpretation. Accepting the Bible as the broad field in which lie hidden innumerable treasures of religious wisdom and knowledge, we must at the same time observe that the precious truths are not to be brought forth and employed for teaching and discipline in righteousness except in accordance with sound principles of interpretation. We now reject the former method of catechisms and of other compends of Christian doctrine which was given to citing proof-texts at will from any part of the Bible, without regard to their scope and context. It was assumed, in accord with a current theory of inspiration, that every word of Scripture, whether uttered by poet, chronicler, patriarch, or apostle, was alike the word of God. A saying of Jephthah, a request of Esther, a decree of Cyrus, an oracle of Zechariah, or a parable of Jesus, must needs be equally inspired and useful for doctrine. Such an irrational use of the Scriptures, we may hope, is wellnigh obsolete, but, unfortunately, in some places the evil leaven of it is yet somewhat perceptible. While we accept the entire biblical canon as our great source and means of doctrine, we must study to interpret every relevant text in the light of its context, its authorship, its occasion and its legitimate applications. The facts of a multiform literature in the Bible are never to be lost from sight. We should keep in mind at every step of our procedure that these various scriptures originated at many different times and in different ways. We must study to know whether the words we cite in proof of doctrine are a statement of historic fact, or a fragment of song, or part of an apocalypse, or a proverb or a parable. The words of Jesus are the Holy of holies in the Scriptures, and when we clearly apprehend his teaching on a matter of doctrine we recognize it as the highest authority. But according to Matt. xiii, 10-16, Jesus spoke in parables that the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven might not be too easily

grasped. The parables need interpretation, and must be explained on sound and self-consistent principles. The old covenant is fulfilled in the new, and therefore not a jot or a tittle of the Old Testament is to be reckoned as final for instruction in righteousness until tested and confirmed by the gospel of Jesus. Even in the New Testament records we observe some practices of the early Jewish Church which are not intended for the Gentiles or for general acceptance. The apostles had their limitations, and could know and prophesy only in part. It is noteworthy that out of the four "necessary things," which the great Council of Jerusalem required for the peace and unity of the early Church (Acts xv, 28, 29), three have long since ceased to be observed in Christendom. It is only by patient research, by careful discrimination of things that differ, and by the approved methods of critical and historic exposition, that we shall reach results that are trustworthy. We compare scripture with scripture, and honestly endeavor to prove all things and hold fast only that which is good. Every true Protestant and every Church that is true to the principle and spirit of Protestantism must be open and hospitable toward all conscientious research and to whatever new light such research throws upon the Bible and its interpretation.1

16. Sufficiency as Sources of Doctrine. Prolonged comparison and study of these Holy Scriptures confirm us in the belief of their superiority and sufficiency as sources of religious instruction. They are conspicuously superior in contents and in style to all the sacred books of other religions, and they contain a sufficiency of doctrine, of helpful precepts, of means for refuting error and for guiding men into the truth and training them in the knowledge and love of God. When the one serious effort is to ascertain the essential religious content of the biblical revelation and its highest expression in Jesus Christ there is found such a solid basis of unquestionable facts and such an organic consensus of belief through the Christian centuries that there appears no place for reasonable doubt. Disputations arise from efforts to exalt matters of secondary and inferior import into the rank of fundamental truths, and questions of this kind will probably never cease to arise while men continue to think and reason. Minds differently

Thus Professor J. E. McFadyen writes: "A church which is not willing to welcome new facts, if they be facts; a church which is not willing to respond to new truth, from whatever quarter it comes; a church which binds old forms of truth upon the consciences of men, or refuses to accommodate the truth which they embodied to contemporary modes of thought: such a church, though she will hardly allure within her walls profound and reverent thinkers who stand outside her, may yet be able to do something for others, and especially the more emotional sort of men. But she cannot call herself a Protestant Church."—Old Testament Criticism and the Christian Church, p. 187. New York, 1903.