proportionately greater; the flagrant indulgence in open CHAP. II. idolatry, under the patronage of the court, had raised yet more serious obstacles in the path of religious restoration. In a single year 'the book of the law' caused the removal of every obstacle. The laws it contained must, many of them, have been familiar, by tradition, long usage, and written codes. But in this book, laws, old and new alike, lived in the spirit of Moses, and glowed with the vehemence of prophecy. The tone in which the law was here expounded to the people was something new. It marked the close of one era; it heralded the Its opporbeginning of another. It rang sharp and clear in the tuneness. lull that so graciously intervened before the tempest of Babylonian invasion. The enthusiasm it aroused in the young king communicated itself to the people. The discovery of the book of the law' procured at once the abolition of the high places. The book was recognized as a divine gift, and lifted, though but for a passing moment, the conception of the nation's religion above the routine of the priesthood's traditional worship.

In the authority and sanctity assigned, at this conjuncture, to a book, we recognize the beginnings of the Hebrew Canon. And we cannot but feel, that it was no mere chance, but the overruling of the Divine Wisdom, which thus made provision for the spiritual survival of His chosen people on the eve of their political annihilation.

significance.

The generation of Hilkiah had hardly passed away, Its historic when the deportation of the citizens of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple seemed to menace the extinction of pure worship. But Josiah's reign had seen the dawn of that love and reverence for Scripture, with

CHAP. II. which the true Israelite, whether Jew or Christian, was destined ever afterwards to be identified. The coincidence is instructive. The collapse of the material power of the house of Israel contained within it the seed of its spiritual revival in the possession of the indestructible Word of God.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CANON (continued).

The Exile.

CHAP. III.

Book of the

law': influ

ence on in

THE degree of veneration which the book of the law' received from the people at large, can hardly at any time have been very considerable before the exile. It certainly was not of a lasting character. Josiah's reforms dividuals. were effected, so to speak, from above downward. They did not emanate from the people, but from the king. Outside the court and a few sincerely religious minds among the prophets and the priests, there were probably not many who, after the first shock of surprise, troubled themselves about the ascendancy temporarily obtained by 'the book of the law.' The half century of idolatrous government by Manasseh and his son had unfitted the nation for the moral effort of acknowledging the claim. and submitting to the restraint of any new spiritual authority. The verdict of the historian of the Books of Kings makes it sufficiently evident, that Josiah's sons and successors did nothing to promote the spiritual interests of their people. Nor, indeed, could we expect from their short, disturbed, and calamitous reigns any further popular recognition of the sacred authority vested in 'the law.' And yet its influence upon those whom it

CHAP. III. was most calculated to impress has left traces clear and unmistakable. Perhaps we should not quite be justified in saying that the influence of this book is alone responsible for the so-called Deuteronomic style, wherever it is to be found in the Old Testament. For the possibility must be admitted, that the style was but characteristic of a phase in Hebrew literature, and marked the particular colouring peculiar to the prophetical writing of the century.

Distinctive in style and in treat

But, even so, we shall probably be right to connect the prevalence of Deuteronomic thought in later writings ment of na- with the feelings of veneration excited by 'the book of the tional questions. law.' The appearance of the peculiar style and phraseology of Deuteronomy denotes something more than the accidental resemblance of contemporary literature. It implies that the Deuteronomic treatment of the nation's history, for some reason, commended itself in an especial way to later writers, and that, for the same reason, the stamp of its religious thought was transferred to other literature. Clearly the standard of life and doctrine, reflected in 'the book of the law,' was adopted as the truest utterance of the Spirit of Jehovah. It is a noteworthy phenomenon in the history of Hebrew literature. we, however, doubt as to the reason? It was because, though even on a small scale, the influence of the written Word, as the revelation of the Divine Will both for the people and for the individual, had for the first time made itself felt.

Can

Of the influence, exerted upon religious thought by this first instalment of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture, we are able to form some judgment from writings which were either actually composed, or compiled and edited, in the century following upon the discovery of 'the

book of the law,' and were afterwards admitted into the CHAP. III. Canon of Scripture.

The two most conspicuous examples are supplied by

the prophecies of Jeremiah and the Books of Kings.

miah.

Jeremiah's call to the ministry of prophecy took place Influence five years before the discovery of the book of the law upon Jere (Jer. i. 2). He was one, probably, of a small but devoted number, who recognised in this book a pledge of spiritual hope, and joined himself heartily to the efforts of religious revival on the basis of the newly-discovered, prophetic, and popular formulation of the law.

tions from

Jeremiah is an author who places himself freely under obligations to other writers. In his extant prophecies he frequently makes allusions to incidents recorded in the Pentateuch, without, however, directly citing from materials incorporated in our Pentateuch. It is the more noticeable, therefore, that such quotations as he undoubtedly derives from the Pentateuch are all to be Jer's quotafound in Deuteronomy, e.g.:-iv. 4 from Deut. x. 16 Deut. (xxx. 6); v. 15, 17 from Deut. xxviii. 31, 49; xi. 4 from Deut. iv. 20; xi. 8 from Deut. xxix. 14, 19. It will be remarked, that he does not introduce these quotations with the formula of citation from a sacred book. But this is perhaps not surprising in the early days of the recognition of a sacred book. The time had not yet come to rely upon the authority of a quotation. The prophet was still the living oracle.

tion of

Jeremiah's testimony, in certain other respects, is full His recogni of importance. He refers not only to the existence of written law. 'the law,' but to the danger of its being perverted by the recklessness or by the wilful malice of the scribes (ch. viii. 8): 'How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? But behold the false pen of the

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