plicable, as is seen by the numerous unsuccessful attempts of commentators to explain it. It is clear from these verses that the name God's Rest, into which believers enter, comes from his ceasing to create, not from man's temporal or even spiritual rest in Canaan. We should expect God's condition or course of action to be named from his own acts, not man's; and it is fit that a universal thing should be named from a universal, not a local, circum stance. 66 It is said in the fourth and fifth verses, "He (God or the Holy Ghost) says in a certain place," i. e., in Genesis, “God rested the seventh day," and in this place again (i. e., in the psalm), "If they shall enter into my rest." The object of bringing together these two passages which speak of rest is obviously to confirm what had before appeared, the identity of the rests. 'Again" shows that the same thing is spoken of that had been spoken of before. As if he had said, "He spoke of the rest in Genesis, and spoke of it agait. in the psalm." The passage in Genesis is not attributed to any human author, but, like the psalm, directly to God or the Holy Ghost. From this we should expect that it might contain something above the knowledge or even conception of the writer, or any one else for many generations to come. After resuming the thread of his discourse in verse sixth, the writer interrupts himself in verse seventh to say something more about the day. "Again he limiteth a certain day," saying in David, " To-day," after so long a time, "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." The way the writer breaks in upon his general subject shows that his object is to explain or confirm something said before and dropped before it was fully disposed of. This explanation is about a certain limited, definite day, the day before spoken of. We may paraphrase thus: Besides specifying in Genesis the day when God rested, the Holy Ghost limits or specifies the same day in David, calling it "to-day" with God, still continuing after so long a time, as from Adam to David. To-day Day means time, as "day of the provocation." means the present time. God's to-day, his present time, here "limited" or defined, is his seventh day, his day of rest, his day of giving grace, extending throughout the human period of the world. Man's to-day is his day of receiving grace, of entering God's rest, extending at farthest through his individual lifetime. It is very likely that David did not understand this, but the real author, the Holy Ghost, did. In the eighth verse it is implied that Joshua did not give Israel rest; that is, the rest he did give was not the rest now under consideration. If he had given it, it would have been exhausted, and the Holy Ghost would not afterward have spoken of "another day" when it was still unexhausted. There is no indication that the word "day" was used in giving the promise to ancient Israel; but the expression "another day" refers back to some occasion when it was used. That occasion is pointed out in the fourth verse. God created the earth in six days, and on the seventh he occupied it for the purposes for which he had created it. His natural government extends from the first act of creation till the end of time; his spiritual government over the human family from the last act of creation till the end of time. It is this which is called his rest. And it continues on during or throughout his seventh day. "He rested on the seventh day."* He blessed the seventh day, "because that in it he rested," not "had rested," as A. V. "In six days the Lord made" all things, "and rested the seventh day." "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed."§ If the preposition translated "in" or "on" in these passages means throughout or during the six days, it must mean the same thing when applied to the associated event in the same sentence. As God blessed the entire seventh day he rests the entire seventh day. The fourth commandment represents God and man as both working throughout six days; man's rest was to be throughout the seventh day; and the parallel requires us to understand that God's rest was also throughout or co-extensive with his seventh day. To rest is not merely to stop, but to take refreshment after stopping. "God rested and WAS REFRESHED."| It is not a mere point, but continuous occupation. The day was blessed on account of the | Ex. xxxi: 17. * Gen. ii: 2. † Gen. ii: 3. Ex. xx: II. rest, which shows that the rest was a holy state. The rest is not longer than the day, nor the day longer than the rest. The day during which God rested has generally been understood to be one of twenty-four hours. But if so, it seems strange to represent the rest of that day as peculiar when God has rested in the same manner every day since. And if that is the meaning of day there, his rest in different parts of the earth, if simultaneous, was at different hours of the day in all the different degrees of longitude. And such a day is not of the same kind as the preceding six of the same series with which it is consecutively numbered. As God's rest spoken of in Hebrews evidently extends throughout the human period till the end of time, and the rest of the seventh day is the same rest, we infer that the seventh day extends throughout the human period. The name rest was doubtless given to God's present holy occupation from his ceasing to create. The name does not describe the thing, but one of its landmarks or boundaries. So a document is often named from its first word or from the indentations at the top of the parchment on which it is written. On our theory the reason annexed to the fourth commandment becomes plain. Man during his seventh day is to desist from his own pursuits, and devote himself entirely to those of God's seventh day-contemplation of the Divine perfections, making them known among mankind, and increasing holiness in the world. Man's rest of the Sabbath is not merely like God's, not mere imitation or commemoration, but participation. A comparison of the account of the formation of the earth found in God's Word with that found in his works gives good reason to believe that the six days of creation were indefinitely long periods. If this was certain, it would make it all. but certain that the seventh day is a long period, for it is called by the same name, placed in the same series, and numbered consecutively with the others, and thus recognized as being the same kind of day that they are. If God's rest in Genesis means a divine Sabbath-keeping, it must continue throughout this day. And as the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of a divine rest or Sabbath-keeping in which believers partake, it must be the same as that in Genesis, or else there would be two rests of the same kind, of the same name, and of the same person. Again, if it was certain from the discussion in Hebrews, and what is said in the Old Testament, that God's seventh day extends throughout the human period of the world, then it would be all but certain that the preceding six days were also long periods. Whatever probability there is that the six days were long periods, there is therefore like probability that the seventh is also a long period, and vice versa. The grounds of these probabilities being entirely independent and different in kind from each other, we are entitled to the aggregate weight of all in favor of either conclusion. Whatever weight may be accorded to our arguments in favor of our separate subordinate propositions, and whatever weight may be allowed to those propositions as arguments for our main conclusion, should not simply be added, but multiplied together. A great number of even slight probabilities, all pointing the same way, tending to establish conclusions which, when put together, fit each other and form a symmetrical whole, and that whole in entire harmony with what we otherwise know, may have all together almost the force of certainty. Art. V. WHO WROTE THE EPISTLE OF JAMES? By REV. SAMUEL DODD, Hangchow, China. WE learn from the four lists of names (Matt. x: 2-4; Mark iii: 16-19; Luke vi: 14-16; Acts 1:13) that there were two Jameses among the apostles, viz., James of Zebedee and brother of John, and James of Alpheus; and that, besides Judas Iscariot, there was a Judas of James. We learn also (Matt. xiii: 55, Mark. vi: 3) that, in the opinion of the people, our Lord had four brothers, and at least two or three sisters; they are not only called his brothers and sisters by the people, but by the sacred writers as well. In New Testament usage, as with us, "brother " may be a son of the same parents, or almost any near relation, natural or moral. Neighbors, friends, associates, fellow-Christians, fellow-laborers, and fellow-ministers are all called brothers sometimes. Among the brothers of our Lord there was one named James and another Judas. After the death of James of Zebedee, as reported Acts xii: 2, a James is still found among the apostles—no longer, however, as James of Alpheus, but, the necessity for the distinguishing title having ceased, as James simply. We learn (Acts ix) that when Paul visited Jerusalem the first time after his conversion, the disciples, as a class, were afraid of him; but Barnabas took him and introduced him to the apostles. Paul himself, speaking of this first meeting with the apostles, tells us (Gal. i: 19) that he saw only Peter, and no other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother; so the apostles to whom the recent convert Saul was introduced by Barnabas were Peter and James. Death not yet having entered the ranks of the apostles, Paul tells us that the James whom he saw at that time was the "Lord's brother," thus distinguishing him from the other James of Zebedee. This (Gal. i:19) is the last time the phrase "Lord's brother" is found in the New Testament. Of the various visits which Paul made to Jerusalem after his conversion, the chronological order of no one can be placed more definitely beyond dispute than that of the first, and this is the visit which of all others is of special importance in enabling us to answer the question at the head of this paper. Luke (Acts ix: 26) tells us that when Saul essayed to join himself to the disciples at Jerusalem they were afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple. "But Barnabas brought him to the apostles," after which he was recognized by them as a Christian teacher. The fear on the part of the disciples, shared probably by the apostles, could only have taken place at his first visit, and at no subsequent one; and when the apostle Paul is showing (Gal. i.) his independence of all human instrumentality, whether apostolic or other, in his calling to the apostleship he shows that he had been preaching the gospel for three years or so before he ever went near Jerusalem-language that he could not have used had he made a previous visit-and that even then he only saw Peter, and no other of the apostles except James. It is true that the language used by the apostle Paul would not prove that James was an apostle; but neither would it prove the contrary. It is such as he would have used whether James was or was not an apostle, |