between ultimate facts given and materials of truth to be utilized are preserved in that which comes to us through the medium of a book.

We have assumed that the method of nature would lead us to expect in a later revelation the deposit of some ultimate facts or fundamental truths which would stand out with clearness. This expectation is fulfilled in the revelations of the Bible. Let us specify some of them. There is one God. He is holy, but he loves men. He is just, but he is merciful. His laws are inexorable, but he forgives. He is infinite, but he can and does dwell in the human spirit. Complementary to these we have certain ultimate facts with regard to man. He is made in the image of God. But he has not yet realized all that is included in these words. He is in many respects the moral contradiction of the ideal man. It is the great end of his existence to attain to this ideal. He can and ought to realize it, but he cannot. He can do nothing without the coöperation of the Spirit of God. The Spirit has worked with man in the past though he knew it not. God has now made man his conscious associate. If man wills to enter into this relationship his sins may be forgiven, his disabilities may be overcome, and the goal of life may be reached.

I do not assume to have exhausted the list of ultimate facts, but the above are sufficient to illustrate what I mean by the clearness of the positions of Scripture, and by their sufficiency as a basis for action on the part of man. They equally illustrate the second part of our hypothesis. That is, they are not readily harmonized. They contain elements of contradiction, which, all through the ages, have exercised severely the speculative and moral reason of man. They have successfully drawn the imagination, man's creative faculty, into realms transcending sight, and at the same time they have made it possible for him to dwell and work in these regions without utterly losing his way. As speculation in other departments is continually called back to start afresh from the necessary postulates of thought, so here we have secure outposts from which to take anew our departure when involved in difficulties.

What, now, do we find as to the Scriptural environment of these ultimate truths? First, it is of a most varied nature. All the literary forms in which the thought of man has been cast are represented. We have history, poetry, prophecy, hymns, prayers, addresses, proverbs, allegories, teaching of the most simple kind, transcendental philosophy. Its appeals are made from many

points of view and adjusted to the ever-varying emotions of man. It argues, it illustrates, it persuades, it commands, it threatens, it entices. It comes to us through men of great diversity of character and temperament. Secondly, because of this variety, there are many things in it difficult to be understood. As related to the great spiritual facts with which it is associated this environment is just what the materials of the external revelation given in nature are to the ultimate data of thought given in consciousness. Every part of nature is fitted to throw some light upon its great problems, but the many rays from different centres so cross and intersect each other, that the first effect is to render our views confused and hard to reconcile. Just so the setting in which we find the great truths of Scripture is certainly calculated to throw light upon them; but, just as in nature, the light comes from so many points that the first effect of the effort to combine these is not the simplification but rather the complication of the problems before us. All that can be affirmed as to the deceitful nature of the testimony which we receive from the external world through our organs of sense may be as truly affirmed of that which comes to us from the Bible, when considered as a book every part of which has an equally direct bearing on the reader. And the amount of thought which has been expended for the attainment of a perception of unity in the Bible has probably been equal to that expended in any department of the physical sciences for the achievement of a like result. The conception, moreover, upon which we mainly rely to justify our claim as to unity of plan in the Bible is just that which underlies the hypothesis of evolution; though, as regards the Scripture, it has had an independent origin, growing out of the patient study of the facts and methods of the book itself.

We find the same God in the events of the Old Testament history that we find in the lofty conceptions of the prophets and in the fuller revelation of Christ, because we recognize the principle of a constantly varying response to a constantly varying environment. And, further, because we perceive all through this history of a revelation two motives at work which, while constantly reacting upon and antagonizing each other, yet conduce to progress. There is that response to environment on the part of the great Educator that meets the present want; there is also a response which has a tendency to change the want by elevating it. There is teaching adjusted to existing low conceptions and narrowness of view; there is also teaching adjusted to the higher possible

soul that is to be. In a general way, the priestly element, conducing to permanency of type, embodies the one; the prophetic element, productive of variation and progress, voices the other. All through the course of this history individuals, far in advance of their time, anticipate the more highly evolved type of spirituality that is to emerge in the fullness of time; and the lofty utterances that come from the prophets presage the decay and disappearance of forms and conceptions that have only subserved the necessities of infancy.

But does an evolution in the Bible afford any ground for expecting an evolution beyond it? Is not this very phrase, the "fullness of time," an indication that the course of progressive revelation was completed in Christ and his apostles? For an answer to this question we must investigate not only the later revelation, but also the characteristics of the society to which it came. The phrase "fullness of time" may as legitimately refer to one important epoch in the course of evolution as to an assumed termination of it. If to a termination, we should expect to find a society of an advanced and homogeneous spiritual development, and adjusted to this a revelation calculated to subserve not so much the ends of progress as of stability. The forms of it would be exact, the depositories of it would be carefully guarded. Its doctrines would be systematized. It would give men developed, harmonized truth, rather than germs of truth that should expand in the growing life of progressive souls. In such a revelation we should expect to find only one of the two motives which work together and offset each other in the Old Testament. The prophetic element would be wanting.

It will not, I think, be difficult to show that our Saviour was both priest and prophet. Indeed, when we look for evidence of this, the prophetic, uplifting, disturbing element is at first sight far more apparent than the restful ministration to present wants. For evidence of the latter we may refer to the miracles, which as signs and wonders were calculated to gain immediate acceptance for spiritual truths; and we may remind ourselves that "He had compassion" on the people and taught them "many things" that were not recorded. But in the great body of his recorded teachings we recognize the prophet speaking in the language of metaphor and hyperbole, scattering seeds of truth that were to develop with the developing kingdom of heaven. He was a perpetual enigma to those who surrounded him. Though He came for the purpose of saving men by instructing them, and though He no

where contemplates a salvation that works otherwise than through the conscious apprehension and appropriation of spiritual truth, He addressed himself to the generation that received him in riddles.

Whether we take such a public discourse as the Sermon on the Mount or his private conversations, it is still the same. To all his auditors He seems to be saying, "Go thou and learn what that meaneth." His benedictions are startling. "Blessed are the poor." "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst." "Blessed are they that mourn." He lays down principles and illustrates them with concrete examples; but often the illustrations are as hard to understand as the principles. Laws of conduct are given without modification, and in such absolute, extreme forms as to make them seem the contradiction of reason. "Take no thought for the morrow." "Resist not evil." And the amazement of his hearers was probably in no wise lessened when He illustrated the first precept by an allusion to the lilies that "toil not, neither do they spin," and the other by the special injunction, “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Christianity as developed has taken neither of these commands literally. It has looked for truths underlying them that could find expression in and through the organization of society on a rational basis.

In some cases, where we might be tempted to insist on a literal interpretation, we are debarred from such an error by a counter utterance which obliges us to rise above the letter to a higher conception. "Whosoever will confess me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven." And, on the other hand, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' That construction of Christ's method which, in the phrase of an eminent critic, defines its leading characteristic as "sweet reasonableness "1 seems the purest irony when applied of the conversations of Christ with those who gave Him a

to any

puzzled attention.

Let us take two instances, in both of which men who had been roused by the contemplation of his miracles sought a further knowledge of Him. Soon after the feeding of the five thousand an expectant audience of the common people surrounded Him, in

1 Literature and Dogma.

tent on loaves and fishes. He does not descend to their level, but discourses in a realm so beyond their present comprehension as to be like a foreign language to them. They try to put a meaning into his words by a reference to the bread from heaven which Moses gave; but this is not the clew. He tells them that Moses gave them not the true bread from heaven, "for the bread of God is he that cometh down from heaven and giveth light unto the world." They are not yet discouraged, but answer, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." But a harder saying is to follow: "I am the bread of life." Can we wonder when we read, "The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven." Or, further on, when He added, “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world," that the Jews strove among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Or, still further, when He said, "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him," can we regard it as strange that many of his disciples said, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" Or, as the result of this conversation, that "many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him?"

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The interview with Nicodemus gives us an example of the method of the great Teacher with an educated, thoughtful, sincere inquirer. Nicodemus approaches Christ with the fullest recognition of his ability to instruct him, and of the divine character of his mission. How does Christ receive him? Does He begin to explain himself to the Jewish ruler? Does He unfold systematically the plan of salvation and indicate his personal relation to the prophecies of the Old Testament? On the contrary, without preface, He utters a truth which mystifies the inquirer as he was never mystified before. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus is staggered, but the Teacher simply adds, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." The result of the interview is just what we might expect. The inquirer goes away not satisfied, not restful, with doubts dissipated and the spirit of inquiry narcotized. He goes dazed and perplexed, saying to himself, "How can these things be?"

It is needless to specify further. "Without a parable spake he not unto them." To his disciples, it is true, He explained, to some extent, the meaning of his parables, and instructed them as