1 faculties exist for the acquisition of know- own finite nature: some mental law, of which we can give no account, compels us to refer these to a Being immeasurably beyond us these perfections of which we are The most cursory reader of the New Tes- conscious in ourselves we strive to magnify tament is aware that the eternal interest of to infinity, and, uniting them in a single suman is suspended by the Author of Chris- preme intelligence, assign to him the adoratianity and his apostles on the realization of ble name of GOD. The idea of God, then, is a single condition. It is the perpetual and that of a Being superior to all created nauniform teaching of the gospel that its bless-tures, and who is humanly represented, when ings are appropriated and made personal by faith alone. Through the instrumentality of this principle, or grace, or act, the subject of divine mercy is said to inherit the pro mises of revelation. All the views of Christian faith which have ever been maintained may be distributed among great classes. There are those who resolve it into a pure speculative belief in the truth of the gospel narrative; others, from a dread of the immoral tendency of such an opinion, use the word as including obedience-a view which has no scriptural support, faith and holiness being always represented as distinct though connected; a third class of teachers tell us that the term denotes an act for which a specific faculty is provided by the Holy Spirit, and to which, accordingly, no natural mind is at all competent. Of these three views the first is that held by the advocates of the Roman church; the second has been maintained by many patrons of Anglican theology; the last belongs to that system termed mysticism, which resolves all religion into feeling, and regards divine truth as self-witnessing. All these views we cannot help regarding as isolated or partial. No candid interpreter of scripture can fail to see that the genuine grace, so far from excluding, in some sense involves them all. The man, who feels, however vaguely or obscurely, that he is dependent on God, will submit his will and reason to the suggestions and guidance of a Supreme Being, while knowing the responsibility which attaches to the possession of such faculties he will scruple to relax them for a moment in searching after and appreciating the truths of religion. all the faculties and feelings of man are har moniously exercised upon him as their ob ject. A moral and spiritual nature must obviously, as coming originally from God, present the most appropriate and correct image of his perfections. What is the whole universe, with its innumerable and diversified objects and mazes, but a copy to sensi tive and reflective agents of the absolute cause to which their origination is due? Now it may, without risk of contradiction, be asserted that the only knowledge of God which can be available for the moral restoration of man is that which his word conveys. I repeat it, the scriptures of God enable us to frame a conception of him which surpasses, in clearness, in completeness, and in certainty, the noblest and hap piest essays of uninspired reason. God, it may be allowed, has deposited in our reason a testimonial of his existence. "The heavens declare his glory:" "The invisible things of him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made:" the human conscience in unfettered action reflects the law of God. One competent to decipher the characters inscribed on the worlds of matter and spirit may there read of infinite holiness, justice, and goodness as the power which directs their revolutions. But what state of the faculties do such deductions as these suppose ? and after they have been made what is their amount? Is the average mind competent to them? Do they not presume a degree of mental culti vation impossible of attainment to the generality? And, then, when the mind has gained this knowledge, how much is there in the world around which seems to ignore it!-a Supreme Being on the one hand, a I now turn from the question which world created by him yet abounding with respects the nature and dignity of gospel imperfection; holiness, manifest indeed, faith to a consideration of the object of this but a holiness eclipsed by evil; infinite jusexalted principle. We have assumed in our tice, yet virtue often depressed or discounprevious remarks a knowledge of God, and tenanced, and vice triumphant; absolute as involved in such knowledge a recognition goodness, and yet a world which love of his character. Now what is the highest prompted to create, qualified by sickness, conception which we can frame of the divine pain, and death. Whither, then, shall the Being? God, we reply, is, according to re-advocate of natural reason take refuge in velation, the impersonation of absolute goodness, justice, and holiness. We are conscious of certain moral excellences in our the midst of such perplexity? What arti fice shall avail to reconcile this disparity? How can God be absolutely perfect if the world he made abounds with evil? Now, though I do not undertake to say that reason, if its intimations were attended to, could not pronounce the absolute excellence of God; yet I am fully persuaded that no man, by the unaided exercise of his faculties, was ever able to arrive at this conclusion, much less present in words to others the course of thought he pursued. Certain knowledge of the unmingled excellence of the divine nature we may derive from the bible, and can derive, I would venture to say, from no other source. Such, then, being the character of God and his relation to the world, that the virtuous and holy may anticipate some visible attestation of his favour under the form of recompence is a natural and, we deem, an natural and, we deem, an easy inference. Those who believe that God exists (understanding by the name not merely a superior Being, but the Supreme) must, as implied in this truth, believe also that he is * a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." An absolutely-holy Being must, from the necessity involved in his character, design for his moral and intelligent creatures (of whom alone virtue can be attributed) an assimilation to himself. A course of earnest and persevering goodness may, as a reflex (faint no doubt, but real) of the divine life, calculate on adequate inevitable reward. For what is holiness but the imitation of God-resemblance to a Being who is himself the source of all goodness? and this, flowing as it must from a conviction of the essential goodness of the Deity, and therefore the ultimate triumph of virtue over opposing corruption, may be said implicitly to contain the rudiments of eternal happiness. Where the character of God is clearly recognized, and the obligation to obedience arising from our moral relation to him correspondently felt, there genuine "faith" in the revealed character of Jehovah exists, and not except there. It has been objected to the gospel, as an instrument of moral restoration, that it stimulates man to a course of active virtue by the prospect of eternal reward. But, surely, those who urge such an objection know not what they mean. That our restoration to divine favour is gratuitous-in other words, that a sinful creature can never deserve pardon-is indeed the explicit and reiterated affirmation of scripture; and we can, in some degree, understand why it should be so. But that a course of action, which is the product of principles which recognize God as the origin of all excellence and the legitimate object of all worship, should not exclude such attestations of his approval as may be termed reward, is evident on the most cursory inspection of scripture. itself. Our Lord himself declares "eternal life" to be the promised recompence of those who have "done good." His apostle asserts that "in the day of his power"-the last day, as we emphatically call it God shall "render glory, honour, and immortality" to them that "work good;" and, again, that God shall "reward every man according to his works." The "reward" of the gospel is retributive in its relation to virtue. The language of inspiration is framed on the supposition of a substantial identity of the moral states on this side and beyond the grave. Holiness shall be manifested hereafter in happiness-vice in misery. The "life that is to come" shall be for the holy and profane respectively; but new developments, grander aspects, and more awful anterior and lower stages of moral existence; the former being the dawn of a happiness that is yet, ascending in growing holiness, to culminate in noontide glory; the latter the initial but voluntarily-determined stage of a misery whose midnight (yet to come) no human faculty can perceive or penetrate. "The wicked worketh a deceitful work; but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death." My brethren, if this account of the dependence of our future condition on our present be just-that is, if it be scriptural, as I have endeavoured to evince-shall we, knowing from reason and revelation (which is the outcoming of the divine, and in consequence the reality shadowed forth, however dimly, on the human reason) the magnitude and importance of the results connected inherently and necessarily with the character of our earthly life, hesitate to dedicate it to its legitimate aim? The toleration even for one moment of a world of guilt and pain can be explained on one, and only one, supposition that, under the control of God, evil, disastrous as its consequences often are, and perilous as they always must be, is an element in moral discipline, the minister (though a reluctant one) of good, to all who, espous ing his truth, labour to vindicate the cause of God. Our business in this life is to qualify for the next. This is a truth which no sophistry should ever tempt us to obscure or dilute. It is the universal teaching of the New Testament. The final cause of pardon is sanctification. Were the heart hopelessly alienated from God, the tender of forgivewould be a solemn mockery. Christ came to visit us in great humility that he might become not only a sacrifice for sin, but also an ensample of godly life. The incar nate Son "died" that his humble and re- | lation, "there shall be no night there." In 66 pentant followers might "live." We are justified by his death" only that we may be "saved by his life." God grant to all of us, in this scene of time and trial, that measure of grace which shall enable us, rightly using and improving our privileges, to present images of him whose life of spotless purity is the pledge and type of human perfection, that, re-constructing our poor nature on this high model, and assimilated through progressive sanctification to our guiltless Redeemer, we may not fail, "when he shall appear," to recognize in his divine lineaments those of an immortal friend, the Author to his faith-earth, and the accuser is overcome by the blood ful people of pardon, purification, and glory! stead of an earth without form and void, there is a heavenly city, of whose measure and mateBuilder and Maker is God. The tree of life in rials and foundations and gates and walls the the midst of the garden is the earthly shadow of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden foreshadows the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In Genesis the serpent enters Eden, and deceives the woman, and defiles the fountain of human life: in the Revelation the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, is cast out into the ILLUSTRATIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. No. XLIX. "Bless'd book, 'tis thine to save from black despair, O'er life's wild waves sustain me by thy power, Reposing on thy page I fear no ill: Me doth my God with thy sweet music cheer; While through the veil thou showest Jesus near, In life and death my joy and glory still." G. E. SMITH. ONENESS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.-That wonderful book which we call the bible is not a mere miscellany, not an accumulation of pamphlets by various authors promiscuously bound together. A tree has many branches, but it is one tree: the bible is like that tree. A man has many members, but the man is an organic whole: the bible, like that man, is an organism composed of many members. As branches and leaves spring from the root of the tree, as all the human race are but a manifold development of Adam, so all the later books spring out of Genesis. As the oak is in the acorn, and as "the child is father of the man," so is there in Genesis the germ of all that was written after, by holy men of old, moved by the Holy Ghost. Genesis is clearly the alpha and the Revelation as surely the omega of the bible. From the time described in the opening of Genesis, when "the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," the bible leads us onward through the creation and the fall and the redemption of man to "a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.' The primeval darkness described in Genesis passes away, and the true light shineth; for, says the Reve *Heb. vi. 12-20. : of the Lamb. In Genesis it is promised that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head in the Revelation the great red dragon stands before the woman was ready to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born; and the man-child was caught up to God, and to his throne. In Genesis the first human pair, because of disobedience, are driven out of the garden, which is barred to them by cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life: the Revelation closes with, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." In Genesis man learns, through sin, that he is naked: in the Revelation he is clothed in fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints. EDOM ITS HATRED OF ISRAEL.-"It seems likely, from Amos i. 6, 9, that Edom's perpetual hatred (Ezek. xxxv. 5) of Israel was notorious, since it was into their power Philistia and Tyre delivered the children of Israel. But their revengeful spirit (Ezek. xxv. 12) reached a terrible climax when they rejoiced at the 'desolation' of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezek. xxxv. 15). It is here that around the name of Edom the darkest shadows gather. Their envy (Ezek. xxv. 3, 11), blasphemies (ver. 12), fierceness (Jer. xlix. 66), pride (Obad. 3), violence, and corrupting their compassions (Amos i. 11, and margin); their being hirelings to the king of Babyfon to carry Israel away (Obad. 11), their appointing Judah for a possession (Ezek. xxxvi. 5), their laying hands on their substance (Obad. 13), their staying in the causeway to cut off the escaped of Jacob (ver. 14), their being amongst those who drank out of the sacred vessels, probably when the king of Babylon desecrated them (ver. 16; 2 Chron. vi. 10; Jer. lii. 19; Dan. v. 1-3), and their debauch on the holy mountain-all these details of the crowning act of Edom's sin are noticed by the prophets, not without laying emphasis on their brotherhood. Remember, O Lord,' says the psalmist, the children of Edom, who said, Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof' (Psal. cxxxvii. 7). It was no marvel, therefore, that they were the first mentioned of those nations to whom yokes were to be sent by Jeremiah as a symbolism of their captivity by the king of Babylon (Jer. xxvii. 3), and that Jehovah should swear by himself that Bozrah should become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, a curse (xlix. 13), that no man should abide there (ver. 18). Accordingly, soon after this captivity, the last prophet of the Old Testament informs us of the desolation as a fact already accomplished and known. Recording Jehovah's own words, he says, 'I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness' (Mal. i. 2-4). And from Strabo downwards the writers of profane history have corroborated the prophet's statement. Judas Maccabæus afterwards subdued the Edomites. But their old enmity revived in the person of Herod, in his diabolical massacre of the Jewish 'innocents,' in attempting the destruction of the infant Saviour. St. Paul, too, suffered persecution under the Idumæan Aretas (2 Cor. xi. 32); and, when the Roman army pillaged the temple, the Edomites murdered its guards. Considering how Mohammedanism took its rise in the heart of Idumæa, and how the successors of the false prophet are in possession of the holy city, we must feel that the history which we have been reviewing plainly shows that their whole policy was well anticipated in the words, 'by thy sword shalt thou live' (Gen. xxvii. 40), and that no nation could have been singled out to typify the enemies of Christ and his people with more propriety than Edom" (Parnell). MOSES.-"The Spirit of Christ dwelt in him. Look at Moses' monument. When a great man dies, there is a grand monument erected to him, with a long inscription on it. Moses had nothing of this: where is his monument? In the bible; and the inscription is short-Moses, the servant of the Lord' (Deut. xxxiv. 5; Josh. i. 1, 2; Numb. xii. 7, 8). What an honourable title! It is one given to Christ himself (Isai. xlii. 1). We read in the bible of many who served God; but Moses is distinguished above all as God's servant. Why? Because of his devotion (1st) to the glory of God. We never find him seeking his own glory: after the escape from Pharaoh, after the rout of Amalek, he gives the glory to God (Exod. xv. 1, xvii. 15). He did not seek to keep the first place as God's prophet (Numb. xi. 29: see lesson on Moses and his Helpers'). And remember what courage his devotion gave him (see lesson on 'Golden Calf'). (2nd) To the welfare of Israel. Remember his intercession for the people, his forgetfulness of self (Exod. xxxii. 10; Numb. xiv. 12). This was the spirit of Christ-John viii. 50" ("Church Sunday-school Magazine"). THE TOMB OF RACHEL.-Mr. James Brooks, in a letter from the Holy Land, says: "Upon my return to Bethlehem, I rode to the tomb of Rachel, a small building with a whitened dome, and having within it a high oblong monument, built of brick and stuccoed over. This spot is wild and solitary; and not a tree spreads its shadow where rests the beautiful mother of Israel. Christian, Jew, and Moslem all agree this is just the spot where Rachel was buried, and all unite in honouring it. The Turks are anxious that their ashes may rest near hers; and hence their bodies have been strewn under tombs all around the tomb of Rachel. The sweet domestic virtues of the wife have won their love and admiration, as the tomb of Absa lom, near the brook of Kedron their detestation. Upon the latter they throw a stone to mark their horror of the disobedient son, while around the former they wish, when they die, their bodies may be interred. Nor is this wonderful. The wife worth fourteen years' service as shepherd must have been a wife worth having. The whole life of Rachel is, indeed, one of the most touching in biblical history. The sweet shepherdess has left her mark upon the memory of men as well as her tomb. The tribute to her is a tribute to a good wife; and infidel, Jew, and Christian all combine to pay it. The great women of the earth, the Zenobias and Cleopatras, have died, been buried, and their very places of burial have been forgotten: to this day stands ever the grave of Rachel, not the pillar Jacob set up, but a modern monument in its place, around which pilgrims from every land under the sun gather in respect and reverence for the faithful wife and good mother of Israel." THE CEDAR OF LEBANON.-We must not overlook entirely, in our cursory survey of the subject, the tablets of cedar mentioned by Vitruvius. These consisted of wax tabulæ, that were written upon with a stylus, and which were furnished with timber backs and raised mouldings on the front edge, composed either of citron or of cedar. The word tablets used by the prophet Isaiah (iii. 22) signifies perfumeboxes. In Hebrew it is literally "Houses of the soul or breath." Many eastern women still wear an ornament composed of cedar, resembling a house or temple, containing a small image, obviously a symbol at once of purity and of devotion. There are other woods, such as Spanish mahogany and walnut, which are more beautiful in their colour. There are some, too, such as rose-wood and sandal-wood, which are possessed of a stronger fragrance and a more agreeable perfume. But no other tree carries back our associations to the time when Solomon, in all his glory, ruled the destinies of Israel; and no other was thought fit to be applied to the sacred purposes of the temple altar and the covering of the cherubim. Cedar timber, thus so lavishly used by David and Solomon in their buildings, was also, we read, used in the second temple rebuilt under Zerubbabel. The timber employed was cedar frem Lebanon. Cedar is also said by Josephus to have been used by Herod in constructing the roof of his temple. And the roof of the rotunda of the church of the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem is said to have been of cedar, and that of the church of the Virgin at Bethlehem to have been of cedar or cypress. Nor was the use of this famous tree always confined to the purposes of housebuilding: it was sometimes employed, we are told, even in ship-building. The prophet Ezekiel tells us (xxvii. 5), in that valuable historical account of the ancient Phoenician commercethen at the period of its greatest prosperity (B.c. 600)—that the Tyrian ship-builders constructed their ship-boards of the fir trees of Senir, and their masts of the cedars of Lebanon. It should always be remembered, however, in speaking of the cedars of Lebanon used in building by the ancient Jews (particu. larly when beams, pillars, or ceiling boards are mentioned) that it is extremely probable the wood of more than one tree was employed. The generic name, indeed, of the tree was used. But under that name (Pinus cedrus) were also (as Dr. Boyle has shown) comprehended the Cedrus deodora, the yew (Tasus Baccata ?), and the Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris). The latter tree might have furnished the material of the ships' masts mentioned by Ezekiel, which recent commentators consider was the case. THANKSGIVING FOR FOOD.-"Every furrow in our fields is loaded with evidence of a divine power; and not 'five thousand' only, but millions of millions, to whom God gives meat in due season, are sustained by Omnipotence, and not one of them ever feeds at less expense than that of wonder, nay, of an infinite train of wonders.... But the creatures are his, and therefore to be received with thanksgiving: this our Saviour performed with great seriousness and zeal, thus teaching us, when 'looking up to heaven, that the eyes of all' ought, in the most literal sense, to wait' upon that Lord 'who gives them their meat in due season." A secret sense of God's goodness is by no means enough. Men should make solemn and outward expressions of it, when they receive his creatures for their support; a service and homage not only due to him, but profitable to themselves" (Dean Stanhope), THE SKIN BIBLE.-"Written between 1,400 and 400 years before the birth of Christ (Exod. xxiv. 4). Its writers: Moses, Samuel, and the Prophets. Its materials: Skins of clean beasts, parchments, &c. Its shape: A roll (Jer. xxxvi. 4, &c.; Psal. xl. 7). Its language: Hebrew, Chaldee. Its loss and discovery under the money (2 Kings xxii. 8-11). Its wrong: Cut in pieces, and the pieces burned; but the Lord renewed what was burned and punished the destroyer (see Psal. xii. 6, 7; Jer. xxxvi. 22, 32). Its truth and preciousness magnified by the fulfilment of its words (Acts iii. 18; Josh. xxiii. 14). Its translation into Greek, called the Septuagint, or writing of 70,' begun about 277 B.C. The third and most excellent manner in which the word of God was revealed and written, was in a bodily form, which we therefore call "The incarnate bible, or the Word made flesh,' A.D. 1 (John i. 14). Its author: The Holy Spirit (Luke i. 35). Its subject: Salvation (Luke ii. 30). Its publication: In a manger (Luke ii. 10-12); on a cross (Heb. i. 2, 3); by piety (Gal. ii. 20); by preaching (Acts iv. 10-12); in glory (Rev. vii. 9, 10). Its lettering: I.N.R.I. (John xix. 19). This book was lettered in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In Hebrew for the Jews, because Christ was King of all believers; in Greek for the philosophers, because Christ was King of all wisdom; and in Latin for the Romans, because Christ was King of all power. Its binding: Linen dyed in blood (Rev. xix. 1113). Inspired books relating to its history and famous victories over death and hell, began with St. Matthew's gospel, A.D. 40, and were finished by the Revelation of St. John A.D. 96" (G. E. Smith). H. S. WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE*. BY THE VEN. H. MACKENZIE, M.A., Archdeacon of Nottingham, and Sub-dean of Lincoln, MIRIAM, THE SISTER OF MOSES. IN considering the history of Miriam we may say a word about her mother: not that the history of Jochebed is prominent in the bible, for her name is mentioned only twice (Exod. vi. 20; Numb. xxvi. 59), but because the first time we see her brought definitely under our notice it is in an unusually-striking position-a position in which every mother must sympathize. The people of Israel were at this time living in a strange land-the land of Egypt-and the king of this country had become alarmed at the rapid increase of these people: he therefore gave orders that every male child should be killed as soon as it was born. Fancy the sorrow, the misery of the Hebrew mothers! Well, one of them let her maternal love overcome her fear of the tyrantking, and for three months she hid her precious child from the eyes of his agents: this mother was Jochebed, the mother of Moses; and how do we first see her? She is hidden behind the tall rushes that spring up in rank luxuriance by the banks of the Nile, watching her beautiful baby-boy of three months old who is exposed in a wattled cradle of rushes close by the river's bank. We may believe she has placed it at that spot on purpose, because she knows it to be a favourite bathing-place of the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Certainly, while the child is there, the princess comes down, and has her interest arrested by the beauty and by the tears of the infant. As certainly, just at the time the princess is thinking what she can do with the child, his sister (Miriam) comes forward and suggests that she shall go and seek a nurse for it; and, when the princess agrees to this, she goes and calls Jochebed, the mother of both of them, who is no great distance from them, and is probably secretly watching them all the time. So it comes to pass that the mother nurses her own child, and is spared not only to see it preserved from Pharaoh's cruel edict, that would have destroyed all the male children of the Jews, but to know that it will be royally provided for. Now as this is all that scripture teaches about Jochebed, except her name and her relationship to her husband [the words translated "father's sister" (Exod. vi. 20) have also been considered to mean "uncle's daughter," in which case she would have been his cousin], we may pass at once to the history of Miriam, the sister of Moses. The name Miriam has more than one meaning: it may mean only "exalted" or "honourable," but more probably means "mistress of the sea" or waters-a name that may have been given her because she, as a girl, did not come * Written to be read by a female teacher at mothers' meetings. |