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Bible Records of Transgressions.

dreadful things were recorded of the ancestors of Christ; that Noah was not the only man who had used strong drink, and Judah and David and Solomon were not the only ones who had. committed crimes against society. They were all picked men, while around and beneath them was a mass of the degraded and corrupt. Those were passed by; while the faults of these men, the ancestors of Christ, were carefully recorded. Then there opened before me a new range of thought. The Romanists have ever tried to get the human nature of Christ as far away from our nature as possible; and, hence, they have taught the immaculate conception of Mary. Not so with the Scriptures. They show that on his human side Jesus was the descendant of ancestors no better than other men; that among those ancestors were those who had been guilty of every vice and crime possible to humanity; that the blood which from the human side coursed through his veins had come down for centuries through the vilest of the vile. Yet in that humanity he had dwelt. He could keep it pure and holy. And that humanity, thus representing the human race, he has exalted to the highest heavens. Then came to me the consoling thought: What if I have hereditary tendencies? What if my nature has been derived from sinning ancestors? That Jesus, who dwelt in a human frame eighteen hundred years ago can dwell in my humanity and can make and keep me pure. Then I thought of His wonderful condescension, and read with new light that passage, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." This view has seemed to bring the Saviour closer to me than ever before. He is the Son of man, and as such He not only knows our weaknesses, but is our great High Priest, that is "touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are, and yet without sin." How logically and how beautifully the exhortation follows: “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." I must leave this, however, for such meditations as the subject naturally suggests. I have used it merely as an illustration of how you

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may use the Bible for yourselves, and what comfort you may derive from even its apparently useless and darkest passages.

The same thought leads me to speak of Peter and Judas. I am not glad that any man ever did wrong; but I am glad that since Peter cursed and swore and denied his Master, it is recorded of him, and that the betrayal of his Master and his terrible end are recorded of Judas. I am glad, because, if Peter, notwithstanding his fall, was received back into his Master's favour, so may I, though an erring disciple, be brought back and employed in my Master's service. The fact that the apostles went forth boldly preaching the Word, notwithstanding the fall of Judas, encourages us to go forward, notwithstanding a brother minister may have fallen by our side. I remember, when a young pastor, how some case of scandal distressed me exceedingly. I feared lest the influence of the Church might be shattered. But when I remembered that, although one in twelve of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen committed such a terrible crime, yet the Church was founded, and fifty days after was increased by three thousand converts, I felt that there could be no danger of the church nowa-days being overthrown by the fall or crime of one of its members.

I believe that there is no part of the Scriptures which may not be profitable to the Christian; that every single part of it was given for our edification. I have no sympathy whatever with that philosophy which finds myths in the Word of God. I do not underrate the value of true criticism. It is exceedingly important to determine the genuineness and authenticity of the text. I appreciate highly the labors of such men as Griesbach and Alford; but when they have determined what the true text is, I accept it as the Word of God.

Adopt no theory of inspiration which diminishes your reverence for the Bible as the work of the Holy Spirit. By whomsoever He speaks, howsoever He speaks, whosesoever language, memory, and imagination He employs, the revelation is all His own. I heard Cardinal Manning once, in London, claim a superiority in this respect for Romanists over Protestants. He said, in substance, that the Protestants dissect the Bible, finding a myth here and an interpolation there, and accept only what

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seemed to be in accordance with their reason. "But," said he, "show me a Catholic priest who shall dare to call in question the authority of a single text, and he shall not be a priest for six hours." The way some of these biblical critics discuss the Bible recalls to my mind a reported saying of President Grant. Some one having mentioned to him that a certain senator, noted for his conceit and egotism, had not much faith in the Bible, his laconic reply was: 'Why should he? He didn't write it." The Bible has this great characteristic: no man is able to comprehend all its truth. Men of different personal peculiarities see such sides of it as are specially applicable to their temperaments and wants. It is true to-day for chronology, tomorrow for history; now for its prophetic imagery, and then for its promises. But, while no man can comprehend the whole, each can find what is amply sufficient for himself. It has something in it for men of all classes and men of all conditions. The preacher reads in the book of the Law, and gets its sense. He translates its Oriental idioms into Western speech; its past tenses into those of the present. He searches its pages to find something for every form of human experience. It is a perpetual fountain from which issues the water of life. It is the armoury from which the Christian soldier is equipped. We are under orders-marching orders. We have received our instructions from the general-in-chief. Shall we not read every line, and study the meaning of every word? There are orders for ourselves personally, orders for our congregations, orders for to-day, and orders for to-morrow. The more frequently they are read, the better they are understood, the more easily and perfectly they can be obeyed.

The New Testament is peculiarly rich in its precious promises; yet it is in great measure an explanation of the Old. The titles of Christ were given in prophecy; His work was typified, and His vicarious atonement was foreshadowed in sacrifices. Everywhere a line of illustration runs through the Old Testament, which is more perfectly developed by the New, like the plant which sends its roots deep into the soil, but unfolds its leaves and blossoms to the sunshine and the air.

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There are golden threads which run all through the woof from the beginning to the end. There are clasps which enclose both Genesis and Revelation, and make them one.

Take as an illustration that first verse in St. John's Gospel : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." To me it points directly to the creation of the world, and the Garden of Eden. On the dwellers in Eden there came down a cloud of darkness, an impressive portent of wretchedness and woe. The gates were to be closed, and cherubim guard the entrance. In this thick darkness, one ray of light pierced through from the throne of God; one word, one promise brought hope to the human heart. That word was spoken to the serpent, but Eve heard it: "I will put eumity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” Without that word, that promise of a Redeemer, earth had been without joy, life without hope. That word, Eve hid in her heart. When she drew to her bosom her first-born son, I fancy she thought that the promised seed had come, for she called him Cain. "For," she said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." She hoped that he was to bruise the serpent's head and reopen the gates of Paradise. How sad her heart when her hopes were disappointed, and she saw his hands stained with the blood of Abel! Child after child was born; children's children came to maturity; generation after generation arose; but mankind grew worse and worse, and no Redeemer came. For nine hundred and thirty years Adam watched and waited; but no Messiah appeared. Yet that promise of hope was handed down from generation to generation. It was God's word that a Deliverer should come. Ages rolled on. In the midst of prevailing darkness, there came a ray of light to Enoch, and he prophesied : "Behold! the Lord

cometh." The earth was swept with water, and the nations waited century after century, this one word standing as the only light for human faith and hope. The promise was repeated to Abraham, and taken up by the prophets. The Psalmist

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The Word of Genesis and John.

heard the voice of the coming Saviour: "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." This was the only word of life and hope that, while generations passed away like grass, endured for ever. It filled the mind of the apostle when he wrote: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." This was the Word, the Logos, alike of the Old Testament and the New, promised in Eden, manifested in Bethlehem, announced by the angel of the Lord to the wondering shepherds as "good tidings of great joy, which should be to all people;" and then follows that beautiful declaration: "Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God," and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." As Miriam led the songs of the daughters of Israel at the passage of the Red Sea, eighty years old though she was, so it has seemed to me that Eve, the mother of us all, led the rapturous song of that heavenly host, as, after four thousand years of waiting, she saw the advent of the promised Redeemer. In the Book of Revelation, Christ again appears. He is called the "Faithful and True." He has bruised the head of the serpent, and it is added: "And He was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God." I cannot help turning away with a sense of relief from the interpretation which makes the apostle who leaned on Jesus' breast seek among the Gnostics for that logos, the shadow of which they had learned from tradition, while the substance itself is found in the promise made by the Father.

In addition to the study of the Holy Scriptures with all available helps, we should have clear and decided convictions as to the great doctrines of the Bible, and their relations each to the other. The preacher should examine carefully the views held by leading men in reference to these doctrines; should compare them carefully with the Holy Scriptures; and should adopt such views as he believes are clearly derived from the Word of God. Yet he should be so independent in thought as to examine for himself every creed, confession, or system, and not receive it simply on the ground of tradition or antiquity, or because held