without entertaining one iota of disrespect, and as wholly moved in behalf of the truth, we stagger not in our decision that, whether on the part of English or German literati, English or German theologians, bishop or priest or layman anywhere, all such irrelevant pricking of the mind is possible only from a standpoint of oblique angle. Very different would be our chosen centre of analysis. Casting the whole question upon one die, we reason: If Christ, as the divinely anointed Saviour, be not in the Hebrew oracles, it is of no moment what else they may contain. On the contrary, if Christ is their Alpha and Omega, how much that vastly overtops bare endless duration; for man is, either occult or evident, essentially comprised. Uninspired man never, in our opinion, delivered to his fellow-man "a packet of thought" more pregnant than the seminal idea that "without Christ there was nothing to be revealed." Without Christ, God, in the deeply pregnant sense of the oracles, should never have become "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," the covenant God of Israel. This much reason determines. Whether the law and the prophets testify to Christ is a matter neither of speculation nor of Jewish apprehension or misconception; but, as regards the oracles themselves, primarily a case of exegesis: and with respect to the New Testament Scriptures, in determining this question, divine asseveration alone ought to be final. One word from Jesus should for ever entirely preclude all doubt. "Search the Scriptures," says he to the Jews; "for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.". Again, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust; for had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." Authoritative expounders of the divine word reiterate in substance the Master's affirmation. Not to specify others, "Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house," at Rome," and received all that came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, persuading them concerning Jesus both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening;" maintaining, doubtless, that "now God's righteousness without the law has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." Christ, then, "as the seed of the woman who should bruise the head of the serpent"-Christ as the Abrahamic "seed in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed"-Christ as "the Shiloh who should come, and unto whom the gathering of the people shall be"-Christ as the "anointed Son" whom all should "kiss," "lest he be angry and they perish upon the way," "in whom all who put their trust are blessed "Christ "upon whom the

Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all "-Christ as "the Lord our righteousness," who assumed human nature "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make propitiation for iniquity, and to bring us an everlasting righteousness," -the Christ, as thus revealed, all Jews should have found distinctly marked off in their Scriptures. To him all types and symbols and purifications are wonderfully related. Adumbrations of him all the propitiatory sacrifices, divinely ordained and graciously accepted, undeniably were. Necessarily in the entire Jewish ritual were implied unspoken promises of pardon, purity, bliss; these, as well as multitudes of promises uttered fully, pointed as with the finger to Christ. Foreshadowing everlasting possessions, privileges, and glories of the heavenly kingdom, all their surplus of blessing actually enjoyed in the "land flowing with milk and honey," in that bright galaxy of illustrious saints, as statesmen, conquerors, kings, priests, prophets, prefigured Christ, the ideal legislator, the ideal conqueror, the ideal priest, and prophet, and king, the archetypal good.

We have thus been carried forward to the end more immediately contemplated in the communication of oracles so pervaded by the evangelical element. That the Jews might know him in his true character was towards them God's most paramount desire-know him as not only hating sin, but, better still as the lover of their souls, their Father and best friend; bearing them ever before him as if their names were engraven on his hands; carrying them in his heart; yearning with a true father's love for their salvation; thus, as charmingly put by himself, "waiting to be gracious," to "heal all their diseases," "crown them with lovingkindness and tender mercies." Had they, then, as it imperatively was demanded, individually responded to that propitious love so fittingly answering to the irrepressible cravings of their spirits, divinelike in make, though voluntarily degraded, to-day with ineffably wider compass of reference it should be repeated—“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, who desired a better country, that is an heavenly." But they missed the mark. "Fallen short," as they were, of "the Glory of God," from that "glory," with comparatively few exceptions, the masses long since departed must now, as for ever, at an infinite distance abide. Few, alas, believed God's "report," his Gospel "promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.' Despising "the riches of his goodness," that is to say, despising Christ, God's merciful desires, in relation to them as sinners under righteous condemnation of

the dishonoured law, were not realized. By necessity, therefore, his extra-Judaic desires to a large extent were also frustrated. By separating the theocratic people from the rest of the nations; by instituting among them the splendid propitiatory service; by intrusting to them his "lively oracles," the all glorious Father of spirits, through them, as entirely sympathizing "sons and servants," longed for the well-being of Gentiles sitting in darkness. Preserving his responsive utterances immaculate, coming on to the line of his universal or gracious purposes, the highly favoured people should have become, according to the divine wish, the mental and spiritual heart propelling to the whole body of mankind healing rivers of life. Almoners for God: this it was that subtended their election. Almoners for God among the nations: such for this people was the sublimely transcending prerogative, the high destiny desiderated in heaven. Like Lucifer's, son of the morning, was their fall. Chagrin more bitter by far than Marah's waters is the peculiar inheritance. For, conditionating itself on the immediately specific end involving their holy consecration, the magnanimous catholicity of the divine longing suffered retrenchment-collapsed immensely under the goal attainable was the result. Instead of in faith and love uniting themselves to the Father, becoming thus zealous dispensers of his gifts of grace, his lifeinspiring thoughts, the stiff-necked and rebellious people, cherishing base aims in relation to the riches of his kindness distinguishingly conferred for the world's enfranchisement, were only petrified into boulders of pride. No thanks to them for any universal favours that God made them the medium of. Monsters of contradiction, as Pascal would say, equally as monsters of ingratitude, they too unequivocally were. From the first generation, or from their very birth, a thought as innate it was for all Jews to call their Scriptures the doctrines of God, to abide by them, and for them, if necessary, to die cheerfully-yea, "to die ten thousand times rather than permit the alteration of a single word," counting even the letters, that, in a manner the most vigilantly assiduous, might be preserved in purity a revelation confided by Divinity, the pith and marrow, the soul and substance of which they disdained inexorably; a revelation which thus adjudged them to unmitigated "punishment from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." For the letter of the law what respect without a parallel; what unaccountable inversion as regarded the spirit!

By consequence the theocratic nation has finally passed away. Not so "the word of our God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Obsolescent it cannot become. Christ being their grand subject-matter, the ancient oracles remain in essence "the ever

lasting Gospel." Gloriously evangelical in their substantial character, in relation to God, to his universal principles of procedure, to the authoritative instruction of men of all ages, to the facts of the New Testament, chiefly to Christ, the Hebrew Scriptures are for us to-day, as compared even with Jews of old, a deposit still more pre-eminent. Superlative then must be our privileges, superlative also our obligations in possessing in addition the later and richer written word. The Fulness of the Times has come. Resplendently overhead shines the Latter-day Glory. Supplemented, vivified, illuminated in the Gospels, the records of the incomparable sayings backed up by the unique doings of the "Word made flesh," the utterances of God by Moses, by the psalmists and prophets, have assumed an investiture somewhat better corresponding to their native dignity and grace. In the epistles, too, of Peter, of John, of Paul, of the writer to the Hebrews, we have chapter upon chapter, book upon book, in which heavenly seed-thoughts planted before are ripened under "the Sun of Righteousness" into magnificent richness of beauty as of power. Christ is still the Alpha and the Omega. The New Testament, equally with the Old, begins as it ends with Christ. Memoirs of his life and death, in behalf of humanity, the Gospels continue to enlighten, to bless masses of the people. "The Acts of the Apostles," what is it but an epitome of Christ as, in historical development, he roots himself in the world's heart--his triumphant on-going in the dawning "day of his power"? Concerning Christ, who is "the righteousness of God unto all and upon all them that believe"-who "died for our sins according to the Scriptures"-who "gave himself a ransom for all"-who "tasted death for every man "-in whom "all shall be made alive"-who " is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption "-who "hath put away sin by the sacrifice of himself"" redeeming us not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with his own precious blood"-"our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous"-" the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world "—" the faithful witness, the beginning and the ending, the Lord which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty, he that liveth and was dead, and behold he is alive for evermore "; concerning Christ we repeat our words, the epistles, as the "Apocalypse, with its ten thousand eager and glowing eyes looking towards the future," are essentially a polymorphous unfolding of his personality, life, work, that still in human words must be merely fragmentary. Yet the best possible in the circumstances is done to limn Christ. Do the writers of the New Testament oracles speak of God manifesting himself in the higher final

form? It is "God manifest in the flesh." Do they speak of pardon? It is pardon through Christ. Do they speak of justification? It is justification by faith in Christ. Do they speak of peace with God? It is "peace with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Do they speak of joy? It is joy in God as he is beheld in the face of Christ. Is fellowship in its ideality the theme? It is fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ; the communion of saints, too, is communion in Christ. Of approaching God in prayer, in praise, would they speak? Christ is "the way." Immortality is immortality in Christ. All higher Christian duties are enjoined as from the side of Christ; "Let this mind be in you which was also found in him." In short, the love of Christ it is which on every side constrains us; our faith working by love, the love of Christ, we rise to the grandest attainment in the universe-likeness to the moral image of God.

R. P.-M.

LIFE OF DR. GUTHRIE.*

It was quite to be expected that the Memoir of so distinguished a man as Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, would be published; and we have to congratulate his sons for having executed at once so speedily, and so successfully, the first half of their task, which must indeed have been a labour of love.

One important circumstance, it is true, has expedited considerably the issue of this volume-we refer to the fact, that more than the half of it is occupied with the Autobiography, which, of course, the Doctor had written before he died. Our only regret concerning this most entertaining production is that its author died before its completion, so that it abruptly breaks off in the middle of a description of the Disruption controversy. The biographers tell us, in a prefatory note, that very soon after being loosed from pastoral work, in 1865, Dr. Guthrie conceived the idea of writing an autobiography; but, numerous preoccupations intervening, he did not get it commenced till the year 1868. It was written by snatches, as opportunity offered; and when his last illness came upon him it seemed to be a matter of concern to the revered sufferer that this selfprescribed task was so incomplete. A melancholy interest hangs around the pages which were written by him, in pencil, at St. Leonards-on-the-Sea, where he died; and even after he

*

Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D., and Memoir by his Sons, Rev. David K. Guthrie, and Charles J. Guthrie, M.A., in 2 volumes. Vol. I. London: W. Isbister & Co., 56 Ludgate Hill. Pp. 424.