receive it, ever more fully and clearly as the ages rolled on, did God make known His mind and will to man in the olden times. And not only were there revelations of God to man given at different times, communicated at several successive periods of the world's history, but they were also given in a regular progressive series, in a scale of ever advancing and ascending progress from the lower to the higher both as to matter and form. Thus in the earlier books of Scripture we have only the simpler and more elementary, and easily understood truths about God, and man's relations to Him revealed, and afterwards, as we proceed down the streams of time, those which are more abstruse and difficult of comprehension in the later books. At first, we find the great truths and principles of our holy religion made known somewhat obscurely and dimly, and only to a partial extent unveiled in the typical ordinances, the prophetic declarations, the preparatory revelation of the Old Testament. But when the fulness of the time was come, God, who had spoken at many times, and in many ways to the fathers by the prophets, spake to men by His Son from heaven, and then we have the same great truths and principles much more fully and clearly exhibited, much more amply and adequately unfolded in the higher and more perfect revelation of the New Testament. At first the truths of religion were made known to men, in the form in which they were best suited to the childhood and immature youth of the Church, in type and symbol, through the medium of ceremonial rites and visible signs of various kinds, which appealed to, and made an impression upon the outward senses. As children are taught by pictures, so during the Old Testament dispensation, when the Church was in a state of comparative childhood, the truth was communicated in the way best suited to its limited capacities, by means of material forms and sensible representations. But as gradually men's capacities for apprehending and receiving the truth expanded and grew, then it was revealed in forms better suited to the higher intelligence and matured manhood of the Church. God did not allow the light of His truth to fall all at once in its full splendour on a dark world, but as a physician opens the windows of a darkened room gradually and by degrees that the patient's eyes may not be injured or dazzled with the light, so the light of divine revelation was introduced into the darkness of earth gradually and by slow degrees. At first the dim twilight, increasing and growing brighter until the rising of the sun, and then the sunlight ever increasing in brilliancy and strength until it reached the full splendour of noon, "shining more and more unto the perfect day." In this way all through Scripture we can trace progress and development, progress in respect of the brightness of the

light that shines and the fulness and clearness of the truths made known. There is progress when you pass from one book of the Pentateuch to another, from Genesis, for example, to Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There is progress, again, when you pass from the Pentateuch to the later historical books; and progress still farther, when you pass from these to the Prophets and the Psalms. There is progress clearly marked and well defined, when we pass from one part of the Old Testament to another, and there is progress still more marked and striking when we pass from the Old Testament to the New; progress also when we pass from one part of the New Testament to another, from the Gospels to the Acts, and from these to the Epistles of Peter and Paul and John. One of the most suggestive of modern theological teachers was in the habit of advising his students to pay special attention to the book of Genesis, for, said he, there is not a single truth of revelation, not a single doctrine even of New Testament Scripture, which you will not find in some form or other in that book. The very first book of the Bible contains all these doctrines, but it contains them only in their germs and first beginnings. It contains them as the seed contains the plant that grows from it; as the tiny acorn contains in it the majestic oak. All the truths of Scripture are there in their elementary forms and germinal beginnings, and the germs of truth embedded in the earlier books of Scripture, are then in the later books, gradually unfolded, stage by stage expanded and developed until at last the "mystery of God is finished," and the revelation which has been maturing for so many ages, is at last complete. So with the Gospels, and the relation which they sustain to the later books of the New Testament. As the book of Genesis and the Pentateuch generally to all the rest of Scripture, so are the Gospels to the other portions of New Testament Scripture. In the teaching of Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, we have all the great truths about His own person and work, all the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, such as justification, the atonement, regeneration, &c., but in His words they are simply hinted at, not enlarged upon or unfolded at length. They are there in their germs and first beginnings, but nothing more. It is only afterwards that they are fully expounded and systematically exhibited in the writings of His inspired apostles. Take, for example, the doctrines of justification and the atonement. We meet with them oftentimes, find them once and again alluded to, and hinted at in the words of the great Teacher, but for a full statement or detailed and systematic exposition of these great truths, we must go, not to the words of Jesus, but to the Epistles of Paul, to the Epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to the Hebrews. The later books of Scripture thus, as it were, grow

out of the earlier, developing and maturing the elementary principles and germs of truth which they contained, or, slightly to alter the figure, the earlier books may be said to constitute the stable foundation, while the later all go to rear the sacred superstructure and complete in all its comely and majestic proportions the magnificent temple of God's truth. Everywhere, then, throughout the Bible, just as everywhere throughout nature and history, we can trace the operation of the great law of progress. As Dr. M'Cosh well said in his address on the Relations between Science and Revelation, at the PanPresbyterian Council, "There is everywhere to be met with progress and development. The Scripture itself is full of development. The Jewish dispensation came out of the patriarchal, and the Christian out of the Jewish, and I believe the millennium will grow out of the present missionary economy;"-and may we not add, out of that will grow the last, the highest and most perfect dispensation of all, that of man redeemed, the earth renewed, and paradise restored. Here, then, is one striking point of analogy between Nature and Scripture. Here is one great law which is common to both volumes, pervades and runs through both, the great law of growth and progress, and gradual development. So far as this one great principle at least is concerned, both volumes are formed on the same plan, and written in the same style, and this certainly points at least in the direction of a common authorship, points towards the conclusion that the God of Nature is also the Author of the Bible.

DEUTERONOMY-ITS AUTHORSHIP.

I.

AMONG the more prominent tendencies of our age is the demand for an accurate and full knowledge of the past. We are no longer content with a superficial view of the past history of men and nations, but the desire is strongly manifested to "realise" their condition both in a religious, social, and political aspect. Every source of information must be carefully and diligently examined, and all materials made use of that can in any way enlarge or correct our present historical knowledge. A mere collection and arrangement of facts or events can no longer be regarded as worthy of the name of history. The facts must be questioned and cross-questioned; contemporaneous historians are made to confirm or neutralise each other's evidence; the ruins of ancient cities must yield their treasures, around which the memories of the past still linger; the language, manners, institutions, and superstitions of peoples upon which the image of former times still remains, must be minutely studied, that

as complete and detailed a picture as possible may be furnished. As the geologist, from his collection of facts gathered from a wide range of observation, constructs his history of the earth before it became the abode of man, so it is expected of the historian that, from facts which it must take vast labour to collect and sift, he construct the history of any past epoch since man began to live upon the face of the earth. A lively imagination and keen power of sympathy, and both completely under the control of a well-balanced judgment, are among the more prominent qualities needed for the task. As an instance of wellwritten history, we may mention the inimitable, carefully drawn pictures of Scottish Ecclesiastical Life in Reformation Times given in the works of the elder Dr. M'Crie. What he has done for the ecclesiastical history of Scotland in that age, it has recently been the endeavour of many to do for ages more ancient and remote. The light which has been thrown on Bible times by the deciphering of inscriptions found where ancient mighty empires held sway, and by learned research into the records of antiquity, sacred as well as profane, has induced some to attempt the writing the history of these ages anew.

It is this historical investigation into Bible times that has led some to question the commonly received opinions about the dates and authorship of the books which are comprised in the canon of Scripture. The necessities of facts which lie on the very surface of history, compel them, they allege, to abandon what are called the "traditional" views on these matters. There are, however, two standpoints, quite distinct from each other, from which the history of that age is viewed. Many start in their investigations with the belief that a miracle is an impossibility, and that we have no divine supernatural revelation in Bible records. The so-called revelations which it narrates are merely the projections of men's own thoughts into unseen things; its prophecies are simply the fore-casting of coming events, the shadows of which rested upon the writer, and the whole record is simply an account of human progress in these early times. This low view, of course, quite overturns the common historical arrangement of Scripture books, as everything that has the appearance of the supernatural or prophetic must be explained away. It is a view held by a great many German writers whose works are held in such high esteem by many. It must be said, however, that there have been and still are many scholars and critics in Germany who have held an opposite view, and recognised in Bible history a supernatural revelation. But amongst those who thus receive the Bible as the inspired record of a divine revelation there has been great divergence from the common views about the authorship of some of the books of the Bible. The case of Deuteronomy is one that

The

has been brought prominently before our minds in recent discussions. Many who deny its Mosaic authorship at the same time profess to accept it as an inspired book and as a revelation from God. grounds on which this denial is made to rest are mainly historical. They can see no trace of a knowledge or observance of the laws contained in Deuteronomy in the history of the nation of Israel until shortly before the period of their exile in Babylon. They point to many facts which they say have brought them to the conclusion that the Deuteronomic legislation could not have existed earlier than the reign of Hezekiah. For example, they think that the events that took place amongst the Israelites are quite inconsistent with the supposition that the law about the one altar for all Israel contained in Deuteronomy was known before that time. The Israelites are found worshipping at altars in many different places down to the time of Elijah. It seems to them impossible, taking such things into account, that the book could have been produced by Moses, and committed by him to the guardianship of the priests who were the divinely appointed teachers of the people. They think that it must have been the work of some unknown but gifted and pious writer in the declining age of Israel's history. He simply carried out the law of Moses into further development, changed and modified it under divine inspiration to suit the altered circumstances of the nation, and so gave to his book the form of addresses delivered by Moses just before his death. This was a literary form of composition common in Oriental literature, and so there would be no deception practised upon the people in using it. The book is essentially a work of fiction, a sacred romance or novel, and if it has pleased God to use this literary form in revealing His truth, it is not ours to quarrel with it, but humbly and gratefully to receive it.

But

This is substantially the view of Deuteronomy presented in the teaching of that "higher criticism" of which we have been hearing so much lately. The question is now facing one of our sister Churches, whether such teaching is to be permitted in her colleges and pulpits, and it is yet uncertain what the final issue will be. in the discussions which have already taken place, there has been enough to alarm those who stand in the "old paths," for it has been shown that the new views are being received with great favour by many, and especially by those who are preparing themselves for the work of the ministry. These views are all the more attractive and dangerous, from the claims to learning with which they are supported. In the speeches and writings of Professor W. R. Smith, of Aberdeen, who is the champion and hero of this new school which has grown up in our midst, he is constantly asserting that the matters in