first with a perfect knowledge of his origin, his manifold relations, and his ultimate possibilities? We do not presume to answer such questions. We point out the facts as they present themselves to us and affirm that God's ways must be sought therein. The individual man, the family, the clan, the tribe, the race, and the nation all reach their highest and best through gradual stages of advance, not by sudden or instantaneous coming into perfection. Why should we be slow to believe that our Father in heaven has been disclosing parts of his ways, here a little and there a little, to every family and race of man? We need not think it strange that he has at sundry times revealed his eternal power and goodness even through shadowy mythical forms of heathen superstition. Who knows but those vague, childlike images of nature-myths and current folk-lore were the only language the babes could understand? And who can tell what concepts of wisdom, power, and love were awakened by the naïve traditions of gods and spirits immanent in clouds and waters and trees? Some of the most degrading forms of polytheism are found in connection with the idea of one God over all. We are of opinion that to a greater extent than has been generally allowed there may be traced in all the known religions of mankind evidences of a belief in one supreme Power, the God and Father of us all, working in sundry ways to make himself known to his human offspring. The wisdom which is from above has cried aloud in the high places and along the pathways of the sons of men much after the manner of the Hebrew prophet: "If I be a father where is my honor?" And the men who have heard this heavenly voice have shown "the work of divine law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them" (Rom. ii, 15). Too generally, however, it must be confessed, as Paul wrote it long ago, that these offspring of the scattered tribes of men have "not approved of having the God in their knowledge," and so, though "knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks, but they became vain in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. i, 21, 28). Hence it would seem that, so far from evolving the concept of God out of a process of reason, human reason has too often perverted the self-revelation of God in the hearts and consciences of men. And so it has ever been that the light that is in us may become darkness, but he that diligently follows the light will not fail to find God.

6. Childhood of the World. We accept as a fact the universal revelation of God in the heart of man, but we do not overlook the other fact that the revelation has always been in relative accord

ance with the environment and intelligence of men reared under conditions of animal life on earth. Some men in every generation have risen above their fellows, and have been, according to the measure of their gifts and wisdom, lights in the world. But the masses of mankind, in all ages and among all the peoples, have been (to use Paul's figure) until now in a state of infancy and childhood, imperfect in understanding, minors untaught and unskilled, babes (výτOL, Gal. iv, 1, 3). Millions of Christians are yet, religiously, in a state of pupilage, and need, like the millions of other cults, to be under wise and sympathetic tutors. The progress of the world in enlightenment has been, from the outlook of any one generation, tediously slow. Men naturally become restless and discouraged. But God's eternal purpose moves steadily onward to its distant goal, and "one day is with him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The eight, ten, or twenty thousand years of human life on earth are probably, in proportion to its entire extent and destiny, only as so many hours would be in one man's life of three score years and ten. Our previous study of the kingdom and coming of Christ warrants the blessed thought that through all the ages thus far our Father in the heavens has so loved the world as to impart some measure of his kindly light to every man. But we see only parts of his ways, and even these we do not always understand or interpret aright. The gifted apostle to the Gentiles wrote: "We know in part and we prophesy in part." We cannot tell why God should take so long to unfold the mystery of the ages, but with the apostle we cheerfully and hopefully accept the self-evident truth that "when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away."

SECTION SECOND

THE HEBREW REVELATION

CHAPTER I

THE CALL AND COVENANT OF ABRAHAM

1. The Migration and the Promise. According to the biblical tradition the series of divine revelations imparted to the Hebrew people began with the call of Abraham. His migration from the far East and his journey throughout all the land of Canaan brought him from first to last in constant touch with divers people who served other gods. When he pitched his tent near Shechem he found that the Canaanite was already in the land. He traveled on into the South country, and went down into Egypt, and found everywhere tribes and nations that were given to the worship of various deities. We now know, from other than biblical sources, that, at the supposed date of Abraham's migration, the Babylonians in the East and the Egyptians in the Southwest were already possessed of a highly developed religious cult and priesthood, and the same was probably true, in some measure, of all the intervening nations. It is noteworthy and significant that, at such a time and under such conditions of that vast Orient, the great ancestor of the Hebrew people should be called of God to go out from his country and kindred, and journey from the Euphrates to the Nile, and receive the promise that his posterity should be a great nation and a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. xii, 1-3). He surely was no type or representative of what is now commonly spoken of as "primitive man," for he moved during his entire career amid civilizations that were already aged.

2. Meeting with Melchizedek. According to Gen. xiv, 18-20, Abraham met in the land of Canaan a remarkable king and priest to whom he reverently gave a tenth of the spoils he had taken, and from whom he received a blessing in the name of his God El 'Elyon. Thus he acknowledged Melchizedek superior to himself, for "without any dispute the less is blessed of the better" (Heb. vii, 7). Melchizedek was priest of El 'Elyon, a name which is commonly and appropriately rendered "God Most High." The name means, strictly, "the Power which is above" (by b), that

is, the Supreme Power, or the Being who rules on high.' So Abraham stands not alone in that ancient time as the friend of God, but rather as an inferior to the great king and priest of Salem.

3. Defective Ethical Standards. We should also notice here the ethical shortcomings of Abraham. His duplicity was rebuked by Pharaoh (Gen. xii, 18), his bigamy and polygamy are mentioned in the records of his life, and the service of the three hundred and eighteen trained men who were "born in his house" (Gen. xiv, 14) implies a body guard of servants who were virtually slaves of his family. The traditions of Isaac and of Jacob make mention of like matters in their personal and family life, and the banishment of Hagar and her child into the wilderness was an exhibition of cruelty which our Christian sense condemns. But these defective morals were not estimated in those ancient times and among the Oriental peoples as we judge them in the light of a developed Christian conscience. And in Palestine and adjacent lands, even to this day, may be found many a nomadic sheik, whose tents, and flocks, and slaves, and wives, and concubines, and habits of duplicity are remarkably like those of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

4. Nomadic Life Favorable to Religious Thought. Notwithstanding the defective moral sense implied in the records of the ancient patriarchs, the nomadic life was, on the whole, favorable to reflection and the cultivation of high religious sentiment. When Abraham walked forth abroad and looked toward heaven and the innumerable stars (comp. Gen. xv, 5), he received revelations from on high and had communion with God. Not the ancient patriarchs only, but also Moses, and David, and Amos in later times knew the solemn blessedness and the stern discipline of the shepherd life. Exposed to extremes of heat and cold, to lack of food, and to attack by wild beasts and robbers, the heroic virtues were developed in their souls; and, on the other hand, repose by restful waters, wandering in the green pastures, climbing among the hills, and watching the sky, and clouds, and changing seasons, naturally inspired ideals of what is beautiful and good. Through all these visions, and struggles, and meditations came various revelations of the mystery of God.

5. The Covenant of Promise. To all this must be added the divine covenant with Abraham, and the repeated promise that his posterity should be multiplied as the stars of heaven. The various passages in Genesis which relate to this subject may be combined

It may be an interesting inquiry of comparative theology to ascertain how closely the idea and import of the name El'Elyon correspond to the Chinese conception of Shangti.

into a kind of sevenfold apocalypse.' But the more formal account of the covenant and its seal of circumcision is written in the priestly narrative of Gen. xvii, in which the heavenly covenantmaker announces himself as El Shadday, that is "God Almighty." * The great pledge and promise of this covenant is thus recorded (ver. 7): "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." The sign and seal of this covenant was circumcision, a bloody rite, suggestive of the consecration of the source of paternal virility to the God of the covenant. Like other forms of bodily mutilation this rite became a sort of tribal mark and bond of indissoluble fellowship between the men of a community set apart for a particular purpose. It seems to be in essential accord with the rite of blood-covenanting still common in the East and going back to times immemorial. While this practice was observed by the ancient Egyptians, the Colchians, the Syrians, the Arabians, and other peoples, it seems to have been elevated in the thought of the Hebrews to the high distinction of representing a sacred bond of friendship with God. In the later time Abraham was commonly spoken of as "the friend of God" (Isa. xli, 8; 2 Chron. xx, 7; James ii, 23). A covenant was generally understood to be a compact between equals, but it was a revelation of surpassing friendship and heavenly favor for God the Almighty to condescend to enter into a sort of blood-relationship with a man. Accordingly, the idea of a plighted agreement and abiding friendship between God and the descendants of Abraham runs through the entire biblical literature. It was as if God had promised and had bound himself by a solemn oath (comp. Gen. xxii, 16; Heb. vi, 13) to multiply the offspring of his friend Abraham, give them the land of the Canaanite, and make them eventually a blessing to all the nations.*

6. Anthropomorphic Conceptions. Quite related in thought to this idea of God entering into covenant with man is the anthropo

See my Biblical Apocalyptics, pp. 71-74.

Comp. this name as found also in Gen. xxviii, 3; xxxv, 11; xliii, 14; xlix, 25, and Exod. vi, 3.

See the numerous forms and the accompanying comments on them in H. C. Trumbull's The Blood Covenant; A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture. New York, 1885.

The figure of a covenant between God and Noah, and God and Abraham, and God and Israel has its very natural and interesting significance, and the doctrine of Christ as "the Mediator of the new covenant of God with the new Israel is a familiar New Testament idea. But these biblical conceptions furnish no sufficient warrant for the complicated notions of "a covenant between the Father and the Son" as a basis of human redemption. The doctrine of "the covenant of works" and "the covenant of grace" belongs to the postulates of the so-called "Federal Theology," and is a portion of the speculative and scholastic methods of thinking prevalent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Such speculation has no legitimate place in modern biblical dogmatics.