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First on my brow comes the pearly light,

Dimming my lamp in the new-born day. One long, last look to left and right,

And I rest from my toil,-for the broad sea-way
Grows bright with the smile and blush of the sky,
All incandescent and opaline.

I rest-but the loveliest day will die,—
Again in its last wan shadows-I shine!

When the night is black, and the wind is loud,
And danger is hidden, and peril abroad,
The seaman leaps on the swaying shroud;
His eye is on me, and his hope in God!

Alone, in the darkness, my blood-red eye
Meets his, and he hauls his groping line.
"A point to nor'ard !" I hear him cry.

He goes with a blessing, and still-I shine!

While standing alone in the summer sun,

I sometimes have visions and dreams of my own. Of long-life voyages just begun,

And rocks unnoticed, and shoals unknown; And I would that men and women would mark The duty done by this lamp of mine;

For many a life is lost in the dark,

And few on earth are the lights that shine!
DAVID JAMES MACKENZIE.

I.

THE ORDER OF REVELATION IN ST. PAUL'S

EPISTLES.

BY CANON BARRY, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON.

FIRST PAPER.

HE order of Revelation is itself a through what we call the ordinary inspiration THE part of Revelation." There are of the Holy Ghost, yet still needing to grow few maxims of interpretation more important in the knowledge of the things of God as and more fruitful than this. The principle of gradually as in all other knowledge; perhaps gradual and continuous development, which more gradually than in any other knowledge, modern Science seems to show us as the ruling in proportion to its greater depth and its principle, alike in the world of force and larger infusion of mystery. Hence it must matter and in the world of organic life, clearly have its gradual development under laws of has its application also to the spiritual world Divine order, which cannot be neglected or of humanity. It is exemplified in the process violated without danger of error. To take by which any truth, whether of nature or of the various parts of Revelation haphazard, or man, actually makes its way to dominion according to artificial systems of our own, is over the individual mind, or over the world practically to tamper with Revelation itself, at large. Every scientific discovery, every to reduce what is-to use a common phrase philosophical theory of truth, every enuncia--"an organic whole" to a mass of isolated tion of moral and spiritual principle has its or misplaced limbs. Even then, no doubt, epoch of preparation, its first germinal birth, the Scripture will vindicate its life-giving its subsequent epoch of development, verifi- energy. Invenies etiam disjecti membra procation, and correction, both in the smaller pheta. But it is not Revelation as God gave and the larger spheres. Nor would it be it, perfectly fitted to be the salvation of the difficult to see that "the struggle for exist- soul and the light of the world. ence" and "the survival of the fittest" have their analogies in the spiritual progress of truth-the development of a true Kosmos of organized knowledge out of the rude instinctive conceptions, old as human nature itself. The revelation of God's truth can be no absolute exception to this rule. For it comes to us through the medium of human minds, supernaturally inspired to receive superLatural revelation, but human minds still, and therefore subject to the laws of humanity. It is received by human minds, quickened

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This truth ought to be made clear to all students of Holy Scripture by the simple. fact that the backbone of the Bible-in this respect unlike other sacred books-is history; and that the other elements-law, psalm, prophecy, apostolic teaching-are all engrafted on the historical stem, growing out of its continuous and pervading life. Looking at Scripture as a whole, what can be clearer than that the central germinal force of truth and life is in the manifestation on earth of the teaching and the person of the Lord Jesus

Christ; that the whole period of the Old Testament is its epoch of preparation; that the period, both of the New Testament and the whole Church history which it opens, is its epoch of development? It is obvious that it is impossible to enter into the manifold unity of Scripture revelation, unless this fundamental conception be kept steadily in view.

But in practice-even in our generation, and much more in generations past-this conception has always been grossly neglected. From various causes, for many of which we are not responsible, the ordinary knowledge of Holy Scripture has more of a piecemeal character than the knowledge of any other book. A text is taken as a text, of equal fulness of authority and meaning, from whatever part of Scripture it comes. A chapter is read as a chapter, without the slightest thought of what precedes or follows it. The traditional order of the books, both in the Old and New Testaments, is in great degree arbitrary, having very imperfect correspondence with the true order of time. The distinctive missions and characters of various prophets and apostles, and the relation which the work of one bears to that of another, are not dreamt of for a moment by the ordinary reader. How few (for example) ever think of endeavouring to fit the utterances of the prophets or psalmists of the Old Testament into their places in the history, which they must necessarily illustrate, and from which they must borrow illustration in return? How few ever take the trouble to ascertain the order of St. Paul's Epistles, or to consider the stages in his apostolic mission to which they belong? How few study the chronological relation of the Synoptic narrative to the Fourth Gospel, on which the marked distinctiveness of idea and character in the latter so greatly turns? The neglect of these considerations, which are within the reach of any moderately educated person, is perhaps excused by the sense, in itself most true, that the Bible in all its parts is the Word of God to man; but how can this justify the absurd inference that His Word may be understood without consideration of the order of its sentences, and the chain of its internal connection? If the old maxim, Bonus textuarius, bonus theologus, has a sound meaning enough, yet certainly in the literal interpretation, which seems to be put upon it in common practice, it must be held to be a delusion and a snare.

II. It is the purpose of this paper, and those which follow it, to suggest the applica

tion of this principle of development, not to Scripture in general, but to the teaching of St. Paul's Epistles. These Epistles must, on any calculation, cover a period of about fourteen years-years of extraordinary growth of the Christian faith, during which it laid hold successively of the three great threads of ancient civilisation, the Hebrew (and Asiatic), the Greek, and the Roman, and fastened all (so to speak) to the foot of the Cross of Christ-years, each of which was worth a generation of duller and less critical times, both in individual conversion of souls, and in the subordination to Christ of the various elements of human thought and life. When the first of these Epistles was sent forth, Christianity had but just set foot on the shores of Europe, to begin its conversion of the races which were ruling, and were to rule, the world. When the last was written, almost with a dying hand, from the Apostle's prison at Rome, the gospel had already extended and consolidated its dominion over the many-sided intellect of Greece, had united on the shores of Asia Minor Oriental religion with Western culture, and had finally established itself in the very heart of the imperial city, and probably in those provinces of Spain and Gaul and Africa which were afterwards to be the first home of a purely "Latin Christianity." In the interval, Christianity had been necessarily brought into contact with new principles of thought; new phases of race and of civilisation; new trials, speculative and practical, in connection with both Jewish and Gentile life; new aspirations of a world everywhere "feeling after God." It was impossible that through all these influences the guidance of the Spirit of God should not have drawn out from the treasure-house of Christ's Revelation things new as well as old. The mind of the Apostle himself, who "counted not himself to have apprehended," and "forgetting the things which were behind stretched forward unto the things that were before," must have been daily growing in width and depth of insight into the infinite truth, "learning Christ" (as he himself said), "putting on Christ" continually; entering more and more deeply into the mystery of God, hidden from ages and generations, but now revealed in Him. The whole of his life-alike by the energy of evangelistic work, by the quiet thoughtfulness of study, and by the diviner insight of devotion-must have been a spiritual education in the truth, as well as in the grace, of Christ. But, even putting this aside, it is clear that as the gospel presented itself to

various phases of humanity-now to the meditative and half-passive faith of the Asiatic, now to the strong, practical simplicity of the Macedonian Churches, now to the subtle and daring speculation of the Greek, now to the legislative and constructive genius of the Roman-it must have continually developed new phases of its teaching, and have been driven, by the very needs and questions which it encountered, to go down deeper and deeper to the ultimate basis of its truth. It would be strange indeed, if all these influences did not manifest themselves in a development of doctrine in the pages of his Epistles. Every where (as Luther has it) the words of St. Paul are "living creatures, having hands and feet." The very expression suggests their subjection to the gradations of development which mark the whole kingdom of life.

The Epistles, which are to form the sphere of our inquiry, fall, without much doubt or difficulty, into certain well-defined groups.

(a) First come the Epistles of the Second Missionary Journey-those Epistles to the Thessalonians, which, by a strange and most unfortunate freak of arrangement, are placed in our Bibles last of all St. Paul's Epistles to Churches.

(b) Next, towards the close of the Third Missionary Journey, we have in rapid succession four great Epistles, to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans. But these fall into two subdivisions-the former including the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the first nine chapters of the Second Epistle, which deal on the whole with the problems of Gentile Christianity-the latter including the conclusion of the Second Epistle, the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Epistle to the Romans, which plunge at once into the great conflict with the Judaizing heresy and schism.* (c) Thirdly, after a not inconsiderable interval, succeed the Epistles of the First Captivity, t-the Epistles to the Philippians, Ephesians, and Colossians, and the short but most beautiful letter to Philemon.

(d) Lastly, the Pastoral Epistles form a group of still later date and peculiar character, differing from all the preceding letters in containing official directions to individuals, instead of teaching and exhortation to Churches, in dealing therefore mainly with ecclesiastical order and discipline, and rather implying and fixing doctrines already taught,

*The Epistle to the Galatians is fixed to this place only by

ternal evidence, but internal evidence which appears to be fairly irresistible.

students have held-that St. Paul was released from the By the use of this title I assume what the great majority captivity in which the Acts of the Apostles leaves him, and afterwards arrested and imprisoned again.

than presenting new gradations of doctrinal teaching.

Through these groups it will be easy, following not a precarious arrangement by internal criticism, but plain historical order, to trace that development of Christian doctrine, which the very consideration of the history would prepare us to find.

III. But it will be well at once to indicate the particular lines of development, which more detailed examination of the successive groups will abundantly illustrate.

The preaching of Christianity is-in a sense equally true of no other religion-the preaching of Christ, or rather of "God in Christ," being thus at once the truest Monotheism and the truest religion of humanity. It is in the various phases of this manifestation of Christ that we find the primary development of doctrine, on which all others of necessity depend. The central Christian mystery of the Godhead incarnate in man-so familiar to us in the Creeds of the Church, that to repeat it, and in some measure to understand its meaning, are within the reach of the simplest Christian— is yet in itself so stupendous and incomprehensible a truth, that (as it would seem) it needed to be manifested in various phases; beginning from that which was comparatively plain and comprehensible, because proving itself in the region of fact, and going on step by step, under the guidance of faith in the word of the Master Himself, through inner circles of truth, till the central shrine of mystery should be reached.

At first, it is obvious that the world was challenged to contemplate "Christ as risen," as ascended into heaven, as sitting at the right hand of God, as destined to come for the judgment of quick and dead. Next, when this truth had been grasped, the preaching of the gospel went on to dwell primarily on "Christ as crucified," that is, on Christ as the "Lamb of God taking away the sin of the whole world," and as the one Mediator between God and the souls whom He has made. From this preaching—so emphatically brought out in St. Paul's Epistles of the second group-the mind was next led back to the contemplation of "Christ as incarnate," taking into the Godhead the humanity which he came to save; and, as implied in this, to the adoring recognition of Him as the Eternal Son of God, begotten before all worlds, one for ever with the Father course, meant that at any time one phase and with the Holy Ghost. It is not, of of the truth of Christ, and one only,

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