EXPOSITION
SAUL (CHS. 8-31).
THE great interest of the First Book of Samuel lies in the fact that we have in it the orderly consolidation of two of the main factors in the preparation for the manifestation of our Lord, namely, prophecy and the kingdom. The first seven chapters give us the history of Samuel's birth, and of the gradual development in him of those spiritual powers which finally made him not merely a prophet, but the founder of prophecy as a permanent and regularly organised institution of the Jewish Church. The whole of the rest of the book, while adding many interesting particulars about Samuel, is occupied with the establishment of the kingdom and with Saul. We have in him, both in his uprise and his fall, one of the most remarkable personages of the Old Testament. But his character for good and for evil will develop itself as we proceed. Before, however, we can appreciate his history, it is necessary for us to understand something of the vast issues that depended upon the change of government effected in his person. With Samuel, then, and Saul we have come to the time when the prophet and the king take their due place in the development of Israel. They were both essential to its progress, and the accomplishment of its Divine mission, and in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and again Deuteronomy 28:36, the establishment of the monarchy is spoken of as a virtual necessity. It was not Israel's highest ideal, far from it. Had religion been as far advanced as in the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, the theocracy might have existed in such a form as would have insured the national safety. But such as the people were in the centuries which followed the conquest of Canaan, it was rather a high and glorious idea than a fact capable of being realised. It was one of those magnificent thoughts which raised the Israelites so high above the level of ordinary nations, and gave such grandeur and nobleness to the long struggle of their history; but it was a thought, the value of which lay in its giving them a future, towards which their faces were ever turned, and which, by the sublimity of its conception, ever drew them onwards and upwards to all that was best and most Divine.
To be then Jehovah's own subjects, ruled directly by him, a republic with Jehovah for its chief, and its officers speaking at his command, and under his direct influence and control this was Israel's grand ideal. As a matter of fact, it did not give them peace at home nor security from foreign invasion. It did not even enable them to advance in the path of culture or morality, nor did it so work as to bind the twelve tribes together into a harmonious whole. Throughout the Book of Judges we find the record of a desperate struggle in which Israel again and again is in danger of being utterly destroyed from among the nations, and at the end of this period the Philistines are the dominant power, and Israel is disarmed and virtually at their mercy. The cause of this was that somehow or other the priests and Levites were unable to prevent the people from lapsing into idolatry, and though upon their repentance Jehovah, as their King, aid on every emergency raise men to be their saviours, yet the system was too cumbrous and exceptional for ordinary times. It was only in times of trouble that the nation roused itself to the conviction that it was Jehovah's realm, and fought with the heroism which so grand a thought must give it; at other times it sank down each day to a lower level, till all that the last judge, Samson, could do was to arouse the national spirit to a prolonged resistance and a last effort against the dangers and difficulties that were threatening Israel with gradual extinction (see on 1 Samuel 1:3).
This powerlessness in war was the inevitable result of having no settled ordinary ruler, whose business it was to convoke the national forces, and provide for the general safety; but it was by no means the worst evil attendant in practice upon the theocracy. In the three last chapters of the Book of Judges we have the history of a fearful crime, punished with equally fearful cruelty. What makes it the more remarkable is that it took place in the days of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, at a time when the public morality still stood high, and religion had great influence over the people. Now, had there been a king he would have punished the malefactors, as a matter of course; but when it had to be done by an extraordinary gathering of the people in arms, the Benjamites, always a high-spirited tribe, imagined themselves bound in honour to resist an invasion of their territory, and a violent civil war was the result. So embittered did the feelings of the Israelites become at the brave defence of the Benjamites, that when at last they had overpowered them, they burned their cities with fire, and put men, women, children, and cattle to an indiscriminate slaughter. Repenting soon afterwards of their revolting cruelty, they treated the men of Jabesh-Gilead with almost equal violence, on the pretence of their not having taken part in the war, but really to provide the remaining Benjamites with wives. Now, both at the beginning and end of this narrative, it is carefully pointed out that all this crime and cruelty was the result of the state of anarchy which everywhere prevailed. "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" ( 21:25). There was no regular administration of justice, no person whose business it was to maintain law and order, no one whose authority kept malefactors in awe, and who, when a crime had been committed, would punish it in a regular manner, and with the general approval of all parties; and so every species of villainy could be practised with impunity, until the patience of the community was exhausted, and it visited the offenders with a violence so summary as to make it repent afterwards of its own cruelty.
The position of these three chapters, immediately preceding in the Hebrew the Books of Samuel (for the insertion of the Book of Ruth is a modern attempt at a chronological arrangement), seems intended to point out that the king was as absolutely necessary for the well being of the Hebrew commonwealth as he was essential for the perfecting of the Messianic idea. It is in Christ's kingdom that the theocracy becomes a realised fact, and Christ is above all things a King. Now in Israel the King was emphatically the Anointed One, i.e. the Messiah or Christ (1 Samuel 2:10, 1 Samuel 2:35; 1 Samuel 10:1; 1 Samuel 12:3, etc.). True it is that in Christ all offices must be united, and he must be a Priest to make atonement and a Prophet to teach as well as a King to rule; yet we find in Israel, as the type of Christ's kingdom, that priest and prophet stood at the king's beck. In Solomon we have the delineation of Israel's king in his full power and glory; and we find him thrusting out Abiathar from being high priest (1 Kings 2:27), appointing the order of service for the priests and Levites (2 Chronicles 8:14), and having the prophets in attendance upon him to record his noble deeds (2 Chronicles 9:29). To Solomon's reign the Israelites ever looked back as giving the ideal of what their "anointed one" should be, and onward they looked to the coming of One who should perfect this ideal, and instead of staining it with sin, as Solomon did, should raise it to the full and vast dimensions of Israelite thought. Most painful must it have been to the nation that each one of its first three king, though rising every one far above the level of ordinary men, yet fell so very far short of their ideal. And then came the rent in the kingdom, and an ideal king was possible no longer.
But the prophets kept the thought ever alive in the hearts of the people, and in the fulness of time the Messiah came. Meanwhile the establishment of the earthly monarchy was an essential condition for the security, the continuance, and the development of Israel. Without a king Israel could never have performed its work of preparing for Christ. Even the organisation of prophecy was delayed till there was a king, because when a nation has to fight for its very existence there is no room for a literary and educated order of men. Learning would have died out in the middle ages had there not been cloisters into which men who loved mental culture might retire. Still it was not this which made the people cling so tenaciously to the hope held out to them by Moses, but the daily vexation of Philistine misrule. And what the Philistines were to them now all the neighbouring nations had previously been in turn. Throughout the Book of Judges we find a state of things described from which all thoughtful men must have desired deliverance, and the few exceptions, as when they flourished for a time under the strong hand of Gideon, only served to bring out the contrast more clearly between times when they had a ruler and times when they had none. We need not wonder, therefore, at the persistency with which the people urged their demand, even after the dark pictures which Samuel had drawn of what a king might become if he degenerated into a tyrant. But our admiration is due to the patriotism and generosity which made this noble-minded man grant their request, though he knew that he thereby limited his own powers, and gave his sons an inferior place. So also had Moses done before. While he gave Aaron high and perpetual office, he let his own family fall back into the position of ordinary Israelites. And, moreover, the king whom Samuel chose was a grand hero, though, like so many men gifted with great powers of command, he fell through that self-will which is the besetting sin of ruling natures. Few men can endure the trial of the possession of absolute power, and least of all those endowed with an energetic and resolute temperament. It is a noble testimony that David bears to Saul and his heroic son in the "Song of the Bow" (2 Samuel 1:19-27): "mighty" they were, and "the beauty of Israel," though Saul marred his glory by great and ruinous faults. With Saul, then, the rest of the book is occupied, and it divides itself into two parts—
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SAUL'S KINGDOM (CHS. VIII-XV.).
REJECTION OF SAMUEL'S SONS (verses 1-5).
1 Samuel 8:1
When Samuel was old. As Samuel lived for very many years after this time, till towards the close of Saul's reign, he was probably not more than sixty when this happened. The dates are all very uncertain, but he was probably between twenty and thirty when Shiloh was captured, and no doubt, according to Israelite custom, had married as soon as he arrived at manhood. Then came the most important and active period of his life, during which the ark rested for twenty years in the house of Abinadab, and Samuel was traversing every part of the country, preaching repentance, and preparing the people for a revolt from the tyranny of the Philistines. Upon this followed the victory at Mizpah, and the establishment of Samuel as judge. Now some considerable time would elapse before Samuel so felt the weight of increasing years as to delegate a part of his authority to his sons, and more again before the national discontent at their covetousness became general. The Talmud, however, represents Samuel as being at this time only fifty-two years of age, while Abravanel says seventy, and the latter number is by no means impossible; for as a Nazarite Samuel would lead a life of perfect temperance, and his predecessor Eli lived to be ninety-eight, and died then by an accident. Still, probably, Abravanel's calculation is too high, and we must remember that besides the misconduct of Samuel's sons, there was the growing danger of the re-establishment of the domination of the Philistines to quicken the people's movements. They had garrisons again in Israel when Saul was chosen king, and it was this which made the nation long for a change, but. their choice would probably have fallen upon one of Samuel's sons had either of them been worthy. A king they had long wished for; it is only when they saw that none of Samuel's race would give them internal peace and security that they took public action for the appointment of some one else.
1 Samuel 8:2
The name of his firstborn was Joel. The names of Samuel's sons are pledges of his faith—Joel meaning Jehovah is God, and Abiah Jab is Father. The name given in 1 Chronicles 6:28, Vashni, is a mistake. It means, "and the second," the name of Joel the firstborn having somehow been omitted. The names of Saul's sons, and even of Jonathan's, unlike those in Samuel's family, bear witness to their religion having been of a curiously mixed character. In Beer-sheba. Not, therefore, in any of the places to which Samuel went in person, and which were all near Ramah, his home. Beer-sheba was in the extreme south of the tribe of Judah (see on Genesis 21:31), on the Philistine border, and his being able to place his sons there in authority proves, not merely that his rule was acknowledged throughout the whole country, but also that the Philistines did not interfere much with the internal arrangements of the Israelites. Josephus ('Antiq.,' 6:3, 2) represents only one son as placed at Beer-sheba, and says that the other was judge at Dan, but it may be doubted whether the northern tribes were sufficiently under control to submit to be governed by a southern judge.
1 Samuel 8:3
His sons …took bribes. This sin was expressly forbidden in Exodus 23:6, Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19, and it marks the high spirit of the nation that it was so indignant at justice being thus perverted. They walked not in his way (singular—so the written text); for Samuel's own administration of justice had been most upright (1 Samuel 12:4), nor is it laid to his charge that he connived at the misconduct of his sons. On the contrary, after remonstrance indeed, not for his sons' sake, but for the honour of the theocracy, and that the people might be on their guard against a despotic exercise of the power with which they were about to intrust a single man, he superseded not them only, but also himself. His conduct in this trying conjuncture was most admirable, and few commentators have done justice to the man, who, possessed of what was virtually kingly power, yet gave it over for the nation's good into the hands of another.
1 Samuel 8:4, 1 Samuel 8:5
The elders of Israel. Here, as elsewhere (1 Samuel 15:30:2Sa 1 Samuel 5:3; 1 Kings 8:3, etc.), we have traces of a popular assembly, representing the Israelite nation, and composed probably of the chiefs and heads of fathers houses. Already in Egypt (Exodus 3:16, etc.) we find stone such body in existence, and it seems to have lasted throughout the whole history of the nation; for it outlived the monarchy, gained increased power after the exile, and continued down to New Testament times. The demand, therefore, for a king, though a sort of revolt against Samuel's authority, was at least made in a constitutional manner, and came before him with all the weight of a formal decision on the part of the representatives of the nation. They put it also in the form of a request, for which they give two reasons. First, the decay of his physical powers—Behold, thou art old. Wise and vigorous as his rule had been, yet with increasing years there was less of energy; and the events recorded as having occurred at the beginning of Saul's reign show, that in order to check the increasing power of the Philistines, a leader was needed who was at once daring, resolute, and skilful in war. But there was a further reason—Thy sons walk not in thy ways. These words show that the elders had the most perfect confidence in Samuel. They felt that he would not connive at the.wickedness of his sons, but would do what was right by the nation. Thus they had everything to hope from the father's justice, while if they waited till his death the sons might resist what was virtually their deposition. That the sons of a judge possessed considerable power see 9:2. Make us a king to judge us like all the nations. I.e. just as all the heathen nations have a king. The words are those of Deuteronomy 17:14, and were probably intended to remind Samuel that the nation was only asking what had virtually been promised.
1 Samuel 8:6
But the thing displeased Samuel, and justly so. For, in the first place, they had determined to have a king without consulting the will of God. Granting that it would give them the security necessary for the nation's welfare and progress, yet so weighty a matter ought not to have been decided without an appeal to Jehovah. Samuel did make it a matter of prayer; the elders were actuated solely by political motives. And, secondly, they undervalued their own religious privileges. They wanted a king such as the heathen had, whereas something far better and higher was possible for them, namely, a king who would be the representative of Jehovah, as the shophet had hitherto been. The nation's real need was not a new power, but the permanent organisation of what up to this time had been a casual authority. And it was Samuel's high office to give the nation this, while he also changed the outward form of prophecy, and made it too into an orderly institution. A king to judge us. I.e. to govern us, as the shophet or, judge had done, only in a more regularly constituted manner. And Samuel prayed unto Jehovah. There had been no such submission to the will of God on the part of the elders; but deeply as Samuel must have been hurt by this determination of the nation to take the government out of the hands of himself and his sons, yet he leaves the decision to Jehovah. Moreover, we must note that it was as prophet that he thus acted as mediator between the people and God; and he gave them his services in this his highest capacity as faithfully when the question was one injurious to himself as he had ever done on more pleasing occasions.
1 Samuel 8:7
In prayer then the answer came to him that the request of the people must be granted, however wrongly it had been urged. In itself it was wrong; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. As we saw above, they wanted no theocratic king, whose first duty would be to maintain the Mosaic law (Deuteronomy 17:18, Deuteronomy 17:19), and protect the priest and prophet in the discharge of their legitimate functions; all they wanted was a soldier who would put an end to their state of anarchy, and enable them to cultivate their fields without the danger of seeing the produce swept off by marauders.
1 Samuel 8:8, 1 Samuel 8:9
According to all the works, etc. They showed in this the same want of respect and affection for their own institutions and religious privileges which had marked all their history since the day when Jehovah brought them up out of Egypt. And therefore Samuel was to protest solemnly unto them, and show them. The two verbs do not mean different things, but the same. "To protest" is to testify, to bear witness, and warn them of the danger they were incurring. And as they were asking not for the development and perfecting of their own institutions, but for a government modelled upon the institutions of the heathen round them, Samuel shows what are the dangers inherent in the establishment of a despot such as the kings of the heathen were. As a rule the kings of Judaea did not resemble the picture drawn by Samuel, but in spite of many blemishes remained tame to their allegiance to Jehovah as the supreme Ruler of the nation, and confined themselves within the limits marked out for them by the Mosaic law. Now therefore, at the beginning of the verse, is in the Hebrew simply "And now." There is no inference implied in it.
1 Samuel 8:11
This will be the manner of the king. On the meaning of this word see 1 Samuel 2:13. Here also it signifies not so much the legal right itself, as the way in which that right was exercised. His chariots. The word is singular, both here and at the end of the verse, and though it may be taken, as in the A.V for a collective noun, "his chariotry," yet the singular is better, because this verse does not refer to war, but to the personal magnificence and grandeur of the king. Instead of the old simplicity in which the judges had lived, he would have a state chariot (see 2 Kings 9:21), and go forth escorted by horsemen and runners on foot. To be his horsemen. Rather, "upon his homes." The whole clause should be translated, "And he will set them for him (i.e. for his service) upon his chariot and on his horses; and they will run before his chariot."
1 Samuel 8:12
Captains over thousands, and captains over fifties. The largest and smallest divisions respectively of an Israelite, army. However objectionable the king's personal state might be, this would fall in with the people's wishes, for it would give them the promise of a well organised army. Not so the next clause, to ear i.e. to plough—his ground. Forced labour was one of the most unjust, oppressive, and wasteful exactions of absolute governments, and was the chief cause of the revolt of the ten tribes from Rehoboam. And yet it was the universal rule in ancient times, and in some countries it has continued even to the present day to be the law that the peasants must at certain seasons give their labour unpaid either to the proprietors or to the state. Naturally, for a nation of agriculturists to have to leave their own fields just when their presence at home was most needed to plough the king's ground and reap his harvest would be a bitter annoyance, because to the loss would be added a sense of wrong. How determinately a high-spirited nation like the Jews did resist this injustice we gather not merely from the indignation felt against Solomon's levies, but also from the reproach cast in Jehoiakim's teeth by Jeremiah, that "he used his neighbour's service without wages, and gave him not for his work" (Jeremiah 22:13). To make his instruments of war. Such work must be done; but in well organised states it is paid for by means of taxes, i.e. by a money compensation in place of personal service. In semi-barbarous states forced labour is used, and the national arsenals furnished at the greatest possible expense and vexation to those compelled to labour, and loss to the national resources.
1 Samuel 8:13
Confectionaries. Rather, "perfumers," makers of ointments and scents, of which Orientals are excessively fond. It is remarkable that Samuel does not mention the far worse use to which Solomon put their daughters (1 Kings 11:3), and to a less extent David and some other kings.
1 Samuel 8:14
Your fields. The history of the seizure of Naboth's vineyard shows that the kings were not able to exercise this arbitrary power. Jezebel had to use great art and falsehood before she could get possession of the coveted plot of ground. But throughout Samuel describes a despot ruling after the fashion of heathen kings such as the people had desired.
1 Samuel 8:15
The tenth. i.e. the king will cost you as much as all the ordinances of religion. Still national security would be cheaply purchased at this, or even a greater cost, if the money were well spent; but Samuel says that the king would lavish it not on his officers, but on his eunuchs, those miserable creatures, so cruelly wronged, and generally so hateful, who ministered to the pleasures of Oriental kings.
1 Samuel 8:16
He will … put them to his work. Again the hateful forced service, but here not, as in 1 Samuel 8:12, of themselves, but of their households. Instead of your goodliest young men the Septuagint reads, "your best oxen," which requires only the change of one letter, and is in agreement with the rest of the verse. Samuel would scarcely place their choicest young men between the female slaves and the asses. But while the ass was used chiefly for riding, the ox was, as he still continues to be upon the Continent, man's most faithful and valued friend and fellow labourer.
1 Samuel 8:17
His servants. Literally, "his slaves." Under an absolute monarchy no one is flee.
1 Samuel 8:18
Ye shall cry. In despair at this cruel oppression ye shall appeal to Jehovah, but in vain. The king was given them at their own request, persisted in even after warning, and they must abide by their choice. It is worth noting that in the northern kingdom a majority of the kings more or less fulfilled Samuel's evil forebodings, and there they were much more completely the product of the temper condemned by the prophet than they were in Judah. The ten tribes roughly snapped the tie which bound them to Jehovah; they discarded the ark and all the services of the sanctuary, and were content with so poor an imitation of them that all piously disposed men were compelled to abandon their lands and migrate into Judaea (2 Chronicles 11:16); and so the majority of their kings, not being held in check by religious influences, were tyrants. At Jerusalem, on the contrary, most of them were content to remain within the limits of the Mosaic law, and were upon the whole a series of men far superior, not merely to the judges and the monarchs in old time, but to any European dynasty.
1 Samuel 8:19, 1 Samuel 8:20
The people refused to obey—literally, to hearken to—the voice of Samuel. The words of Samuel were no doubt formally considered by the elders, and we may be sure that there would not be wanting men to urge attention and obedience to his warning; but when the decision had to be made, whether by vote or acclamation, the majority persisted in their choice, and for a reason which completely justified Samuel's displeasure; for they say—That we also may be like all the nations. Their wish was not to develop and perfect their own institutions, but to revolt from them, and escape from the rigour of the Mosaic law. It is remarkable that their nearest neighbours and most inveterate enemies, the Philistines, had no king, but an oligarchy of five princes. Probably it had been argued, in the assembly of the elders, that if the whole power of Israel were gathered into one hand it would be more than a match for the Philistines, whose energy must often have been diminished by discords among its rulers. That our king may judge—i.e. govern (1 Samuel 7:17)—us, and fight our battles. Here the people had reason on their side. Both the internal administration of justice and the defence of the country would be better managed under a permanent and regular authority than under the judges, whose rule was extemporised to meet difficulties, and had no inherent stability.
1 Samuel 8:21
All the words. The elders had of course reported to Samuel all the arguments used in the assembly, and just as previously he had carried his own distress at the national discontent with his government to Jehovah's footstool in prayer (1 Samuel 8:6), so now, in his mediatorial office as prophet, he carries thither the nation's petition.
1 Samuel 8:22
Hearken unto their voice. The Divine consent is now given for the third time to their request (see 1 Samuel 8:7, 1 Samuel 8:9). For the will of God ever leaves the will of man free, even when overruling it to the carrying out of some higher and fore ordained purpose. Everything was ripe in Israel for the change, but it was due to the moderation and disinterestedness of Samuel that the revolution was made without bloodshed or armed struggle. Ordinary rulers too often resist a popular demand, and stem back the flowing current of thought till it breaks through the opposing barrier, and sweeps with resistless violence all opposition away. Samuel yielded, and the nation trusted him so thoroughly that they left the choice of the king entirely to him, permitted him to settle the terms and limits of the monarchy, or, as we should say, to give the nation a constitution (1 Samuel 10:25), and treated him throughout the rest of his life with the deepest respect. He was deprived neither of his prophetic rank nor of his judicial functions, for "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life" (1 Samuel 7:15), i.e. he remained to the last a coordinate power by the side of a king so self-willed and energetic even as Saul. Go ye every man unto his city. Prudence forbade a hasty choice. It would be well to let the agitation subside, or otherwise some busy intriguer among the elders might have managed to get himself selected by the popular voice. We gather from 1 Samuel 10:27 that there were leading men who felt aggrieved when the choice fell on none of them. But how wonderful is the confidence reposed in Samuel by the nation, when thus it left to the ruler whom virtually it was setting aside the choice of the person to whom he should cede his powers.
HOMILETICS
1 Samuel 8:1-9
Discontent with God's methods.
The facts are—
1. In Samuel's old age his sons, being judges over Israel, abuse their office by accepting bribes.
2. This fact is adduced by the people as a reason for asking Samuel to make them a king.
3. Samuel in his grief seeks counsel of God.
4. Samuel is instructed to yield to their request, while protesting against it.
5. The conduct of the people is declared to be an expression of the perverse tendency characteristic of their history. The order of government under which Israel was living had received the special sanction of God, and had, also, grown naturally out of their circumstances. Though often sinful and foolish, it had never before entered into their minds to seek, apart from God, a change in the political settlement inherited from the times of Moses. The deputation which waited on Samuel, asking for a king, was not the expression of a sagacious patriotism, or of profound concern for the spiritual interests of the commonwealth, and ultimately of the world; but of a restless desire for what God would give in his own time, mingled with a dissatisfaction with the system which God then was sanctioning (1 Samuel 5:1-12:20, 21). Practically, to Samuel; it meant, We can suggest and we demand now a course more agreeable to our views of life and our aspirations than that you represent. Samuel's pain was acute and natural, and the concession made to the discontented, though apparently a breach in the Divine order, was in keeping with God's usual treatment of men.
I. DISCONTENT WITH GOD'S METHODS AND TIMES IS VARIOUSLY SHOWN. Men can detect and condemn faults in others which they either do not see or condone in themselves. It is possible for us, in the light of history, to dilate on the sin and folly of Israel while the same temper may be manifested by us in other forms. Discontent with God's methods and times may appear in various relations.
1. The general government of the world. It is not often said that God has made a mistake in constituting the moral and material universe in such a way that so much sin and suffering should be possible; but the feeling is often entertained that it would have been well if some other course had been instituted. There is more of this feeling lurking in some hearts than is supposed. Men dare not face certain of their mental operations. How far the feeling affects theology, philosophical theories, personal rest in God, and fitness for doing the best Christian work, demands serious consideration.
2. The manner and form in which revelation has been conveyed to man. Many attacks on the Bible proceed from a discontent with what is conceived to be inadequate to the wants of the world; and in some this feeling has generated the supposed discovery of reasons for discarding the book as a revelation from God at all. The very primitive biographical notices; outlines of tribal history interblended with singular personal experiences; genealogies of uninteresting names; crude ideas and antique customs of strange people—all this in connection with a favoured people, and relieved by streaks of light suited to men of later times, does not seem to be a mode of revelation most likely to survive the advancing intelligence of the world. It is also not the most satisfactory thing for so precious a boon as a revelation to be given in detached portions, to be conveyed originally to men of one country, and to be characterised by a series of supernatural events. Men feel that God has imposed a hard task on them to have to defend and justify what seems open to assault from so many sides. They wish it had been his will to have given his light so unmixed with an ancient human history that the most keen antagonist would be compelled to recognise its presence. To some it really seems as though the form and origin of the contents of the Bible were a misfortune. Of course this discontent, silent or expressed, springs from an imperfect consideration of the real nature and purport of the revelation given, as well as of the inevitable conditions of any revelation that has to be coextensive with the wants of both the first and last ages of the world; and that, moreover, has to be concentrated and verified in a Divine person duly attested by a contemporary evidence harmonious with a chain of antecedent proof. It would be useful to the Church if some one, dissatisfied with the way in which God is affirmed to have made known his will to succeeding ages, would prescribe the right way.
3. The method of saving men by atonement. That God does save souls by means of an atonement bearing, in some way, an objective relation to his government, as well as a moral relation to men's lives, is so clearly the natural teaching of the Bible that it can only be eliminated by the adoption of a forced, non-natural interpretation of fact and statement. The discontent which some feel with the atonement is the reason for what is manifestly a forced interpretation of language. Entertaining the crude notion that the atonement is a transaction affecting three distinct beings, forgetful of the pregnant fact that it was God in Christ who, by sacrifice, effects redemption, and not considering well that all the pain and suffering, supposed to be imposed for the benefit of another, abide on any theory for the benefit of some one, they prefer a system in which pardon is based on the merits of a moral change brought on by a display of love in the shame and agonies of the cross!
4. The means of perfecting holiness in character. The long and tedious process by which often the soul advances from one degree of purity to another awakens dissatisfaction and fretfulness. Why should so blessed an issue as sanctification be insured by sometimes loss of property, friends, and health? Is it not possible to secure elevation of character apart from tribulation?