I. The Attitude of Christians to the Old BY REV. W. ROBERTSON SMITH, LL.D. II. The Book of Isaiah. Chapters XL.-LXVI. BY REV. A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D. III. Ezekiel: An Ideal Biography. BY THE VERY REV. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. IV. The Gospel to the Greeks. BY THE EDITOR. V. The Growth of the Doctrine of the Resur- BY REV. W. J. DEANE, M.A. VI. Aphek and Beth-Dagon. BY REV. W. T. PILTER, F.R.A.S. VII. The Stone and the Rock. BY REV. JOSEPH AGAR BEET. VIII. Brief Notice. London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. PRICE ONE SHILLING. NOTICE. CLOTH CASES for Binding Vol. VI. (just completed) are now ready, price IS. Cases for binding the previous Vols. may also be had. CORN FLOUR IS THE BEST. "Is decidedly superior."-The Lancet. SOLD BY MOST RESPECTABLE FAMILY GROCERS. ROWLANDS' ODONTO Is the purest and most fragrant dentifrice ever made. 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Price 15. 1d., 25. 9d., 4s. 6d., 11S., and 22s. each Pot. Prepared by BEACH AND BARNICOTT, Bridport. THE ATTITUDE OF CHRISTIANS TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. To make anything of so large a subject as this, in the very brief compass of such a paper as I have been asked to read, it will be convenient to start from some well known and widely accepted statement on the subject which will suggest the chief points for discussion. Such a statement is given in the seventh of the XXXIX. Articles, the doctrine of which is common to all the great Reformed Churches, and would be accepted, with slight modifications, by Lutherans. The chief points are: 1. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New. This proposition is directed against ancient and modern Gnosticism. It is certainly implied in the statement of Jesus, that He came not to destroy, but to fulfil or fill up. In its negative form it is, therefore, quite unimpeachable by all who accept Christianity as an historical religion, and accept the faith of Jesus as their own faith. To turn it into a positive statement is not so easy; and it is when we turn to the positive statements of the Article that we begin to find matter about which Christians are not agreed. 2. And here the positive statement begins. Both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for a temporary promise. This doctrine too, was, up to the time 1 This paper was prepared and read to introduce a friendly discussion at a Conference representing very various types of Christian thought. APRIL, 1884. R VOL. VII. when the Article was composed, practically agreed upon in all the Christian Churches. It corresponds with the old saying, Novum Testamentum in vetere latet Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet. But it is not easy for modern thinkers either to agree with or to differ from it, without qualifications. Taken as it stands, it is open to one obvious and grave objection. It appears to assume that in the Old Testament religion, as well as in the New, the subject of religion is the individual soul. The Old Testament, it is assumed, would be contrary to the New unless the hope of the individual believer were the same in both. But, as matter of fact, the subject of Religion in the Old Testament is not the individual but Israel, as a corporate unity. The promises of the Old Testament are primarily addressed to Israel, not to the individual soul. Throughout the larger part of the Old Testament religion offers felicity to the individual only in the felicity of a nation accepted with God. I do not say that the individual element is absent even in the older parts of the Old Testament. But it is altogether subordinate to the national aspect of religion. The Psalmists sometimes attain the persuasion, which the Book of Job strives after without reaching a satisfactory conclusion, that in the love of God the happiness of the individual is secured; but this is a transcendental conviction which is nowhere reduced to a regular part of the Old Testament system. The statement of the Article and of Protestant theology generally on this head is, in fact, a polemical statement. Its gist lies mainly in the negative. It is denied as against certain so-called Judaizers that "the Fathers looked only for a temporary promise." That is certainly true, if temporary promise means, as in the Article it plainly does mean, a promise of temporal (as distinct from everlasting) life and felicity to the individual believer. The Old Testament does not promise this. teaches the individual to place his hope in the mercy of God It |