tabernacle according to a model which he had previously seen in vision. But if he was admonished to frame it according to a pattern previously shown him, what is the meaning of his having been instructed as to every, even the minutest, detail by a number of special revelations? Surely these would have rendered the injunction to be careful to frame it according to the pattern unmeaning. It follows, therefore, that the formula, "The Lord said unto Moses," so often repeated in these chapters, was not intended to affirm that every detail of the construction of the tabernacle was then and there imparted to him by a number of special revelations, but that it is used because, according to the wisdom given to him to enable him to discharge the duties of his office, he constructed according to the model which he had previously seen in vision.

Chapters xiv. to xvii. of the First Book of Kings throw a light on the nature of some of the prophetic utterances to which the student would do well to take heed.

The prophet Ahijah dooms the entire house of Jeroboam to destruction on account of his sin in making the golden. calves. Baasha carries this threat into execution by exterminating his entire household. It is true that he is nowhere represented as receiving a Divine direction to do this; but if he was acquainted with the denunciation of the prophet, he might full well have considered that in carrying this threat into execution he was acting in conformity with the Divine will. Yet we read in the sixteenth chapter, "And also by the hand of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, came the word of the Lord against Baasha, and against his house, even for all the evil which he did in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like unto the house of Jeroboam, and because he smote him." Still more striking is the case of Jehu. The prophet who anointed him king gives him a direct commission to exter

minate the house of Ahab, and in 2 Kings xii. the Lord is represented as saying, "Because thou hast done well, in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and done unto the house of Ahab according to all that which was in my heart, thy sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." Yet the prophet Hosea thus writes respecting the act in question, "And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease." (Hosea i. 4.) The reader will remember that it was at Jezreel that one of the great slaughters of the house of Ahab took place.

It is worthy of remark that the writers of the New Testament have never once used these formulas. The nearest approach to doing so is the following utterance of St. Paul :

"If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge, that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." (1 Cor. xiv. 37.)

The Christian prophet Agabus also is recorded by St. Luke, after binding his own hands and feet with St. Paul's girdle, to have addressed him in the following words: "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." But according to the subsequent history, the Jews did not bind Paul and deliver him into the hands of the Romans, but, on the contrary, when they were striving to kill him, the Romans, in direct contradiction to the wishes of the Jews, rescued him out of their hands and bound him with two chains, which act was the means of St. Paul's escape from their malice.

This passage, therefore, throws great light on the use of this and similar formulas with which the prophets prefaced their utterances. Agabus had received a Divine direction to

warn Paul of the danger which he was about to encounter in going to Jerusalem, but the particular form in which this intimation was conveyed must have been the creation of his own mind, and not dictated by the Divine Spirit, for the details of the utterance were not realised by the event; yet the whole is prefaced by the words, "Thus saith the Holy Ghost." It is evident that St. Luke, who has recorded both the utterance and the facts, saw no inconsistency between the words which he has attributed to Agabus and the facts as he has narrated them.

Another passage in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians throws additional light on the nature of the utterances of the prophets of the Christian Church, whose rank in it was only second to that of apostles. (1 Cor. xii. 28.)

"Let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others discern. But if a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence, for ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted; and the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the Churches of the saints." (1 Cor. xiv. 29-33.)

This passage proves

1. That a prophet of the Christian Church was so far capable of abusing his prophetic gift as to use it in such a manner as to be capable of creating disorder in the Christian assemblies. See text and context.

2. That when a prophet spake in the congregation, the others who possessed the prophetic gift were to sit by and discern the nature of his utterance. This implies that they were to determine how far it was in conformity with the Divine Spirit, or how far a human element was mixed up with it.

3. That the prophets usually spoke out of the fulness of their ordinary Christian consciousness, and not as the result

of a special revelation then and there communicated, though occasionally a prophet received a special Divine communication, on his notification of which the prophet who was addressing the assembly was to keep silence.

4. That the prophetic impulse was subject to the control of the prophet's will.

Now it is incredible that the Christian prophet, endowed as he was with the gifts of the Spirit promised by our Lord, possessed an inferior degree of enlightenment or of Divine guidance to that of his Jewish brother. If, then, the utterances of the former required to be "discerned" (daKpivÉTWTAV, a very strong word, of which the English discern is but a feeble rendering) by the other prophets who were present in the congregation, before they could be accepted as certainly conveying the mind of Christ; or if, as in the case of Agabus, the Divine Spirit only suggested to their minds a general truth, and not the special form in which it was delivered, but left it to the prophet to fill up its details, it is only reasonable to assume that elements of imperfection must have been mixed up with the utterances of the prophets of the Old Testament dispensation whenever they contain anything which is inconsistent with the teaching of our Lord, or with the character of God as it is revealed in his divine person, or with the affirmations of the enlightened conscience, which is the voice of God speaking in man. It seems to me that on this principle alone is it possible to explain those utterances of the Old Testament which represent God as tempting men to sin, or as deceiving a prophet, or as authorising a subordinate agent of His providence to carry out His purposes by inspiring men who were regarded as prophets to utter a lie, and directing them to go forth and do so. Balaam, as we have seen, at a far earlier age had enunciated the great truth, "God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent." Everything, therefore, in the Old Testament which

represents God as possessing a character either different from this, or from that of the Jesus of the Gospels, must be either a human element which has entered into the prophetic utterances, or an accommodation to the low spiritual and moral condition of the times.

The utterances of the New Testament on the subject we are considering are clear, simple, and harmonious, and may be all summed up in the following brief affirmations of our Lord and His apostles :

"The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." (John v. 22.)

"The Son of Man shall come in the glory of the Father, with his angels; and then shall he render to every man according to his deeds." (Matt. xvi. 27.)

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath One that judgeth him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." (John xii. 48.)

"The times of this ignorance God overlooked; but now he commandeth all men that they should everywhere repent, inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts xvii. 30, 31.) What, then, are the general conclusions from the positions laid down in this and in the preceding chapter?

1. That in the judgment to come, men will be held responsible not for those things in them in the production of which they have had no choice, but only for those things in which they have been voluntary agents.

2. That in judging each individual, God will make allowance for the power of the temptations by which the individual has been assailed. This is required alike by His attributes of justice and of mercy.

3. That God will judge the world in conformity with His