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to prove the exact reverse of the doctrine in support of which it is quoted, for it shows that in the language of Eastern hyperbole the word 'everlasting' and its equivalents were constantly used of transitory and temporal afflictions.

9. The phrases of the New Testament are interpreted in the same bare and bald way, without any reference to history, literature, and the common laws of Eastern language-just as though they had first appeared in some book of yesterday. The words of Christ and of the Apostles are habitually forced into senses accordant with popular dogma, without any reference at all to the meaning of the Old Testament passages on which they are founded.

Thus the fearful metaphors, to be 'cast into hell fire,' and 'where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched' (which occurs in Mark ix. 48, but is interpolated into verses 44 and 46), are part of a parabolic passage so entirely built on Jewish metaphors and idioms that apart from them it cannot be understood. It is quoted as a decisive proof of 'endless torments.' Its bearing on such a dogma evaporates to nothing when we examine it. In the first place, 'hell' can only mean what the original word 'Gehenna' means; and 'Gehenna' was the vaguest and most metaphorical word of later Jewish theology. In our Lord's time Gehenna was a pleasant valley outside Jerusalem; but five centuries earlier it had been first desecrated by Moloch worship, then defiled with corpses, and lastly purified from pestilence by huge fires. To have the dead body thrown into Gehenna was a terrible indignity, and became a metaphor for severest punishment; but the use of the phrase in this proverbial way no more sanctions the belief in the 'hell' of the middle ages than the use of

Tartarus in 2 Peter ii. 4 shows that the author intended to vouch for the stories of Ixion and the Danaides; or than Luke xvi. 22 proves that Abraham literally carries the millions of the blessed dead in his actual bosom. Further, our Lord is quoting almost verbally from Is. lxvi. 24; and Isaiah-or the later Prophet who wrote that chapter-is describing in highly metaphorical terms how men of various nations shall come to Jerusalem to seenot the living torments, but the consumed and consuming carcases of the rebels against God. On such isolated phrases we have no warrant for building up vast and terrific doctrines which run counter to many plain passages of Scripture; and to its representation of God's mercy; and to the moral sense of mankind-which is itself a source of the divinest revelation.

I have only given these few instances by way of illustration; but they are more than sufficient to prove to all men of open minds the truth of the rules that (i), as the wisest Rabbis said,

"The Scripture speaks in the tongue of the sons of men ;' that (ii), as St. Augustine said,

'Only the real meaning of Scripture is Scripture;' and that (iii), as is said in the 'Imitatio Christi,'

'All Holy Scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was written.'

The perspicuity of Scripture is absolute as to every truth which is essential for salvation. 'Whatever is necessary,' said St. Chrysostom, 'is clear.' As to those truths which are required for man's guidance, whosoever walketh in the way, even fools, shall not err therein.1 But when Scripture is quoted for controversial purposes, it is, in hundreds of instances, quoted to all intents as falsely 1 Is. xxxv. 8.

as it was by the woman who, on her deathbed, told her clergyman that she was not called upon to repent, because 'the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.' The Bible does not say one tithe of the things which it has been asserted to say. The Bible as such does not, and cannot, say anything on points which were not even in the view of the majority of its writers. What is said by a particular text-even when we have convinced ourselves that the text is neither mistranslated, nor misinterpreted, nor metaphorical and symbolic, nor torn from the significance of its context, nor unduly pressed-may still need correction by, and co-ordination with, other texts, and may after all only express the isolated sentiment of an individual writer, not a final oracle of God.

Very wise on this subject are the remarks of John Wesley. When confronted with 'texts' which were adduced to prove the doctrine of reprobation to endless torments, he replied, 'Whatever that Scripture proves, it can never prove this. Whatever its true meaning, this cannot be its true meaning. Do you ask "What is its true meaning, then?" If I say "I know not," you have gained nothing, for there are many Scriptures, the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know-better it were to say it had no sense at all than to say it had such a sense as this. Let it mean what it will, it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No Scripture can mean that God is not Love, or that His mercy is not over all His works.'

Christ only is the Eternal Truth. Christ only in the full and perfect sense is the Word of God.

And here, surely, the words of the late Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. Davids, are very apposite. 'The Old Testament history,' he says, 'so far as it is a narrative of civil

and political transactions, has no essential connection with any religious truth; and if it had been lost, though we should have been left in ignorance of much that we desired to know, our treasure of Christian doctrine would have remained unimpaired. The numbers, migrations, wars, battles, conquests, and reverses of Israel have nothing in common with the teachings of Christ, with the way of salvation, with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They belong to a totally different order of subjects. They are not to be confounded with the spiritual revelation contained in the Old Testament, much less with the fulness of Grace and Truth which came by Jesus Christ.'

CHAPTER XVII

SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES.

'Hanc garrula anus, hanc delirus senex, hanc sophista verbosus, hanc universi praesumunt, lacerant, docent antequam discant.'—JER. Ep. liii. 7.

'Oh let Thy Scriptures be my pure delight; let me not be deceived in them, neither let me deceive by them.'-ST. AUGUSTINE.

'Wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.'-2 Pet. iii. 16.

THE knowledge of mankind advances continually, and the advance of knowledge is the result of continuous revelation. The new truths which God is ever making known to us in nature and history are of their very nature sacred; for they are truths, and they must all be considered in the great system of human belief respecting God, Man, and the Universe.

It is not, therefore, faith but cowardice, not piety but obscurantism, to ignore what God has taught us by science, and metaphysics, and literature, and historic criticism in all its branches. Scripture must be henceforth interpreted with reference to something besides the accretion of arbitrary fancies, which has been stereotyped in long obsolete commentaries. Rabbinism and scholasticism in exegesis are no longer possible to any reasonably educated or in