with the rational and free nature of humanity. So one truth after another was made known, as it was needed and could find reception. The light was given according to recipiency-God's free grace pressing measures of it to the full of humanity's consent to use it. The light was always made to shine upon the darkness faster than the darkness comprehended it. This progress was not in addition to the redemptory reality itself, but only in revealing it. The proto-evangelium (Gen. iii. 15), at once setting forth a victorious redemption and salvation over against sin, assures us, from our view-point of it under the Gospel, that the truth of redemption was all complete in the divine mind and gift from the beginning. But there was revelatory advance, through appointed significant offerings of propitiation and thanksgiving; through many divine manifestations in which God showed His mercy and declared His will; through a distinct covenant with Abraham and his seed, chosen to be a special medium for the conservation and expansion of the divine truth and grace-a covenant vouched to faith in sacramental sign and seal, pledging blessings to all the families of the earth; in the call and endowment of Moses, and his divine legation in that unique and wonderful transfer of the chosen race from Egypt to Palestine; in the great Moral Law of Sinai and an instituted Tabernacle Worship, with prescribed sacrifices of atonement to be continued for the long centuries of Jewish history as impressive types and assurances of God's provided propitiation for the sins of the world-on and on through manifold distinct Messianic prophecies, throwing into ever clearer light the coming of the divine Saviour who should unite in Himself the accomplishment of all priestly, prophetic, and

kingly offices, and establish God's dominion of life and righteousness in the earth. (b) As to form. At first God revealed Himself in sensible manifestations, as a necessary accommodation to the earlier pupilage of men. With Moses He speaks "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex. xxxiii. 11; Num. xii. 8). Miracles early appear, as special displays of the divine power through human instrumentality, arresting attention and accrediting the divine authority. In these miracles themselves a progress may be traced, evidently educational, from the physical to the spiritual, the spiritual miracles of inspiration and prophecy becoming the more prevailing form. Then came the revealing Presence in the Person of the Christ, disclosing the deepest and most transcendent spiritual truths, realities, and mysteries of redemption. Finally, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, to take the things of Christ and show them to men, and the completion of the inspired record of these things, revelation became an abiding presentation of the supernatural truth appealing to our higher faculties, superseding visible theophanies and sensible miracles.1

The reason of the closing of the process of supernatural revelation is that the full provision of redemption and the truths for spiritual salvation have been given and adequately certified to the world. The idea that revelation is a still continuous, endless process, forgets its special aim and character. It forgets its redemptory purpose, as providing conditions for the forgiveness of sin and recovery of men to true and holy life. It forgets that it consists essentially, not in ethical truths or principles, but in a series of divine

1 Christlieb, "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief,” p. 97.

acts, moving historically at length into the incarnate manifestation of God Himself, in the Person of Jesus Christ, His self-offering as the propitiation for the sins of the world, His resurrection for justification, His ascension and mediatorial dominion, the establishment of the Church and its endowment with the presence of the Holy Spirit, and with the means of grace in the Gospel word and sacraments. It forgets the objective character of this revelation and the completeness of its soteriological provision and truths. All that it was needful that God should do to reconcile the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to men, drawing them back to faith and obedience by the cross of His love, and renewing their hearts by His Spirit, has been done. All the teaching needful for a saving understanding of these redemptory provisions has been given. All the means necessary to enlighten the mind and work an appropriating faith have been furnished. All the requisite truths and precepts for the order and regulation of the Christian life, have been supplied. And the same God who has thus entered into human history in this course of redemptive activity or work has providentially mated the work and its essential truths with a true and adequate record, in an organism of Holy Scripture, preserving the given revelation for the world. Christianity stands in historical mould. Its power rests upon its historical realities and becomes void for faith if these be resolved into fictions. It cannot be severed from its historical bases and remain itself. It cannot be made a mere subjectivism. The effort of some theologians' to detach it from necessary relation to these

'Ritschl, Sabatier, et al. See, for example, Auguste Sabatier's "Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit," pp. 145-375.

realities, so as to make it stand practically independent of its historical evidences, an absolute religion complete simply in the moral intuitions, religious aspirations, spiritual sentiments, and satisfactions in which each man may find it accredited by his own nature—a mere naturalistic idealism-is in destructive contradiction of the very foundations of Christianity. Unquestionably its verities have such self-attesting power to the human soul, to a wonderful degree. It arises from their divine adaptations to the religious need. But remove or resolve into myths the supernatural facts of the Old Testament providence and the New Testament redemption, which constitute the fundamental material of Christianity, and the very verities whose adaptations witness so assuringly are discredited and discarded. The very content of the faith is lost. The tree severed from its roots cannot live or bear its fruits. The all-embracing differential characteristic of Christianity is that it forever stands for a divine historical achievement in the past as supplying the provision and guarantee of grace and salvation in the present and the future. The continuity of Christianity is the apprehension and appropriation of the finished redemption and its redemptory truth, in the Biblical deposit, mediating, under the Holy Spirit's presence, supernatural saving forces. This apprehension is progressive, marked by increasing insight into and understanding of the Christian truths and doctrines. It involves, through the ongoing centuries, ever new applications to altered and advancing conditions of human life, giving fresh and richer view of the meaning and power of the Gospel. Every age more light is breaking forth from it-not, however, because of additions to it, but because more is found to be there.

CHAPTER IV.

EVIDENCES OF REVELATION.

As conditional for thus taking the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the principal and decisive source of theology, we must have proof that they are indeed a supernatural revelation from God. Only thus can they acquire authority to rule our faith. For faith is not to be credulity but a firm confidence resting on adequate evidences. The Scriptures can claim our credence and rightly dominate our minds precisely in the degree in which they have such evidences. They present themselves before us as rationally capacitated to discern their credentials and meet our responsibility in relation to them. As to essence the evidences have been the same from the first, but they have been much varied in form and relative emphasis according to the changing character of skeptical attacks. From the vast mass we must remind ourselves of some of the most characteristic proofs, prefacing with some general considerations.

1. A special revelation is surely possible. The possi bility becomes evident not only from our necessary conception of God as able to do what He wills, but specifically: First, from His relation to the world, as not only different from it and above it, but as also immanent in it, His eternal will and power touching it everywhere and forever. "He is not far from everyone of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, Acts xvii