naturalistic or rationalistic principles, can the production of such a literature from such a people be accounted for? How is it explained that the prophecy of blessings to all mankind, through a universal religion, is declared at the origin of the national existence, and is developed to greater distinctness in all its literature and history? It avails nothing to say that there was a higher life flowing within the Israelitish history, like blood within a body, and that the literature, which announces the universal blessing, is the utterance of this inward life. This is true, as the New Testament teaches: "They are not all Israel, which are of Israel; neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly." But this removes no difficulty for the sceptic; since it is only admitting that the Jewish people is in some sense an inspired people, and that the inmost heart of their history is the supernatural.

2. The seeming contradiction shows in the promise a reach of thought into the future which could not have been less than divine.

It implies a divine foresight. Nearly two thousand years were to pass before this great thought would become a working power in the civilization of the nations; yet it is boldly announced, not as a beautiful fancy, but as a prophecy and a promise of what God's action was to be. And during the long centuries following, when, over all the earth, no sign of its fulfilment appears, psalmists and prophets persistently announce the great idea and predict its sure fulfilment. When the farmer in autumn casts seed into his field, he buries it in entire isolation; but he does it with a knowledge of the vital powers of the seed, and with the foresight that it will lie protected in its hiding-place till the winter is over, and with the coming spring will shoot up and cover the field with verdure. So this seed-thought must have been deposited in the Jewish mind with the knowledge of its divine power, and the foresight that, protected during the wintry ages, it would in due time

come forth and bless the world. The very fact of burying the seed proves that he who buried it knew its vital power, and buried it that it might grow.

It evinces not only foresight of the fact, but also plan and preparation for its accomplishment. The Jewish nation is selected to preserve the truth on the earth, till the time when it should be given to all nations by Christ, as a light is enclosed in a lantern to protect it from the wind, till it can be safely uncovered within the house. The seedthought is deposited in the roughness of Jewish institutions, as nature deposits a chestnut in a burr, to protect it until grown. The Israelites were a people dedicated to the future. Prophecy and promise breathed through all their writings. The expectation of the Messiah and of his kingdom at last penetrated all their thinking, and became the distinctive characteristic of their national and religious life.

3. The separation of the Israelites, as God's chosen people, from the world, is only the application, in a peculiar form, of a principle which is universal..

Christianity is a power of separation, as really as Judaism was. It proclaims: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." It is even a power of antagonism: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." Allegiance to truth must separate from allegiance to error; allegiance to God must separate from ungodliness, and must often occasion sharp antagonism. Christianity is a power of division before it is a power of harmonizing or uniting. It divides, that it may unite. It becomes universal only by being separate. It separates, that it may be universal. God's chosen people is separated from the world to draw the world to itself, until mankind, yielding to the attraction, become God's people. The conception is not of mere universality, but of that which is distinctively Christian made universal.

Hence, in history, every special forth-putting of the divine

energy in redemption has been a notable power of separation. Not only did the call of Abraham separate him and his Israelitish posterity, but when the apostles preached Christianity the church of Christ became as really separate, though the separation differed in its outward form. The preaching of Luther separated the Protestant churches. The Puritans and the Methodists became a separate people. When a missionary preaches Christ to the heathen, the converts are by their conversion separated from the heathen mass. Religion can advance towards universal acceptance only by separation. The separation of the Israelites, therefore, is only the application, in a peculiar form, of a principlo which is universal.

Accordingly God always carries on his cause by the agency of a chosen people. The use of such an agency belongs to every part of the administration of divine grace. It belongs to the fundamental conception of the spiritual kingdom growing without observation in the world, but not of it.

The parallel may be carried even further. The Israelites. were a race descended from Jacob, and as such, a nation. This conception is the more prominent in their history. Yet within the nation was always the spiritual seed-in the greatest corruption, seven thousand who had not bowed to Baal. It was this spiritual seed which constituted the true Israel; this, whose hidden life found utterance in the spiritual sentiments and expectations uttered in psalm and prophecy; this, which gave the true significance and value to the Israelitish history; this, the chit within the corn, embodying all the life of the kernel, and shooting up, while the rest of the kernel decayed, into a new and glorious life. On the other hand, in Christianity, the spiritual seed, existing as a spiritual church scattered among all nations, is first and prominent. Yet those nations are the most efficient in promoting human progress whose civilization is the most thoroughly penetrated and vitalized by this spiritual life and truth. The immense empires of China and

India are of no account in the history of human progress. We call them unhistorical. The English-speaking race, the most thoroughly Christianized of all races, is more efficient in promoting human progress than any other race. Even in discoveries in science and inventions in art, which are working such wonders for human welfare in modern times, it is the most thoroughly Christianized nations which have accomplished the most. Heathen and Mohammedan nations contribute nothing. It may be a fulfilment of the original promise that man should subdue and rule the earth. The promise to the human race, as such, was forfeited in the fall. It was renewed to God's covenant people. It is continually reiterated that they shall inherit the earth. Do we not see its fulfilment in this fact, that heathen and Mohammedan nations discover and invent nothing; that the more thoroughly Christianized a nation is, the more it contributes to the wonders of modern discovery and invention, by which the powers of nature are subdued to man's service, and man takes possession of the earth, and inherits it? Thus, while in Christianity the spiritual life and church are foremost in thought, the very nations and races in which this life is mighty become God's chosen agents in advancing human welfare; and in this sense God is carrying on his work, now as in ancient times, not by all nations, but by a chosen nation, or at most by a few chosen nations.

4. The Israelitish people was a church in covenant with God, to which was intrusted the preservation and propaga tion of the true religion. They were thus, like Christians, "stewards of the manifold grace of God." Missions to other nations were not enjoined; for the world was not yet ready for them. God did, however, scatter them among all nations, carrying with them the knowledge of Jehovah, and of the Messiah to come. And the principle of missionary labor was established in the beginning; that they who have the knowledge of God and redemption, have it intrusted to them as stewards to preserve and propagate it. Two methods of fulfilling this stewardship were especially en

joined on the Israelites; the consecration of their children to God, followed by the sedulous and persevering education of them in the true faith,.and the conversion to the faith, so far as practicable, of all foreigners with whom they came in contact. It should be observed that this method of preserving and propagating the faith by the consecration and training of children, is in all ages the principal reliance of the church for its own growth wherever Christianity has once been accepted by a people; and it is here declared as fundamental in the first formal institution of the church in the call of Abraham.

Thus the Israelites, though separated from other nations for the preservation of the true religion, were in advance of all contemporary nations as to the spirit and principles of a world-wide religion and philanthropy. In the ages when all other nations were shut up in national exclusiveness, and scarcely had the idea of a human race, much less of one God and one religion and one blessedness for all mankind, the Jews had this grand idea; it was in their literature as the promise and prophecy of God; it was seminal in their national life; it was vital in every generation in the lives of spiritual men and women;1 and the expectation of its realization in the Messiah gradually became assured and universal, though accompanied with errors.

For all these reasons, the separation of the Israelites is not inconsistent with the universality of the promise, and, instead of invalidating, confirms the argument for its divine. and supernatural origin.

1 See Luke ii. 31, 32.