deaf and dumb and blind, who, as far as we know, cannot be suffering for their own sake; — look at the fact that in one instance crime is punished, in another unpunished, here. Is not this inconsistent? Where is the justice of it; and where, as judged by sense, is the love of sending souls into the world whose life throughout is one of suffering ? Certainly here is a text in God's providential book of rule, (which I may say answers to the books of Kings, or Rule, in Scripture,) quite as hard as any of those texts in the book of Kings, which some would cut out of Scripture, as presenting us with false and unworthy views of Him. But can these critics blot the selfsame text out of God's book of rule in Providence?
There it stands, just as it stands in the book of Nature also. Shall we therefore say that the revelation of God in Providence is an inconsistent one? No — the fact is, it is a veil as well as a revelation,
and all its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions can be cleared up, if not to sense, yet to faith, in the light of God's sanctuary.1
Even so it is with those two other revelations, which, much as they have been gainsaid, the Church has received and yet believes in, I mean the flesh of Christ and Holy Scripture. The flesh of Christ,
the Incarnate Word, is beyond all question a veil.2 How much did it hide, even while to some it revealed God. How few knew what He was; how many misunderstood Him. And how inconsistent did that feeble form appear with the truth that it was God's chosen dwelling-place. The apparent inconsistency may be gathered from the fact that those to whom He came stumbled at it. And from that day to this that human form, that birth of a woman, that growth in years and stature, those tears, that sweat, that weariness, those bitter cries, those members of shame, that dying life, all this, or part of this, has to the eye of sense seemed so inconsistent with divinity, that thousands have denied that that Form was or could be a revelation of God, even while they allow that it has done what mere humanity never did. The fact is, it was, and was intended to be, a
veil as well as a revelation; and as such there could not but be apparent contradiction. The same is true of Scripture, that is, the written word, which like Nature has gone through six days of change, and like Christ's flesh has grown in wisdom and stature here. Throughout it is a veil while it is a revelation; and therefore, like Nature, Providence, and the flesh of Christ, it is and must be open to the same reproach, not only of inconsistency, but of setting forth unworthy and even untrue statements of God. For indeed Scripture is a veil, which when taken in the letter, that is, as it appears to sense, makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as Nature and Providence seem to make Him; and yet all the while it reveals Him also, as nothing else has ever revealed Him. For though in Christ's flesh the revelation is complete spite of the veil, its very completeness and compactness keep us from seeing the various parts, which are set before us in Holy Scripture piecemeal,1 and in a way that neither Nature nor Providence at present shew Him to us. For the law and the prophets tell us more of God and of His purposes, as to the restitution of all things and the promised times of rest and sabbath, than Nature yet declares to our present understanding; though indeed Nature may be, and probably is, saying far more to us than any mere human eye or ear has yet apprehended. Now if Nature and Providence, Christ's flesh and Scripture, have all this same characteristic peculiarity of being veils as well as revelations, and are therefore open to the charge of inconsistency, as read by sense, seeming to declare what is opposed to fact, may we not conclude that they have all come from the same Hand, especially when it is seen that the apparent contradictions, which are found in any of these revelations, like the tabernacle veil, invariably cover some deeper truth, which cannot safely be expressed, to fallen men at least, in any other way.
(3) The deeper question, why God has thus revealed Himself should not be passed by; for it opens the heart of God. God alone of all teachers has had two methods, law and gospel, flesh and spirit,— one working where we are, the other to bring us in rest where He is, — one to be done away, the other to abide,2— which at least looks like inconsistency. The reason is that God is love, and that in no other way could He ever have reached us where we were, or brought us where He is. God therefore was willing to seem inconsistent, and for awhile to come into man's likeness, to bring man back to His likeness. Here is the reason for law before gospel,
for Christ's flesh before His Spirit, for all the different dispensations, and for all the types and shadows which for awhile veiled while they revealed God's living Word. Here is the reason for the human form of the Divine Word in Scripture. Had that Word come to us as it is in itself, we should no more have apprehended or seen it than we see God. Had it come to us even in angelic form, only a very few, the pure and thoughtful, ever could have received it. But it stooped to reveal itself to creatures through a creature, and to come to us out of the heart of man in truly human form, so that all men, Gentile or Jew, polished or savage, might through its perfect humanity be able to receive it. God more than any of His most loving servants has become a Jew to gain the Jews, and weak to gain the weak, and under law to gain those under law; because He is love, and love must sacrifice itself, if by any means it can save and bless others. If therefore men are in the flesh, God comes to them in flesh; if they are in darkness and shadows, God comes for them into the shadows; because they cannot comprehend the light, and because the darkness and light are both alike to Him.1
If this is not the way of His revelation, how, I ask, has He ever revealed Himself? Will any dare to say that He has not revealed Himself? Has God who is love been content to leave poor man in perfect ignorance? Or if He has told man what He is, as most surely He has, how has He done so? Did He, does He, can He, plainly tell out to all what He is? And if He did not, why did He not? Why have men always heard God first speaking in law before a gospel dawned on them? Why must it be so, or at least why does He allow it? Is it a mistake of His, which we must avoid, when we attempt to make Him known; or shall we be wise, if, in doing what He is doing, that is, in revealing Him, we imitate His way of revelation? Surely from the days of Adam, seeing what man is, and our delusions about Him, God must have desired, and we know has desired, to make Himself known; and being Almighty, All-wise, and All-loving, surely He has taken the best method of doing it. Again I ask, how has He done it, how must He do it, man being what he is? Could God consistently with our salvation have done it otherwise than it has been done? To shew Himself as He is would to man be no shewing of Him. It was needful that He should shew Himself under the forms and limitations of that creature in and to whom He sought to reveal Himself, that is by shadows before light, by law before gospel, by a letter before a quickening spirit, in a word, by the humiliation of His
eternal Word stooping to come out of man's heart and in human form. And yet this could not be done without the Truth by its very humanity laying itself open to the charge of being merely human and not divine, and to the humiliation of being rejected for having our infirmities upon it. Love can bear all this, and God is love, and the truth can bear it, for truth must conquer all things. And therefore while it submits to take a human form, in which it can be judged and die, (for it must die and to some of us has died, in the form we first apprehended it,— a trial of faith sooner or later to be known by all disciples, who, like apostles of old in the same strait, are sorely perplexed at this dying, for they have trusted that this is He which should have redeemed Israel,— ) it must also live and rise again, and glorify that human form forever. But because it has thus stooped to come in human form, out of the heart of man, even as Christ came forth from Mary, for us, therefore like Him it shall be stripped and mocked. But those who are stripping it know not what they do.
§ II. The Testimony of Scripture.
I pass on now from the nature of Scripture to its teachings as to the destiny of the human race, and more especially of those who here either reject or never hear the gospel. I feel how solemn the enquiry is, not only because no subject can be of greater moment, but because what appears to me to be the truth differs from those conclusions which the Church has stamped with her authority. Believing, however, that the Holy Scripture, under God and His Spirit's teaching, is the final appeal in all controversies,— regarding it as the unexhausted mine from whence the unsearchable
