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open out far more exalted and glorious hopes for man than his own unaided imagination or understanding has ever yet dared to guess or been able to argue out.

§ I. The Nature of Scripture.

But before I come to the testimony of Scripture, let me clear my way by a few words as to its nature and inspiration. The mystery of the Incarnate Word, I am assured, is the key, and the only sufficient one, to the mystery of the Written Word; the letter, that is the outward and human form, of which answers to the flesh of Christ, and is but a part of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. The Incarnation, instead of being, as some have said, different in principle to the other revelations of Himself which God has given us, is exactly in accordance with, and indeed the key to, all of them, in one and all the unseen and invisible God being manifested in or through His creatures, or in some creature-form; and this because thus only could God be revealed to creatures like us. Whether in Nature, or Scripture, or Christ's flesh, the law is one. The divine is revealed under a veil, and that veil a creature-form.

(1) Let me express what I can on this subject, though in these days what I have to say may lie open to the charge of mysticism. The blessed fact, which we confess as Christians, is that the Word of God has been made flesh, — has come forth in human form from human nature. Jesus of Nazareth is Son of God; not partly man and partly God, but true man born of a woman, yet with all the fulness of the God-head bodily. So exactly is Holy Scripture the Word of God; not half human and half divine, but thoroughly human, yet no less thoroughly divine, with all treasures of wisdom and knowledge revealed yet hidden in it. And just as He, the Incarnate Word, was born of a woman, out of the order of nature, without the operation of man, by the power of God's Spirit; so exactly has the Written Word come out of the human heart, not by the operation of the human understanding, that is the man in us, but by the power of the Spirit of God directly acting upon the heart, that is, the feminine part of our present fallen and divided human nature. It is of course easy to say this is mere mysticism. God manifest in the flesh is a great mystery. And the manifestation of God's truth out of man's heart in human form is of course the same, and no less a mystery. And those who do not see how our nature like our race is both male and female, may here find some difficulty. But the fact remains the same, that our nature is double, male and female, head and heart, intellect and affection. And it is out of the latter of these, that is the heart, that the letter of Scripture has been brought forth, the human form of the Divine Word, exactly as Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Ghost, without an earthly father. In no other way could God's Word come in human form. In no other way could it come out of human nature. But it has humbled itself so to come for us, out of the heart of prophets and apostles; in its human form, like Christ's flesh, subject to all those infirmities and limitations which Christ's flesh was subject to — thoroughly human as He was; yet in spirit, like Him, thoroughly divine, and full of the unfathomed depths of God's almighty love and wisdom.

Now just as the fact that Jesus was man, and as such grew by degrees in wisdom and stature here, and lived our life, which is a process of corruption, and had our members of shame, and was made sin for us, by no means disproves that He was also Son of God, but is only a witness of the love which brought Him here in human form; so the fact that Holy Scripture is human proves nothing against its being divine also, exactly as Christ was. I would that those who are now dissecting Scripture, and finding it under their hands to be, what indeed it is, thoroughly and truly human, would but pause and ask themselves, what they could have found in Christ's flesh, had they tortured it as they now are torturing the letter. Had it been possible for them to have dissected that Body, — I must say it when I see what men are doing now, — would they have found, with the eye of sense at least, anything there which was not purely human? The scourge, the nails, the spear, the bitter cry, and death at last, proved that that wounded form was indeed most truly human. The Bishop of Natal has dissected the letter of Scripture till it is to him as the flesh of Christ would have been to a mere anatomist. It is not to him a living thing to teach him, but a dead thing to be dissected and criticized. He has proof that it is human; he has proof that it has grown; he has proof that death works in it, or at least touches it; he has seen its shameful members; he does not wish to lead any to despise the true teachings given by this human form; for he says it has been the channel through which he has received much blessing; he only wishes men to see that it is really human, which of course it must be, seeing it