wickedness of his children if they disobeyed his instructions? Now, so with the precepts which the Divine Father has given to His earthly children. If obeyed they would promote the best good of each individual, and of all who received them. There is not one precept in the New Testament, from Matthew to the Apocalypse, which, if obeyed, would not make the recipient more happy and more useful. The precepts of the New Testament are perfect and ultimate. There can be nothing better, nothing farther. "To love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourself," exhausts the ability of man, and the requirements of righteousness. If God were to give any other religion, He would have to give a worse one, because He could not give a better. Sceptics may find reasons to cavil with the histories in the Old Testament and the chronologies of the New. But the great truth remains, that man is a religious being, and he can have no religion but the gospel, unless he has a worse one. Righteousness can demand no more than supreme love to God and impartial love to man. And God could reveal greater love than to stoop to our nature, and die that we might live?

Thirdly The love of God is apparent in the motives that He has presented to incline us to repent of sin, and obey this rule of love and duty. Man is a free moral agent. He is so constituted that he can act as a responsible being only in view of motives. The will cannot be forced. A man may be forced to say his prayers or to sign a deed; but such acts have no moral character. But the free will is responsible always under the influence of moral motives. The character of any mind is known by the character of the motives that it presents to influence other minds, or rather by the end to which it endeavors to influence them. Motives are addressed to the intellect, but they reach our will through our hopes, our fears, and our hearts. Now, in the New Testament God has not only revealed the perfect rule of duty, but He has presented the strongest motives possible to influence the will to obedience. The evil of sin and its final curse are presented

to our fears to arrest us in the highway to hell. The purity and glory of heaven are presented to our hopes to induce us to repentance and faith. The heart is appealed to by infinite love. From the cross the suffering Saviour cries, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." Thus in the broad way the Angel of Retribution stands to admonish us. On the narrow way the Angel of Peace stands to invite us; while Christ appeals to our heart by His love, manifested in the only way true love can be manifested-by self-denial for our good. Thus has God addressed motives to all the powers and susceptibilities of our nature in order to lead us to repentance unto life :-"God is love."

Fourthly: The love of God for the spiritual good of His creatures is exclusively manifested in the sacrifice of Christ. "That whosoever believeth might not perish, but have everlasting life." A revelation of law does not lead us to love the law that we have transgressed; but a revelation of love, which offers pardon for past offences, leads us to love the lawgiver, and thus to honor and obey the law. "What the law could not do," &c. God could not make a law which would allow a single sin. No intelligent being will say, He ought to make such a law. But we are all sinners, and future obedience cannot atone for past offences, because the law requires perfect obedience both in the past and future. Good acts in the future cannot atone for the past evil, be- · cause good acts up to the amount of our knowledge and ability, are required both in past and future. I cannot atone for killing one man by saving the life of two. deeds of the law can no flesh living be justified." In this evil and helpless state Christ offers Himself "a propitiation for the sins that are past," "that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus." "In this was

"By the

manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." 1 John iv. 9.

:

Fifthly The love of God is manifested to lead us to repent

ance by the mercy of the Holy Spirit's operation. The spirit sustains two offices in the work of human salvation. One upon the mind of the impenitent, one in the mind of the believer. Christ furnished the material, the Holy Spirit applies it. He convicts, or convinces, "the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.” That is, He shows them their sin, points to the true standard of righteousness, and admonishes them of judgment, in order thus to lead them to repentance. This antecedent work of love is necessary, because man will not turn from a present state, until he is made to feel in his soul that it is a wrong and a dangerous one. Then, in the heart of Christians, the Holy Spirit exercises His office by "taking of the things of Christ and shewing them unto them." (John xvi. 14.) He causes the humility, the suffering, the love, the glory, of Christ to appear to the believing mind; and as the Christian sees, he repents, worships, and rejoices. In the conviction by the Spirit, and in the indwelling of the Spirit, are the love of God manifested to lead men to repentance. Thus, in the spiritual world, in the gospel kingdom, God displays His love to men by Conscience, Revelation, Motive, Sacrifice, and Spirit. This is the essential power of the gospel. Nothing but love can beget love. Faith works by love, and purifies the heart; and no heart can ever be purified but by faith in Christ. "BEHOLD THE LAMB OF

GOD THAT TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD."

REV. J. B. WALKER.

Biblical Criticism.

[Contributed to the Homilist by the REV. WM. WEBSTER, M A., late Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, joint Editor of the "Annotated Greek Testament."]

SECTION X.

ON THE HEBRAISTIC GENITIVE.

AMONG the alleged Hebraisms of the N. T. there is one which is attributed to the idiomatic peculiarity, by which the Jews expressed a qualifying thought by a second noun

in the genitive, instead of inserting the appropriate adjective. This form of expression in Hebrew is ascribed to its paucity of adjectives. As this plea cannot be advanced in justification of the Hellenistic writers of the N. T., it is generally said that their use of a genitive in the place of an adjective proceeds from the influence of the Aramaan tongue.

Now this use of the genitive is found occasionally in Latin, Greek, and all languages; and it may be doubted whether in any instance it is used merely to express the qualifying power of the adjective.

In whatever way we account for the usage, it will be found that in the N. T. this genitive expresses much greater intensity than could be conveyed in any other manner. The quality thus ascribed to the noun is represented as permanent and abiding, so as to be an essential and component part of the subject to which it is attributed.

Our translators seem not to have been guided by any fixed principle in the rendering of this idiom; nor is this to be wondered at, when we find that modern scholars in their view of this genitive have scarcely advanced beyond their predecessors. In uncertain riches' in 1 Tim. vi. 17, we might with advantage substitute the uncertainty of riches.' For 'glorious liberty,' Rom. viii. 21, 'the liberty of the glory.' For the glorious appearing,' in Tit. ii. 13, 'the manifestation of the glory.' For his mighty angels,' in 2 Thes. i. 7, 'the angels (the agents) of his power.' For strong delusion' in 2 Thes. ii. 11, 'the efficacy of delusions,' i.e., the active operation of error. We might also translate Phil iii. 21, 'the body of our humiliation,' 'the body belonging to his state of glory.'

There are, however, other passages in which our translators have not represented this genitive by an adjective, according to the suggestions of Hebraizers in ancient and modern times. The Lord of glory,' in Acts vii. 2; Jas. ii. 1, is much more powerful than the glorious lord.' 'Newness of life,' in Rom. vi. 4, is surely a better rendering than 'A new life.' 'His powerful word' would certainly be ill substituted in Heb. i. 3, 'for the word of his power.' 'The work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope,' spoken of in 1 Thes. i. 3, means something more than 'believing work, loving labour, hopeful patience.' The genitives denote that the faith of the Thessalonians manifested its divine origin by their character and conduct; their love evinced

its genuineness by the exercise of self-denying toil; their hope imparted strength to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

The frequency with which this expression is found in the N. T. may be accounted for in some degree by the expressions, 'children of Belial,' 'children of light,' 'of disobedience,' 'Son of peace;' where the speaker looks upon these qualities as an invariable and inseparable accident of their. subject. Thus in Luke xvi. 8, 9, 'the unjust steward' is the steward, the son of unrighteousness; the unrighteous mammon the produce of unrighteousness. In Jas. i. 25, the forgetful 'hearer' is the 'hearer,' (the servant, the son,) of forgetfulness; one who was never known to be an attentive hearer. In Luke xviii. 6, the unjust judge' is the judge (the servant) of iniquity; one whose usual character was to pervert judgement.

6

In Rom. i. 26, the A. V. has 'lusts of uncleanness.' A better translation would be infamy-lusts; passions, the deformity of which could be cloaked by no specious excuses or fair names;—but such as were born and bred of infamy.

I would conclude with suggesting a strong caution against the adoption of the Hebraistic view generally given of this genitive. In almost every instance there are a force and a freshness in the genitive which cannot be conveyed by an adjective. The expression in Eph. iv. 24, righteousness and true holiness,' seems to me to be far below the original, 'the new man which after God is created in rectitude and holiness arising from the truth.'