Still, India was not the East which these ministers had in view, and we have never done justice to that field of study to which they sought to gain attention. We are feebler to-day for such neglect. This weakness is very apparent in the gross ignorance of the real teachings of the prophets which characterises not only the leading members of our churches, and our Sunday School Teachers, but even the ministry; nay, even the would-be champions of the revealed truth, such as Canon Lightfoot, whether through ignorance of Syriac and the importance of the Peshito, or inadvertence, make a far feebler defence against the "author of Supernatural Religion" than the weapons to be found in this armoury of Antioch and Edessa, would enable them to make. Where they barely hold their own, they might come off in glorious triumph, but for their Greek and Latin shackles. And then we have proved feebler in fitness to send men into regions where such tongues are spoken, who could preach the Gospel which their forefathers once had, but allowed to slip from them. And, yet once more, even instructive travel and successful trade have been crippled for want of skill in Eastern tongues. The Turk, the Greek, and the Armenian have learnt our language and come hither to conduct mercantile operations, while we have remained generally ignorant of their tongues, and so lost fortunes which they have obtained. It would not have been so if the advice given by these ministers had been allowed to bear full fruit.

Then for our books of travel in the Holy Land, what numbers of them mislead or fail to verify the word of God. It is now found that such is the persistency of ancient names of places, allowing for modified pronunciation, that the agents of the Palestine Exploration Fund" have been able to recover nearly every place named in the Bible and determine its situation. But this would have happened years ago if the advice contained in the above memorial had been earnestly worked out. But we pass on to the next proposition.

V. This knowledge will prepare Gentiles of the present age, or their children, to share in the spiritual advantages of the conversion of the Jews.

That the Gentiles will share in the spiritual blessings in store for the Jews when they come to see that that Jesus whom their forefathers crucified, and whom they, generation after generation, have despised and rejected, is the very "Messiah of whom Moses and the prophets wrote," admits of abundant proof and rich illustration. But it would take up far too much space to fully deal with the subject in this paper. The New Testament will by many perhaps be sooner heard in proof of this point than the Old.

If so, then hear James, who when it was clear that God had granted repentance unto life to Gentiles, through the preaching of converted Jews, was reminded of the words of the prophets, which show that when the house of David is restored, which can only be when they receive Christ Jesus, then "the residue of men shall seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles upon whom His name is called." James saw Jews and Gentiles worshipping the same God after Jewish restoration. Then mark how Paul viewed their future reception to Divine favour (Rom. xi. 15); "If the casting away of the majority of his kinsmen had proved the reconciling of the world, what should the receiving of them be, but life from the dead." Not merely a quickening of Israel but of the residue of men.

The prophets of the Old Testament abound with the sentiment, but how should the study and acquisition of the Oriental tongues help this? We answer that in the millennial day the confusion of tongues, as men call it, is to be removed, that men may the better join in the worship of the Lord, when "He shall be King over all the earth and His name one."

Do you ask what proof of the fact, and next what language will prevail? 1. As to proof of the fact. The Lord has declared it. Compare what happened at Babel, Gen. xi. with Zephaniah iii. 9. In the former chapter we learn that "the Lord confounded the people's lips, so that they could not hear or understand the lip of each other." He did this to destroy their power of united labour at work of their own devising which contravened His will.

Now in the latter text, He says He "will turn or restore unto the people a pure lip," and the purpose of this restoration is twofold; first, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord; second, that they may do His work with one shoulder. Now, one language will be needed to enable men thus to serve Him. It is only when sailors all understand the word of the captain that they can time their muscular energies, so as to give a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together. If any hear not or understand not, they fail to act with one shoulder or consent. Nor can men worship with those who use an unknown tongue.

2. What tongue will this be?

We hesitate not to affirm it will be the tongue in which God has chosen to speak His will to men. Now this is the Hebrew in its threefold form, two of which are in the Old Testament, and the third in the Syriac of the New Testament.

Moses wrote it, angels spoke it, Jesus Christ conducted His ministry in it, and we believe God talked with Adam in Paradise in it. Nor is there anywhere a tongue so well adapted for the utterance of Divine thought and religious emotion. Hence the Gentiles who know most of it will soonest be able to join in the great celebrations of worship to which they will go up from year to year (see Zech. xiv. 16), or to emigrate to the glorious land, to take part in its culture, and enjoy its riches. "The sons of strangers shall build their walls, feed their flocks, plough their fields, and cultivate their vineyards." All this calls for a knowledge of their language. And does not this view show us the force of the latter part of Zech. xiv. 9, and "the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord and His name one." Will not this be literally true when they all are "taught of God," and join in His worship in the same words and the same pronunciation? Then will Babel's judgment be reversed; and then will the Psalmist's prayer be answered, "Let the people praise Thee, yea, let all the people praise Thee." Thus shall it become possible for that concerted service of God to take place on earth which does in heaven; for do we not pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven ?" But in that region of loftiest song and most lowly service, there is heard no Babel of many languages; but one and the same utterance from every worshipper. Who then that enters into the deep meaning of the comparison of the petition, "as it is in heaven," will not strive to hasten the coming of that glorious day?

VI. These London ministers put an alternative, which is that a mastery of these tongues may contribute to bring about the conversion of the Jews.

Now, though we cannot so read the word as to see that Christian effort among that ancient people will win the nation to Christ, and so merge them among Gentile Christians, for we do not see this to be the Divine order, we will not deny that these brethren were in part right in their view, that Christians might have the honour of becoming tributary to the realization of the Divine purpose concerning those who are still "beloved for the Father's sakes." Did not Paul entertain such an expectation ? (Rom. x. 19). He quotes Moses, who says to Israel, "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." Then (chap. xi. 11) when he has given a picture of their fall, he thus argues: "Have they stumbled that they should fall: God forbid; but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles; for to provoke them to jealousy."

Now the benefits which Gentiles have gained by accepting Him whom His nation has so long abhorred, have had and shall still further have a tendency to impress the Jewish mind. And still further, as Christians enter more into the Spirit of Christ and Paul towards Israel will the impression be deepened. One result of increased knowledge of their own sacred tongue has been to interest them more in the feeling of Christians for their spiritual welfare.

When the late Rev. Joseph Harbottle, of Accrington, sent a letter written in excellent Hebrew to Joseph Fry, author of a Hebrew Grammar, it touched him very tenderly to know that it was the only letter, amid a large correspondence, which he ever had received from a Gentile, written in his own beloved Hebrew. And why should not other children of

Israel be moved by like means?

Then for power to gather into the Church" that remnant according to the election of grace which there has ever been among them since the bulk of the nation became outcasts, what influence comes to Christians from the knowledge recommended in the memorial above noticed?

But these means, both of winning the Hebrew's heart and convincing his understanding, are in some degree warrant for the hope of these London ministers of 1647. It may however be thought that when the Lord said, "Then will I turn unto the people a pure lip or language," He excluded Gentile effort from the work. Nay, more, that the work should be all miraculous. Is not such a thought out of harmony with light already revealed? The confusion at Babel struck no one dumb, leaving them only the power to invent new utterances. It did not blot out the original tongue as to all the people. It remained with those who tarried in the choice and well-watered plain in the land of Shinar. The family of Peleg, who received his name as a memento of the division which then took place, retained the language and the locality after they left off to build the city and the tower.

And in the day when the Lord turns unto the people a pure lip it will again shape the sound of the primitive word with purity. They will form the basis of a grander and richer utterance. So in the works of our Lord. He taught when He wrought miracles, for His doings were three in one and one in three. The same act was a sign, a wonder, and a display of power more than human. Twice He met the hunger of multitudes by power which filled them with wonder even though they remained blind to its significance. But He took the little provision which His disciples

were able to supply, and made it the basis of a wondrous feast, which proved enough for all and to spare. Once again, on the Sea of Galilee, after He was risen from the dead, seven of His chosen ones toiled all night without success, and gave up the task weary, disappointed, and hungry. He then appeared to them and produced fire, fish, and bread, and called them to a miraculous breakfast. But He had just enabled them to make a successful cast, and their net was full of fishes. Now He bid them bring some of these fish which they had caught to increase that wondrous supply which owed nothing to their exertions.

So then, if the achievements of man are not thought by Him incompatible with those of His wonder-working hand, then may He make human learning commingle with and contribute to that grand restoration from the confusion of the days of Peleg, when with one heart and with one accent the people shall call upon His one name, and serve Him as trained workers do whose united strength is as if it were the force of one shoulder.

Much of what has been written on this memorial of the London ministers of 1647 was written before the last meeting of the Association on Conditional Immortality took place. At that meeting there were given indications of immaturity of thought on the revealed future of "the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church of God," which if they show some advance on the thoughts and attainments of the brethren of 232 years ago, still call for increased attention to the word of God, and strenuous effort rightly to divide it and clearly to set it forth. We need greater skill in the art of "distinguishing things that differ," and making that distinction plain on quite a number of important matters, which if they have been already ably treated, have not been sufficiently reconsidered, and if they have not, ought to be taken up in confidence that God has yet more light to break forth from His Word.

He who could say, "I have more understanding than all my teachers," gave as the reason for his higher intelligence not the profound study of uninspired literature, but added, " for thy testimonies are my meditation." And when he added the declaration, "I understand more than the ancients," he also said, "because I keep thy precepts." Learn, then, in the school of God by constant meditation, and as thou learnest practice, if thy claim to advance on the past be more than an empty boast.

CELSUS AND ORIGEN.

RECENT number of la Critique Religieuse, a periodical frequently enriched by the contributions of our illustrious fellow-labourer, Dr. Petavel, contains a striking essay, entitled, "The First Struggle of Free Thought," as exhibited in the assault against Christianity delivered by Celsus on the ground of pure rationalism, by Monsieur V. Courdaveaux, the object being to show how much modern Catholicism owes to the accretions of medieval corruption. The following re-cast of the same points to analogous though not exactly identical issues:

The defence of Christianity by Origen will always possess great interest for those of us who wish to apprehend the position which human reason took up in its earliest endeavours to arrest the new faith. We

say its earliest endeavours, because the writings of no assailant previous to Celsus have come down to us, consequent on the destruction of hostile or Apocryphal books by order of Constantine; and Celsus's arguments are preserved to us only by the happy accident that Origen has embalmed them in his own works-parading them in order to demolish them.

Concerning Origen himself we are very fairly informed by Eusebius and Jerome. A simple laic, charged at the early age of eighteen with the instruction of neophytes at Alexandria, and retaining that office with unbounded credit till middle life; but still refusing ordination till it was put upon him by surprise at the age of forty-three; the adviser and instructor of the most towering bishops-on a level with all the illuminati of his age-the reviser of the Greek text of the Old Testament and the author of its division into verses-ever confronting the obstacles to his course at the point of superlative difficulty, and wearing out eight secretaries a day-under the Emperor Decius an heroic confessor, unmoved by prison or by torture-yet to many in the Church an object of hatred for the audacity of his views-finally, to all succeeding ages, an illustrious statue, if not an object of love, one whose personal virtues none can dim, and whom the Church general will never cease to canonise.

And what of Celsus (or, as we ought to pronounce it, Kelsos) ? Enough is known of him to assure us that it would have been no child's play to attack him, had he been alive. His work, it has been satisfactorily shewn, could not have been executed later than the year 180; and Origen's reply was perhaps written about seventy years after, say in the middle of the third century, when Celsus, as he admits, "had been long time dead." It was, in fact, discovered by one of Origen's friends, named Ambrosius, who, reeling under some of its home-thrusts carried it to his master, and entreated him to undertake its refutation. The master did so; but the result was, as might be expected under the circumstances, an essay, fiery, impassioned, like the man himself, but desultory, prolix, and full of repetitions. Constructed at his leisure, and delivered before an audience who were predisposed to agreement with him, it has nothing of the terseness of a give-and-take combat between two watchful gladiators; but it has this valuable equivalent-it tells us what was the Christian literature which Celsus attacked in the second century; it reveals also what opinions had become more stereotyped in the subsequent seventy years. Of which, more anon.

And yet, though his adversary was dead, Origen's position was a very difficult one, arising both from what he held and from what he had abandoned. There had been many apologists for Christianity before his time, versus Judaism, idolatry, and atheism; but his was the first defence against pure rationalism. And rationalism in the present instance was the weapon wielded by one who was neither atheist, nor materialist, nor idolater. In fact, the picture drawn of Celsus, by more than one hand, possesses not only fascination, but even grandeur. He was no pervert ignominiously retreating from the severity of the Christian code, nor one whose frivolity disqualified him from measuring the moral altitude of character. It is true Origen occasionally speaks of him as an Epicurean; yet it is still more certain that he was a Platonist, believing, like the