Thus, instead of the gift of Jesus Christ appearing as the marvellous, unmerited, superfluous gift of God, it is reduced to the poor level of an act which if not performed under the circumstances would have been deemed immoral in a sinful man.

We now come to consider an explanation which is much more satisfactory than either of those which have been brought before our notice. "T. W." in the March number of this periodical, in an admirable article on "The Servile Interpretation of Scripture," thus deals with this difficult subject. He says, "I come now to a class of texts which have been and still are to many a great stumbling-block. I do not for a moment profess to be able to satisfy all objections against them. I can only state how these things present themselves to me, and how little they disquiet my own mind when viewed calmly and fairly. I allude to what are called the cursing Psalms,' such as, e.g., Psalm cix. 10. It is useless to deny that these Psalms give utterance to feelings and expressions which, whatever they may be, are not Christian, are in fact utterly unchristian. Let us look the matter fairly in the face. Here is David imprecating deadly vengeance on his enemies and wishing that their children may be fatherless and beg their bread, seeking it out also in desolate places with other similar expressions. All this seems to me distinctly to prove that David was not a perfect man, but that the Spirit of God showed in him, and allowed him to speak, what were the legal aspects and the legal consequences of such acts as those of David's enemies. Do not the tremendous imprecations in the law and the prophets those for instance in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah - fully bear out this view? David spake as a man, but his utterances were so overruled by the Divine Spirit as, while being true, yet only to show the legal side of the question. As a matter of fact, did not all these imprecations come true?

"Did not the most awful sufferings befall the Jews, and to this day does not the commission of crime bring the most terrible consequences on the guilty and on the innocent? This world is a world in which law and not Gospel reigns. It is inevitably and absolutely necessary, always and everywhere, that law should precede Gospel."

With the exception of the presumption that David's enemies were God's enemies, -with which we have already dealt,-we find this passage to be most valuable in its suggestions-much more helpful than anything we have hitherto had from the commentators.

It is undeniably true that David's most imperfect character, venting itself in these imprecatory Psalms, which no Christian can lawfully imitate, is yet, if God is to be judged by the curses and imprecations of the law and the prophets, or by the facts of history, no unfaithful representation of the character of God himself. For it is certain that the curses in Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah, and in Ezekiel, and still more the actual inflictions upon innocent descendants of guilty parties, exceed in awfulness such invocations of the imprecatory Psalms as have reference to this life only.

And yet it remains undeniably true that if we were to infer from these facts that God was truly represented by the imprecatory Psalms and by David as a type, we should be griveously in error. For it is obvious to the most cursory reader that the spirit of the Old Testament

is entirely different to the spirit of the New, and the condemnation to each one of us is that we do not welcome and walk in the light of the last manifestation of God in the flesh, recognising in him the glory of the Father-the xapaктηp, express image, of his person. Holding fast to what we see God to be in Jesus Christ, in spite of law and Psalm, and prophets and history, and facts of every day experience,-triumphantly exclaiming in joyous confidence, "He is not here." are but a part of his ways." I do not find him in anything which does not remind me of Christ and speak to me of the one eternally throbbing pulse of suffering life and love.

"These

What is truly set forth by "T. W.," and also by Perowne, is that David well represented the spirit of his own dispensation, but not the spirit of the new. The spirit of the old dispensation, however, still reigns in the facts of the world. The conclusion we draw is that neither do these facts any more than the spirit of David and of the old economy reveal to us the essential attributes of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and by this conclusion we again depreciate the worth of Butler's famous argument. "T. W." continues: "The difficulty felt in connection with these Psalms arises then, as I venture to think, from two erroneous views. First, that these imprecations refer to futurity — which they certainly do not-and, secondly, that in spite of St Paul's distinct assertion to the contrary they are construed to mean simply curses and nothing more. We thus in fact put ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, into the position of the supposed objector in the Epistle to the Romans, and are really arguing that they stumbled in order that they might fall.' I need not say that St. Paul at once denies this, and declares plainly that not only was that view false, but that God would actually bring out of that stumbling greater good. The proper way, therefore, to interpret such language, as it seems to me, is, as it were, to look at the sunlight under the cloud, The curses of these Psalms, like all curses pronounced by God, are easily and naturally turned into blessings, just as the original primeval curse, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,' is in reality not a curse, but a blessing. Even so, under the dark threatenings and frownings of the law, of which many of the Psalms are simply the exponents, may be seen the glory and the beauty beyond. God is a being who constantly evokes good out of evil, and makes that very evil subservient to good."

Here again we find most valuable suggestion. We have given reasons for taking exception to the statement that the writer of the imprecatory Psalms never contemplated futurity, but we are well assured that the inherited penalties of that law "of which many of the Psalms are simply the exponents," end with the termination of the life which furnishes the means for their infliction. And not only so, but we have here suggested the extreme probability of compensation in another world for the real, though to us partly inscrutable, necessity that the innocent should be made to suffer involuntarily for conduct not their own.

We do not find support for this expectation in the unaccountable remark that "the original primeval curse is in reality not a curse but a blessing," which we cannot for a moment receive, but we do rely upon the argument of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans and upon what is predicted as to succeed the removal of the curse from the earth.

We have too a firm faith in the unity of God's government, and the impossibility of the signal tragedies of earth being displayed to an incognisant universe. It should never be lost sight of, that the world does not live to itself, or suffer to itself, or die to itself. The suffering life of man is set forth as a spectacle to angels and spirits, co-extensive it may be with the entire spiritual universe, and not a babe is trodden under the wheels of ruthless law, or grown man suffers damage in fighting with temptations which his great grandfather sowed within his soul, but some essential moral service is rendered to the universe.

It is with a gasp of joy sometimes that one involuntarily tots up some discernible fragments of the multitude of persons who are in conditions of life that extort the unavailing sigh from happier men, and surely too from still happier angels. When crowded cities bear witness to their numbers, when bulky government returns record the vast army whom civilisation condemns to varying forms of industrial disease, when the drunkenness of parents is known to enmesh thousands of children in equal misery, if not equal vice,-when paupers beget and train up paupers, and when the necessity of living is seen to be the prolific mother of fraud, of lying, of heartless competition, of relentless down-treading of the weaker, not the worse; of loathsome puffery, of exhausting and barren labours, of all sorts of questionable expedients that have the promise of filling empty stomachs, of a debased Christianity, and of vice itself: when systems of superstition draw a black veil which quenches heavenly light between the soul and God: when generations of hapless heathen rise and fall before the unsteady mental gaze: when the multitude of the unprivileged grows with the extended span of their sufferings, snares, wants, and lack of remedies: when the flail of the wrath of God, missing the real culprits, seems to descend with unmitigated force upon the innocent remainders: then, knowing that the highest glory needs the thickest veil-that the dark reign of questionable justice is the veil in which God's mercy is enfolded, and that to those who suffer vicariously there is after blessedness in a lovelier world-the heart begins to be greedy almost of calamities; for they seem the most positive witnesses to the vastness of the good that will befall the human race hereafter. If the unprivileged were the few and the thankless privileged the many, it would test one's faith to understand how "the multitude whom no man can number" was to be made up; but now in such a world as this, Faith plumes her wing and counts the redeemed in the number of the lost. Let news of evils come not singly but in battalions, it only sets the faith-inspired soul upon its singing perch. As water rebelling against consistency ceases to contract before the frost and suddenly expands at zero, so the heart upon which the knowledge of accumulated ills is heaped, when freezing also swells with hope divine, and mounting on the last piled agony of mortality descries eternity's bright sun shooting its cheerful ray above the blood-dyed waves of time.

(To be continued.)

HENRY DEACON.

THE SPIRIT OF MAN THAT IS IN HIM.

QUERY :-"Will you favour me and others who may be curious about the subject, with an exposition of the passage in 1 Cor. ii. 11- What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.' Does not this passage seem to teach the existence of an intelligent spirit in man? And surely this is something different from the breath of life."

OUR

UR querist, like querists in general, has made up his mind beforehand as to what the proper answer to his question should be. This is manifest in his closing sentence.

The question, however, is a fair one; and we shall try to give the exposition sought, as concisely as possible. And, in the first place, remark that this passage does seem to teach that there is "an intelligent spirit in man," distinct from the man himself; but it can only seem so to those who look at it in the light of a foregone conclusion, instead of a careful attention to the phraseology of Scripture. Suppose a person who had been taught that the heart of man is possessed of intelligence or knowledge; and who had been rather inattentive to the usage of Bible phrases, should fall in with such a passage as: "The heart knoweth his own bitterness" (Prov. xiv. 10), he would, in all probability, regard that passage as a proof of the doctrine he had received; and, very likely produce it in favour of his peculiar belief. And certainly he would have as good ground for his doing so, as our querist has for quoting the passage under consideration, as seeming evidence that the spirit of man within him is, in itself, possessed of intelligence.

If our querist would apply the same rule to 1 Cor. ii. 11, that he does to Prov. xiv. 10, he would not draw the inference from it which he has done.

The doctrine underlying our querist's remarks, not only assumes the existence of an intelligent spirit within man; but also that that spirit is distinct and separate from man-a living, intelligent, conscious entity within man-and no more the man himself than the dweller in a house is the house in which he dwells. Nay, more, that a man knows nothing more concerning himself, the things which belong to him being known only to his spirit which is in him. More than that, the alleged teaching of the passage implies that "the Spirit of God" is distinct from God, and that "the things of God are known only to his Spirit. "Even so the things of God knoweth no man (Greek, no one) but the Spirit of God."

We have treated the passage thus analytically to make it the more manifest that the idiomatic use of the language employed must be attended to as well as its etymology, in order to apprehend its meaning; and we have only now to remind our querist that the term spirit, in Scripture, both in reference to God and to man, is often used to express the idea of self or personality. Reference to a Concordance will soon verify this observation. In strict accordance with the usage of Scripture language, we understand the import of the passage to be this-"What man knoweth the things of a man save the man himself, even so no one knoweth the things of God but God himself."

In further illustrating this idiom, we refer to the circumstance that not only man's spirit, but also his heart, reins, and bowels have intelligence

and emotion predicated of them in Scripture; and that in all such cases the terms heart, reins, and bowels are used for the person possessing them, e.g., "The heart knoweth his own bitterness," i.e., Man's sorrow is known best to himself;" "Yea, my reins shall rejoice," ie., "I will rejoice" (Prov. xxiii. 16); "Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels," i.e., "in yourselves" (2 Cor. vi. 12). In all these, and similar cases, spirit might be substituted for heart, reins, with the same result. A part or property of the man is spoken of as being the man himself.

The inference, therefore, that the apostle's language implies that the spirit of man is an individual intelligent conscious entity, is as unwarrantable as would be the inference, that the heart, reins, bowels, &c. are endowed with sentiment and intelligence.

The meaning we have assigned to the language of 1 Cor. ii. 11 is not only in harmony with the usage of Scripture, but in strict keeping with the sense of the context. The Apostle affirms that the things which God has prepared for those that love him are beyond the power of human ken; and that they were known to him and his fellow apostles, simply because God had revealed his purposes to them by his Spirit which he had given them; which things they also spoke, not in words suggested by human wisdom, but in words taught them by the Holy Spirit. It is in illustration of this doctrine that he uses the language quoted by our querist, and the import of which we have submitted as being, "What man," i.e., "No man knoweth the things or purposes of a man save the man himself; even so the things or purposes of God knoweth no one but God himself."

The holy Scriptures give no countenance to the idea that the spirit of man is other than a possession conferred on him by the Divine Author of his being a possession which he only shares with the inferior animals. "There is indeed no word descriptive of man's inner nature which is not also used to describe that of the animals. If a man possesses a nephesh, soul or life, as in Gen. ix. 5 (at the hand of every man's brother will I require eth nephesh, the life of man'), so do they. Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the nephesh, the soul or life of the flesh, is in the blood' (Lev. xvii. 14). 'Ye shall not eat the nephesh, the life or soul, with the flesh' (Deut. xiii. 23). If man possesses a ruach, 'spirit of life' (Gen. vi. 17), so in biblical phraseology do they. Who knoweth the spirit of a beast that goeth downward?' They have all one ruach' (Eccles. iii. 19, 21.) 'All in whose nostrils was the nishmathruach chajim, breath of the spirit of life (which includes the animals, see ver. 21) died.' (Gen. vii. 22.) The spirit which is in man is of a superior order, as the candle of the Lord;' he has more wisdom than the beasts of the field,' nevertheless he shares spirit with all animated natures, although they do not bear the image of God.'" (Life in Christ, p. 103.)

6

Our querist is right when he says that the breath of life cannot be possessed of intelligence; but we are at the same time mindful of the fact that the possession of this "breath of life is indispensable to our possessing knowledge; for, saith the word of God regarding man, "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish." (Psalm cxlvi. 4.) W. LAING.