The devotional use of the Holy Scriptures

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U. B. CAT. NO. MS-'

LITTLE BOOKS ON
THE DEVOUT LIFE.

Edited by

Rev. F. B. MEYER, B.A.

A Series of Volumes, forming a complete Library of Devotion.
Size extra foolscap 8vo (7 x 4^), 140 pp., daintily bound in cloth
boards, gilt back and side, price 1/6 each.

I. The Possibilities of Obsctife Lives*

By Rev. ALFRED ROWLAND, B.A., LL.B., D.D.

11. Lessons from the Cross.

By Rev. CHARLES BROWN.

IIL The Life of the Christian.

By Rev. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D.

Second Impression.

IV. As a King Ready to the Battle.

By Rev. W. J. TOWNSEND, D.D.

VI. The SouFs "Wrestle with Doubt.

By Rev. F. B. MEYER, B.A.

VII. The "Whole Armour of God.

By Rev. G. S. BARRETT, D.D.

IX. The Devotional Use of the Holy Scriptures.

By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, M.A., D.D.

X. The Guiding Hand of God.

By Mr. J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A., D.Litt.

Eighth Impression.

XI. The Open Secret: A Manual of Devotion.

special volume, price 2/6 net ; popular edition, 1/- net.)
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A., D.D.

Twelfth Thousand.

XII. From Natural to Spiritual.

By Rev. J. B. MEHARRY, D.D.

XIII* A Chain of Graces.

By Rev. GEORGE HANSON, M.A., D.D.
An INVALUABLE SERIES of Devotional Volumes.

London: National Council ot Evangelical Free Churches,
Thomas Law, Memorial Hall, E.G.

LITTLE BOOKS ON THE DEVOUT LIFE

IX

THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

THE DEVOTIONAL USE

OF THE

HOLY SCRIPTURES

JOHN MONRO GIBSON, M.A., LL.D.

AUTHOR OF "THE UNITY AND SYMMETRY OF THE BIBLE,"

*'ST. MATTHEW IN THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE,"

"APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES," ETC

Edition of

YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION PRESS,

NEW YORK

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCHES

London : Thomas Law, Memorial Hall, E.G.
1908

0^

PREFATORY NOTE

THE idea of this book has arisen out
of the author's pastoral experience.
Having found not a few intelligent Christians
who had real difficulty in making good use of
their Bibles for devotional purposes, he has
been on the outlook for a book of this kind,
and has not discovered it. There are very-
many books on how to study the Scriptures,
but there seems a lack of help for the de-
votional hour. This is the reason that, in
response to the request for a contribution to
the " Little Books on the Devout Life," the
subject of the Devotional Use of Holy Scrip-
ture has been chosen.

As the object has been not only to help
those who read the Bible devotionally, but to
induce others to begin, it has been thought
well to deal with the fundamental principles
of the devout life. This is done in the first
four chapters ; but those who wish only the
practical directions may pass these and begin
at the fifth chapter.

--r-^l

CONTENTS

I.

PAGE

The Greatness of the Devotional Life . i

II.

The Tragedy of the Undevout Life , . 9

in.

The Mediator of the Devout Life • , 15

IV.

The Text-Book of the Devotional Life . 22

V.

How TO Use the Book Devotionally . . 36

xu

Contents

VI.

PAGE

The Purely Devotional Portions of Scripture . 53

1. The Lord's Prayer . . . • 53

2. The Prayers of the Saints . . '54

3. The Book of Psalms . . • ,57

VII.

How to Use the Gospels , . . .72

1. In General . . . . .72

2. In Detail: . . . . .85

(a) The Words of Christ . . .85

(3) The Works . . . .88

{c) The Sufferings . . . .93
{d) The Resurrection and the Forty Days . 99

VIII.

How to Use the Other Books of the Bible .

1. History and Biography

2. The Epistles . . . . .

3. The Prophets . . . .

4. Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon

105

105
114
120
131

THE GREATNESS OF THE
DEVOTIONAL LIFE

THE object of this little book is to give
help in the devotional use of Holy
Scripture. It is clear, however, that our
interest in this will depend on our estimate of
the value of the devotional life. If we think
it a small and unimportant part of life as a
whole, so that men and women can live very
well without it, and not miss much by the
lowering or loss of it, we are not likely to
care much for anything that can be written
on the subject. It seems necessary, then, to
begin by showing how great and important
the devotional life is ; how necessary to our
well-being here as well as hereafter, and hov/
much it will repay the most diligent cultiva-
tion. This will, I hope, be very clear after
considering what shall be set forth in this
chapter.

2 I

The Devotional Use

I. The devotional life is of the essence of
human nature. It does not depend upon a
special taste or peculiar gift like music or
poetry. A man may be a very good man
and live a good life who does not know a
note of music and scarcely ever reads a line
of poetry. It is not so with the worshipful
spirit. The capacity for faith which is found
in human nature is there, not for optional or
occasiona|;4use, but to be regnant in the life.
"The just shall live by faith." Even daily
labour may be part of the devotional life,
for ordinary talents may be used or labour
performed consciously in the presence and
service of God.

" No holier work the priest performs
Than when in faith, to sweep the room
The Christian housemaid plies her broom."

And is not the highest use of the intellect a
devotional one ? Kepler says, " I have read
Thy thoughts after Thee, O God " ; and
Hegel has said, *' Thinking is worship." We
certainly cannot accept the dictum that all
thinking is worship, for much of it, alas! is
quite the reverse ; but that thinking may be
worship, and on all high themes ought to be,
is true. Our thoughts on such themes should
always be reverent and devout; and our

of the Holy Scriptures

studies in philosphy, science and art should
always be prosecuted with the upward look of
faith.

But " all men have not faith." Some have
lost it through disuse. It is possible, indeed,
with this endowment as with others to reduce
it to impotence by neglect ; but its absence
in some cases from this cause is no argument
against its universality. And if it is
suggested that as there are imSDeciles in
intellect, so in the higher region of the
spirit there may be persons devoid of any
sentiment of reverence or any power to
appreciate that which is high and pure and
holy, the answer is that there is no reason
to suppose the number of spiritual imbeciles
to be any greater than the very small pro-
portion who have been bereft of the kindly
light of reason. It is probably safe to say
that nine hundred and ninety-nine out of
every thousand at least have the capacity
for faith, and so are responsible for the
use of it ; and the saying of St. Augustine
is probably appropriate on the lips of the
least devout among us : " Thou, O God, hast
made us for Thyself; and the heart is ever
restless until it find its rest in Thee."

II. The devotional life is life in its
highest and best exercise. We stand related

The Devotional Use

to the earth beneath us, to our fellow-men
around us, and to God above us. All these
relations are important ; but surely we do
not need to ask which is the highest Two
of these cords will be cut some day whether
we will or no : the cord that binds us to our
fellow-men, and that which binds us to the
earth ; but the cord that binds us to God
need never be cut, unless we cut it ourselves.
It will last on and on, and in its abiding we
have the only guarantee that the other bonds
which have been sundered will be re-knit in
the great days to come. Therefore would
we entreat our readers not to loosen, not to
weaken the sacred tie which binds their
spirits to God. To sever that tie will mean
death for ever. It is the life of our life. To
be without it even here is death in life. What
will it be to be without it hereafter ?

III. The devotional life is the source of
the highest aud purest joy. God has merci-
fully so constituted us that in the exercise of
all our faculties there is delight. Sickness
and pain indeed come in to interfere with
this ; but naturally and normally we are
made so that there is joy in all activity, and
the joy increases as we go up the scale of life.
There is delight in the healthy action of the
muscles ; there is a purer and higher delight

of the Holy Scriptures 5

in mental activity, and in the exercise of the
affections there is something higher and
better still ; but far above all is the delight
of worship, often rising into ecstasy. In one
of the exercises of Divine worship — that of
praise — there is the opportunity of combining
the whole gamut of human joy, beginning
with the exercise of the vocal chords, rising
with the activity of mind and heart on the
spiritual themes which are the subject of the
song, up into the empyrean of soul-delight in
the ecstasy of communion with God.

We do not mean that there will be rapture
in all our hours of devotion. Sometimes the
dominant note will be penitence, sometimes
supplication. Moreover, some will no doubt
find the path toilsome and difficult at first.
They may require not a little training in this
high region of their life just as it is needed in
the lower ranges ; but in no department of
life will the time and effort expended be
more amply repaid. And it is not too much
to promise those who will seriously make the
attempt, that if a fair time be allowed for
getting into the habit, the devotional hour
will soon establish its right to be reckoned
the happiest hour of the day. There can
certainly be no question that in this highest
region of our life there are ready for us

The Devotional Use

delights, raptures, ecstasies, far beyond any-
thing which can be attained on any of the
lower levels.

IV. The devotional hour will hallow ^
beautify and ennoble all the rest of our life.
This is the main use of it. It is not set
before us as a luxury, though luxury it will
by and by prove to be. It is not for the
enjoyment it promises, but for the good it is
sure to do, that it is commended to us. On
this account alone it would be well worth
while to persevere in it, even if it had to be
as irksome always as it is apt to be at the
beginning. In this perplexing and troubled
life of ours we are in urgent need of daily
light, daily guidance, daily strength, daily
comfort ; and here is where all this is to be
always had.

In this connection it may be well to look
at the reason most frequently given for the
want of cultivation of the devotional habit,
namely, want of time. It is perhaps best
dealt with by asking whether we can find
time for other things not more necessary to
our well-being. Have we time to sleep ? It
often seems to many of us as if we had not ;
but we take it all the same, six or eight hours
out of the twenty-four. But is not even six
hours too much every day for an exceedingly

of the Holy Scriptures

busy man ? Suppose then he cut it down to
four — does he save the two hours rescued
from sleep's too exacting demand ? What
sort of work will he do ? And how long will
he be good for it ? Not a whit more sensible
are some of us who say that we are too busy
to find time for being alone with God. This
is as necessary as sleep — as necessary to the
highest efficiency of our work. How it oils
the wheels of life's machinery, how it floods
" the trivial round, the common task," with
heavenly sunshine ! Bene orasse est bene
studuisse — to have prayed well is to have
studied well ; and be it remem.bered that the
Latin word " to study " has a wider range of
meaning than ours ; it may be used of
diligence in any kind of work.

V. The devotional link is the only one
that will hold in all stress of weather. It is
not, indeed, the only link that binds us to
God. There is a link of the intellect as well
as of the spirit. It is very difficult, almost
impossible indeed, to think of the universe as
godless ; hence almost every one believes in
God in a general way. But that is a faith
which will stand no stress of weather. Those
who believe after this fashion are the people
who, when serious trouble comes, fall into des-
pair. These are the people who, when frosty

8 The Use of Holy Scriptures

winds of unbelief are blowing across the land,
wilt and wither in the blast, and lose all the
greenery and fruitage of life, becoming bare
and dead as trees in winter. But let a man
know God by daily communion, by that
sacred touch of spirit with spirit which comes
in hours of devotion, and nothing will drive
him from his moorings. He has a first-hand
knowledge of God, and his hope in Him is
" as an anchor of the soul sure and stedfast
entering into that which is within the veil."
He will never make shipwreck of his faith.

II

THE TRAGEDY OF THE
UNDEVOUT LIFE

WE have seen in the first chapter that
there are three main relations of our
life : to nature beneath us, to men around us,
and to God above us ; and also that the
exercise of the powers which belong severally
to these relations is not only useful and
necessary to our well-being, but is attended
with delight, a delight which rises as we
ascend from the physical basis to the spiritual
crown of life. If all these powers were only
in full and harmonious exercise there would
be life in perfection, with a complete diapason
of delight. But in no case here on earth is
the life either complete or in full harmony.
It is in every case dwarfed and disordered.
This is true to a certain extent in the two
lower relations of life, but it is tragically true
in the region of the spirit.

We can all sympathise with the sadness of

9

lo The Devotional Use

deprivation in the realm of the seen and
temporal. Consider what it is to be cut off
even partially from nature as by blindness, or
from our fellow-men as by deafness. Every
one has the deepest sympathy with those who
suffer such deprivation ; but what of those
who suffer deprivation in that part of their
life which has to do with things unseen and
eternal ? What of spiritual blindness — is it
likely to be less distressing than natural blind-
ness? What of spiritual deafness — is the
silence of God less to be deplored than the
silence of men ? The only reason why people
think it so small a thing to be blind to the
things of God and deaf to the voice of God,
is that they are so accustomed to it that they
know not what they miss. And what if there
be not only blindness and deafness, but total
paralysis ? What if every sense of the spirit
be fast closed ? The rest of the life may go
on indeed, just as the physical life of a man
may proceed when his intellect is gone ;
but what a poor, pitiful thing it is ! Is the
existence of an imbecile worthy to be spoken
of as life? Is it not a living death? So
those who know what the life with God in
it means — the Apostle Paul, for example —
speak of the condition of those who are
without God as a state of death.

of the Holy Scriptures 1 1

It would be a sad deprivation to have even
dimness of vision and dulness of hearing in
the higher region of life ; to be blind and
deaf is worse still ; but to be paralysed and
practically dead ("dead in trespasses and
sins") is tragic in the extreme. For be it
remembered that deprivation is only a part
of the calamity. When life goes out of the
body corruption sets in. God is the life of
the soul. So when He passes out of the life,
corruption sets in and works the havoc which
we see around us in this world of sin. The
tragedy of the undevout life has in it all the
mystery of the world's sin and grief and pain.

Let us try to realise for a moment how the
matter stands. Here, on the one side, is the
world of men, with countless hungers never
satisfied and innumerable pains unrelieved.
There, on the other side, is God blessed for
ever, with all power to heal, and resources
infinite — infinite wealth there, immeasurable
want here. If only by any means the two
extremes might meet ! How unnatural it all
is ! And every advance in knowledge only
accentuates the unnaturalness. Think of the
scientific discoveries of the last twenty years
— how marvellous they have been, what
extraordinary wealth of resources they have
disclosed, how the conception of God's

12 The Devotional Use

infinity has been enlarged ! We are learning
that nothing is too hard to believe in the
way of possibility in this as yet unimagined
universe ; and yet, though we are seeing
more and more and ever more of the wealth
of God, the heart hunger of His creature
man, who is encouraged to think of himself
not only as His creature but His child, is as
keen as ever, and as far from satisfaction. If
only God and man could be brought together,
so that the infinite resources of the Father
might be available for His needy child !

What keeps the two apart? How is it
that God who could so easily supply all
man's need, and man who has so very many
needs to be supplied, should be so sadly out
of touch ? The only possible answer is, the
sin of the world. Here, we are in a dry and
thirsty land ; there, is the river of God which
is full of water ; yet the river remains full and
the land remains dry. Why does not the
river flow down in all its wealth of benedic-
tion and life-giving power ? Because between
it and us there rises a great mountain— the
mountain of sin — which turns the streams
aside so that they cannot reach us.

It is all the more pathetic that there is a
yearning on both sides. On the side of man
there is the restlessness which he may not

of the Holy Scriptures 13

understand, but which at bottom is a hunger
for God. On the side of God we have the
best reason for believing that there is the
yearning of a bereaved father's heart. In
the series of books written by prophets and
apostles and other holy men of old, which
claim to bring a message from the heart of
God, there is no deeper note than the wail
of the Father over His wandered child.
Listen to this, for example : " Hear, O
heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord
hath spoken : I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against
Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the
ass his master's crib ; but My people do not
know Me." Who can fail to feel the pathos
of that lament ? What father's heart is not
moved by it to its depths ? Is it not a tragic
thing to think that the great God and Father
of us all should have so many children in
this world of ours who do not care to speak
a word to Him ? Is it not heart-breaking
to think of ?

Let us recall the immortal picture of the
situation in the great parable gallery of Jesus :
a father here, a son in the far country ; the
father yearning for his prodigal child with a
yearning the depth of which is seen afterwards
when on the first sign of the son's willingness

14 The Use of Holy Scriptures

to return, the father runs to meet him — the
son in the far country, so far that he cannot
see his father's face, and has no means of
knowing what a wistful look of paternal
tenderness there is in it, and yet with a deep
yearning in his heart which finds expression
in the hungry wail, " How many hired ser-
vants of my father have bread enough and to
spare, and I perish with hunger ! " There is
the whole tragedy of man's life in the world,
set forth in a few touches of the great Artist's
pencil : this world a far country, a country of
sin and hunger and weariness, so far from
God that it seems as if He had forgotten
us, and remained unmoved even by our most
piteous cries. There are familiar lines of
Matthew Arnold, in which he expresses the
pathos of our isolation from each other ; but
we may use them with a deeper pathos as
applying to what would have been — if there
had been no Mediator to lay His hand upon
both — the isolation of the race from God.

"Yes, in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild
We mortal milHons live alone."

How the echoing straits have been bridged
we shall see in the next chapter.

Ill

THE MEDIATOR OF THE DEVOUT
LIFE

WE have seen the tragedy of the life
without God ; it will be a relief to
turn now to a theme which will show how
God and man have been brought together,
the wail changed into a hallelujah. God
has not left us in this island world alone.
The distance between His holiness and our
sin seemed impassable ; but by His mercy
and in His infinite wisdom it has been
bridged. The Son of God has come from
heaven to earth to redeem the tragedy of
human life, to show how, dark though its
course may be, its end may be purity, peace
and joy. ^ This He has done, first by bring-

* The author has been tempted to give as the title

of this chapter, " The Divina Commedia," as the

antithesis to the title of that preceding it ; and to its

use there need have been no serious objection if the

15

1 6 The Devotional Use

ing God to us, and next by bringing us to
God.

I. His incarnation is His bringing God to
us. What was that name with which He
was greeted as soon as He arrived ? " They
shall call His name Immanuel, which is,
being interpreted, God with us." Earth is a
far country no longer. The Lord is here.
" In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was
God. . . . And the Word became flesh, and
dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory,
glory as of the only begotten from the
Father." We can now see the wistful look
upon the face, we can hear the tone of loving
welcome in the voice, we can see the tears in
the eyes, we can feel the very throbbing of
the heart of God. So now we know that
God is not a hard tyrant nor an indifferent
spectator of our troubles and perplexities, but
a loving Father.

word Commedia could have been understood in the
high and noble sense in which Dante used it, as
indicating that not horror as in the tragedy, but
gladness as in the epic of the other sort was the
denouement ; but as even the difference of spelling
does not altogether hinder its association with the
modern word " Comedy," it has been set aside as
unsuitable.

of the Holy Scriptures 17

We were agnostics ; for when He remained
in His high heaven, quite out of sight and
reach, how could we see? What could we
know ? But now that He has condescended
to our weakness, now that He has come into
the conditions of our earthly life so that He
can look at us and we at Him with human
eyes, now that He can speak to men and
men to Him in human language, now that He
has entered into the trials and temptations
and sufferings and deprivations of our earthly
life, we need be agnostics no longer : we see
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Thus He has brought God to us.

n. But there is more to be done. He has
brought God to us, but He must also bring
us to God^ a much harder task. The task is
a double one ; for first the way must be
opened before men can be brought to God ;
and next, men must be persuaded to take the
road which has been opened, and travel on it
back to God. This also, in both its depart-
ments of labour, the Son of God has come to
earth to do.

(i) He must remove the barrier and open
the way. What was that other name which
was given to Him on His arrival on the
shores of this wandered island world in the
universe of God ? " Thou shalt call His

1 8 The Devotional Use

name Jesus ; for He shall save His people
from their sins." And what is the first
witness which is borne to Him by the last of
the Hebrew prophets ? " Behold the Lamb
of God, that taketh away the sin of the
world " !

What an undertaking ! What a mountain
to be removed and cast into the sea ! Recall
the two occasions on which Jesus used this
apparently extravagant metaphor. The first
was at the beginning of the sorrowful journey
from the Mount of Transfiguration to Jeru-
salem, immediately after His first announce-
ment to His disciples of His approaching
sacrifice. The second time was on His way
to the temple to take the stand which was to
bring about His death. On the first occasion
the mass of mighty Hermon was before Him;
on the second the rocky hill of Zion was
under His feet ; but when we look into His
heart and remember that on it lay the awful
burden of the task He had undertaken, and
that with special vividness His mind antici-
pated His approaching sacrifice, we can see
that the mountain He was really thinking of
was the mountain of the world's sin, more
rocky than Zion, more massive than Hermon.
The figure, strong as it is, is not too strong.
It was indeed a Titanic undertaking to take

of the Holy Scriptures 19

away the sin of the world. Had it not been
built mountains high like the fable of Pelion
and Ossa on snowy Olympus ?

It taxed to the utmost even " the strong
Son of God." See His agony in the Garden.
See Him struggling under the weight of the
cross. Hear Him cry, " My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" It took the
very last atom of His human strength. Not
till His latest breath was the victory gained.
But gained it was. " It is finished " ! hear Him
cry. " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh
away the sin of the world " ! The mountain
is cast into the sea. And now the way is
opened : " Christ hath once suffered for sins,
the just for the unjust, that He might bring
us to God."

(2) But His work is not yet ended. The
mountain has been removed, the way has
been opened, but will men come? Will
they arise and go to their Father ? Alas !
indeed, the most of them seem not at all
inclined. They have become accustomed to
the separation. They know not what they
are missing. They do not realise that separ-
ation from God is at the root of all their
unsatisfied hunger and unrelieved distress.
Some of them have actually come to think
that it is happier to live in sin without God

20 The Devotional Use

than in righteousness with Him. Others
have become so engrossed with the interests
of the world that to let God into their life
seems an intrusion, a positive annoyance.
And even those who try to get into touch
with Him find it irksome and difficult. How
is this remaining difficulty to be met ?

By the gift of the Spirit of Christ. He
who has earned the right to say, " I am the
truth," by revealing the Father ; and " I am
the way," by removing the mountain
barrier and opening up the path to God,
must be able to add yet this, " I am the
life." This He does in the power of His
resurrection. " I am the resurrection and
the life," He says, " He that believeth in
Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
Even those whose spiritual powers are
paralysed in spiritual death can be quickened
into life, through the grace and by the power
of the Holy Spirit of Jesus. This coming
of the Holy Ghost may be regarded as the
Father's running to meet His prodigal child.
When we looked at the Word of God
incarnate, we saw the smile on the Father's
face and the wistful look in His eyes ; but
in the coming of the Holy Ghost we see
Him running to accomplish the glad reunion
which has been made possible through the

of the Holy Scriptures 21

mediating life and atoning death of His holy
Son. When we last looked at the prodigal
in the far country we heard him lamenting,
"How many hired servants of my father
have bread enough and to spare, and I
perish with hunger." Now we hear him
saying, " I will arise and go to my father."
Whence the new impulse ? From the Spirit
of God striving with him. And as soon as
he yields to it and begins to move home-
wards, there is the father running to meet
him, and falling on his neck and kissing him,
calling for the best robe to put on him, and
taxing all the resources of the home for the
princeliness of his welcome.

Now in Christ Jesus we that were once
afar off are made nigh. The broken bonds
are reknit, and the privilege of fellowship
with God is fully restored. We may now
without hindrance cultivate the devotional
life which has in it so much of peace and
power now, and of glorious promise for the
great future, when the time of our minority
shall be over, and we shall, as children of the
Almighty Father, " inherit all things."

IV

THE TEXT-BOOK OF THE
DEVOTIONAL LIFE

" T N CHRIST Jesus ye . . . are made nigh"
X (Eph. ii. 13). So it is said; but what
of the centuries which lie between us and the
far away time of His appearing on the earth ?
That face may have been full of the light of
God ; but no one has looked on it for nearly
two thousand years. For all these centuries
that human voice has been silent. He has
gone, we are told, to the right hand of God —
is not that a " far country " ?

It is true He said, "Lo, I am with you
alway, even to the end of the world " ; but it
is only as Spirit that He is present with us,
and how can we get into touch with a purely
spiritual being? The answer is quite simple :
Through the testimony of those who were
with Him on earth, and have put on record
all that is needed for us to reclothe Him, so

The Use of Holy Scriptures 23

to speak, in the very flesh He wore. So St.
John puts it in the beginning of his first
epistle, written fifty years after the Man
Christ Jesus had vanished from his sight.
" That which we have seen and heard " (of
the Word of Life) he writes, " declare we unto
you, that ye also may have fellowship with us :
and truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ." After fifty
years the memory of what he had seen and
heard of the human face and voice was quite
sufficient to make the fellowship of his old
age with the Spirit of Jesus as real as had
been the fellowship of his youth with Jesus
on earth ; and by what he had lately set
down or was in the course of setting down
in his Gospel, and what his fellow evangelists
had already set down in theirs, they were all
able so to place the human life of the Lord
Jesus before the people who had never seen
Him as to put them in possession of the very
same privilege which they themselves had
enjoyed in the early days.

It was even better than that. The human
life of Jesus is closer to the readers of the
Gospels than it was to the writers of them
when they were "eye-witnesses of His
majesty." Then they had only occasional
glimpses of what He really was. For the

24 The Devotional Use

most part their eyes were holden that they
did not see Him as they saw Him later on,
in the golden light of memory. How many
things there were which they understood not
till after the Son of Man was risen from the
dead. They were at best only picking up
crumbs, gathering fragments, which after-
wards, under the guidance of the Spirit,
were to arrange themselves into a complete
whole, the wonderful story which we can now
so comprehensively survey from Bethlehem
to Calvary and Olivet.

What sort of a Gospel could Matthew
have written if he had taken it in hand
before his Master had gone? He might
have recalled a number of incidents and set
them down, but they would only have been
fragmentary notices. There could not have
been that living portrait which, under the
Spirit's guidance, he was able in later years
to set upon the canvas. There is deep
significance in this connection in the fami-
liar words : " It is expedient for you that I
go away." The disciples were to be in a
better position than ever, after He was gone.
The human body in which He ascended
would diminish to a speck and then vanish
from sight ; but the great life, the life which
revealed the Father, instead of diminishing

of the Holy Scriptures 25

as it withdrew into the distance kept enlarg-
ing, enlarging,! till it took the magnificent
form we find in the fourfold portraiture of
the Evangelists.

In the best biographies of great men we
may get to know them about as well as their
biographers did, to enter into their personality
in so far as they had succeeded in entering
into it while their acquaintance continued.
But in the Gospels we are allowed to pene-
trate much further than they were able to do
in the most intimate years of their fellowship
on earth. What a revelation of a man it
would be if his spirit, after he was gone,
could take up his abode in the biographer's
soul and stay there all the time he was
writing ! What an inspired volume would
be the result ! It would be not a biography
only, but in the deepest sense an auto-
biography. It would have all the advan-
tages of both without the disadvantages of
either. Well, this we have four times over
in the pages of the Evangelists. In each of
the four we have all the realism and vivid-
ness of the story of eye-witnesses ; in each of

' "That one face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,
Become my universe that feels and knows ! "
Browning, Epilogue to Dramatis Personce.

26 The Devotional Use

the four we have all the light which comes
from the interpenetration of the spirit
of the disciple with the Spirit of the
Master. It is as if He lived and moved
before us clothed in flesh, and yet invested
all the while with the glory of the trans-
figuration.

The result of all is that we can get closer
to the human life of the Lord Jesus than to
any other life that was ever lived upon this
earth. We may know Him far better than it
is possible to know any of the best known
men of the first century, or even of the
nineteenth century ; and when we take into
account the promise of the Spirit to take of
the things of Christ and show them unto us,
we see that it is possible for us to know Him
better than we can know our most intimate
friend. We can lay our lives close up to
His, so that His Spirit will touch us with
a closer and more intimate touch than ever
happens between friend and friend or even
between husband and wife. It was experi-
ence like this which led the Apostle John,
so many years after his Master's departure,
to exclaim, " Truly our fellowship is with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ " !

Be it remembered also that we come into
touch with Christ not only in the pages of

of the Holy Scriptures 27

the Gospel, where His human life is set
before us so vividly, but also in all the
writings of those holy men of old who
spake as they were moved by His Spirit :
the prophets who testified beforehand of
His coming, and the apostles who were
divinely commissioned to guide the early
Church into the fulness of the truth as it is
in Jesus. It is clear at a glance that the
whole Scriptures of the New Testament —
Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse, as well as
Gospels — bear witness to Christ ; and though
this is not so apparent in the Old Testament,
we can by careful study verify what our Lord
said of these earlier records of Divine revela-
tion, " They are they which testify of Me."

Thus it has come to pass that the revela-
tion of God in Christ, from the first hint of
His coming to the last word of the last of
those who saw Him in the flesh, is preserved
for us in the sacred Scriptures, enshrined
there to make the life of devotion natural
and easy to us. So, just as the Son of God
has by His incarnation brought God to us,
and by His atoning death brought us to
God, through the Scriptures which come to
us by the inspiration of His Spirit He enables
us to get into touch and keep in touch with
God as revealed in His humanity. There, in

28 The Devotional Use

these sacred Scriptures, we see God clearly
revealed as our Father, Friend and Saviour ;
there we have His messages of love ; there
we have His precepts and His promises ;
there we see the principles on which He
deals with men on earth, and the prospects
set before them in the life to come. Thus
it is that these holy Scriptures are the text-
book of the devotional life.

When we bear in mind that the great use
of the Scriptures is to testify of Christ and so
bring us to God, we see that many of the
difficulties so freely raised in our time are
quite irrelevant. Cannot Moses testify of
Christ without being as learned in the
learning of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica "
as he was in that of the Egyptians? Cannot
David testify of Christ, though, instead of
doing it alone as he was once supposed to
do, he be surrounded with a whole company
of witnesses to share the honour with him,
to change the solo into the grandest chorus
the world ever heard ? Cannot Isaiah testify
of Christ, though the same man may not
have written the whole book which bears
the name ? If his witness is not single and
solitary as we used to think, but the witness
of two, both of them marvellously gifted, and

of the Holy Scriptures 29

bearing their testimony with such wonderful
harmony that every one till lately believed it
was the voice of one — if the solo be changed
into a duet, or even, as some suggest, into a
trio or quartet, what are we the worse? In
the same way it will be found that by far
the greater number of the objections to
the sacred Scriptures which are so freely
advanced in our day are totally irrelevant,
because they do not touch the great object
for which the Scriptures are given — to testify
of Christ and so bring us to God.

And when we remember that it is only by
stages that man has been brought to God,
many difficulties of another kind will find
their natural solution. " In the beginning
was the Word." God has never been without
a witness. The heavens declared the glory
of God, and earth uttered His praise ; all His
works spoke of Him, not articulately indeed,
but most impressively. And the Word from
time to time became articulate in human
speech : " At sundry times and in divers
manners God spake to the fathers by the
prophets," thus making Himself known by
degrees to the sons of men as they were able
to receive the Word. In the Old Testament
we have the record of that progressive revela-
tion, in which we see how the light of God

30 The Devotional Use

gradually broke in upon the darkness of men.
The record, of course, has its dark side, which
is sometimes very dark ; but is that darkness,
and the faithfulness with which it is depicted,
any argument against the light which was
struggling through it ? We should surely, in
judging of the men who lived in these early
ages, always make allowance for the time ;
and if the light of God has to pass through a
very murky medium, let the medium, not the
light, bear the blame of the murkiness. It
was not till God, who in sundry times and in
divers manners has spoken to the fathers by
the prophets, had in the last days of the
progressive revelation spoken to us in His
Son, that that revelation was complete and
perfect.

As the last days have been reached, it is
important to bear in mind that the revelation
of God is complete and therefore sufficient.
True, the dispensation of the Spirit is an
advance on that which went before it, but
the advance is not in the substance of the
truth but only in the manner of its applica-
tion. " He shall not speak of Himself,"
Christ said, but " He shall take of Mine and
show it unto you." And, as if to guard
against the possibility of church, or priest, or

of the Holy Scriptures 31

pope, or mystic, claiming to add anything to
the truth which had been revealed in Christ
and fully recorded in the closed canon of
Scripture, He adds: "All things that the
Father hath are Mine; therefore, said I, that
He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto
you." It is because this declaration of our
Lord has been set aside, that the Church of
Rome and the High Anglicans who follow
her bad example have so far departed from
the simplicity and purity of the Gospel of
Christ ; and it is for the same reason that
many of the mystics, of the middle ages
especially, have been led into such wild
extravagances as almost to discredit the
devotional life of which the majority of the
mystics were conspicuous examples. Against
all such error and extravagance the written
Word is the sufficient safeguard. The Spirit's
weapon is the Word of God as revealed in
Christ. It is still true that He only is the
way, and the truth, and the life ; it is still
true that no man cometh unto the Father
but by Him. Our devotional life therefore,
though inspired Ijy the ever present Spirit,
must have for its daily food the truth as it is
in Jesus, which has been enshrined for us in
the pages of these sacred Scriptures.

The Bible is not, indeed, the only book of

32 The Devotional Use

devotion ; there are many others which may
be found more or less helpful ; but their
helpfulness will depend on the degree in which
they set forth the truth contained in the
Scriptures, and are suffused with the Spirit
which breathes throughout these sacred pages.
Whatever there is of value in the " Imitation
of Christ " by Thomas a Kempis, for example,
or the " Pilgrim's Progress," or the Lives of
the Saints, or the prayer-book of a church
or a society, is due to the fountain whence
their inspiration was drawn. Such books all
have their limitations, and there is always
liability to error, so that it is not safe to
use them without keeping up from day to
day our familiarity with the standard by
which their errors may be corrected and their
defects remedied. There are many useful
and valuable books of devotion ; but the
devotional life has only one text-book.

While the great use of the Scriptures is to
bring us to Christ and so to God, there are
other respects in which the Bible is of sur-
passing value. In historical interest it excels
all other books of ancient history. Yet it
must not be forgotten that in reading its
records we must not judge it as if the teach-
ing of history were its object. That again

of the Holy Scriptures 33

would open the door to quite irrelevant
criticism. Its object is to bring us through
history to God, just as the object of its refer-
ences to nature is not to teach us natural
science but to lead us through nature to
God.

The Bible appeals also to the literary-
interest by the variety and superlative
excellence of its style. In this connection
one thinks of the influence of the English
Bible on English literature, and still more of
the formative influence of the German Bible
on the German language ; and it is scarcely
necessary to point out what the Bible has
done for the style of our best writers and
speakers, as instances of which we may
appeal to the " Pilgrim's Progress," the
speeches of Mr. John Bright, and the sermons
of Mr. Spurgeon. Yet not one of the sacred
writers is a stylist. It is, indeed, the very
absence of effort after style which is a chief
charm of the inspired writers. It is the purity
and elevation of their thought which secures
the high excellence of their style. Here
again, however, it would be quite beside the
mark to judge the Bible by any canons of
literary criticism, as is done by those who are
troubled when they are told that the Greek of
the Apocalypse is quite unclassical, and not
4

34 The Devotional Use

even free from grammatical error. If the
treasure is in an earthen vessel, is not the
excellency of the power the more evidently
of God and not of man ? Where else in all
literature than in that same Apocalypse have
we a more wonderful illustration of the effect
of noble and elevated thought in raising a
man by no means grammatically educated to
the very empyrean of style, a style so lofty
that passage after passage from this mar-
vellous book can be set to music by the
greatest composers and sung on and on, in
strains that never weary through all the
centuries ?

We might speak in the same way of the
ethical interest, the psychological interest, the
theological interest ; and show that, valuable
as the Bible is in all these different ways, it
is not to be judged by its success in dealing
with these different subjects or in settling the
problems which arise in connection with them,
but simply by the way in which it accom-
plishes the great object always in view, the
salvation of man by bringing him to God.

The Bible is the Book of books in many
senses, unparalleled in the height and depth
and length and breadth of its range, and in
the manifoldness of its interest. But that
which stands out above all other things is

of the Holy Scriptures 35

that it is the Word of God, the book in which
God is brought within our hearing and our
sight ; the book in which we see marked
out the way by which the sinner may arise
and go to his Father ; the Word by which we
enter into fellowship with One who is greater
than the sons of men, better than the best of
them all, mightier than the mightiest, tenderer
than the tenderest, more loving than the most
affectionate — perfect man ; and in that per-
fection of His humanity bringing those who
come to Him into closest touch with God,
the true God, whose name is not Force but
Love, and whose banner is Salvation.

HOW TO USE THE BOOK
DEVOTIONALLY

WE come now to the more strictly
practical part of our subject. We
shall suppose ourselves impressed with the
value and importance of the devotional life,
acquainted with the way opened up by the
Lord Jesus for our use and enjoyment of it, and
in possession of the text-book which is to be
the medium of communication between the
Spirit of God and our spirits. Our hearts
are towards God, our eyes are on the Son of
Man, and in our hands is the Book which
testifies of Him and so brings us into touch
with God. Now, how shall we proceed ?
How shall we best use our Bibles for de-
votional purposes, that is, for devout medita-
tion, confession, thanksgiving, supplication,
and adoration ?

36

The Use of Holy Scriptures 37

I. The order.

The Bible is a very large book : where
shall we begin ? What order shall we
follow ?

(i) What seems the simplest method is
that which we usually follow in our reading
of books, namely, to begin at the beginning
and read through to the end. This method
is quite appropriate for study. Mere pro-
miscuous reading, such as too many indulge
in, will do very little indeed to give that
comprehensive grasp of Scripture which is
needed for the man who would be thoroughly
furnished unto good works. We ought by
all means to be consecutive in our study ;
and it would tend very much to an intel-
ligent acquaintance with Scripture, if instead
of breaking up our reading into fragments,
as suggested by the division into chapters
and verses, we would read straight on till
we come to an appropriate stopping place,
not hesitating on occasion to take a book
at a sitting, so as to be able to grasp it as
a whole.

But when we use the Bible for devotional
purposes^ it is not well either to read large
portions at a time, or to go on chapter by
chapter from Genesis to Revelation. We do

38 The Devotional Use

not doubt that a mature Christian may be
able to get much good in this way. There
are those who tell us that they can extract
excellent nourishment from lists of names,
and from the most minute details of the
Mosaic ordinances. We have no occasion to
call the claim in question ; but that is no
reason why the average Christian, or the
young beginner, should risk a failure in the
devotional use of Scripture, by breaking his
teeth over the hard nuts or trying to get
nourishment out of the bare wood of the tree
of life. This little book is not written for
mature Christians or for geniuses ; it is for
those who find it hard to get the food their
spirits need even in the Bible. The only
way in which those of us who belong to this
class can make good use devotionally of the
Genesis-to-Revelation method is by having
by us some aid to devotion on the passage,
such as Chalmers' " Daily Bible Readings,"
or Bishop Hall's " Contemplations," or
Matthew Henry's " Commentary." But the
use of such peptonised preparations is better
dispensed with, if possible. Better find our
own nourishment in one of the easier parts of
Scripture than be spoon-fed from extracts
made by some one else from the more
difficult parts.

of the Holy Scriptures 39

(2) What we propose therefore to advocate
here is a judicious method of selection from
among the books of the Bible, by which those
who have difficulty in finding the nourish-
ment they need for their spiritual life, may
begin with the easier parts and proceed by
degrees to the more difficult In this way
they may hope in course of time to reach the
happy position of the students of the Word
spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
"who by reason of use have their senses
exercised to discern good and evil," and are
therefore ready to " leave the first principles
of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto
perfection."

It must be borne in mind that while " all
Scripture given by inspiration of God is pro-
fitable," it is not all equally profitable. There
is none of it which is not helpful towards
bringing us to God, but it is by no means all
alike helpful. There is a Divine as well as a
human element in every part, but the Divine
element is not equally apparent everywhere.
We could have conceived of a uniform level
of Scripture, every part as full of heavenly
light as every other, so that it did not matter
in the least where you opened the Bible, you
would be equally certain of a message from
heaven shining with heaven's own lustre.

40 The Devotional Use

We all know it is not so. Therein lies the
justification of favourite passages and of se-
lected portions, whether for preaching from
and writing on, or for private meditation.
Suppose we could make a collection of the
texts on which the most orthodox and
evangelical preachers had preached from the
beginning until now, how unequally would
these be distributed. What mountains there
would be on the Psalms and the Gospels,
and what a thin and sparse layer on the Books
of Judges and Esther. What does this
mean ? It means that the Divine element is
very prominent in the Psalms and the
Gospels, and the human element more pro-
minent in Judges and Esther. This certainly
does not mean that there is no Divine element
in Judges and Esther. It means only what
is said, and what is certainly obvious to the
meanest capacity, that it is less prominent,
and therefore less easily recognised. Why
not then begin with those passages in which
the Divine element shines out so clearly that
no one with any eyesight at all can fail to
discern it?

This apparently obvious principle is of
importance in its application not only to the
tyro in devotion but to the tyro in faith ; and
as faith and devotion are so closely related,

of the Holy Scriptures 41

it may be well to look at the matter in this
light also. How cruel it is to send a beginner
in faith to those parts of the Scripture where
the Divine is less prominent, pin him down to
these and say, " The whole or none — every
word from Genesis to Revelation, or not a
word." Nothing could be more unwise or
unreasonable. Why not say, " We admit that
the Divine element in the Bible is not obvious
everywhere ; in some parts it is difficult to see ;
but do not trouble yourself about these passages
in the meantime ; look at those which glow
with the Divine fire, where the heavenly light
shines out with lustre unmistakable, where
you are lifted up clear above the common
level. Lift up your eyes to the hills." Does
that mean that the plains and valleys are
surrendered ? Not at all. It is only a ques-
tion of order. When the Divine is recognised
on the heights, it is but a question of time
when recognition will follow everywhere.

An illustration of our point may be taken
from the geology of Canada, a country of
very special interest to the geologist, from the
fact that the Laurentian Hills which form its
backbone are the lowest of the great forma-
tions. If we wish to see with our eyes the
foundations on which this world is built, we
maygo to these Canadian hills, which, skirting

42 The Devotional Use

the St. Laurence River as they do, have given
their name to the series of strata which lie
at the base of all the rest. Well, now, suppose
a geological student, say in Montreal, when
told of this great granite floor on which his
country is laid, is sceptical about it. He
cannot see it either in the city, or in the
country round. Instead of a solid granite
foundation, he finds everywhere a loose and
crumbling earth, and even when he gets to
the rock, it is not granite but limestone.
You tell him that if he could only dig deep
enough there, he would reach the granite.
He says, " I cannot dig deep enough ; and as
I do not see it for myself, you must not
expect me to take it on trust." How can
you convince him ? Take him away to the
hills. There he will see the great rock
masses, with a little of the modern even there
indeed, some loose earth and recent trees and
plants growing in it ; but without any trouble
he can see the great granite floor, which at
this point has by some mighty force been
lifted up into sight. And, as you take him
down the mountain side, you can show him
how the limestone is laid down on the top of
the granite, and the loose covering of earth
on the top of that ; and then he sees that the
granite of which the mountain is composed,

of the Holy Scriptures 43

is but an outcrop of the great mass which
constitutes the floor of Canada, and not of
Canada alone but of all the world.

Or take another illustration which will be
still closer to the point. " There is a spirit in
man ; and the inspiration of the Almighty-
hath given him understanding." But this,
too, has been doubted in this sceptical age.
Suppose, then, we have to deal with one who
doubts it, and who, to justify his scepticism,
has brought you a tuft of hair or the paring of
a finger-nail, with the question, "Do you mean
to tell me that these things have intelligence,
that it can be said of the being of which these
are specimens that the inspiration of the
Almighty has given him understanding ? "
How do you answer him ? Do you say,
" The whole or none — if you cannot see the
evidence of the Divine inbreathing in the
finger-nail, you must give it all up ? " Would
that be reasonable ? Would you not rather
say to him something like this : " My friend,
you have taken the very worst thing you
could find to judge by. There is, indeed,
some life even in hair and nails ; but it is at
its lowest point there. Do not look at these
now ; lift up your eyes ; look at the face.
Take the best part first. You will then have
no difficulty in discovering the tokens of the

44 The Devotional Use

Divine inbreathing ; and, after you have
recognised the spirit in the face, your con-
viction will not stop there, for by and by you
will discover that somehow the life recog-
nised in the face is diffused all over the body,
reaching in a certain sense, though not a
very recognisable one, even to the finger-tips."
(3) Assuming, then, that it is well to begin
with those portions of Scripture which most
readily lend themselves to devotional use, we
have very little difficulty in forming our plan.
There are certain parts of Scripture which
are purely devotional, where we have little
else to do than to adopt the language written
down for us and use it as the expression of
our own emotions and desires. To this class
belong the Book of Psalms^ and the prayers
and thanksgivings and doxologies of the
inspired writers, specially those of the New
Testament. But we ought, even at the very
beginning, to make use also of some of those
portions of Scripture which, though not
purely devotional, readily furnish materials
for devotion. Chief of these is the fourfold
Gospel, which brings us into closest contact
with the life of our Lord ; and next the
Epistles, so rich and full of gospel truth,
which can be so readily turned into prayer
and praise and devout meditation. Not

of the Holy Scriptures 45

much more difficult for devotional use
will be the biographies of which we have
such a rich variety throughout the Bible ;
and though the history in which these
biographies are embedded may not appear
at first sight to yield so much material for
devotion, it will be found that the one will
help the other in such a way that we can,
with a little practice, use large, continuous
portions of the Old Testament as well as
the Book of Acts in the New. The Prophets
present greater difficulty, chiefly because so
much study is necessary to understand their
point of view ; but when we have reached it,
we shall find that in reading these great
oracles of God we are in a position to rise
into very pure and serene heights of worship.
After having proceeded so far on our way we
shall probably have had such practice as to
enable us to find good food even in the more
indigestible parts of Scripture, such as the
Book of Leviticus or Ecclesiastes in the
Old Testament, or the central parts of the
Apocalypse in the New.

Our plan in what remains of this volume
will be to take up the separate parts of Holy
Scripture as above indicated, and show how
to use them in the cultivation and expression
of the devotional life.

46 The Devotional Use

II. The manner.

Before we enter upon the consideration of
the different portions of Holy Scripture, it
may be well to make a few suggestions as
to the manner of reading, which will be
equally applicable to all the divisions. Our
success or failure will depend very largely
on the way in which we address ourselves
to the duty. We call it a duty, as certainly
it is ; but we are confident that if only the
recommendations we are about to give are
carefully followed, it will be but for a very
short time that any one will think of it as
duty to be done ; rather will it be looked
forward to as a privilege to be enjoyed.

(i) Be quite alone, if practicable. It is
possible to have seclusion in the deepest
sense in a crowded train, or in a room where
people are coming and going ; but it is not
easy. It will be remembered that on the
occasion when Moses had that vision of God
which satisfied the longing of his heart as
nothing else had done, he had been com-
manded to meet with God alone upon the
top of the mount — no one to be in sight, not
even a living creature, for the very flocks and
herds were to be kept at a distance ; nothing
to break the silence but the voice of God

of the Holy Scriptures 47

(Exod. xxxiv. 2-8). There may be times
in our life, as in a summer holiday, when we
can enjoy such specially favourable con-
ditions, and may expect crowning visions
and revelations of God ; but though this is,
as a rule, more than we can secure, we ought
to get as near to it as our circumstances will
allow. It is indeed delightful when husband
and wife or very intimate friends can have
fellowship with one another in private devo-
tion ; but even then it will be found necessary
that each should also secure time for solitary
communion with God, who, be it remembered,
is " closer than breathing, and nearer than
hands and feet."

(2) Begin by an act of faith, realising the
presence of God. It is to be hoped and
expected that the recognition of the Divine
presence will become habitual ; but even in
that case there will be a difference in the
vividness with which we realise it ; and the
devotional hour is the time for drawing
specially near. " He that cometh to God
must believe that He is."

Along with the special effort to realise the
Divine presence there will be the lifting up
of the heart in prayer. And to make sure
that the prayer is real, we ought to approach
God each time with large expectations.

48 The Devotional Use

This is, of course, another way of saying
that we must come in faith, but perhaps it
is a more simply practical way of putting it.
Expect great things of God. Expect vision
and revelation : vision of God and revelation
— that is, unveiling — of truth ; for " God has
always more light to break forth from His
holy word." Even the truths with which we
are familiar often have a veil over them which
may in a moment be withdrawn, so that
there is a fresh revelation to the soul. It
was with such expectation that the Psalmist
made use of his comparatively small Bible
when, in opening it up before him, he prayed :
"Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold
wondrous things out of Thy law." It was
with similar expectation that old Eli taught
young Samuel to wait upon God when he
told him to say, " Speak, Lord, for Thy
servant heareth."

(3) After lifting up the heart to God, we
address ourselves to the page which lies
before us ; and our first duty is to endeavour
to see as clearly as possible what is the mind
of the Spirit as expressed in it. It is at this
point that the difficulty of the more obscure
passages of Scripture comes in ; and there
are some who do not think it of much
consequence to know exactly what the

of the Holy Scriptures 49

meaning is, if only they may put some
meaning of their own into it which seems
pious and edifying. But surely this is not
respectful to the Divine Word ; and most
certainly it misses all the advantage which
it possesses over other books of devotion.
Devout meditation is in itself good ; but
what we should expect from the Word of
God is something more than a stimulus to
devout meditation of our own, even a message
from God, expressing His mind, and bearing
His authority. The only way to make sure
of this is to find out the real meaning of
what we are reading.

From this it follows that the passage ought
not to be one which takes all the time we
have to spare to learn the meaning of it ; it
should either be so simple as to be intelligible
at once, or a passage which has already been
mastered, and which therefore is now simple
enough for us without any loss of the precious
time to proceed to the devotional use of it.

(4) Now comes the exercise which should
take up the greater part of the time — the
consideration of the question. What does
God say to me? What does He expect
of me? And what should I answer when
I am reproved?

At this point it may be well to have
5

50 The Devotional Use

certain questions always ready, such as
these : —

(i.) Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to
see?

(ii.) Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to
do ? or to avoid ?

(iii.) What sin should I confess that I may
have it forgiven ; or what grace should I
ask that I may be enabled to do what is
asked of me?

Or our questions might be based on such
a comprehensive passage as 2 Timothy iii. i6,
as thus : —

(i.) Doctrine : what may I learn of God ?
Of myself? Of the way of life ?

(ii.) Reproof : is there any sin of which I
stand convicted by the word before me which
I must confess and forsake, and for which I
must ask forgiveness ?

(iii.) Correction : is there any wrong path
I have been following, so that now I must
change my course ?

(iv.) Instruction in righteousness : what
grace am I neglecting; and may I not be
able now to add something to my life which
will make it more harmonious and com-
plete ?

It is clear that in following such a course
as this there will be continuous prayer ; but

of the Holy Scriptures 51

it is important to remember that such prayer
is not a one-sided act. God is not a mere
listener while His people pray. He answers
then and there. The full answer may be
postponed, but some answer there is always
to every true prayer. While they are yet
speaking He answers. No voice is heard ;
but the answer is felt. There is the touch of
spirit with spirit : the Spirit of God inspiring
the prayer ; and not only so, but responding
in such a way as to convey, as it were, the
touch of a gracious hand, — a feeling which we
can fancy to be somewhat like that which
the Saviour expressed when He said, " Some-
body hath touched Me, for I perceive that
virtue has gone out of Me," only in this case
the virtue has come in instead of going out.
Yes ; somebody did touch you then. God
touched you. And so touches He the heart
of every one that truly calls on Him.

(5) Intercession may have found its place
among the prayers directly suggested by the
reading ; but if not, it would naturally find
here a place of its own. In either case, this
part of our devotions will gain in definiteness
and variety by being associated each day
with different portions of the Word and the
desires awakened by meditation upon them.

(6) The whole exercise may well conclude

52 The Use of Holy Scriptures

with thanksgiving and adoration, for which
perhaps we may fitly use some of the
beautiful doxologies of Holy Scripture, either
in the very words of the Bible or in some of
those metrical forms which are to be found
in all our hymn books, and which have been
sanctioned by long use in the sanctuary.

VI

THE PURELY DEVOTIONAL POR-
TIONS OF SCRIPTURE, ESPECIALLY
THE PSALMS

AS our plan is to begin with the simplest
portions of Scripture, we must look
first at those which are purely devotional,
where we have little or nothing else to do
than to take the words before us and make
them our own.

I. The Lord's Prayer as set forth in Matt.
vi. 9-13 and Luke xi. 2-4. This is the only
form of devotion set down for the very pur-
pose, and even it is not prescribed as a
liturgy. It is not, " Ye shall say," but,
"After this manner pray ye." But though
not expressly given for the sake of repetition,
it suits that purpose so admirably that we
may use it day by day for a long lifetime and
never find it trite or stale. It is independent
of time or place or circumstance. There is
53

54 The Devotional Use

no place on earth, there are no circumstances
of life in which it cannot be used exactly as
it stands. At the same time we require even
in the use of this great prayer to watch
against the tendency to repeat it as a mere
form of words. It has such depth and range
of meaning that none of us is able to exhaust
it, so there is no excuse for repeating it even
for the ten - thousandth time without that
stirring of soul, that pouring forth of desire,
which will be the result of our entering into
even a part of its meaning ; and if we are
living right we ought to be able to find more
and more meaning in it, and to recognise
better and better its many-sided application
to the varied experiences of life. Few men
have sounded the depths of the Lord's Prayer
as Richard Baxter did in his prayerful life ;
yet on his death-bed he could spend a sleep-
less night in meditating on it, and ever, as he
mused, find new wealth and wonder in it.
Perhaps there is no better index of our
Christian life than the degree in which we
can put heart and soul into the words of
the Lord's Prayer in our daily devotion.

II. The prayers of the saints. These we
shall find scattered through the Bible ; and
it will be an excellent exercise in the study
of the Scriptures to make ourselves familiar

of the Holy Scriptures 55

with the places where they occur and the
circumstances in which they were offered.

These prayers differ from the Lord's Prayer
in that they all arise out of particular circum-
stances, so that none of them serve exactly
the same purpose as the model prayer. Yet
they are invaluable as models in their own
way, that is to say, as illustrations of the
manner in which we should lift up our hearts
to God in circumstances at all similar. But
even those which are most closely associated
with the particular events out of which they
arose will supply us with forms of expression
which will easily become part of our own
language of devotion. For example, the
circumstances of Abraham's intercession for
Sodom are never likely to be so repeated as
that we could take his prayer and make it
our own throughout ; but we, too, have our
intercessions for those who awaken anxiety
similar to that which the impending fate of
Sodom stirred in the patriarch's soul ; and
we may not only take encouragement from
reading his experience, but we may feel it
appropriate to use some of his very language,
as when he says, " Behold now, I have taken
it upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am
but dust and ashes ! " Or again, we may find
a considerable part of a prayer offered up in

56 The Devotional Use

quite special circumstances so general in its
terms that we can use it as our own at almost
any time. As an example of this we may
refer to the great prayer of David on the
occasion of the presentation of the gifts of
the people for the building of the house of
the Lord (i Chron. xxix. 10-19), in which
verses 11-13 are so general that they could
never be out of place or out of time. There
are also many prayers offered up in the first
instance in the presence of enemies such as
we are never likely to meet, which are quite
as appropriate as against our spiritual foes,
with whom we are contending every day.
Such a prayer, for example, as that of Asa
in 2 Chronicles xiv. 11, 12, may give expres-
sion to the emotions of a similarly tempted
Christian. The confession of Daniel in chap,
ix. 4-19, though full of local references, is yet
expressed in such a way that by far the
greater part of it can be used by any patriot
when it seems that the Lord is rebuking us
for national sin ; and a considerable portion
of it might be used as a general confession at
any time.

We shall find a rich mine of devotion in
the prayers of the Apostles as recorded in the
Epistles. These are indeed specific prayers for
the Churches, but they are so purely spiritual

of the Holy Scriptures 57

that they are almost as independent of time
and circumstances as the Lord's Prayer itself.
They also are so well after the manner of the
Lord's Prayer that they are marvels of con-
densation, so that we can dwell on them
clause by clause, and use them both as
personal petitions and as intercessions for
those for whom it is our privilege to pray.
Take, as a single example, the great prayer
in Ephesians iii. 14-21. To set this passage
before us and try to put heart and soul into
every phrase of it, will be found an education
and inspiration in the life of devotion.

III. The Book of Psalms, The Psalms,
almost all the hundred and fifty, might have
been included among the prayers of the saints,
but, as they have been collected into a book
of devotion, they occupy a quite unique
place, and ought, therefore, to be dealt with
separately.

(i) Let me begin by calling attention to the
unparalleled excellence and value of this book
of devotion. Even as literature its position is
the very highest. Poetry is the noblest form
of literature ; and this is a book, which, take
it all in all, is the greatest book of poetry in
all the world. There is majesty in it beyond
anything in Homer, beauty excelling the
sweetest strains of Virgil, elevation of

58 The Devotional Use

thought equal to that of Dante in his noblest
flights, organ tones which suffer nothing in
comparison with Milton's noblest passages,
pathos quite as deep and human interest
as keen as are stirred by the many-stringed
harp of Shakespeare. There is, moreover,
another excellence which the Book of Psalms
shares with Homer perhaps, and to a less
extent with Shakespeare, but in which it can-
not be compared with any other of the great
poets, I mean the spontaneousness of its
utterances. The writers do not think of
themselves as poets at all. They take no
heed as to the form ; they seem quite
unaware of any possible audience, except the
ear of God ; or if there is any sign of this,
it is not an audience they want for them-
selves, but for God, as, for example, in Psalm
Ixvi. 16, "Come and hear all ye that fear
God, and I will declare what He hath done
for my soul." Each one might say, " I do
but sing because I must. And pipe but as the
linnets sing " ; but no one has self-conscious-
ness enough to say even as much as this. It
is all pure, simple communion with God.
The rod of God smites the rock, and the
waters flow.

It is probable that the superlative excel-
lence of the Book of Psalms from a literary

of the Holy Scriptures 59

point of view would have been more univer-
sally recognised, had its theme been other
than it is. Moreover, as a book of the Bible,
one of many, it is less noticed than it would
have been if it had stood alone. Like Mont
Blanc, it suffers from the greatness of its
environment.

Yet there is a special interest in observing
the place it holds in the centre of the sacred
Word. In the firmament of God's revelation
we may not give it a place of equal impor-
tance to the fourfold Gospel in which the
earthly life of our Lord is set before us ; but
if it be not Orion, it is certainly the Pleiades,
a star cluster of surpassing beauty and glory
in the midst of the heavens.

Or, if we think of the Old Testament as
a great mountain range of Divine revelation,
while we may find peaks quite as high in
other parts — in the prophecies of Isaiah, for
example — there is no part where there is the
same sustained elevation. And yet, on the
other hand, there is no part more intensely
human. This is the Bible's throbbing heart,
where the heart of God and the heart of
man are heard beating together. It has
been beautifully said of the Bible as a
whole, that ^'it is not a Divine monologue;
it is an amazing dialogue of the ages,

6o The Devotional Use

between earth and heaven. The gospel
which it reveals is not a mere melody of
* Peace on earth ' sung by angel voices ; it
is the strains of a mighty orchestra rather.
Notes from the stricken chords of the heart
of God lead the strain, and notes from all the
stricken chords of the human soul answer
back in responsive chorus." This witness is
true ; and in the Book of Psalms we hear
every chord vibrating, from the loudest
hallelujah to the most thrilling tones of pathos
and sorrow. It is the divinest, and, at the
same time, the humanest book in all the world.
Or again, we may completely change our
illustration and think of the Book of Psalms
as a lake in the midst of the mountains of
revelation, in which all the rest of the scenery
finds its reflection, with the added beauty of
the exquisite medium in which it is seen.
Have you admired the grandeur of the story
of Creation in the beginning? See its re-
flection in Psalm civ. Have you stood in
awe before Mount Sinai at the giving of the
law ? How lovingly it is mirrored in a psalm
like the 19th, which brings creation and the
law into such noble relation.^ Have you

^ It is worthy of note that we have here an antici-
pation of that great thought of the philosopher Kant,
who said that there were two things which never

of the Holy Scriptures 6i

followed with interest the history of the
chosen people? Turn to the historical
psalms and see the outlines of the history
suffused with poetry and worship. Have you
been exercised in soul as you have entered
into the wrestling of Job with the problem of
human suffering? See it all reflected and
epitomised in such a psalm as the 73rd. Has
the difficult Book of Ecclesiastes been your
study ? See its lessons put in briefest form
in Psalm xl. Have you climbed the hill of
prophecy and gained wonderful glimpses of
the coming kingdom and the coming King ?
These, too, are reflected in a marvellous way
in the Messianic psalms, where we see the
great events of the Gospel casting their
shadows before ; for we find a psalm of the
Advent (xl.), a psalm of the Bridegroom
(xlv.), a psalm of the Cross (xxii.), a psalm of
the Grave and the Resurrection (xvi.), a
psalm of the Ascension (Ixviii.), a psalm of
the Coronation (ii.), a psalm of the heavenly
Priesthood (ex.), a psalm of the glory of the
Kingdom (Ixxii.), psalms of the Second
Coming (xcvi.-xcviii.), while even the "great
voices in heaven " in the Book of Revelation

ceased to call forth his wonder and awestruck admi-
ration, the starry sky and the moral law.

62 The Devotional Use

are in a manner anticipated in the grand finale
of the book — the Hallelujah Chorus of the
Hallelujah Psalms (cxlvi.-cl.).

Once more, we may apply to the book its
own illustration of "a river the streams of
which make glad the city of God " ; and we
are set thinking of the blessed influence of
these psalms, as the living waters have flowed
from the mirror lake in the holy mountains,
down through the generations and the
centuries, a perennial source of inspiration
to all that has been purest, noblest, and most
heroic in human life. "What a wonderful
story they could tell," writes Dr. Ker, " if we
could gather it all from lonely chambers,
from suffering sick-beds, from the brink of
the valley of the shadow of death, from scaf-
folds and fiery piles witnessing in sunlight,
from moors and mountains beneath the stars,
and in the high places of the field turning to
flight the armies of the aliens." They can
never be all gathered, nor more than the
merest fraction of them. Dr. Ker gathered
a goodly number himself before he passed
away ; and now we have a much larger col-
lection admirably set forth in the monumental
work I of Mr. Prothero, in which he has, with

' " The Psalms in Human Life " (John Murray).

of the Holy Scriptures 63

great success, fulfilled the task he set before
him of furnishing " some of the countless
instances in which the Psalms have guided,
controlled, and sustained the lives of men and
women in all ages of human history and at all
crises of their fate."

(2) Much more might be written on this
great theme ; but perhaps we have had
enough to give us some fresh conception of
the incomparable treasure we possess in this
little old book which we can carry with us
wherever we go. And now shall we venture
to give some suggestions as to the use of it in
our devotions ?

(i.) Many of the psalms can be used as we
use the Lord's Prayer, namely, by taking the
words of them and making them our own.
We might make up for ourselves a catena or
chain of such psalms — those which come most
home to us in the different phases of devo-
tion. We might begin with the 51st, the
Miserere as it is called, with its penitential
sorrow and its cry for forgiveness and cleans-
ing ; and pass to the 32nd, with its noble
expression of the rapture of reconciliation
and the joy of the new heart and life. Then
might follow such a psalm of thanksgiving as
the Ii6th, a psalm of trust like the 23rd, and
so on through the principal phases of Christian
experience.

64 The Devotional Use

By making up for ourselves some such
chain of psalms we should naturally select
our special favourites, the psalms to which
we turn again and again for the expression of
the deepest feelings of our souls. But we
ought not to limit ourselves to these. The
list of our favourites should be always enlarg-
ing. There may be some Christians who are
equally familiar with the whole book, but
such cases are probably quite exceptional.
For the greater number the best advice seems
to be, that they should make themselves
absolutely familiar with a certain number of
psalms they have found specially helpful,
committing them to memory if possible, but
at all events fixing their number firmly in the
mind, so as to be able to turn to them at a
moment's notice. If any one wishes a simple
test as to his real possession of the psalms,
let him shut his eyes and number over those
which have been so written in his soul that
he can not only turn to them without a
moment's hesitation, but go over in his mind
all that is in them. How many can you call
distinctly up before you in answer to such a
question ? As many as twenty ? Or could
you not muster more than ten ? Then you
have scarcely begun to possess yourselves of
the treasures there are for you here. Re-

of the Holy Scriptures 65

member the psalm is not yours when you
have read it ; it must be set singing in your
soul.

(ii.) Besides this strictly personal use of
particular psalms, there will be a general use of
the Psalter which is likely to be most helpful
in the daily devotion. For this purpose we
recommend a classification of the psalms
according to their themes. This may be
done in many different ways ; has been done
many times ; but it is far better to do it for
yourselves than to take over some arrange-
ment which has been made by another. The
question is not what is the most logical
arrangement or the most comprehensive ; but
what is that which most interests and helps
me. Let us indicate the lines along which it
might be done.

If we have made for ourselves such a chain
of psalms as has been already suggested, we
might, to begin with, take each of these as
a specimen and find others to place beside
it. Thus beside Psalm li. we should
naturally place the 130th, that cry from the
depths ; and the 143rd, a cry from still greater
depths, and so on till we had under that class
the well-known seven penitential psalms.

Another division might be psalms of
thanksgiving, beginning probably with the
6

66 The Devotional Use

103rd ; another, psalms of trust, of the same
tone as the 23rd, and so on.

Again, we might wish to have a list of
psalms which take us very directly into the
presence of God, to meditate on His great-
ness and glory. His character and attributes,
His works and ways. Such a list might begin
with Psalm cxxxix. and include in it such
psalms as the 90th and 46th.

Psalms of delight in worship might form
another class, beginning with the 84th, and
including such psalms as the 132nd and the
42nd.

Then there are the Nature psalms, begin-
ning with the 104th and the 8th, which are
directly connected with the story of creation,
and taking in those great psalms which either
throughout or in parts show nature in its
varying moods. Of the former class we may
give as a specimen Psalm xxix., in which
the magnificence of a thunderstorm crashing
among the hills is used with such marvellous
power to show forth the glory of God, and to
bring out by contrast the loveliness of His
peace which follows His storm. Of the latter
class we may give as specimens Psalm xviii.,
which, though a psalm of salvation, has in the
first part of it perhaps the most magnificent
description of a storm at sea that has ever

of the Holy Scriptures 67

been penned, or Psalm Ixv., which, starting
with the forgiveness of sin, ends in an
exquisite harvest hymn.

Besides these lists, which we shall best pre-
pare by having a series of headings of our
own, and filling the Psalms in by degrees as
we proceed in our devotional use of the book,
there are groups which are practically made
for us, such as the historical psalms, scattered
indeed among the others, but so obvious in
their character as to clearly form a group by
themselves ; the psalms of degrees (or " songs
of ascent,") the Messianic psalms, and the
Hallelujah psalms.

We can use the historical psalms in two
ways : either by putting ourselves into sym-
pathy with the writer and dwelling on the
very same events which he recites ; or by
transferring them, as it were, into our own
times, and worshipping God as the God of
our nation, as the Maker of all its history, the
Controller of its destinies, its Saviour in all
times of trouble.

There is one small class of psalms which
seems quite unsuitable for devotional use —
those in which the wrath of God is invoked
against enemies. It is quite clear that to use
these psalms by adopting their language as
against our own enemies would be to dis-

68 The Devotional Use

honour and disobey Him Who said : " Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and per-
secute you." The only way in which we can
make devotional use of such passages is by
applying them to our spiritual foes, especially
to the sins which do most easily beset us.
Let us not forget, however, as we read these
psalms, that allowance must be made for the
times. Our Saviour said, in prefacing His
great illuminating word on the subject : " Ye
have heard that it has been said by them of
old time, thou shalt love thy neighbour and
hate thine enemy." It was in that old time
that the psalms in question were written.
Further, we should take into account the
feeling of indignation against sin which lay
behind what seems to us personal denuncia-
tion. We find, indeed, one of the psalmists
expressly disclaiming personal animosity in
the hatred of his enemies : " Do not I hate
them O Lord that hate Thee ? And am not
I grieved with those that rise up against
Thee ? I hate them with perfect hatred ; I
count them mine enemies." And, in fact,
when we consider all the circumstances, the
troublous times, the spirit of the age, the
limitation of the light, our wonder might be,

of the Holy Scriptures 69

not that there are some imprecatory psalms,
but that their number should be so small.

(iii.) Only one thing more. How are we to
find Christ in the Psalms ? Is it only in those
which are called Messianic ? In these there
is, as we have seen, a marvellous fore-
shadowing of the days of Christ : His advent,
His life, His sufferings, His death. His burial,
His resurrection. His ascension. His inter-
cession, His Kingdom, His return ; but if we
are to limit His presence to these predictive
psalms, as we may call them, it would after
all be only here and there that we should
find Him in the Psalter. But when we take a
large view of the subject we shall find Him
almost everywhere.

We must not forget that the Word Who
was in the beginning with God, was in the
world as Spirit before He became flesh.
It was He Who inspired these holy
men of old who spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost. We may not distinguish
between the Spirit of God and the Spirit of
Christ in the Old Testament. The Apostle
Peter tells us distinctly, in speaking of the
salvation concerning which the prophets
sought and searched diligently, that it was
" the Spirit of Christ Who was in them "
from Whom they received their guidance.

70 The Devotional Use

We should bear in mind then that the voice
of the Spirit of Christ is heard, not only in
these great predictions or foreshadowings of
things to come, but in every utterance of
faith. Not in the utterances of doubt ; these
were strictly human ; but in the utterances of
faith. It will be remembered that after the
long list in Hebrews of the heroes of faith in
the Old Testament, Christ is spoken of as
" the Author and the Finisher of faith " — the
Author as well as the Finisher — for He is the
Root as well as the Offspring of David.
There is here, as in every other part of Scrip-
ture, a mingling of the human and Divine ;
and, as we have seen, the human element is
very prominent throughout the Psalms.
There is a great deal of truly human dark-
ness, and groping, and crying, and stumbling,
and falling ; but the Saviour is never far
away ; and so it comes to pass that even in
those psalms that rise out of an abyss of
despair, there will presently be a shining of
the light, a breaking of the day, and ere the
strain is finished there will be a shout of joy.
Whence came the light? how came the joy ?
It was the Spirit of Christ which was in them.
Many of the psalms are radiant all through
with the joy of God's salvation ; they are like
a cloudless summer day ; but there is even

of the Holy Scriptures 71

still greater beauty in those psalms which
lead us through storm and tempest to a sun-
set in which the clouds have become radiant
with a glory not their own but borrowed from
the sun, which has been ever shining in the
sky. It is Christ, the Sun of our soul, Who
is the sunlight of the Psalms. So we can find
Him all the way through.

VII

HOW TO USE THE GOSPELS

NEXT in simplicity to the Psalms, and
above them in importance for devotional
use, are the Gospels. It is necessary then
that we should carefully consider how we
may best use them. We shall deal with the
subject first in general and then in detail.

I. The great object of the Four Gospels is
to bring us into close contact with Christ
Himself We have already seen (chap. IV.)
that it is possible for us in the reading of the
Gospels to get nearer to our Lord than even
those could who saw Him in the flesh. If we
ponder well what He said of the coming of
the Spirit and the superior advantages of the
new dispensation, we shall find that we have
something better than there was even for
Martha, Mary, and Lazarus when they re-
ceived Him into their Bethany home. For

it is not only that Matthew, Mark, Luke and
72

The Use of Holy Scriptures 73

John understood their Lord far better when
they wrote their Gospels than when they saw
Him on earth, but that Christ Himself is
actually present with the reader as He had
been with the writer, present in a sense quite
as real, and, as we have seen, more helpful.
It is difficult to realise it, but there is no
question whatever that this is what our Lord
has taught us to expect. Let us then try to
exercise our faith sufficiently to make it a
reality to us. "Lo, I am with you alway,
even to the end of the world," is the final
assurance of the Gospel. This distinguishes
these Gospels from all other histories or
biographies. These years were not spent "as
a tale that is told." They are not spent at all.
They are with us still. The Lord Jesus Him-
self is with us as we read, so that those
whose faith looks up to Him may, as it were,
catch the light of His eye, feel the touch of
His hand, hear the tones of His voice.

Recall the experience of the two disciples
on their way to Emmaus. There was One
with them Whom they did not recognise,
Who made the story of their Master a new
and living thing to them. Looking back on
it after He had vanished from their sight,
they say: "Did not our hearts burn within
us, while He talked with us by the way, and

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while He opened to us the Scriptures?"
Remember that these experiences of the
forty days were given to prepare the way
for the new spiritual presence. It was a
transition time. Do you not think then that
this opening of the Scriptures by a stranger
whom they did not recognise, but whom
they afterwards discovered to be the Lord
Himself, was a fitting preparation for the
time when it would be the unseen Lord Who
would open the Scriptures and make hearts
burn within them ? It is a picture of what
we should always expect. The first thing
in the reading of the Gospels is to recognise
our Lord, present with us in Spirit to unlock
the treasures of the sacred page.

There will be inspiration in the companion-
ship, even apart from any definite lessons to be
learned ; but it may be well to mention the
two main things for which we ought to be on
the watch, corresponding to the twofold
nature of our Lord as Son of God and as
Son of Man. In the former capacity He is
the revelation of God to us ; in the latter He
is the ideal of humanity. We learn from His
life on the one hand what God is, how He
feels to us and how He deals with us ; on
the other what man ought to be. These are
the two greatest things for us to know, and

of the Holy Scriptures 75

we ought to be always eager to know them
better — to know God better and so love Him
more, and at the same time to know better
what we ought to be, to become familiar with
the features of the ideal human life as set
before us in the story of Him Who is our
perfect example. A word on each of these
points.

(i) As to the first, it is important to re-
member that the only way in which we can
become in any proper sense acquainted with
God is by familiarity with the life of Christ.
God has uttered Himself in Creation ; just as
an artist utters himself in his works. He has
expressed Himself in the whole history of the
world. He has spoken to the fathers by the
prophets. These are all utterances of God,
but they are scattered and fragmentary, and
give us a very vague and partial and, as it
were, far-off knowledge of Him. Let us try
to illustrate this in a very familiar way. A
visit to a carpenter's shop may give us some
knowledge of the carpenter as a carpenter.
We may judge of his skill ; we may be able,
by careful examination of the specimens of
his handicraft we see, to tell something about
his hand and a little about his head ; but we
cannot in this way learn to know him. Or, if
we enter an artist's studio in his absence, and

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look at his works as they are dispersed about
the room, we may be able to pronounce some
opinion about the artist, but we cannot say
that in this way we know the man. It is only
a little way that the sight of a person's works
will carry us in giving a knowledge of him.
Will it do to show us what he has written ?
This will certainly carry us somewhat farther.
But even words, however much of disclosure
there may be in them, are not the ultimate
revelation of a person. We want to see his
doings, his conduct day by day. That we
may know him thoroughly he must live
before us, we must see how he bears himself
amid the vicissitudes of life, in its trials and
temptations, its joys and sorrows.

Now apply all this to acquaintance with
God. We may not undervalue the revela-
tion of God in creation and in the world's
history. We may not forget that He has
spoken to the fathers by the prophets at
sundry times and in divers manners. But
the question still comes. Is there no possibility
of getting nearer to Himself? Is there no
personal revelation ? Has no one looked
upon a face with the very light of God upon
it? Has no one listened to a voice which
thrilled with the love of God Himself? Is
there no way of pressing in through the

of the Holy Scriptures 77

outer circle of His works, which are but
the hem of His garment, and from the words
which are the utterances of His mind, to His
very life and soul and heart ? Yes, there is :
" The Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us." "God hath spoken to us in His Son."
He has given us the " light of the know-
ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ." Let us never forget then as we
follow the Gospel story that as Jesus lived
and moved among the men of His time, so is
God with us. As he spoke to them, so does
God speak to us. As He dealt with them, so
does God deal with us. What a solemn
and tender interest does this give to every-
thing He said and did and suffered! Not
that we are to apply His words and deeds
indiscriminately. We must not apply to the
earnest soul what is spoken to the indifferent
or rebellious; nor to the sinner what is spoken
to the saint. We must consider well not only
what He said, but to whom and in what
circumstances the words were spoken. This
may sometimes occasion difficulty, but there
is always the promised guidance of the Spirit
to "take of the things of Christ and show
them unto us." Thus we shall in the reading
of the Gospels under the guidance of the
Spirit see God as revealed in Christ in

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differing attitudes to people of endlessly
differing characters, but always with sonnie
useful application to ourselves.

(2) As to the second lesson, which shows
us what we ought to be, we have, of course,
our Lord's sayings and discourses, in which
we are directly told our duty. These will
be dealt with later on. At present we are
thinking, not of His words, but of His life
as our example. And here it is of great
importance to bear in mind His true and
proper humanity. While He never ceased
to be the Son of God, He was, not in
appearance merely, but in reality, a true
Son of Man, " compassed about with infir-
mity," tempted in all points like as we are.
We are apt to think He had a great advan-
tage over us in the battle of life because
He was God as well as Man, but we forget
that He gave up entirely all such advantage.
He was not divested of His attributes, but
He voluntarily laid them aside, and that so
completely, that He never felt Himself at
liberty at any time to use any of them for
personal ends. All the miracles He wrought
were in the saving of others, not one of them
for His own comfort or relief There was a
difference between Him and us, in that the
restriction was one He put upon Himself

of the Holy Scriptures 79

His limitations were voluntarily imposed,
while ours are compulsory. But did that
make it any easier for Him ? The more we
think of it, the more we must see that it
made His life struggle far harder.

Recall the temptation in the wilderness.
On the one hand His hunger was as keen
as yours or mine would have been. The
difference was that He could command the
stones to be made bread, while we could not
have done it. Did that make it easier for
Him to stand His ground? Was it easier
for Tantalus to bear his hunger that there
were always bunches of fruit hanging tanta-
lisingly in front of him ? Is it not clear that
the Saviour's latent power to satisfy His
wants in an extraordinary way was the
hardest thing He had to contend against?
He had not only to bear the hunger, as you
and I would have to do, but to resist what
must have been an almost overpowering
impulse to gratify His appetite in a way
which was very easy for Him, but which
He saw to be not right.

When the commander of an invading
army wishes to make heroism easier for
his soldiers, he burns the bridges behind
him. He makes retreat impossible, so as
to leave the sole alternative : Do or die.

8o The Devotional Use

But the Saviour's retreat was never cut off.
The bridges were never burned behind Him.
The way from the Cross was always there
and always easy, which made the way of
the Cross all the harder for Him. " Thinkest
thou that I cannot now pray to My Father,
and He shall presently give Me more than
twelve legions of angels ? " Did the constant
consciousness of that reserve power make it
easier for Him to endure the Cross, despising
the shame ? Speaking of the shame, what a
terrible temptation it must have been to hear
that mocking cry, " He saved others, Himself
He cannot save." " If He be the Son of God
let Him come down from the Cross." Yet
He did not come down — not because He
could not, which would have been our case,
but because He would not, which was His
far harder case ; for it meant the renewal
every moment of the same heroism which
led Him to accept the Cross at the first.

He "walked by faith, not by sight."
Some people seem to think that He saw
all the way before Him, and knew exactly
what was coming ; but this would not have
been genuine human nature. He had to live
by prayer, and by the reading of the Word,
and to find out the Will of God just as we
have. Why did He sometimes spend whole

of the Holy Scriptures 8i

nights in prayer ? It was not a form ; it
must have been because He felt the need
of it ; and if we observe the times when He
did so, we shall find that they were times
of special difficulty and perplexity. It is
startling to discover that He had even to go
through the hard experience of apparently
unanswered prayer. Three times with strong
crying and tears He prayed, " Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from Me " ; yet
the cup did not pass. And notice in passing
that the use of the words " if it be possible,"
show that, at the moment. He did not clearly
see it to be impossible. There came, indeed,
an angel from heaven strengthening Him ;
and so will it be with you and me if the
strong crying and tears for the passing of
some cup must be refused. For " are they
not all ministering spirits, sent forth to
minister," not to the Son of Man alone,
but "to those who shall be heirs of salva-
tion " ?

So all through His earthly life we must
think of Him as a man among men, with
the same difficulties to contend with as we
have to meet, with true human feelings, not
only love and hope and joy, but at times
doubt and perplexity and fear. It is often
quite necessary to bear this in mind in order
7

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to understand some of His strong sayings,
as when He says to Peter, " Get thee behind
Me, Satan," a terribly strong word which
He never could have used to His dear
disciple had not his suggestion set up in
the Master's soul a life-and-death struggle.
It betrays the deep emotion of a soul
tempted almost beyond endurance by the
remonstrance of His foremost disciple added
to the uprising of His own soul at the critical
moment when He had to set His face to go
up to Jerusalem to die.

As a special illustration, let me mention a
difficulty which has been more than once ad-
dressed to me by thoughtful readers of the
Gospels — our Lord's use of the word " hate "
in cases where it startles us. For example,
" He that hateth his life in this world shall keep
it unto life eternal." Must I then hate my
life ? Some people say, " Of course you must ;
does not the Master plainly say so ? " And
they think it an end of all controversy to say,
" There it is in black and white " ; but they
forget that there are a great many things
which will not go into black and white ; and if
nothing else is possible, as on the printed page,
there must be some soul in the person reading
to put in the colour from the suggestions of
it which it is possible to give in words, very

of the Holy Scriptures 83

much as a skilful etcher can give marvellous
suggestions of colour with only black and
white to do it with. Now the words " love "
and "hate" in passages of this kind are
touches of colour. To see the value of
them we must look at the surroundings.
We must first look at the whole utterance
of which they form part ; then we must put
ourselves as much as possible in the position
of the speaker, that we may look at it from
his point of view. We must, in fact, deal
with the words, not as consisting of so many
black marks on a piece of white paper, but
as the warm utterance of an agitated soul.
Now observe that the words in question
were spoken by our Lord when He was
passing through what may be called a
Gethsemane experience ; for it was when
He heard of the Greeks seeking Him, a
circumstance which powerfully suggested to
His mind that the hour had come when He
must be " lifted up," so as to " draw all men
unto Him." The thought was agony for
the moment : " Father, save me from this
hour " ! The shadow of the Cross has often
fallen on His pathway, but it is no shadow
now — there it is in black, concrete reality,
straight before Him. It proved to be one
of His sorest conflicts. All that was human

84 The Devotional Use

in Him, His whole life as it were, rose up
in arms and barred the way of the Cross.
We can readily see, therefore, that the
temptation to turn out of the consecrated
path was too strong, the moment was too
critical, to admit of any half measures or of
balanced words. He must not parley with
such an antagonist. He must treat him as
His bitterest foe, and hew a pathway
through him to the Cross. The moment
had come when He had to hate His life
in this world in order to keep it unto the
life eternal of His followers ; for all would
have been lost if He had yielded now.

Now it is easy to see the colouring in the
words " love " and " hate," as used at such a
time. The Saviour had in His mind's eye
times of sharpest crisis, when a man is
brought face to face with his life in this
world rising against him as an adversary
to bar his way, to close against him the
path of duty and devotion — what then ? If
he love his life he is lost ; the only hope
for him is to hate it, to treat it as his
bitterest enemy — to run his sword through
and through it, and utterly slay and quench
it. " He that hateth his life in this world
shall keep it unto life eternal." When we
take all this into account we can see that

of the Holy Scriptures 85

the way our Saviour puts it is not at all
too strong.

We have drawn out this illustration at
considerable length in order to make it
clear how much it helps us often in the
most difficult passages to enter into the
human soul of our Lord Jesus, and realise
the effect upon His words of the strong
emotions which were surging through it.
Here again we do not say that to use the
Gospels in this way is very easy ; it can-
not be done if we have only three or five
minutes for the reading of our passage ; but
once more let us remember Him Who takes
of the things of Christ and shows them unto
us. By His grace we may always get some
high impulse from the events in the life of
Christ, in the vision of God as revealed
in Him, and in the ideal of human life as
set forth in His great example. May all
of us enter more and more every day into
this fellowship with our Lord !

n. Looking at the subject now more in
detail we may find it useful to consider
separately the Words of Christ, His Works,
His Sufferings, and His Resurrection Life.

(i) The Words. Taking single verses
and short passages first, there are precepts,
promises, warnings, instructions, consolations.

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The use of all these will be very simple
indeed. Do I obey this precept? Lord,
help me so to do. Have I made this
promise my own ? Do I need this warning ;
and if so, do I lay it to heart? And so
on. Very much profit may be derived from
little exercises of this kind.

Then there are the separate parables.
Here the great thing is to get the main
lesson and have it strongly impressed. This
is much more useful than trying to spiritualise
the details. Suppose, for example, you are
reading the parable of the Prodigal. The
great thing to be impressed with is the
Father's love and forgiveness, and the royal
welcome He gives to His wandering son.
If we take that to our heart, and dwell on
it till the fire of love to God burns, the time
is far better spent than in speculating as to
whether there is any special meaning in
the ring and the shoes. It is the large
general impression which is to be mainly
sought for.

Finally, there are the longer discourses,
notably in Matthew and in John. In the
first Gospel there is the well-known Sermon
on the Mount in the beginning, and the great
Prophecy on the Mount (Matt, xxiv.-xxv.)
in the end. The Sermon on the Mount is so

of the Holy Scriptures 87

familiar that we need not dwell on it. The
Prophecy on the Mount (of Olives) was
delivered in the midst of the Passion Week.
The strictly prophetic part of it is full of
difficulty, but the grand and solemn parables
and pictures of Judgment : the Servant set
over the household, the Virgins, the Talents,
and the Final Separation, especially when
read slowly one after the other to the close,
all produce the profoundest impression. Mid-
way between, in chap, xiii., is another series
of parables, a group of seven, arranged
in pairs : The Sower and the Tares, the
Mustard Seed and the Leaven, the Hid
Treasure and the Pearl, and, finally, the
Draw Net. These are all parables of the
Kingdom, showing it in its origin (ist and
2nd), its growth (3rd and 4th), its excellence
(5th and 6th), and its consummation (/th).
There are valuable lessons in each separate
parable, but after we have had these it is
well to allow the mind to dwell on the grand
harmonious whole.

The discourses in John are long, and many
of them somewhat difficult. They are for
the most part sermons of which the text
is some incident which has just happened ;
for example, the visit of Nicodemus, the
conversation with the woman at the well,

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the healing of the impotent man, and the
restoring of sight to the man born blind.
But the great delight of the Fourth Gospel
is the discourse in the Upper Room. It has
been called the Holy of Holies of the Gospel.
There especially, we can hear the throbbing
of the Saviour's heart, and feel the uplift
of His Holy Spirit.

(2) The Works. We generally call these
the miracles, but they are never so spoken
of in the Gospels. They are often called
" works," sometimes " mighty works," more
frequently " signs," signs of the kingdom of
heaven. This gives us the key to their use.
They signify or show how God acts in the
kingdom of heaven, how He acts to all that
come to Him. They are, as it were, acted
parables. They are little stories of the olden
time, but they are far more, they are revela-
tions of God to us now and here. For
example, you are reading the story of the
leper, but it is not really the poor man who
has been dead now so many hundred years
that interests you. He is a sign — of what ?
Of the sinner. And the interest of the story
is that it means that Jesus, Who is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is waiting to
heal my leprosy of sin. The best way for us
to do in such a case is to take the man's

of the Holy Scriptures 89

cry and make it our own, " Lord, if Thou
wilt, Thou canst make me clean." After
this little prayer, look up to your ever-present
Lord, and listen for His gracious word, for
He will say to you, " I v/ill : be thou
clean."

In the same way, when we are reading
about the storm on the lake, though it is
interesting to hear that some sailors long ago
were saved from drowning, that is not the
great interest for us. That stormy lake is
a sign of our sea of troubles, and it teaches
us that if we only look calmly across it we
shall see the familiar form, and hear the
welcome voice, " It is I, be not afraid."

Or if it be the raising of Lazarus we
are reading, think what a sign it is of the
Saviour's power and at the same time of His
tenderness ! There we find the shortest verse
in the Bible, " Jesus wept " ; but in these
two little words what depths of consolation
for all bereaved ones ! In the anguish of
separation we are apt to think that the face
of God is stern ; but the story in John xi.
takes away the veil, and shows the tears
upon it.

As with the parables, so here there
are sometimes groups of signs, as in
Matthew viii. — ix. 35. There are here ten

go The Devotional Use

miracles, but the variety is such that each
has its own special and peculiar value : the
leper, the centurion's servant, the fever
patient, the storm stilled, the demons cast
out, palsy healed as the sign of sins forgiven,
the healing of the chronic invalid by the
way, the raising of the dead damsel, and the
restoration of sight to the blind and speech
to the dumb — all different, all most precious,
all needed to bring out some aspect of the
truth concerning Jesus as the Saviour of
Mankind, all together giving us a most com-
prehensive presentation of the signs of the
kingdom of heaven.

There is a principle stated in John of very
great importance to the understanding of the
signs of the kingdom. " The Son can do
nothing of Himself but what He seeth the
Father do : for whatsoever things He doeth,
these the Son also doeth in like manner."
Thus we may regard the works of Christ
as representations in miniature of the works
of God. In the feeding of the multitudes, for
example, we see not only Christ's lordship
over nature, but a representation in miniature
of what the God of nature is doing every
year, when, by agencies as far beyond our
ken as those by which His Son multiplied
the loaves, He transmutes the handfuls of

of the Holy Scriptures 91

seed corn into the rich harvests of grain
which feed the multitudes of men.

This principle is so important and in-
teresting that it will bear development. The
problem is to show the Divine working.
Now there are three great difficulties in
understanding the works of God : the great
space in which He works, most of it far
beyond our reach ; the vast time in which
He works, only the smallest fraction of which
we can examine ; and the endless number
of intermediate agencies which He uses as
instruments for carrying out His vast designs.
Infinite space, infinite time, infinite com-
plexity. Hence the need of illustrations —
pictures on a small scale — to enable us to
see what God is really doing in this vast
universe and in this great eternity which
stretch in all directions round us. Let us
now consider how through these miracle
signs the Son of God brings some of the ways
of God down to the level of human powers.

When you wish to teach the geography
of this island you do not take your scholar
up in a balloon and try to show it to him.
Small as the British Islands are, they are
too extensive for that. A map drawn to a
small scale is what you use. So, in order to
teach the shape and contour of the earth,

92 The Devotional Use

you do not propose a journey round it, which
would give the scholar no idea of its shape,
but you show him a good globe. Now it
is on this wise principle that our Lord pro-
ceeds in showing us the Father's working.
He does not take us out on a voyage of
discovery through the wide universe, nor
set intricate problems which would need a
thousand years to work out. No ; He
simply did on a small scale and in a
short time some of the works of the
Father, that men might learn to believe
in Him, to recognise His hand and His
heart in His otherwise incomprehensible
doings in the wide field of nature and the
unmeasured expanse of eternity.

As an example, look at this lovely minia-
ture. Christ Jesus, the revealer of the Father,
steps up to a lame man, and says to him,
" Wilt thou be made whole ? " following at
once with the summons, " Rise, take up thy
bed and walk." And immediately the man
was made whole. It all happened in a few
minutes. Are we to infer from this that it
is God's will and way to cure in a few
minutes all who wish to be made whole?
Certainly not. We must allow for the scale.
When we look at a map of England, however
good and true it be, we cannot measure the

of the Holy Scriptures 93

distance from London to Liverpool with an
inch rule, and then say the two places are
only a few inches apart. We must allow
for the scale. So in these works of Christ.
We cannot measure the interval between the
application and the cure, and say, "It will
take only a few minutes. " We must allow
for the scale. And what it means is that
God's way of dealing with His suffering
creatures is to come to them with the ques-
tion, "Wilt thou be made whole?" and if
they are willing, then to heal them, not
necessarily in three minutes, nor in three
years, perhaps not in thirty years, but in
due time, and in a time quite as brief accord-
ing to the measure of our immortal life as
these minutes were according to the measure
of our little life on earth.

(3) The Sufferings of our Lord. When
these are mentioned we are apt to think
specially of the Passion Week ; but we must
not forget that not the last week of His life
alone, but the whole of it, was a Passion Life.
He was " a Man of Sorrows and acquainted
with grief." He was not without a holy joy
in all His toils, and the delight of doing His
Father's will was always with Him. It must
have brought a peculiar thrill to His heart to
be able to give relief to so many sufferers

94 The Devotional Use

and bring gladness to so many sore hearts ;
but do we realise what a pang it must have
been to pass by those whom on account of
their attitude towards God He could not
relieve, what pain and disappointment lie
behind such a brief notice as this : " He
could not there do many mighty works
because of their unbelief" ? Looking at His
life as a whole, it is most pathetic to observe
that there was not one stage of it which
could be called successful in the ordinary
accepted sense of the word.

When He came into the world He was an
unwelcome child of Israel. " Herod the
king was troubled, and all Jerusalem with
him," at the news of His birth. And the
only way to save the young life was to seek
sanctuary in heathen Egypt.

How was it in that long period of His life
of which we have only the scantiest notices
— the thirty years at Nazareth? Was it a
time of quiet peace ? Perhaps in early child-
hood it well might be ; but as He grew up,
what must it have been to find that no one
understood Him or sympathised with what
was deepest in His soul ? For none of His
brethren believed in Him, and even His
loving mother, as we know later on, some-
times took part with them rather than with

of the Holy Scriptures 95

Him. He Himself has nothing to say of
this ; and, guided by His Spirit, the evange-
lists maintain a very becoming reticence.
But do we not get a glimpse into the
Saviour's heart in the famous utterance at
Nazareth : " A prophet is not without
honour, save in his own country, and among
his own kindred, and in his own home " ?
What a sad light is thus thrown back on
His whole Nazareth experience ! Surely no
one can fail to feel how He comes closer and
closer to the quick in the narrowing circle —
from country to kindred and from kindred to
His own home. Without honour even there !
So the prophet was right in the foreshadow-
ing of these Nazareth days : " He shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, and as a
root out of a dry ground ; He hath no form
nor comeliness ; and when we shall see Him,
there is no beauty that we should desire
Him ; He is despised and rejected of men."
As we read the story of our Lord's ministry
we should watch for the indications of the
deep emotions of His heart. He is for the
most part silent in His sufferings, makes no
complaint ; so if we wish to know how He
felt we must try to put the tone into some
of His sayings, the effect of which would
otherwise escape us. In His Judean ministry,

g6 The Devotional Use

for example, during which He laboured for
nine months, apparently without making a
single convert either from Jerusalem or from
Judea, there is no lament or wail of dis-
appointment ; but can we fail to observe the
tone in which, later on, He said to the leaders
of the Church in Jerusalem : " Ye search the
Scriptures . . . and ye will not come unto
Me," to Whom they testify, and Who bring
you the very thing you are supposed to be
seeking in these Scriptures, eternal life ?

Sometimes there will be a sorrowful pathos
even in His joy. Think of the success at
the Well of Sychar, which so filled Him with
ecstasy that, though He had been famished
with hunger. He could not eat for gladness !
Is it not pathetic to think that the salvation
of one poor woman should make ecstatic the
heart of the Saviour of the world ? There is
much to think of here on which there is not
time to dwell.

As an illustration of the effect of reproduc-
ing the tone of what at first may seem a
simple and unemotional utterance, think of
the parable of the Sower. It is spoken on
the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the neigh-
bourhood of Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Caper-
naum, over which He had a short time before
pronounced His sorrowful lament. He saw

of the Holy Scriptures 97

around Him the fields where, with busy hand,
throbbing heart, and eager spirit, He had
been sowing the precious seed. Why is this
good seed I am scattering so disappointingly
unfruitful ? The answer He gives is the
parable of the Sower. It was spoken in the
first place to encourage His own heart. As
we read it we see how faith came to His
relief, suggesting that while so much of the
seed fell on the trodden ground, on the
shallow ground, on the thorny ground, that
which fell in good ground was so fruitful that,
notwithstanding the loss of the greater part
of the seed and the sowing of the tares by
the evil one, it would in the end grow to a
mighty tree, and by its inner working leaven
the whole of society. There always seems to
me to be a deep wail of sorrow as well as a grand
note of faith in that parable of the Sower.

As another illustration of the brief glimpses
we may have into the heart of the Man of
Sorrows, let me refer to the close of His
Capernaum ministry, when the multitudes
who had rallied around Him, and even those
who had thought and called themselves His
disciples, went back and walked no more
with Him. Think what that must have
meant after the hopefulness of the time, and
try to enter into the heart-break of the
8

98 The Devotional Use

sorrow-stricken appeal to the eleven, " Will
ye also go away ? "

Take as still another illustration of pathos,
which might remain unnoticed, the extra-
ordinary effect of the news that a few Greeks
wanted to see Him. The coming of these
few Greeks meant so much to the " despised
and rejected of men " — so much of hope for
the future of His mission, and at the same
time the clear perception that after all the
disappointment of His life there was only
one way by which ultimate success could be
gained : " I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto Me."

And that same passage is one of many
which show how terrible was the prospect of
the Cross. All the way from the scene of
the Transfiguration in the north, whence He
set His face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem
to die, there are indications that, though
there was a joy set before Him, it was set
before His faith, not before His eye. He
was steadily advancing all the time to a
horror of great darkness, beyond which He
could not see. Then comes the Passion
Week, concerning which it is, perhaps, not
necessary to make any further suggestion than
that we should throughout keep in mind that
our Saviour was true man, and that therefore

of the Holy Scriptures 99

He must have had upon Him a nervous strain
which so reduced His strength of body and
of mind that He had to face the last agonies
in a physical and mental condition in which
it was hardest of all to bear up under them.
Who can tell the depth of meaning in that
apostolic word, " crucified in weakness " !

What a story of suffering it all is ! Un-
welcome at His birth, misunderstood at
home, neglected in Judea, rejected in Naza-
reth, abandoned in Galilee, crucified in
Jerusalem !

"Oh, dearly, dearly has He loved;
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His work to do."

(4) Our Lord's Resurrection and the Forty
Days. In reading the story of the resurrec-
tion for devotional purposes it is not well to
try to make a harmony of the four evangelists.
It is better to take each of them separately
and leave our minds open to the simplicity,
beauty, and transparency of the words. This
will win our confidence and render it impos-
sible to suppose that there could be any
guile in these truthful lips or any fanatical
excitement in these calm eyes.

We ought by all means to endeavour to

loo The Devotional Use

put ourselves in the position of the disciples
before the great discovery is made. Take
for illustration the account in Mark, by many
thought the earliest, and therefore the most
obviously authentic. Observe how distant
from the minds of the women who came at
dawn to the sepulchre is any thought that
they will see their Lord again — their bringing
of spices for His anointing, and their discuss-
ing on the road the question, " Who shall roll
us away the stone ? " If, as some would
suggest, they really went in a wild, excited
state of mind, fully expecting to see their
Lord again, how is it possible to account for
these nai've touches ? Had they had such
faith as is attributed to them they would
have gloried in it, for certainly they would
be under no temptation to represent them-
selves as doubters. And the same impres-
sion is produced in all the other narratives.
The bewilderment of Peter and John ; the
conduct of Mary at the grave ; the conversa-
tion of the two on their way to Emmaus, all
indicate the absence of faith and hope from
the minds of the disciples, both men and
women — nothing left but love.

It will be found an excellent plan to take
one disciple at a time and try to enter as
deeply as possible into his feelings, so as to

of the Holy Scriptures loi

learn the special lessons from each separate
case. Take as an illustration of this the
lovely story of Mary at the Saviour's tomb.
Follow the alternations of her emotion from
blank despair to radiant joy, and realise that
that which was her deepest wish when she
came to the tomb would have been really
the worst thing that could have happened,
and that what filled her with dismay — the
absence of her Lord's body — proved to be
the very best thing she could have imagined.
Here is a little poem entitled, " What if you
had your wish ? " which puts the lesson in a
memorable way : —

" Oh, the anguish of Mary !

The depth of despair !
When she came to the tomb

And the Lord was not there ;
As she desolate stood

With her balm and her myrrh,
And His winding sheet only

Was waiting for her.

Oh, the blackness of death !

Oh, life's utter despair !
Had she come to the tomb

And the Lord had been there ;
Lying wrapped in a sheet

With the balm and the myrrh,
And no risen Redeemer

Was waiting for her."

102 The Devotional Use

In regard to the repeated appearances
during the forty days and the strange manner
of them, the chief thing to remember is that
these forty days were a time of transition — a
bridge between the manifestation in the flesh
and the manifestation by the Spirit. It was
a sort of blending of the material and the
spiritual, only so much left of the material
as to enable the disciples to be weaned from
the old methods of communion and intro-
duced gradually to the new and strange con-
tact of spirit with spirit. This is no doubt
the explanation of the Noli me tangere —
" Touch me not." If the risen Saviour had
allowed the old manner of affectionate inter-
course to return it would have been very
pleasant, no doubt, for the forty days ; but
what would have been the consequence after ?
There would have been no preparation for
the spiritual familiarity in the years that
were to come. And in this lies the reason
He gives why she should not touch Him :
" Touch Me not ; for I am not yet ascended
to My Father." When I am ascended, then
you will be able to embrace Me in the arms
of your faith ; and it is to strengthen these
arms of your faith now that I ask you to
disuse the arms which have clasped Me
before. Oh, how true to the old Scripture :

of the Holy Scriptures 103

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth
over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings,
taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so
the Lord did lead His people." The just-
developed and still all too unused wings were
the wings of their faith. And just as the
young bird that has been stirred out of the
nest, all unaccustomed yet to the thin,
ethereal air, is fain to rest herself on her
mother's wings, so with the disciples now
for the first time learning the lesson of faith
in the unseen Lord. Had the Lord dis-
appeared at once, it would have been as if
the mother eagle had stirred up her nest and
then let the fledglings, all unaccustomed to
the change, fall helplessly to the ground.
Or, had He, on the other hand, allowed them
to cling to Him as before, as Mary was about
to do, it would have been as if the mother
bird, instead of training them to use their
wings, had allowed them to make another
nest of her body, and when the time had
come that she must shake them off they
would be as helpless as before. But she
does neither the one nor the other. She
will not let them cling to her, but she will
let them now and again alight, until at last
they are strong enough to pierce the azure
for themselves. Thus we find that though

104 The Use of Holy Scriptures

Mary is not allowed to return to the old nest,
the old presence is not entirely withdrawn
from sight or touch until the muscles of the
new faith can do their work and the disciples
are prepared for following their risen Lord,
up, up, up, as He goes out of their sight to
His Father and their Father, to His God and
their God !

May the Lord Himself teach us how to
read these sacred Gospels, to read them so
as to learn to keep His words, to make His
promises our own, to lay to heart His warn-
ings, to take home His consolations, to
understand the deep significance of all His
weighty words and mighty works, to enter
into the fellowship of His sufferings, and to
rise in faith with Him from the empty tomb
to the throne of God.

VIII
HOW TO USE THE OTHER BOOKS

WE have spent so much time on the
Psalms and the Gospels — the one the
most important book in the Old Testament,
the other the most important in the New —
that we cannot deal with other books on the
same scale, but must restrict ourselves to
some general suggestions as to the devotional
use of the rest of the Bible. For this purpose
we may find it convenient to classify as fol-
lows: I. History and Biography; II. The
Epistles; III. The Prophetical Books; and
IV. The Poetical Books of the Old Testament,
excluding the Psalms as already dealt with.

I. History and Biography. This is the
prevailing type of the sacred Scriptures, the
reason for which is obvious when we consider
what is the great object of the Bible —
namely, to reveal God as a merciful, loving
105

io6 The Devotional Use

Saviour. The Bible certainly echoes what
nature tells us of God's power and wisdom;
it makes much clearer than nature does His
goodness and righteousness ; but no one can
look intelligently over the whole Bible with-
out seeing that the revelation of Divine love
is its outstanding feature. Now, love is
proved above all by deeds, and accordingly
we have in the sacred Scriptures a long his-
tory of God's gracious doings from the first
promise, given immediately after the story of
the entrance of sin into the world, on to the
culmination of all in the life and work, the
sufferings and death, the resurrection and
intercession of Christ our Lord.

It follows from this that in the devotional
use of Bible history the first and most im-
portant thing is to observe how mercifully
and patiently and lovingly God deals with
nations and with men. There are some parts
of the history very dark, as was to be ex-
pected, especially in the early ages of the world;
but let us never forget that what is darkest
and rudest and most horrible to read in the
history of sinful men and nations only brings
into stronger relief the patience of God, and
excites the more our admiration to see how
out of beginnings so rude and unpromising
He prepared the way for the coming of the

of the Holy Scriptures 107

Prince of Peace and Saviour of mankind,
and the establishment of His kingdom of
righteousness and peace and joy. On the
other hand, the terrible things which harrow-
up our souls are part of the great lesson
which we all so much need, especially in
these easy-going days, of the horrible nature
of sin and the unspeakable value of the work
of Him who has come to take it away by the
sacrifice of Himself.

The greater part of the Old Testament
history is occupied with the story of God's
dealings with His chosen people. It is im-
portant here to remember that Israel was
chosen from among the nations, not as a
matter of favouritism, not for the sake of
one nation as distinguished from every other,
but for the sake of the world at large, as is
evident from the covenant made with Abra-
ham, that in him and in his seed should all
the nations of the earth be blessed. It is
important, therefore, to remember as we read,
that God is England's God as really and as
fully as He was the God of Israel, The
difference between the history of Israel and
the history of England (or of any other
country) is not that God had more interest in
the one than in the other, more to do with
Israel than He has with Britain. " There is

io8 The Devotional Use

no difference between the Jew and the Greek,
for the same Lord is Lord over all, and is
rich unto all that call upon Him." The great
advantage of the history of Israel in the Old
Testament and of the Church in the New is
that each is set before us, as it were, in a
transparency, so that we can see through it to
the other side, and recognise at every turn
the, hand of God, which from the ordinary
observer is hid ; and, seeing the Divine work-
ing there, we are prepared for believing it in
the necessarily opaque history of other
nations, in the case of which we have not
the hand of inspiration to remove the veil.
As we have said of the life of Jesus on
the earth, so may we say of the history of
Israel in the Old Testament and of the early
Church in the Acts of the Apostles, neither
the one nor the other is a mere tale that is
told, each is a revelation of God. The his-
tory of Israel is a revelation of the principles
on which God deals with the nations of the
earth ; and the records of the early Church,
brief and scanty as they are, are nevertheless
sufficient to exhibit the principles on which
God will deal with His Church right on to
the end Qf time. It is of the greatest import-
ance, then, that we should not fail to make
application of what we read to our own

of the Holy Scriptures 109

times, remembering what the Apostle says in
looking back over the records of the past :
" All these things happened unto them as
ensamples, and they are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world are come."

A great part of Bible history is made up
of biography. This biographical method is
perhaps the best for the impressive teaching
of the history; but, besides this, the bio-
graphies of Scripture are of the greatest
value for devotional and practical use. The
main lessons of all the biographies fall into
two great divisions, the good we ought to
follow, and the evil we ought to shun —
example on the one hand, warning on the
other.

(i) Example. In this department the life of
Christ stands alone as our perfect example,
the ideal which we ought always to set before
us as the goal of all our aspirations and
endeavours. This we have already had before
us when dealing with the Gospels. But it is
of great advantage that we should have also
before us the examples of men who are like
ourselves, not only in being tempted, but also
in not being always able to resist temptation.
The life of Christ shows us what we ought to

1 1 o The Devotional Use

be, what we should aim at, and what we
expect to be after we have been made per-
fect ; but it does not show us what we may-
be now ; and if we had no inferior example
before us, we should find it sorely discourag-
ing. Hence the great importance to us of
the lives of the saints, which show us not only
what the grace of God did for them, but what
it can do for us ; for " God is no respecter of
persons." We are not at all entitled to ex-
pect that we can be as great as Abraham or
Paul, but there is no reason why we should
not be as good. " By the grace of God I am
what I am," says the great Apostle; and " this
grace abounded," he says to Timothy, " that
in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all
long-suffering, for a pattern to them who
should hereafter believe on Him to life ever-
lasting." Whatever, then, of virtue or of
grace we see in the lives even of the best of
the saints, is possible for us. In this sense
we 'can do all things through Christ
strengthening us.'

With what eagerness and high hope, there-
fore, may we read of the noble deeds of those
great ones of old, such deeds as are signalised
by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
in that great chapter in which he sets before
us the trials and triumphs of the notable

of the Holy Scriptures 1 1 1

heroes of faith. In order to gain the inspira-
tion which comes from these great examples
it is necessary to think out the whole situa-
tion, to realise as vividly as possible the
circumstances and surroundings. Take, as
an illustration of this, the choice of Moses.
It is very briefly stated, scarcely more than
suggested in the history, and the reference to
it in the Epistle, though most striking, needs
not a little thought to bring out the grandeur
of the choice. There are two mothers claim-
ing him, one a rich princess, the other a poor
slave ; two homes, one a palace, the other a
hovel ; two peoples, one the greatest nation
in all the world, and not only so, but the
greatest nation the world had ever seen, and
in some respects greater than the world
would ever see again, and on the other hand,
a people that were no people, despised,
down-trodden, enslaved ; two careers, one
the very noblest and greatest the world
could offer, that of a great man in a great
country, in the highest offices of state,
with chariots and horses and slaves, and
unbounded luxury and pleasure, with people
shouting after him as he drove along the
streets, with possessions beyond the dreams
of avarice, everything that heart could desire
at his command, the other to enter on a work

1 1 2 The Devotional Use

which seemed hopeless, which brought him
not to honour but to disgrace, which did not
even secure him the esteem and affection of
his own people, and which at every step was
beset with difficulty and danger and trial and
suffering. We must go through some such
process of thinking as this before we can
realise what a marvellous choice it was, what
an inspiring example of faith in God, of see-
ing the invisible, of living by the powers of
the unseen and eternal. Let this serve as a
single illustration of how to catch the lofty
inspiration which comes from some of the
great examples.

(2) Warning. In this region we have les-
sons which we cannot get from the life of
Christ. He is most faithful, indeed, in His
words of warning, but there are no deeds of
warning, no mistakes made, no sins com-
mitted. But in all the other biographies of
Scripture we have the advantage of profiting
by others' mistakes, and learning by their
sins. And here we may, perhaps, profitably
distinguish {a) between the faults and sins of
the good, and {b) the wickedness of the bad.

(a) As to the former, it is important to re-
member that the very best are not perfect.
It will not do to make the rough and most
inaccurate division into sinners and saints,

of the Holy Scriptures 1 1 3

expecting to find no good in the one and no
evil in the other. We must not forget that
even the greatest of the saints were men of
like passions with ourselves, and had their
alternations of mood and mind, their times of
lapse, and sometimes even of grievous sin.
We must not set them up as in a picture
gallery, stiff and starched, with aureoles round
their heads ; we must re-clothe them in flesh
and blood, and always bear in mind that,
however different the circumstances of their
life might be, their hopes and fears, their
loves and hates, their joys and sorrows, their
trials and triumphs were essentially the same
as ours. Thus we shall get the full advan-
tage of the chief distinction of our sacred
biography, that it is strictly honest through
and through, holding the mirror up to human
nature, showing Mr. Hyde as well as Dr.
Jekyll, and thus teaching the important lesson
which so impresses the great Apostle in this
connection : " Let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall." On the
other hand, how encouraging it is to nrnny of
us to find how much our God can make of
unpromising people like Jacob, how thoroughly
he will redeem a transgressor like David, and
reinstate a fallen apostle like Peter. There
is no biography to compare with it anywhere,

9

114 The Devotional Use

nowhere else such a revelation of the hidden
things of the heart.

{b) As to the latter, the wickedness of the
bad, the great lesson is the same as that sug-
gested by the darker parts of the history,
namely, the exceeding evil of sin, and its
terrible consequences. Yet here, too, there
is reason given why even the very worst need
not despair, but may expect, on turning from
sin unto God even at the eleventh hour, to
be pardoned, welcomed, and restored, as was
the thrice wicked king Manasseh.

II. The Epistles. These are so closely
connected with history and biography that
we cannot get the full advantage of the one
without taking the other in connection. The
history is the key to the Epistles, and the
Epistles throw light on the history.

It is quite possible, indeed, to make good
devotional use of the Epistles in the same
simple way that we have suggested in dealing
with the Gospels, namely, to take precepts,
promises, warnings, and so forth, and raise
such questions as these : Am I keeping this
commandment ? Am I making this promise
my own ? Am I giving heed to this warn-
ing? and then pouring out our hearts in
prayer that our lives may be brought more

of the Holy Scriptures 1 1 5

thoroughly into harmony with the holy Word.
Then there are the prayers and the thanks-
givings and aspirations, which we ought by
all means to take and make our own.

Or again, almost all the Epistles are divisible
into the more doctrinal and more practical
portions. When reading the doctrinal state-
ments, the great questions will be such as
these : Do I clearly comprehend this truth ?
Do I sufficiently realise it ? Is it of the same
interest and importance to me as it was to
the Apostle ? And if we have reason to fear
that such questions cannot be satisfactorily
answered, then is the time to pray for the
illumination and guidance of the Spirit, and
for the renewed impression of the truth upon
the heart and life. In reading the more
practical portion, the suggestions already
given under the head of precepts, promises,
and warnings, will readily apply.

As among the Psalms, so in the Epistles,
we should have our favourite passages with
which we are absolutely familiar, committing
them to memory if possible. The reason
why this is specially valuable in the use of
the Epistles is that there, more than anywhere
else in the Bible, have we that compression of
thought and style which makes even a short
passage of untold value for guiding our

1 1 6 The Devotional Use

meditations, especially in times of sickness,
when we cannot read, but must fall back on
what we can remember. As examples of
such pemmican passages, let me refer to
I Peter i. 3-9, and ii. 2-8 ; i John iii. 1-3 ;
Jude 20, 21, 24, 25 ; Romans v. i-ii, and
viii. 31-39; and so on through the other
epistles of Paul. To have passages like these
stored up in the memory is of unspeakable
value as against those times which sooner or
later are likely to come to us, when we are
left for hours at a stretch to our own reflec-
tions, and in the use of which we shall be
able to say, " In the multitude of my thoughts
within me Thy comforts delight my soul."

But the most important suggestion we have
to make as to the use of the Epistles is that
we should endeavour, so far as possible, to
enter into the soul of the writer, to consider
not only what he says, but why he says it, and
how he says it, to put the tone into his words
and share the emotion with which he writes.
This is especially important in reading the
letters of Paul, that man of mighty soul. We
should never forget that they are letters, not
theological treatises ; and that it is impossible
to appreciate them, or even clearly to under-
stand them, if we treat them as the utterances
of a severe logician (as has been too often

of the Holy Scriptures 117

done), and forget that they are the out-
pourings of a soul deeply moved by the
great thoughts surging within it. This
applies not only to the more personal letters
like the first Epistle to the Thessalonians,
with its fountains of tenderness, or the second
to the Corinthians, with its unspeakable pathos,
but even to the treatise-like Epistle to the
Romans, the sounding of whose depths makes
greater demands on the heart than on the head.
We must put the life into the letters if we
would make the noblest and best use of this
important division of Holy Scripture. As
one illustration of this, let us glance at the
first Epistle of Peter. It would have been of
priceless value if it had been anonymous, but
think how much it gains when we can put
the soul of the man into it. " Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His great mercy begat us
again unto a living hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead" (i. 3), — a glorious
utterance in itself, but how deeply it stirs the
soul when read in the light of Peter's experi-
ence before and after the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. " Begotten again ! "
What a memory of new life from the dead
lies behind these words ! As an illustration
from the second chapter, we may take that

1 1 8 The Devotional Use

great reference to Christ as the Rock on
which the Church was built, in the Hght of
what must have been his vivid recollection of
the strong words spoken to him by his Lord
at Cesarea Philippi. If only our Roman
Catholic friends would learn of Peter himself,
who surely must be the best authority on the
subject, they would know that not on Peter,
great man though he was, but on Peter's
Lord, the Church is built (ii. 4-8). Passing
to the third and fourth chapters, what a
marvellous contrast from the old days when
he came to his Master with the question,
" Lord, we have forsaken all and followed
Thee, what shall we have therefore ? " There
is not a shred or shadow of the mercenary
spirit now. " If ye suffer for righteousness'
sake, happy are ye : and be not afraid of their
terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts " (iii. 14, 15); and
again, " Beloved, think it not strange concern-
ing the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened unto
you : but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are par-
takers of Christ's sufferings. ... If ye be
reproached for the name of Christ, happy are
ye ; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth
upon you : on their part He is evil spoken
of, but on your part He is glorified " (iv.

of the Holy Scriptures 119

12-14). Ah, Peter, you are begotten again,
or you could not write like that ! One more
illustration, from the fifth chapter : "All of
you be subject one to another, and be clothed
with humility : for God resisteth the proud,
and giveth grace to the humble" (v. 5).
What additional force is given to such a
summons by the knowledge of the old,
forward, proud, self-confident spirit of the
man ; and the same may be said of the
solemn warning which immediately follows :
" Be sober, be vigilant : because your adversary
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about
seeking whom he may devour : whom resist,
stedfast in the faith" (v. 8). He does not
tell again the old story of his fall ; but it is
there. And when we remember what
happened on the shore of the lake, when the
Chief Shepherd called him to feed His lambs,
when the Bishop of his soul gave him the
charge of other souls, we can catch a deeper
pathos in the words : " We were as sheep going
astray ; but are now returned to the Shepherd
and Bishop of our souls" (ii. 25).

What a book of life this Bible of ours is,
of throbbing, pulsating life ! Let us only lay
our lives alongside the life that is always there,
and we shall fully understand what another
great Apostle, — the Apostle of thunder and

I20 The Devotional Use

lightning in the early days, the Apostle of
love now, — means when he tells us in his
first epistle of the Life that was manifested to
him and his fellow apostles, shared by them,
^nd by them passed on to be shared by us
(i John i. 1-3); or in the briefer form in
which he puts it in his Gospel : " In Him was
life ; and the life was the light of men."

III. The Prophets. There has been so
much light thrown on the writings of the
prophets by recent investigation that we are
in a much better position than ever before
for understanding and appreciating their
stirring messages. The reading of the Old
Testament prophets has too often been, even
for intelligent Christians, like a journey
through the desert — with many an oasis,
indeed, by the way : Elims with their shady
trees and wells of water, where the travellers
have been refreshed and comforted — yet, on
the whole, a barren land ; but now that
Scripture has been compared with Scripture
with so much care, and the full light of
history and biography has been cast upon
the prophetic word, it is possible for us to
see the meaning of almost every line ; and
while the majesty of the whole of it is recog-
nised as never before, the beauty of the old

of the Holy Scriptures 121

familiar passages is still more exquisite now
that we see not only the diamond, but its
setting.! All we can do, however, in our
limited space is to set forth some general
considerations which ought always to be
kept in mind in our devotional and practical
use of the prophetic word.

(i) Prophecy is not so much foretelling as
forth-telling. The early references to the
prophetic office have no relation to future
events. We are told (Exodus vii. i) that
Aaron was appointed to be to Moses as a
prophet to God, and what that meant is
expressly stated : " He shall be thy spokes-
man unto the people ; and it shall come to
pass that he shall be to thee a mouth, and
thou shalt be to him as God." And this is
really the etymological meaning of the word
"prophet." It comes from two Greek words
signifying to speak before ; but the " before "
does not mean in time, but in place. In the

^ See as examples of this the tender close of the
Book of Hosea after such terrible denunciations of
Israel's iniquity; and the majesty and beauty of the
hymn of Habakkuk, which comes singing out of the
midst of the horrors of the Chaldean invasion, closing
with, perhaps, one of the noblest expressions of glad
trust in God that has ever been found in human
language.

122 The Devotional Use

case of Aaron, for example, it is clear that it
was not his function to predict future events,
but simply to stand before Moses — that is, in
front of him — to deliver his message to the
people. So a prophet of the Lord is one
who stands before the Lord, speaking to men
in His name as His interpreter or mouth.
What he says will, of course, be something of
importance, for God would not employ a
prophet to make known a trivial matter ; but
it is just as likely to be of the past or of the
present as of the future. The greatest of the
prophets of the Old Testament was Moses
(Deut. xxxiv. lo), and the greatest of all the
prophets was our Lord Jesus ; but in both
cases the prediction of future events was but
a fractional part of their prophesying. The
prophets were sent with messages from God,
and, even when these messages concerned the
future, the essence of the prophecy did not
lie in the simple futurity of the thing pro-
phesied, but in its value as a message from
God.

(2) The messages of the prophets were, in
the first instance, addressed to the people of
the time — but only in the first instance. Their
application was not confined to the people of
the time. In the first place history repeats
itself, and the message given to a nation at

of the Holy Scriptures 123

one period may be equally suitable to other
nations at corresponding periods. In the
next place, and more particularly, " the testi-
mony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," as
we are expressly told in the Apocalypse ; and
the Apostle Peter represents the prophets as
" searching what, or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow."
Thus it is that all the prophecies bear more
or less closely on the revelation of Christ.
They differ endlessly in form, but the spirit
of them all is the same. From different
quarters these lines of prophecy come, and
in different directions they move, but to the
same centre they all converge ; and however
varied in colour and complexion they may
seem to be apart, yet when viewed in their
relation to each other, and in their combina-
tions, they are found to meet in the pure
white light of the testimony of Jesus.

But while all this is true and most impor-
tant, yet it must not be forgotten that in the
first instance the prophecies were addressed
to the people of the time. Hence, in order
to understand them aright and apply them
aright, it is necessary that, so far as possible,
we put ourselves in the position of the pro-

124 The Devotional Use

phet who speaks and of the people he is
addressing. There may have been much in
the Divine message which they could not
fully understand, much which the future only
could make quite clear ; but we must not
allow ourselves to suppose that any message
sent by God to the people meant nothing to
them. It would have been mockery to send
them messages from which it was utterly
impossible for them to extract any meaning.
The first and most important thing for us to
do, therefore, is to find out the meaning the
prophet intended to convey to his audience.
It is the neglect of this simple and obvious
principle which has led to most of the wild
extravagances which have disgraced the
history of prophetic and apocalyptic inter-
pretation. By assuming that the message
meant nothing to the people of the time, we
can make it mean anything we please to the
people of later times. But when we feel con-
strained to keep before us the writer and his
readers, though we are kept within bounds,
they are the bounds of truth and soberness.
And when we find the unveiling of the future
arising naturally out of the message for the
time, it is much more impressive than if we
think of it as a formal prediction of future
events. As an illustration of this we may

of the Holy Scriptures 125

refer to those wonderful prophecies of the
coming Christ as suggested by the position
of Joshua, the high priest, in the time of
Zechariah (iii., and vi. 9-15) ; and an interest-
ing attempt to work out the psychology of
prophetic inspiration will be found in Brown-
ing's "Saul," especially that passage which
culminates in the impressive climax, "See
the Christ stand ! "

(3) The great object of the prophecies is
the same as that of all the other Scriptures :
they are given " for doctrine, and reproof, and
correction, and instruction in righteousness."
The ethical and evangelical motive, supreme
here as everywhere else, has too often been
lost sight of by readers of this portion of
God's holy Word, as we shall presently see.

{a) There are those who imagine that the
main use of the prophecies is to convince
unbelievers of the truth of the Scriptures.
The consequence is a feeling of disappoint-
ment, which probably increases the longer
and the more closely the prophecies are
studied. For one cannot but feel how easily
they might have been made much more
suitable to secure that end. If they had just
been a little more precise in facts and dates
and more circumstantial in detail ! If, for
example, some prophet had only specified

126 The Devotional Use

the Russo-Japanese war and mentioned what
would be the issue of it, how convincing it
would have been ! It would take us too
much out of our sphere to attempt to calcu-
late what effect this might have had on the
Stock Exchange, and on sundry other affairs
of human speculation and administration ; it
is enough simply to remark that there is in
the prophetic word just as little attempt to
gratify those who wish to know beforehand
what is going to happen, as there is in the
Bible history of the past to anticipate the
scientific discoveries of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. It is not on isolated
events that the prophecies fix our attention,
but on great principles of the Divine govern-
ment. When details are referred to, it is not
as a rule for their own sake, but simply as
illustrations of, or accessories to, the great
thought which constitutes the soul of the
prophecy. The prophecies are like great
pictures with a grand meaning written large
on the face of them ; and it too often happens
with the one as with the other, that some
little bit of detail which was intended only to
contribute to the general result will be in-
judiciously and inartistically separated from
the rest and brought into a prominence which
entirely misrepresents the mind of the author

of the Holy Scriptures 127

of the work. Thus it is that the work of a
great painter may be reduced to what all
men of soul regard as mere trifling ; and by a
similar process a magnificent prophecy, full
of soul, full of "the testimony of Jesus"
which is "the spirit of prophecy," may be
reduced to a pitiful patchwork of divination.
In this way grievous injustice is often done
to the prophetic word, and in some cases
probably, unbelievers are even confirmed in
their unbelief by finding the prophecies so
very different from what they would naturally
expect them to be on the supposition that
the main use of them is to furnish evidence
of the truth of the book which contains them.
{b) While we remember that it is not by
any means the chief object of prophecy, but a
mere incidental one, to prove the truth of
Scripture, we must also bear in mind that it
is not its object at all to gratify a prying
curiosity. If we come to the prophecies for
edification — for doctrine, and reproof, and
correction, and instruction in righteousness
— we shall not be disappointed ; but if
our object is to discover when the world
is coming to an end, or what is likely or
unlikely to happen in the next ten or twenty
years, we shall spend our strength in vain.
" It is not for us to know the times and the

128 The Devotional Use

seasons, which the Father hath placed in His
own power." And it is just because the great
use of the prophecies is the edification of
believers that these things are concealed.
Suppose that some one could tell us now
that the world would come to an end in 1910,
with the same assurance and with more truth
than those who told us it would come to an
end in 1866, or any other of the numerous
dates that have been confidently published
for this interesting event, would it tend
to our edification ? Does any one suppose
we should be better Christians if we were told,
by one who could tell us, the exact date
when our Lord shall come the second time
without sin unto salvation? Is it not far
better for us to know the certainty of His
coming, with uncertainty as to time ; to know
simply that " the day of the Lord so cometh
as a thief in the night," and that in view of its
so coming it is our duty and privilege to
watch and wait and look for Him?

(4) The fulfilment of predictive prophecy
is for the most part not absolute but con-
ditional. Prophecy has its two sides : its side
of promise, and its side of threatening. In
this respect it resembles the Gospel. And as
it is in the Gospel at large so is it here : the
threatening is addressed to all who come

of the Holy Scriptures 129

within the scope of it ; the promise is for
those, and those only, who come within its
scope, that is, those who yield themselves to
God in loyal devotion.

It follows that a promise made to people
that lived long ago may be fulfilled to people
living now, for the simple reason that God is
unchangeable, and therefore is always con-
sistent with Himself in His dealings with
men. It is never a case of mere favouritism
or the reverse. There is always a large prin-
ciple involved. Hence it is that the promise
to Abraham holds good for all his spiritual
descendants. As the Apostle puts it : " If ye
be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and
heirs according to the promise." On the
other hand, a threatening unfulfilled is no
breach of the prophetic word, if in the mean-
time there have been that change on the part
of those against whom the threatening is
addressed which justifies its withdrawal.
The case of Nineveh is a familiar one. Jonah
was commanded to go and proclaim : " Yet
forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed."
Meantime, however, the people repented, and
Nineveh was not destroyed. This principle
is in fact laid down in so many words by the
Prophet Jeremiah (xviii. 7-10).

All this is quite in keeping with what we
10

130 The Devotional Use

have so earnestly contended for, that the
prophecies were given not for the sake of
letting people know beforehand what was
going to happen, but for the sake of doing
them good. Suppose the people of Nineveh
had not repented, and the great city had been
destroyed in forty days, it would have been
quite legitimate to appeal to the fact as an
incidental confirmation of the prophetic word ;
but even in that case the object of the
prophecy would have been the same, namely,
to warn the Ninevites and give them the
opportunity of repenting. There are pro-
phecies, indeed, which are absolute from the
nature of the case, such as the great prophecy
of the coming of Christ, both of His first
coming and of His second coming ; but very
many are, like the Gospel itself — with which, in
fact, they are in substance identical — con-
ditioned on character, and therefore addressed
to faith. They who are of faith are heirs of
the promises ; while the unbelieving and dis-
obedient are heirs of the threatenings of the
prophetic word.

It is clear from all that has been said that
we cannot get the full devotional use of the
prophets without a good deal of study ; but
any labour we may expend on it will be well

of the Holy Scriptures 131

repaid. We shall enjoy the old, familiar
passages more than ever, and we shall be
inspired with the lofty patriotism, the passion
for righteousness, and the zeal for God which
thrill in pages where formerly, by reason of
historical and local allusions then unintel-
ligible, we were quite unable to find our
way.

IV. The Poetical Books, with the ex-
ception of the Book of Psalms, which has
been already considered as par excellence the
book of devotion. The greater part of the
prophecies are in poetry also, but the penta-
teuch in the centre of the Bible, consisting of
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song
of Solomon, may be conveniently classed
under the heading we have given ; though, as
applied to the Book of Proverbs, it is the
form rather than the substance which claims
the title.

While one book of this central pentateuch,
the Book of Psalms, is pre-eminently useful for
devotional purposes, the other four lend them-
selves to this purpose less than any other
books of the sacred Scriptures. Still those
who have learned to use the simpler parts
will find here valuable material, especially for
certain moods of mind.

132 The Devotional Use

The Book of Proverbs consists almost
wholly of plain, practical maxims for the
general guidance of life, and may therefore
be dealt with in the devotional hour much in
the same way as the precepts of Christ and
His apostles, only we must not put them
exactly on the same level. At times there is
the very highest standard lifted up, but as a
rule they represent the sanctified common
sense of the Hebrew sage, who has been
moved of the Spirit to give us these wise
sayings.

The Book of Job is concerned with the
subject of human suffering, from the point of
view of the man of God bewildered with the
mystery of pain. It abounds in noble pas-
sages of which high use can be made in our
devotional hours ; but we need to bear in
mind the limitations of the speakers. It will
not do to take everything said by the friends
of Job, or even by Job himself, as direct
messages from God to us. They are all
groping more or less in the dark — the very
thing which makes the book valuable to us who
have our times of groping and perplexity,
when we need just such help as comes to us
from the experience of those tried in like man-
ner. And when we have passed through the
drifting fogs of the body of the book, we are

of the Holy Scriptures 133

prepared for welcoming with special delight
the clear sunshine in the end, when from out
the whirlwind of conflicting thought the voice
of God is heard.

The Book of Ecclesiastes sets before us an
entirely different phase of thought and feel-
ing. The mystery of the world's evil is still
with us, but we are following, not now the
gropings of the suffering saint, but the wild
wanderings of the ungodly man, who has
sought his satisfaction in all directions in
which the world seems to offer it, and finds
only vanity and vexation of spirit. It is the
sceptic's book, and its value lies in its
marvellous representation of the phases of
thought and feeling through which a man
will pass who turns his back on God, and
shuts his eyes to the things which are unseen
and eternal. Here, then, above all we must
beware of taking the teaching of the different
parts of the book as the word of God to us.
It has come to us by inspiration of God as
other Scriptures have, but not for the purpose
of teaching the truth of God, but rather of
showing into what depths of pessimism and
despair a man will fall who sets his heart
upon the world and the things of it. Here
again, after the dark tunnel through which
we pass, we emerge into daylight in the end,

134 The Devotional Use

and find the secret of true life in the fear of
God and the keeping of His commandments.
The So7ig of Solomon has been a favourite
book of devotion vvath many advanced
Christians. It may have been in its original
intention a marriage song, for certainly it is
not at all beneath the dignity of Scripture to
celebrate the love between a true man and a
true woman ; but in view of the repeated use
of the marriage tie to symbolise the bond
between Christ and His Church, it cannot be
said that those are wrong who make use of
appropriate passages in this book to express
the love between the Lord Jesus, the
heavenly bridegroom, and His earthly bride,
the Church, Nevertheless, we think that as
a book of devotion it is suitable only for the
advanced Christian ; and that, therefore, it is
in its right place here among the books which
are the more difficult to use in the best way,
and so to be adopted as a book of devotion
only after we have made large and full use of
those Scriptures where we have a surer
footing.

And now, as we conclude our rapid survey
of the books of the Bible, we must surely be
impressed afresh with the wonderful variety
which is provided for our daily food and

of the Holy Scriptures 135

refreshment Almost infinitely varied as are
our moods and needs, there is a correspond-
ing boundlessness in the supply ; and we can
see how by the use of these Scriptures not
only may the sinner become "wise unto
salvation," but the man of God may become
"complete, furnished completely unto every
good work."

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