(_a_) Are you quite sure that the Patriarchs had no anticipation of a life eternal? Many lecturers, and many editors, now say so. But the Epistle to the Hebrews says that "they desired a better country, that is an heavenly" [Heb. xi. 16.]; and that is better evidence for this purpose than any inferences (or beliefs) of modern "scholarship." True, the old saints say little explicitly about their hope. But many things lie deep in a man's faith, and in his experience too, about which, for various reasons, he may say very little. REVELATION WAS NOT INTUITION. (_b_) I do not like this sentence, which says that the later Prophets had a "_fuller perception_ of" the eternal future than their predecessors. Not that I blame the phrase in itself; but I dislike its associations. There runs a strong drift in modern theology, as we all know, towards the explanation of Scripture by "perception" rather than by revelation. "The Lord appeared unto me"; "The Lord spake unto me"; say the Prophets, and they appeal occasionally to supernatural attestation of their assertions. But the modern expository savant, wiser to be sure than the Prophet, assures us that they arrived at their messages by observation, by meditation, by development of thought and character, and practically by nothing different from these things. Accordingly, their "inspiration" was strictly speaking the same in kind as that of a Chrysostom, or a Luther, or a Shakespeare. Do not you say so, or imply that it is so. Do not go for mere company's sake with the current of naturalistic thought. Sure I am that you are most unlikely, if you do, to be the instrument of _super_natural _effects_ in your preaching. "WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?" (_c_) "What is Justification? It is, _the making man just_." Is it indeed? I should read that sentence with alarm, if I did not know the writer! Its sentiment is practically Roman Catholic. Moreover, it puts a meaning on the word in question, contradicted by the common usages of language; an important consideration when we study a Scriptural theological term. When I "justify my opinion" I do not _make it right_, but vindicate it as already right. When the Hebrew judge "justified the righteous," [Deut. xxv. 1] he did not improve him, but pronounced him satisfactory to the law. And when God, for Christ's sake, justifies you who believe in Jesus, He does not in that act make you good; He pronounces you, for His Son's sake, to be satisfactory to His Law, for purposes of your personal acceptance. "WHY DOES FAITH JUSTIFY?"