adapted to reach our hearts, they are all the more adapted to the common uses of life, just because they come from living hearts and minds which have been touched by the Holy Ghost. So the word of God is the Word made flesh, just as Christ is the Word made flesh in another way. This makes the New Testament a finality. It is a complete thing. It is never to be superseded, for example, by Mohammedanism, by Swedenborgianism, or by Mormonism, each of which comes to us with a new revelation, purporting to be from God, but which discloses its own falsity by violating the fundamental principle that nothing is to be added to this New Testament, because it is an organic whole, a complete revelation.

There is just one thought further, and that is this: Every organic whole is articulate, and is to be looked upon in that aspect, as well as in the aspect of its organic wholeness. This human body of ours is an organ, but there are articulate parts. There is the circulatory system, and there is the respiratory system; we have our different limbs for various offices: and there is the brain and the heart. While these are all parts of one whole, yet the fact that there is an organic whole does not prevent the existence of separate members, with separate offices. The New Testament is peculiarly articulate. I might say that it has its articulate parts, and no two of those members have precisely the same office. There are three great divisions in the New Testament; and if I impress nothing else upon your minds to-day, I should like to impress upon you the fact that there is a threefold division in the New Testament, which we cannot safely discard.

In the first place, there is history; in the second place, doctrine; and in the third place, prophecy. Where do we have the history? Why, we see at once that we have the history, as a basis of all, in the life of Christ and the apostles. In other words, the Gospels and the Acts give us the basis of the whole, the foundation of the structure. Then what comes next? Why, there comes doctrine. Where have we that

doctrine? We have it in a long series of Epistles. I believe there are twenty-one of them in all-Epistles in which the spiritual meaning of Christ's life is given us; and these doctrinal teachings of the apostles contain for us something remarkable in this, that they almost, without exception, explain the germinal sayings and teachings of Jesus Christ himself. In other words, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they expound the meaning of what Jesus Christ himself communicated. But we are not left the doctrinal teachings simply; we have also, as it were, the gates of heaven opened and a view of the future bestowed upon us. History, Doctrine, Prophecy. Jesus Christ in the flesh on the earth, teaching in the Gospels; then, Jesus Christ in his church teaching through the Epistles; and, finally, Jesus Christ in heaven, the future glory and reward of the righteous. These are the three parts of the New Testament.

The New Testament is not only an organic whole, but it is an articulate whole. It has its separate members as well as its organic unity. This great structure has its foundation in the Gospels and in the Acts; its superstructure in the doctrinal teaching of the Epistles; and its crowning dome, from which it looks up to

heaven and out to the great hereafter, in the prophecies of the Apocalypse.

You notice there is some similarity between the New and the Old Testament. The Old Testament began with history; then gave material for teaching and for worship in the Psalms and the Proverbs; and finally concluded with prophecy. So the New Testament gives history first, then doctrine, and finally prophecy.

I trust we have now a glimpse of the organism of the New Testament. The historical portion is an organism. of itself, the treatment of which I must leave for another time. The doctrinal portion of the New Testament has its organic relations also, and so it is with the Apocalypse. I give you to-day only the three great divisions, the main divisions of the New Testament: History, Doctrine, and Prophecy.

Even with these few words that I have been able to speak to you this morning, contrast this organic whole of the New Testament with what you find in the Mohammedan Koran. What is the Koran? The Koran

shapeless mass of accidental accretions, to which no human being can find beginning, middle, or end. It stamps itself at the very beginning, and to the very end it proves itself, as being purely the work of man. The New Testament, on the other hand, in contrast with heathen writings, gives us a complete whole, as beautiful a structure, taken altogether, as the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens, or the Saint Peter's at Rome; and all this has grown up, not by the wisdom of man, but by the wisdom and the power of God. Here you have a progressive revelation, gradually advancing with the development of Christ's doctrine, until at

last the whole structure is complete, and we have "all things that pertain to life and godliness."

Not only is this true of the New Testament, but it is true also of the relation of the New to the Old. The Bible begins with the words, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth "; and it ends with the words, "Even so come, Lord Jesus." The very beginning and the very end. And this magnificent revelation is a great bridge spanning the interval between. How wonderfully the Bible ends! How wonderful the New Testament is, in giving us first the basis of historical fact, before any inferences are to be drawn, before any doctrines are to be taught, before any application, before any prophecies. You have the solid basis of historical fact in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You see how important it is, then, that we should begin with understanding something of the life of Christ, because that life of Christ is the substance of the Gospels. Without understanding it, we cannot understand the gospel itself; and, therefore, next Sunday, if Providence permits, I will treat in a general way of the life of Christ, and try to give you some general views of that life, the relation of its separate years to each other, and then the relation of that life of Christ to the Gospels of which we talk.

THE LIFE OF CHRIST

I INTEND, next Sunday, to speak of "The Gospels and their Origin," and this morning to speak of something preliminary to that, viz., "The True Conception of the Life of our Lord." That life of Christ constitutes the basis and substance of the Gospel record; and it has seemed to me that, before studying the Gospels, we may do well to get into our minds some general considerations in regard to the life of Christ himself.

The first thing that needs to be impressed upon us is that this life of Jesus Christ is the life of an infinite Being upon the earth. We cannot enter upon the study of the Gospels in the proper spirit, and we cannot understand them at all, unless we appreciate the fact that this person who is set before us here is the Lord God Almighty, although he is veiled in human flesh. In other words, we have here, as John intimates to us, the temporal life of the Eternal Word, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.

We know what words are among men. We know that they are symbols of communication, that they are mediums of expression. I pass along the street; I hear a word of blasphemy or obscenity, and that single word opens to me the depths of an evil heart. I hear a word of kindness, I hear a word of compassion, and such a word as that is a revelation to me of a gentle and beautiful soul. By a single word I am let into the inmost life of another. In just such a way God's