1874] THE OLD TESTAMENT IN TEACHING 289 



of God s Kingdom became visible to the faith of the men 

 of the old covenant, that we can hope to impress on those 

 we teach the continual sense of a Kingdom of Christ, 

 into which we are brought by His redeeming work, and 

 to which we must consecrate all our lives. We do not 

 need the history of Joseph to teach us that parents are 

 to be honoured and brethren loved ; conscience teaches 

 that. We do not need Jacob s burial to add another to 

 the many proofs that sin brings death, for indeed it 

 proves no such thing. But we do need these narratives 

 as links in the long unbroken proof, which is a proof 

 only because it is unbroken, that God s Kingdom, His 

 kingdom of grace ruleth over all. When this unity of 

 the Old Testament is thrown aside, and fragments of 

 history tortured till they yield fragments of doctrine 

 and morals, it is not strange that many should ask, what 

 is the profit of teaching the Old Testament to children 

 at all ? 



Having thus glanced at the false methods which 

 bring into discredit the use of the Old Testament for 

 instruction, insisted on by our ancestors, let us now see 

 how the evangelical principles, handed down to us from 

 the Reformation, point out a sounder method of viewing 

 the Books of the Old Covenant. What the Evangelical 

 Churches seek is a personal message of love from God in 

 Christ, to which we can return a personal answer of 

 faith. Such a personal message cannot come as dry ab 

 stract doctrine. A word of salvation, on which we can 

 rest, must be a practically convincing declaration of God s 

 love ; a declaration convincing, because made on the 

 analogy of the way in which men show love to one 

 another ; made, that is, by words joined to deeds, by 

 God drawing nigh to men in history, and really proving 

 Himself a redeeming and gracious God. Such a God He 

 showed Himself to Israel at the Exodus, and through the 

 long course of Old Testament history, in which He con 

 tinually watched over His people, bearing with their 



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