which He has been pleased in His beneficent wisdom to promulgate through the medium of His prophets, may vary, and as a matter of fact, have varied from time to time with the passing of the ages, and the steady gradual upward movement of mankind in spiritual attainment. Muhammadanism, thus, like Christianity acknowledges that the self-revelation of God to mankind, has been a process which has been going on through the whole history of the human race. The records of this revelation—the word of God in a lower sense—are to be found in the sacred books which have been given to the successive prophets through the mediumship of Gabriel. These as is well known number one hundred and four in all; but of them all none but the Qur'an can claim the pre-eminence of the being the eternal word of God. It is not simply the record of God's self-revelation to Muhammad. It is the record in human language of God's eternal purpose of self-revelation. The word which from all eternity He purposed and determined to manifest to mankind in the fulness of time, and which as an historical fact He manifested to Muhammad. From all eternity God, foreknowing and predetermining all that we know as human history, 'spoke' beforehand this self-revelation of Himself which He purposed to give to mankind. This, apparently is what is meant by saying that

it was written from all eternity in the preserved tablet. The Qur'an which we now have before us is the historical record of this self-revelation, a record which necessarily exists in the medium of a human created language, and written for the benefit of mankind in characters and symbols which are the creation or invention of mankind; and yet it is simply the human record, so to speak, of God's eternal purpose and word. We are not to suppose, necessarily, that it was spoken from all eternity in any human language. It was spoken so to say in the divine mind, and if we may use the expression it was stored up there till the time had come when God purposed to reveal it to mankind. It thus far excels all the other sacred books which are but the records of incomplete revelations that came as man was able to bear them. The Qur'an is the full record of all that God purposed from all eternity as His complete self-revelation, and a perfect and complete guide for mankind in matters of religion.

Against this marvellous claim on behalf of the Qur'an, much has been written and might be here repeated, with perhaps some additions, or, at least, some variations in the statement of the argument; but for our purpose it is not necessary to do more than to examine one or two points.

To begin with, this doctrine or dogma is not one which existed in the time of Muhammad