comparison to six points, the first three bearing more particularly on our relation to God and divine things, and the last three on our relation to our fellow-men.

1. With regard to God.

Every attentive reader of the Bible must remark some differences between the views given to us of the God in the Old Testament, and those which are supplied in the New. In the old economy He is predominantly presented as the Almighty Creator and Lord of all, or as the holy and righteous Judge, or the benign and merciful Ruler of men, or (more particularly) as the God of the people of Israel. In Exod. xx. 5-6, e.g. God says: 'I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands, of them that love me and keep my commandments.' And, in the nineteenth verse of the same chapter we read that the people were so afraid of God that they said to Moses, 'Speak thou with us, and we, will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.' I n Ps. xcv. 6-7, we read, 'O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we (i.e. especially we the nation of Israel) are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.'

It is true that the typical part of the Mosaic Law

threw further light on the divine attributes, and that the prophetical writings contain intimations of the propitiation that the promised Messiah was to effect, and of the glorious manifestation that would thus be made of God's infinite love. But the typical and prophetical teaching in its spiritual character seems to have been but little understood by the nation generally, and they seem to have contented themselves with the more elementary apprehensions of God as stated above.

In the New Testament, however, God is preeminently known and adored as the God of love, as our Father in Christ Jesus; an unquestionable advance this from the mere recognition of an omnipotent Creator, or a moral Governor and Judge. In the pattern for prayer which Christ gave to His disciples, He directed them to address God as 'Our Father which art in heaven' (Matt. vi. 9). St. Paul writes to the Christians of Galatia, 'For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female: for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise' (Gal. iii. 26-29). And St. John, in the fourth chapter of his first Epistle, wrote to the Christians of his day (iv. 7-8, 16), 'Beloved, let us love one