such constant reference? (3.) The Old Testament is occupied with the record of God’s dealings with men.  Such a record must be a perpetual revelation of God’s infinite attributes, and of human character also, and the course of human society, every part of which is luminous with instruction. (4.) Although the old theocracy, with its particular laws and forms of worship, has passed away, yet the principles on which it rested, which interpenetrated it in every part, and which shone forth with a clear light throughout its whole history—­these principles are eternal verities, as valid for us as for the ancient patriarchs.  Some of these principles—­for example, God’s unity, personality, and infinite perfections; his universal providence; his supremacy over all nations; the tendency of nations to degeneracy, and the stern judgments employed by God to reclaim them—­are so fully unfolded in the Old Testament that they needed no repetition in the New.  There they became axioms rather than doctrines. (5.) “The manifold wisdom of God” in adapting his dealings with men to the different stages of human progress cannot be seen without a diligent study of the Old Testament as well as the New.  Whoever neglects the former, will want breadth and comprehensiveness of Christian culture.  All profound Christian writers have been well versed in “the whole instrument of each Testament,” as Tertullian calls the two parts of revelation.  Chap. 13, No. 2.

Modern skepticism begins with disparaging the Old Testament, and ends with denying the divine authority of both the Old and the New.  In this work it often unites a vast amount of learning in regard to particulars with principles that are superficial and false.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PENTATEUCH.

1.  The unity of the Pentateuch has already been considered (Ch. 9, No. 12), and will appear more fully as we proceed with the examination of the separate books included in it.  Even if we leave out of view the authority of the New Testament, this unity is too deep and fundamental to allow of the idea that it is a patchwork of later ages.  Under divine guidance the writer goes steadily forward from beginning to end, and his work when finished is a symmetrical whole.  Even its apparent incongruities, like the interweaving of historical notices with the laws, are marks of its genuineness; for they prove that, in those parts at least, events were recorded as they transpired.  Such a blending of history with revelation does not impair the unity of the work; for it is a unity which has its ground not in severe logical arrangement and classification, but in a divine plan historically developed.  Whether the division of the Pentateuch into five books (whence its Greek name Pentateuchos, fivefold book) was original, proceeding from the author himself, or the work of a later age, is a question on which biblical scholars are not agreed.  It is admitted by all that the division is natural and appropriate.  The Hebrew titles of the several books are taken from prominent words standing at or near the beginning of each.  The Greek names are expressive of their prominent contents; and these are followed in the Latin Vulgate and in our English version, only that the name of the fourth book is translated.