Old Testament a Text-Book.
By John Heyl Vincent
THE Old Testament is a part of God's word to the world. It is a concrete putting of great principles involved in the divine administration. In making his revelation to the world God did not directly write a book, but wrought out a history, and caused this history with all that pertained to it to be recorded in a book. Here are the lives of great men; here are events, startling, impressive, suggestive, symbolic, prophetic, and weighted with spiritual significance. Here are laws, promises, sacred poems, and vivid pictures, the knowledge of which enriches the mind and prepares the heart for the appreciation of the spiritual truths which fill the New Testament. The Old Testament is fulfilled in the New. By the New its meanings are multiplied and its spirit intensified. Much of the vocabulary of the New Testament would be inexplicable but for the history and institutions of the Old. As a fact children are delighted with it. My observation, and the testimony which I receive from others lead me to believe that the Old Testament is quite as popular with childhood as the New. The only way to neutralize the modern infidelity which sneers at Old Testament history and exaggerates its "cruelties and barbarisms" is to make our young people thoroughly familiar with it, that they may know for themselves how false the charges are which are made against it. I do not distinguish between the Old Testament and the New. Paul said concerning the former that it was "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Believing that nothing is higher, more practical, or better for man than that he should be a man of God, and that he be thoroughly furnished unto all good works, I believe in the Old Testament as a text-book for use in the pulpit, the Sunday-school, the family, and the closet of devotion, because it is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," and because it accomplishes the ends which I deem highest and best in human character and life.—J. H. Vincent, in Old Testament Student.