Time and Place. (5)

The Scriptural association of chronology and topography with doctrine and purpose. - by Charles H. Welch

#5. The Site of the Garden of Eden. 
Gen. ii. 8-14.

Our attention having been wholly occupied with “time”, we have hitherto found no opportunity to give heed to the testimony of the Scriptures concerning “place”. We have the first topographical note in early Genesis: 

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden” (Gen. ii. 8). 

The name of this country, in which Paradise was planted, means “delight”, and the word occurs in various forms six times, being translated “pleasure” and “pleasures”, “to delight”, “delights”, and “delicates”. Eden itself, the country, is named exactly 14 times in the O.T., where it is found in Genesis, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel. As we should expect, the name is found in other languages. In Arabic it signifies “delight”, “tenderness” and “loveliness” (Firuzabadi Kamus). In the cuneiform texts it signifies the plains of Babylon, and in the Accado-Sumerian (inhabitants of Mesopotamia that preceded the Babylonians) it is Edin, “the fertile plain”. The Greek word hedone, meaning “pleasure”, is used in the LXX of Isa. xxxvii. 12; Ezek. xxvii. 23 and Amos i. 5, although these “Edens” have no reference to Gen. ii. 8. It was because of their beauty or pleasantness that the districts were called by this name. The Eden of Gen. ii. 8, is the most ancient name in all geography. The garden of Gen. ii. was planted “eastward” in Eden. In his translation of Rosenmuller’s Biblical Geography of Central Asia the Rev. N. Morran has reduced the numerous theories as to the exact situation of Eden to nine, but none of them answer all the conditions of the problem. This brings us to an important question. For whose information were the geographical notes of Gen. ii. 8-14 written? Were they given by God to Adam? We can see no reason why the information should have been given to him. We know that it was given in writing by Moses, and, to illustrate and enforce the point we desire to make, we turn to another geographical note. In Gen. xxiii. we have the record of the death of Sarah, in which Moses wrote: 

 “And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba, the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan” (Gen. xxiii. 2). 

It is evident that when Moses took up his pen to write the book of Genesis, he had in his possession the several “books of the generation” of his fathers. In the family documents relating to Abraham and Sarah, the place where Sarah died is called by but one name, Kirjath-arba, but, later, for the benefit of Israel who were then about to enter the promised land under Joshua, Moses gives the more modern name of the ancient city, namely “Hebron”, and, in Numb. xiii., adds a note, 

“Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt” (Numb. xiii. 22).

If, therefore, when he wrote Genesis, Moses found it expedient to bring its ancient geography up to date we must be prepared to find his explaining pen at work in Gen. ii. When we realize that the flood in the days of Noah, must have seriously altered the configuration of the land, diverted the course of rivers, buried some tracts of land beneath the sea, and brought up above sea-level, some part of the sea-bed, we can readily see that references to geographical boundaries, countries and rivers true in the days of Adam, may, in Moses’ day, have proved valueless, except for archæological purposes. Moreover, one of the lands mentioned in Gen. ii. is Ethiopia. Now in the Hebrew this word is “Cush”, and as Cush was not born until over two thousand years after Adam, to speak of Adam knowing the land by the name of one of his descendants who lived two thousand years after his time would be an anachronism. 

Ethiopia, in Africa, is not the only land of Cush. Cush was the father of Seba, Havilah, and Sabtechah (Gen. x. 7, 8); Nimrod moved northward into Assyria, the others went South and settled in Arabia, consequently, there is no reason why we should introduce a region of Africa into Gen. ii. We must, however, return to the record of Gen. ii. Moses tells us that the river which watered the garden, parted, and was divided into four heads. The word “head” being rosh, we must understand this to refer to the sources of these rivers, not their mouths. 

“The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of the land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.” 

Nothing further is said of this river in Scripture but the Companion Bible tells us that it flows West of the Euphrates, and that in the year of Nabonides, the last king of Babylonia, it was called Pullakat. Havilah is associated with “Shur, that is before Egypt  as thou goest toward Assyria”, (Gen. xxv. 18), and Ophir, famous for its gold (Job xxviii. 16), is associated with Havilah in Gen. x. 29; and again Moses gives the added note:-- 

“And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the East” 

(Gen. x. 30). 

If four great rivers took their rise from the river that watered Paradise, it is plain that Paradise itself must have been in an elevated tract of country. Lenormantsays, “Eden, in the Accadian and Sumerian texts is used sometimes to designate a plain in opposition to a mountain. But this is never the bottom of the valley . . . . .” The Tigris (Hiddekel, Accadian for Tigris) and the Euphrates both rise in Armenia, thus, once again, we observe a connection between Adam and Noah, for the Ark rested on “one of the mountains of Ararat”, which tradition places in Armenia. Two other rivers take their rise in this region, the Kur and the Araxes, which flow into the Caspian Sea. These rivers cannot be identified with the Pison or the Gihon, but such may be what remains of them since the disruption at the flood. As the Bible is the only book that declares that this district is the cradle of the human race, it has for thirty three centuries been ahead of the “science” of the day. 

Quatrefages, the great French scientist and anthropologists, says, “that the study of the various populations, and of their languages, has led scientists of the greatest deliberation and authority to place the cradle of the human race in Asia, not far from the central mass of that continent, and in the neighbourhood of the region where all the principal rivers which plough their way to the north, to the south, and to the east, take their rise”. It is in Central Asia alone that wheat is indigenous, and must have been carried thence by man as he spread abroad. In Gen. ii. 12 Moses speaks of the gold, the bdellium and the onyx stone as constituting an easy means of identifying this district. The word bdellium occurs but twice in Scripture, once in Gen. ii. 12, and once in Numb. xi. 7, where the manna is likened to it. This shows that Israel, for whom Moses wrote, were well acquainted with this substance, though today there may be uncertainty as to its identity. The LXX considered it to be a precious stone, and translate the word by anthrax and krystallos, while Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion render it bdellium, a transparent aromatic gum which is formed by a tree that grows in Arabia. The Rabbis, however, translate the word by “Pearl”. 

In our earlier studies, we have found that the references to “time” in Gen. i., ii. 3 have a symbolic value far outweighing their primitive meaning. As we look at this first great reference to “place” are we not justified in expecting that its description answers some more important purpose than that of satisfying the Israelites as to the identity of the site of Paradise? 

Three great streams of humanity have their origin in this district; the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, and, mingled with the descendants of the true seed preserved alive in the ark, we learn of the Canaanite, and their frightful progeny. 

“In the following times of history, we have seen how the river of mankind from the mountains of Armenia poured itself into the plains of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The tribes of men went forth unto the regions of the stream of Paradise, acquired power and gathered riches. But of gold they made gods, decked them with jewels and brought incense to the things which have noses and smell not” (Dr. M. Baumgarten Theological Com. on O.T.). 

Whether this be so or not may perhaps remain a moot point, but it seems reasonable to suppose that in a book which covers 2000 years of history in eleven chapters (Gen. i.-xi.) not one verse, certainly not seven (Gen. ii. 8-14), would be devoted to matter transient in its application, and the original meaning of which is now beyond the power of man to ascertain. The geography of the book that brings before us the glorious prophecy of Paradise restored, is centred around the same land that is brought before us in Gen. ii. The references to Asia Minor on the West (Rev. i.-iii.); beyond the Euphrates on the East (Rev. xvi. 12); with Jerusalem and Babylon as rival cities and systems, enable us to see that not only does Revelation corresponds with Genesis as to the entry and removal of the Serpent, sin, death and curse, but that the very geographical site of Eden, may yet form 

the earthly basis of the heavenly city when at last it descends from God out of heaven. Its gold will indeed be good, its stones most precious, and its gates pearls (see the earlier reference to the Rabbinical interpretation of bdellium).

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 176).

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Acknowledgment. (2) - by Charles H. Welch

#2. Epignosis and Epiginosko 

refer to acknowledgment 

rather than added knowledge. 

When it is true that “all the heart” is engaged with the things of God the normal outward expression will be an acknowledgment of Him in “all our ways”. This close association of “heart” and “way” is very clearly seen in Psalm cxix.: 

“The undefiled in the WAY . . . . . seek Him with the whole HEART” (1, 2). 

The question: 

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his WAY?”

is followed by the statement: 

“With my whole HEART have I sought Thee” (9, 10). 

Again the Psalmist says: 

“I will run the WAY of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my HEART” (32).

In the next stanza we read: 

“Teach me, O Lord, the WAY of Thy statutes.” 

and its echo:--

“Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy law; yea I shall observe it with my whole HEART” (33, 34). 

And yet again:-- 

“Incline my HEART unto Thy testimonies . . . . . quicken Thou me in Thy WAYS” (36, 37). 

So in verse fifty-eight we have the “whole heart” followed in verse fifty-nine by “I thought on my ways”. 

Many other examples could be brought forward to emphasize the close connection between “heart” and “ways”, but the foregoing will suffice. 

To an English ear, the word “acknowledge” conveys the idea of “confession”. Another rendering that would perhaps be truer to the original would be “recognize”. It is a blessed thing to be sensitive to the presence and work of the Lord; to be able to “recognize” Him in the dark as well as in the light; in the difficult path as well as in the hour of triumph. When one is able thus to “recognize” Him the direction of our pathway will follow as a matter of course. 

It is interesting to know that the LXX version uses the word orthotomeo “rightly divide”, where the English version reads “direct”. This is an important factor in the true interpretation of II Tim. ii. 15 for the word would be immediately recognized by Timothy as one with which his early training had made him familiar, and thus would understand the practical necessity to follow the Divinely appointed finger-posts regarding dispensational truth as the wayfarer and pilgrim would follow the directions placed for his guidance at the fork of the road. 

If acknowledgment of our sin is a necessary prelude to the “joy” and “experimental knowledge” of sins forgiven, acknowledgment of the Lord in all our ways is assuredly as necessary, if we would be “directed” in all our paths. 

In the New Testament epiginosko and epignosis are translated both by the words “knowledge” and “acknowledge”. In early days the distinction between them was not so sharply drawn as now. For example, the majestic words: 

“We knowledge Thee to be the Father of an infinite Majesty,”

was the recognized form in the year 1535A.D. To-day “knowledge” stands, in the first instance, for the “stuff” of knowledge, the information gathered, or the intelligence possessed. This however is the secondary meaning of the word, and even to-day a first-class dictionary places the primary meaning of “knowledge” as: “Acknowledgment, confession; recognition of the position of claims of any one” (Oxford English Dictionary). 

Epignosis is the combination of epi, “on”, and gnosis, “knowledge”, but it must not be assumed that the addition of epi indicates merely the piling up of knowledge upon knowledge: few, if any, occurrences of the word would justify this usage. 

When Hosea says: 

“The Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea iv. 1),

mere formal knowledge, historical knowledge, grammatical knowledge, is not intended. There is implicit in the word the idea of acknowledgment or recognition. If we could divest the word “recognition” of its secondary meaning (that of “recognizing” a person by feature or manner), and retain only the primary meaning, that of recognizing or acknowledging a liability or an obligation, the word would suit admirably. 

This matter is something more than a mere technicality; it lies near the very heart of all true teaching, and we therefore “recognize” the claims which the word has upon us to make its meaning clearly understood. Epiginosko occurs forty-two times in the New Testament and epignosis occurs twenty times. While space will permit of the setting out of only a selection from all these references, we trust that all who teach others, and those who desire the fullest proof of all that is here set forth as truth, will personally acquaint themselves with the usage of these words in the whole of the sixty-two occurrences: 

“Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt. vii. 16). 

 “Elias is come already, and they knew him not” (Matt. xvii. 12). 

 “When Jesus perceived in His spirit” (Mark ii. 8). 

 “The people saw them . . . . . and many knew Him” (Mark vi. 33). 

 “Their eyes were holden that they should not know Him” (Luke xxiv. 16). 

In these few references taken from the Gospels, “recognize” could, with advantage, be substituted for “know”. We do not “know” a fig-tree by the mere fact of looking at its fruit, for a “knowledge” of the fig-tree involves acquaintance with several sciences, and then is but partial. Yet the most untutored and illiterate observer would “recognize” a fig-tree by its fruit.

It is a most natural transition for the word “recognize” to take on a moral colouring, so that while the recognition of a fig-tree by its fruit may not involve self-denial or expose to persecution, it becomes another matter to “recognize” the rejected Christ or the doctrine which is after godliness. 

In the passage we are about to consider let us therefore, with this explanation in mind, consistently use the word “recognize” or “acknowledge” in place of “knowledge”. Limitations of space compel us to confine ourselves to one passage only, but that a representative one.

“Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness” (Titus i. 1). 

Here the Apostle associates his ministry with two phases of Christian experience (1) According to the faith of God’s elect, this is basic; (2) According to a recognition of the Truth, this is experimental. This second phase is expanded thus: “According to a recognition of the truth, which (in its turn) is according to godliness.”

The Apostle is inspired to hold an even balance. He stresses neither the sovereignty of God nor the responsibility of man, but gives each its place. The faith of God’s elect comes first, and this is according to truth. We love Him because He first loved us. There could be no recognition of truth on our part, had it not been preceded by grace. It is however entirely untrue to represent the Apostle’s doctrine as the faith of God’s elect, and that only. That is but one side of it. It has another: 

“The Lord knoweth them that are His.” 

That is the elective side, the side that lies beyond our control, responsibility or power. The other is: 

“Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (II Tim. ii. 19). 

This is the experimental side, the side that lies within the ambit of our control, responsibility and power, as those who have received mercy to be faithful. 

The possession of the “knowledge” of the truth which is according to godliness is no guarantee that a “life” of godliness will ensue. But the “acknowledgment” or “recognition” of such truth does carry with it the idea of taking one’s stand, and abiding by any consequences that may follow. 

“Be not . . . . . ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner” 

(II Tim. i. 8). 

was a call to Timothy, who “knew” the truth, to “acknowledge” it, or, in the sense adopted in this series, to “recognize” its claims. The call comes with equal force to us to-day, when “knowledge” has increased, but when “the godly man ceaseth”, and acknowledgment of the truth, at times, costs dear. 

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(From The Berean Exxpositor, vol. 36, page 9).

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Acknowledgment. (1) - by Charles H. Welch

#1. The Place of Acknowledgment in Experimental Truth.

       Salvation is a finished work. Nothing that man can do can make salvation more secure than it is, for it rests solely upon the once-offered sacrifice of Christ. It is a salvation that is by grace. Yet, it is equally the testimony of the Scriptures that salvation is also “by faith”, and though it be a work already accomplished on behalf of sinful man, no man is “saved” apart from faith in the Son of God. Man is a moral being and in this lies his separateness from the rest of the visible world. No one has ever seen a stone “refuse” to fall to the ground when released, nor the sun hesitate on his course. Like man, sun and stones, stars and trees, are creatures but, unlike man, they are not moral. It is of the essence of the moral sphere that obedience be freely rendered. The very idea of an enforced holiness is intolerable either to reason or to revelation. The man who is  “saved by grace” is a man who has also felt his need and has been “saved by faith”. 

    Now a word that recurs in the spiritual history of man as recorded in the Word, and that forms the bridge over which man as a moral creature passes into salvation and its accompanying blessings, is the word “acknowledge”. Let us turn to some passages of Scripture that reveal the important place “acknowledgment” has in the mind and will of God for His people.

     “Only acknowledge thine iniquity” was the one proviso needful for restoration in the Lord’s call to Israel by Jeremiah: 

       “Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed My voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you” (Jer. iii. 12-14).

     Acknowledgement is here seen as one phase of repentance. “Return”, “acknowledge”, “turn” and the like truth is also found in the New Testament. Much to the same effect is the testimony of Prov. xxviii. 13: 

       “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” 

     This passage makes us think of that great example of true acknowledgment, David, whose repentance has given us those two wonderful Psalms, xxxii. & li. Psalm xxxii. opens with the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, but before this blessedness could be experienced by David, he had to acknowledge his sin. While he kept silence his misery was great, and the hand of the Lord was heavy upon him. 

       “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psa. xxxii. 5). 

         Parallel with this is the experience of Psalm li.: 

              “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight” (Psa. li. 1-4). 

         

When we turn to the epistles that speak of the grace of God to the church, we shall find that in some places where the Authorized Version reads “knowledge”, the true meaning is “acknowledge”. In the first epistles of John, where experimental truth, associated with walking in the light, is the theme, “confession” is used in much the same way as “acknowledgment” is used elsewhere.

          “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John i. 9).

     Before the prodigal son “came to the father”, he “came to himself” (Luke xv. 17, 20). Before he experienced reconciliation and wore the best robe, he had said: 

              “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son” (Luke xv. 18, 19).

        The moment that salvation becomes our realized possession the Lord is pledged to lead us out and on. We have but to read the book of Exodus to see this plainly set forth. From the moment the blood of the Passover had been shed and the hour of deliverance had come, Israel never lacked a leader. Moses may go the way of all flesh, but Joshua is there to take his place, and over and above all human agency, we find the pillar of cloud and fire that never left the people throughout their pilgrimage. Let us therefore turn our attention to the experience of being led by the Lord. 

               “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. iii. 5, 6).

     From these words it is evident that the acknowledging of the Lord is fairly comprehensive. It is impossible to acknowledge the Lord unless our trust in Him is with “all our heart” and in “all our ways”. Very often no other “leading” is necessary than to stand at the parting of the ways, look ahead, and see whether following the one or the other would involve some denial of the Lord. If this is seen to be so, the matter is settled, and prayer for guidance at such times may too much resemble the attitude of Balaam (Numb. xxii. 13, 19). 

       This acknowledgment of the Lord in all our ways is very finely brought out in the story of Abraham’s servant, who said: 

             “I, being in the way, the LORD led me” (Gen. xxiv. 27).

       Returning to our text (Prov. iii. 5, 6) we further observe that there is a correspondence instituted between “trust” and “lean”; and between “with all thine heart” and “in all thy ways”. The “heart” deals with the life and motive force within, the “ways” deal with the outgoings of this hidden power in active and practical service. It is important to keep the divine order. Mere outward conformity, “ways”, without inward reality, “hearts”, is a self-blinding form of hypocrisy. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 36, page 7).

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Time and Place. (4)

The Scriptural association of chronology and topography with doctrine and purpose.
by Charles H. Welch

#4. The Seven Days of Gen. i. 1, 2 - ii. 2.


It is impossible to speak of the present creation without referring to time. It is often spoken of as “The six days’ creation” to distinguish it from the primal creation of
Gen. i. 1 and the new creation of Rev. xxi. 

In this connection of time we must first consider theword “day”. It is conceded at the outset that yom, “day”, may mean an indefinite period of time, and that it is so used in Gen. ii. 4, “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”, where “day” covers the whole of the six days’ creation. Gen. i. 3 to ii. 3 however is a unit in which the “day” occurs fourteen times, and an examination of its usage will leave little room for doubt but that a literal day of twenty-four hours is intended.

At the creation of light the Lord divided the light from the darkness, calling the light “day” and the darkness “night”. This division of time has remained ever since and, just as we find Noah receiving parallel commands to “replenish the earth” and with reference also to the subduing of the animal creation and the honouring of the image of God in man (Gen. ix. 1, 2, 6), so, as in Gen. i., this is preceded by a covenant which promised that “while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, the day and night shall not cease” (viii. 22). Again, Gen. i. 5 adds, “And the evening and the morning were the firstday”.

If, as some have said, these are geological days, involving an “evening”, that might have lasted millions ofyears, can anyone explain what kept alive the grass, the herb, and the fruit tree during its icy and inkydarkness, or how the fowl of the air or creeping things managed to exist? for every day’s work is summed up with the formula: “The evening and the morning were the . . . . . day.” Yet if we interpret Gen. i. 1, 2 as the creation of the heaven and the earth which was created during the six days of the subsequent revelation, we shall be compelled to teach that these “days” are geological ages. The rocks evidence their age-long growth, the very fuel we burn witnesses that long ages must have passed in the process of turning forests into coal. But if we interpret i. 1, 2 as we have done, that is, seeing a primal creation in the beginning followed by an overthrow, we can place our geological ages in between verses 1 and 2 and look upon the present creation as occupying literally just six days, for it was largely a reconstruction, the word “create” only occurring in the record for two acts, (1) the creation of the inhabitants of the sea (verse 21), for in the primal creation, as in the new earth, there was, and there will, “no sea”, and (2) the creation of man (verse 27). 

The summary of the six days’ work is given in Gen. ii. 3: “All His work which God created and made.”

Because, to express the facts, we should have had to use a clumsy circumlocution, we have said in the earlier part of this article, “and the creation of light”. But the word “create” is not used of light; the statement is “Light be, and light was.” Similarly, “Let there be a firmament”, “Let the waters be gathered”, Let the dry land appear”, “Let the earth bring forth”, and so on. 

The present creation was constructed to form a platform upon which the drama of the ages should be enacted, after which it is destined to pass away so that the goal of the ages might be enjoyed in a new heaven and earth, which are to be the glorious complement of the heaven and earth created as a “beginning”. 

A legitimate question to raise in connection with the six days’ creation is, Why should the Lord have taken six days and not five or ten or any other number? Further, Why should the Lord have “rested” on theseventh? We are assured that “The Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary” (Isa. xl. 28). We are certain that the six days of creation and the seventh day rest are not mentioned without purpose and, seeing that the very “beginning” of Genesis anticipated its glorious “end”, we return once more to the consideration of “time” in relation to the doctrine of Scripture, with the assurance that if we “seek” we shall “find”. 

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which Hehad made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen. ii. 1-3). 

In other studies we have drawn attention to the way in which Noah stands as a sort of “second man and last Adam”, and in connection with this use of the number seven, we find that shebu “seventh”, occurs nowhere else in Genesis except in chapter viii. 4, where we read that “the ark rested in the seventh month”. Not only Noah but his father Lamech emphasize this, for Lamech, the father of Noah, was 777 years old when he

died. 

In Gen. xxvi. 33 we read: “And he called it shebah (that is an oath)”, and it is a feature not to be lightlypassed over that the same Hebrew root that supplies us with the number seven gives us the word for “oath” and “to swear”. The words shaba and shebuah, “to swear”, occur in Genesis twenty-one times, or three times seven. 

We have seen that the opening sentence of the Bible (Gen. i. 1) anticipates, as a kind of firstfruits, the end,and it may be well to remind the reader that the Hebrew of that verse contains 7 words, 14 syllables and 21 letters. We now see that in the choice of this number “seven” God has, in type, sworn that His purpose shall be accomplished. In the epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle quotes Gen. ii. 2, and from an examination of other scriptures, concludes that “There remaineth therefore a rest (sabbatismos) to the people of God” (Heb. iv. 9). 

To keep this hope alive in the hearts of His people, the Lord placed the observance of the Sabbath day prominently in the tables of the covenant. To impress us still further with the extreme importance of this symbolic number, the Lord has multiplied these sabbatic observances. The word that is translated “rest” in Gen. ii. 2 and 3 is shabath. The law of Moses contains a series of feasts, or holy days, that carry on a progression of sevens. We have the seventh DAY (Lev. xxiii. 3); seven DAYS (Lev. xxiii. 6); seven

WEEKS (Lev. xxiii. 15); the seventh MONTH (Lev. xxiii. 24); the seventh YEAR (Lev. xxv. 4); seven times seven YEARS (Lev. xxv. 8) and seventy times seven YEARS (Dan. ix. 24). 

Here we have design and purpose. The glorious Jubilee, when every debt was cancelled, every man set free, every inheritance entered and enjoyed; the annual Feast of Tabernacles in the seventh month when every man sat, as it were, under his own vine and fig tree and none made him afraid; the prophetic period of Dan. ix. after which Israel’s restoration should be complete, all speak of the same thing, and pledge the attainment of the same goal. 

From our three studies in the time factor of Gen. i. 1 - ii. 3 it is abundantly evident 

that a knowledge of this feature is by no means of mere academic interest, but that it 

enters into the very fabric of revealed truth, and is no mean factor in its interpretation.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 174).

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The Interpretation of the Scriptures. (2)

by Charles H. Welch

No.2. The History of Interpretation. 

Having seen that the only safe approach to Scripture is that of the literal, with due consideration being given to symbols, figures of speech and types, it may be helpful to give an outline of interpretation in the past, because this will show up wrong conceptions which have led to the misunderstanding of God’s Word, and so will help to guard us against similar errors. To trace past interpretation in detail from Ezra’s day right down to the present time would be an enormous task and not possible within the limits of The Berean Expositor. To those who wish to do so, we recommend Dean Farrar’s History of Interpretation, which, in spite of hisliberalism, is an outstanding work on this subject. Other volumes which may be consulted with profit are the Bible in the Church by R. M. Grant; Prophecy and Authority by K. Fullerton; The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages by B. Smalley. 

The Greek School of Allegorism.

Inasmuch as the Greek allegorical method was adopted both by Jew and Christian at the beginning, it is necessary to commence here. The Greeks had a religious heritage in Homer and Hesiod. To question or doubt them was considered an irreligious or atheistic act. Yet the stories of the gods were often fanciful, absurd, or immoral, which was an offence to the philosophical mind. How was this tension to be resolved? The answer is, by allegorizing. The stories were not to be taken literally, but a secret underlying meaning was to be sought. The important thing to notice is that this Greek allegorical method spread to Alexandria, where there was a large Jewish population and eventually a Christian population of considerable size. The Alexandrian Jew was bound to face up to Greek philosophical tradition which held sway there, especially that of Plato, and for him the problem was to reconcile this with his own national Scriptures (the Old Testament). His solution was identical with the Greek. Dean Farrar writes: 

“The Alexandrian Jews were not, however, driven to invent the allegorical method for themselves. They found it ready to their hands” (History of Interpretation, p. 134). 

 He continues on page 135:

“By a singular concurrence of circumstances, the Homeric studies of pagan philosophers suggested first to the Jews and then through them to the Christians, a method of interpretation before unheard of, which remained unshaken for more than fifteen hundred years.” 

Apparently the first writer in this Jewish allegorical way was Aristobulus (B.C.160). He asserted that Greek philosophy borrowed from the Old Testament and that, by using the allegorical method, the teachings of Greek philosophy could be found in Moses and the prophets. The outstanding Jewish allegorist was Philo (about B.C.20-54A.D.). He had strong leanings toward the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras. By an elaborate system of allegorizing, he reconciled his loyalty to his Hebrew faith and his regard for Greek philosophy. Philo did not regard the literal meaning of Scripture to be useless, but rather an immature level of understanding. He likened the literal sense of Scripture to its “body”, and the allegorical to its “soul”, the literal being for the immature and the allegorical for the mature. He had around twenty rules which indicated that a passage of Scripture was to be treated allegorically. A few of these were sound, but most of them led to interpretation that was fantastic and erroneous. Philo’s conceptions are a good example of what happens when the grammatico-historical method of interpretation is abandoned. Spiritualizing becomes a slippery slope down which it is well nigh impossible to stop. 

The Allegorism of the Fathers.

This system, which sprang from the pagan Greeks and was copied by the Alexandrian Jews, was thenadopted by the professing church and largely dominated the interpretation of the Scriptures until the Reformation, with the exception of the school at Antioch and the Victorines of the Middle Ages. The apostolic Fathers had as their Bible the Septuagint, i.e. the Greek translation of the Old Testament. They saw that the Old Testament prefigured Christ in type and symbol, and that the New Testament was full of direct and indirect references to the Old Testament. In other words, they perceived that the Old Testament could never be fully understood apart from the New Testament. This they sought to emphasize by allegory and spiritualization. The motive was right, but the method wrong. What they apparently did not realize was that the New Testament is the commentary par excellence on the Old Testament and does not need any propping up by such methods, which only throw the door wide open to personal fancies and excesses. 

There was a lack of historical sense in their method of exposition; they usually ignored the setting and background of a passage of Scripture. They considered the Scriptures to be full of enigmas and riddles which could only be satisfactorily explained by allegorisation. They confused the allegorical with the typical and thus blurred the correct interpretation of the Old Testament. They professed to see Greek philosophy inthe Old Testament, and claimed that it was the allegorical method that discovered it. The pity of all this was that it obscured the true meaning of the Word of God. K. Fullerton writes: 

“When the historical sense of a passage is once abandoned there is wanting any sound regulative principle to govern exegesis . . . . . The mystical (allegorical) method of exegesis is an unscientific and arbitrary method, reduces the Bible to obscure enigmas, undermines the authority of allinterpretation, and therefore, when taken by itself, fails to meet the apologetic necessities of the time” (Prophecy and Authority). 

No wonder the Gnostics of the second century found this method so handy to propagate their falsedoctrine! 

Roman Catholic Allegorism. 

It is true to say that, for the most part, Scriptural interpretation of the Middle Ages was allegorical. The Roman Catholic Church has maintained the validity of the allegorical method, though there is evidence that later on, some of their scholars saw the excesses that resulted from this in Patristic theology, and were prepared to admit the importance of the literal meaning of Scripture. Roman Catholics accept the Latin Vulgate translation of Jerome as the authentic version for public lectures, disputations, sermons andexpositions. 

This church thus puts itself into the awkward position of basing its doctrines on a translation instead of the original languages of Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek. This is a great weakness, for no one translation, however good, can adequately set forth the truth of the original. Moreover the Roman Catholic expositor is forced to accept obediently whatever the church specifically decrees on the authorship of the books of the Bible, andsome twenty verses have been officially interpreted and may not be deviated from. Actually the number is more than this, because many of the official documents require definite interpretations of certain verses. Roman Catholic exegesis became summed up during the Middle Ages in three rules: 

(1) A passage may have an allegorical or mystical meaning. 

(2) It may have an anagogical or eschatological meaning, that is, it may prefigure or anticipate the church in glory. 

(3) It may have a tropological meaning, that is, teach a way of life, or in other words, convey the moral significance of the passage. 

With its often excessive usage of types, the Roman Catholic diverges from the Protestant. Thus the manna in the wilderness, the passover, the bread and wine of Melchizedek are made types of the Eucharist, thus ignoring the controlling guide of New Testament usage. Such exposition can never be accepted by the honest searcher for truth. It is reading into Scripture what is not there, and is the fruit of the allegorical method ofinterpretation, which is used to bolster up this sacramental and sacerdotal approach to the Bible. Further, the Roman Catholic believes that to his church alone has been entrusted the Deposit of Truth in a two-fold form, (1) the oral form (tradition) and (2) the written form (the Scriptures), and this written form, the Bible, is obscure and needs an official interpreter, which must be the Church of Rome, to whom alone, he believes, ithas been given by God. To him the oral tradition is of equal authority with the Word of God because he believes that both have come from God, and are complementary. Furthermore, no passage of Scripture can be interpreted to conflict with Roman Catholic doctrine. It is therefore obvious that the Protestant expositor is always at a disadvantage when disputing on doctrinal matters with a Roman Catholic. Whereas the former will take his stand solely on God’s Word, the latter can always retreat and bring in his oral tradition, which he believes to be as much God’s truth as the Bible. The more one studies the Roman Catholic position, the

more one is thankful for the great liberating effect of the Reformation. Believers today have largely forgotten what they owe to God for this great movement: freedom of conscience, and approach to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and not through any human sacerdotal system with its inevitable bondage. 

The Jewish Schools. 

When Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, they were separated from the Temple and its regulations, and could no longer practice their religion as outlined in the books of Moses. This state of things finally led to Judaism with its synagogues, rabbis and traditions. The vast system of Jewish interpretation that resulted is a separate study in itself, and it is practically impossible to sum it up adequately. Various schools emerged with opposing ideas. The Karaites were the literalists and the Kabbalists the allegorists. The Palestinian Jews of post-captivity days started off well with a literal approach to the Scriptures, but they often failed to put into practice the rules they laid down. In Kabbalism excessive literalism was allied to allegorism with grotesque results. They used gematria to endow words with numericalvalues which became the basis for interpretation that was absurd or pernicious. 

While we believe that certain numbers are used in Scripture with intent, such as 6, 7, 12, 13, 40 and so on, we need to take warning and keep this under control. We have seen some extraordinary interpretations of Scripture result from those with a mathematical inclination who have let their minds run riot along these lines.

The Syrian School of Antioch. 

It has been asserted that the first Protestant school of interpretation commenced at Antioch of Syria, and had it not been crushed by orthodoxy for its supposed heretical connection with the Nestorians, the course of church history might have been very different. It produced such prominent names as Lucian, Dorotheus, Diodorus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Chrysostom. This school fought the allegorists and maintained theimportance of the literal and historical interpretation of the Word of God. They insisted on the reality of Old Testament events, and accused the allegorists of doing away with the historicity of much of the OldTestament, and leaving behind a shadowy world of symbols. Their approach to the Bible was Christological, and they rightly blended together the historic and Messianic elements of the Scriptures. The result was that they produced some of the finest expository literature of ancient times. R. W. Grant points out that this school had a great influence in the Middle Ages and became the pillar of the Reformation and their method the principal exegetical method of the Christian Church.

Another interesting school was that of the Victorines which came into being at the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris in the medieval period. They likewise stressed the historical and literal approach to the Scriptures. They insisted that the spiritual sense could not be properly known until the Scriptures had been literally interpreted.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 43, page 97).

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“With all thy getting, get understanding” (Prov. iv. 7).(2)

by Charles H. Welch

#2. Names: their place and importance.


If man be created in the image of God, and if man be placed over the work of His hands, we should expect that he would possess a nature above that of the brute creation: in other words, that he would be a rational being. This we know to be the case: whereas
animals act merely under the power of instinct, man acts under the influence of reason. The first recorded act of man is found in Gen. ii. 19:--

“And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

Those who deny the inspiration of Scripture, and look upon Genesis as a collection of myths and legends, have to account for the scientific accuracy of its most incidental details. What is it that we find in the forefront of any text book on logic? The necessity of names:-- 

“If we attempt to . . . . . analyze . . . . . the import of propositions we find forced upon us, as a subject of previous consideration, the import of name” (J.S.M.*). 

Thus Adam is exhibited in Gen. ii. acting as a rational being, giving names to all the lower creation that passed before him as a necessary first step to fuller and clearer understanding. 

Hobbes, in his Computation of Logic, says:-- 

“A name is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, and which being pronounced to others, may be to them a sign of what thought the speaker had before in his mind.” 

This is the simplest definition of a name. Names may stand for more than this; in Scripture, for instance, names are often prophetic, but in the simplest analysis names are marks, and it is of the utmost importance that when two or more people converse, they should agree that certain marks or names stand for certain ideas or things, otherwise confusion must follow. And here the accuracy of the history of Babel is seen. As soon as certain groups of men began to call ideas and things by names different from those employed by other groups, confusion followed, and “they left off to build”. 

When God would mark a crisis in the life of the Patriarch, he changed his name from Abram to Abraham. 

Names must be distinguished the one from the other according to their significations, of which there are the following classifications:--

(1) GENERAL and SINGULAR names. 

(2) CONCRETE and ABSTRACT names. 

(3) CONNOTATIVE and NON-CONNOTATIVE names. 

(4) POSITIVE and NEGATIVE names. 

(5) RELATIVE and ABSOLUTE names. 

(6) UNIVOCAL and EQUIVOCAL names. 

“All names are names of something, real or imaginary; but all things have not names appropriated to them individually.” 

While persons, remarkable places and events have their distinguishing or singular names, there is a multitude of common objects or ideas to which we give a general name. For example, “book” is a general name; but if I wish to designate a particular book I must either put together several names, as “This book”, or “This red book”, etc., or use a singular name as “The Bible”, “The Berean Expositor”, etc.

“A general name is familiarly defined, a name which is capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of things. An individual or singular name is a name which is only capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of one thing.” 

“In the same sense.”—How needful it is before we attempt to teach the truth of God’s Word that we discover the “sense” of its words, names or ideas, and then adhere closely to it. What havoc has been caused by a failure to define beforehand, and to adhere afterwards, to such terms as “divine”, “sin”, “faith”, “all”, etc. 

The second division of names is into those which are concrete and those which are abstract:-- 

“A concrete name is a name that stands for a thing: an abstract name is a name which stands for an attribute of a thing.” 

Thus “Scripture” is concrete, while “holy”, being an attribute, is abstract. We will not spend time over this obvious division of names, particularly as the next one demands more care and attention, viz., connotative and non-connotative names:-- 

“The word ‘connote’ comes from notare, ‘to mark’; connotare ‘to mark along with; to mark one thing with or in addition to another’.” 

“A connotative term is one which denotes a subject and implies an attribute. Thus John, or London, or England, are names which signify a subject only. Whiteness, length, virtue, signify an attribute only. None of these names, therefore, is connotative. But, white, long, virtuous, are connotative, for they denote a subject and imply an attribute.” 

Concrete and general names are connotative. Take for instance the word “man”. It may denote the Editor of this magazine, the reader, or a number of individuals that form a definite class:-- 

“It is applied to them because they possess, and to signify that they possess, certain attributes. These seem to be corporeity, animal life, rationality, and a certain external form which for distinction we call the human. Every existing thing which possessed all these attributes, would be called a man.” 

There is a great deal more to be learned regarding this division of names that perhaps will be better appreciated when we can apply ourselves to the Scriptures, and as we are not attempting to teach logic, we pass on to the remaining subdivision.

The fourth division of names is into those which are positive and those which are negative. It must be remembered that some names which are positive in form are negative in reality, and vice versa. The word “unpleasant” is negative in form, but positive in meaning, for it signifies positive painfulness. The word “idle” is positive in form, but negative in meaning. We must be careful to distinguish negative names from positive names. True negatives are expressed by the word “not”. A privative name supposes the one-time possession of an attribute now lost. For example, the word “blind” is not a negative of “seeing”, for it suggests that, by reason of his class, the sufferer whom the word describes did have, or should have, the faculty of sight. 

Relative and absolute names are the next division. Such names as “father” and “son” are relative, not absolute. Much of the evil teaching that denies the deity of Christ is due to failure to realize that the titles “Father” and “Son” are relative. As a father a man is only as old as his eldest child, although as a man he may be thirty years older. This is true wherever applied, if true at all, and God Himself could not bear the name of “Father” until He had a Son. Men continually attempt to disprove the deity of Christ by emphasizing the subordinate relations of Son to Father, but such reasoning is false:-- 

“A name is relative, when, being the name of one thing, is signification cannot be explained but by mentioning another.” 

God is self-existent, and, in His essence and absoluteness, independent of creation or time. It will be discovered that all we know of God is relative, and our reasoning must, accordingly, be governed by this limitation. As in the case of the titles “Father” and “Son”, so “Jehovah”, “Elohim”, “Shaddai” are all relative, and do not comprehend absolute deity, of which we know nothing. 

The last division of names is that of univocal and equivocal:-- 

“A name is univocal, or applied univocally, with respect to all things of which it can be predicated in the same sense; it is equivocal, or applied equivocally, as respects those things of which it is predicated in different senses.” 

“File”, meaning a steel instrument, and ‘file’, meaning a line of soldiers, have no more 

title to be considered one word, because written alike, than ‘grease’ and ‘Greece’ have, 

because pronounced alike. They are one sound, appropriated to form two different 

words.” 

Some of our readers will be aware that while the fact of the existence of “two seeds” is maintained as a scriptural doctrine, it is fatal to the doctrine of universal reconciliation, whatever differences there may be as to what constitutes these “seeds”. It is, therefore, clear that the advocates of universal reconciliation must offer some explanation to account for the “Giants”, the “Rephaim”, and other like beings mentioned in Scripture. 

This has now been done, and the process comes under the heading of equivocal names. Because the Hebrew word Rephaim contains the same root letters as the Hebrew word for “Healer”, a whole nation, together with its pedigree, is blotted out. According to this teaching the “Giants” cease to exist, they are but “healers”. If the reader will imagine some person of foreign extraction endeavouring to reason about the name “Ham”, and thereby disposing of a whole section of the human race because that same “word” has, in spelling, an equivocal affinity with “bacon”, he will be able to appreciate this treatment of the subject at its true value! 

Sometimes a word is used metaphorically, “as when we speak of a brilliant light, and a brilliant achievement”:-- 

“One of the commonest forms of fallacious reasoning arising from ambiguity is that of arguing from a metaphorical expression as if it were literal.” 

One of the most awful examples of this false reasoning is, of course, the use made by the Church of Rome of the Saviour’s words, “This is My body”: the metaphor is taken as being a literal statement. 

We trust enough has been said to cause the reader to exercise care in the use of doctrinal terms, and those who have the time and inclination would be well repaid if they collected lists of terms from the Scriptures for each of the divisions suggested in this article.

[NOTE * - In this series the initials J.S.M. stand for John Stuart Mill, and all 

paragraphs in quotation marks without name or initial must be understood as 

quotations from this author’s book, entitled A System of Logic.]

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 22, page 200).

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“With all thy getting, get understanding” (Prov. iv. 7).(1)

by Charles H. Welch

#1. What constitutes a valid argument? 


It is a blessed fact that salvation does not depend upon reasoning and disputation, and that one need be neither a philosopher nor a logician to perceive the purpose of the ages. Perhaps no writer of Scripture so emphasizes the utter failure of the natural mind to
understand the truth as Paul, yet, advocate as he was for thesupremacy of faith, and opponent as he was of “doubtful disputations” and of ‘vain deceitful philosophy”, no writer is so argumentative, and no writer appeals so much to the mind quickened to appreciate true reasoning.

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. x. 17). 

Yet, to borrow the argument of verse 14:--

“How shall they hear, who do not understand, and how can faith come, if the truth presented be not realized?” 

To the Ethiopian, Philip said:--

“Understandest thou what thou readest?” (Acts viii. 30). 

To the Pharisees, the Lord said:--

“Why do ye not understand My speech? even because ye cannot hear My word? (John viii. 43). 

Solomon said:-- 

“Knowledge is easy unto him that hath understanding” (Prov. xiv. 6). 

While mere reasoning may be a mark of infidelity, faith is never unreasonable, nor does it discredit reason. In one of the most spiritual passages in Romans the apostle speaks of “reasonable” (logikos) service (Rom. xii. 1). We read of Paul “reasoning” (dialegomai), “opening” (dianoigo), and “alleging” (paratithemi) out of the Scriptures concerning Christ, and his epistles abound with such signs of argument as the frequent use of the words “for”, “wherefore”, “for this cause”, and the like. While no soul will ever miss salvation because of inability to appreciate a syllogism, the teacher of truth may nevertheless sometimes err and lead his hearers astray if he has no true understanding of what constitutes valid argument. 

There is indeed room for a book that will do for Logic in the Scriptures, what Dr. Bullinger’s “Figures of Speech used in the Bible” did for figurative language in the Scriptures. To attempt such a work is beyond our present powers, but though these notes be somewhat fragmentary and the range limited, they may be of service in quickening the reader’s interest in this important matter. 

Ability correctly to answer the question, What constitutes a valid argument? will confer a double blessing, viz., it will provide us with the means whereby we shall be able to appreciate more clearly the divine arguments of the Scriptures, and it will enable us to appraise the truth and detect the errors and fallacies in the arguments presented in the teaching of others. 

Upon the ground of the all-sufficiency of faith, some object to the attempt to analyze the processes of correct thinking, while others refuse an analysis of logical processes upon the ground that common sense is sufficient. Archbishop Whately says:-- 

“The generality have a strong predilection in favour of common sense, except in those points in which they, respectively, possess the knowledge of a system of rules: but in these points they deride anyone who trusts unaided common sense. A sailor, e.g., will perhaps despise the ‘pretensions’ of medical men, and prefer treating a disease by ‘common sense’; but he would ridicule the proposal of navigating a ship by common sense, without regard to the maxims of nautical art.” 

Logic is the name given to the science of reasoning. It displays the principles on which argument is conducted, and tabulates certain rules which are derived from these principles, so that we shall be guided into the truth, and guarded from error.

The objection to logic as being unserviceable in the discovery of truth may hold good in the realm of natural science, but it is not valid in the realm of scriptural revelation. In that realm we do not set out to discover truth by processes of reasoning, but, on the contrary, believe that in the Scriptures we already posses a complete revelation, and that we can and should use every legitimate means to arrive at the right understanding of that revelation, and to test all that professes to be an exposition of its teaching. 

Another superficial objection to logic is that in the hands of the unscrupulous the very processes of true reasoning can apparently be made to lead to false conclusions. But this is no fault of logic: in such a case, clearly, error has crept into one or both of the premises, and the process is no more an objection to the true place of logic than the fact that certain calculations based on the assumption that nineteen, and not twenty, shillings made a pound, had produced a false answer, would be an objection to arithmetic. Changing the figure, we must first of all secure a correct translation, then, granted that our terms are unambiguous, and our premises true, the conclusion is as inevitable as is the conclusion of an arithmetical sum. 

Neither in the Scriptures, nor in conversation, are arguments always stated at full length, but it is safe to say that every valid argument may be expressed in that form known since the days of Aristotle as the syllogism. The term “argument” is used popularly in a somewhat wider sense than is intended in logic, but strictly speaking every argument consists of two parts, viz., that which is proved, and the means whereby it isproved. That which is proved is called the “conclusion”, and the means whereby it is so proved the “premises”. Here is a simple example of a syllogism:-- 

All tyrants deserve death . . . . . Caesar was a tyrant . . . . . Therefore he deserved death. 

We are not at the moment concerned with the morals of the matter before us, but with the process of reasoning and its inevitable conclusions. There is no possible way of avoiding the conclusion, “Therefore he deserved death”, except by questioning and disproving some feature of the premises. Either it is not true that all tyrants deserve death, or it is true. Either it is true that Caesar was a tyrant, or it is not true. But if thesepremises be conceded, then the conclusion is valid and unassailable. 

One great value of the syllogism is the way in which it forces revision of the premises or steps that lead to an erroneous conclusion. For example, there is nothing apparently wrong with the following process of reasoning, yet the conclusion is so obviously untrue that it compels a search for error in the premises that might otherwise have escaped us:-- 

White is a colour . . . . . Black is a colour . . . . . Therefore black is white. 

When we realized that much that passes for scriptural doctrine will not stand the test of the syllogism, we may look more kindly upon its application, and allow some place for an explanation of its use. 

Without allowing the subject to occupy undue space, we hope from time to time to give a few notes upon the importance of correct reasoning and valid argument. This we hope will prove to be of service in the elucidation of the truth of the Scriptures, and at the same time provide some means of testing the doctrines propounded by teachers and writers in these days of seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.

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[NOTE.—As this series of articles is somewhat outside the bounds of actual 

exposition and teaching, and deals with the raw material, and the processes, 

rather than with the finished article, and as we wish our pages to be helpful to all 

our readers, we have prepared six articles only under this heading, and shall be 

guided as to their continuance by the correspondence we receive. If you desire 

their continuance, please say so on a postcard addressed to the Editor.]

(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 22, page 197).

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