the writer treats and handles his illustrations as simply means to an end. The whole discourse is a twofold string of illustrations; but they are all drawn faithfully and exclusively from the text, and the pictorial or illustrative part is in every case shorter and more succinct than the explicatory portion which follows. Also, another great point-they are all easy in their nature as well as unstrained in their treatment. Extracts would not do justice to them under the aspect in which we now recommend them for study, but we cannot resist closing with the introductory portion of the sermon in question, partly as containing a good illustration of the manner in which Mr. Ker is sometimes content only to touch a great point by the way, and partly also as exhibiting the simplicity and consequent force of his style.

"These ancient Jews must have been very much like ourselves, neither better nor worse, and as we read about them we can read our own hearts. The preceding chapter contains an account of their sins and backslidings, and of their vain attempts, under the miserable consequences, to find help in man. At last, it concludes with a declaration on the part of God that He will return to his place, till they seek Him, and with a promise that this shall not be in vain, 'In their affliction they shall seek me early.'

"The present chapter begins with a fulfilment of this promise. The children of Israel take with them words and say, 'Come, and let us return unto the Lord.' It is not in the power of any creature to assuage the wounds of the heart when they have been felt in all their depth. It is only in Him who made the heart, then, to heal it; and He can and will. The God who has established great laws around us for the preservation of his world, for giving man life and light and sustenance, has made his arrangements also for the cure of our hearts' maladies, and the salvation of our souls. He has gathered all these arrangements closely around his own person. Our body's life may lie in knowing his laws, but our soul's life consists in knowing Himself: 'Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and He shall come unto us as the rain.'

"These words were no doubt fulfilled in many a deliverance of the Jewish people; but their own most ancient commentators find their last fulfilment in the great promised Messiah, to whom all the prophets gave witness. The promises of the Old Testament are waves which urge each other on, to rise and fall in many a deliverance, until at length they break on the great shore of all safety-the salvation which is in Christ, with eternal glory. And it would surely be a shame for us Christians to do less than Jewish doctors did, to fail in finding here a prophecy of the world's Redeemer. It is Christ, then, whom our faith must grasp under these two figures, the Daydawn and the Rain."

The reader will see, we hope, the features we have spoken of in the above; and he will also see, we think-which is another point for admiration and imitation-how distinctly the One Foundation is kept in a fundamental position.

MATHEMATICUS, M.A.,

Formerly Chaplain of Trinity Coll., Camb.

Biblical Criticism.

Subject: ST. PAUL'S INFIRMITY IN THE FLESH,

(Continued from p. 107.)

3. "No," thought the monks and ascetics of a somewhat later date, "not persecution. It was surely something which we can realise, something which we have experienced in ourselves. Must he not have felt those same carnal longings, by which we have been dogged in our solitude, and which rise up hydra-like with seven-fold force as we smite them down. From these Paul thrice entreated the Lord to be delivered, as we have entreated Him; and was only answered, as we have been answered, by the indirect assurance, My Grace is sufficient for thee." This interpretation does not appear in a very tangible form before the sixth century, but earlier writers had used language which prepared the way for it.* Throughout the middle ages it seems to have been very generally received; and Roman Catholic writers have for the most part adopted it. So it is taken by Aquinas, Bellarmine (de Monach. c. 30), Corn, a Lapide,† and Estius. Luther is probably correct when he attributes the prevalence of this interpretation to the influence of the Latin version, which renders σkóλo Tỷ σaρêì by “stimulus carnis."

This account again of St. Paul's thorn in the flesh may confidently be set aside. In such a temptation he could not have

Jerome Epist. xxii. (ad Eustoch.) § 5, says: "Si apostolus vas electionis et separatus in evangelium Christi ob carnis aculeos et incentiva vitiorum reprimit corpus suum," etc., quoting Rom. vii. 24, but he makes no reference to either of the passages in St. Paul which relate to his thorn in the flesh," and in § 31 of the same letter he says, "Si aliquis te afflixerit dolor, legito, datus est mihi stimulus carnis meæ," evidently explaining it of some bodily pain. The passage in Augustine, Ps. lviii. Serm. ii. (Tom. iv. pp. 572, 3), is vague, and need not necessarily refer to this kind of temptation. Pelagius gives, as one interpretation, "naturalem infirmitatem; "Primasius more definitely, though still only as an alternative explanation, "alii dicunt titillatione carnis stimulatum." Gregory the Great, Mor viii. c. 29, writes, "Sic Paulus ad tertium coelum raptus ducitur, paradisi penetrans secreta considerat, et tamen ad semetipsum rediens contra carnis bellum laborat, legem aliam in membris sustinet." Cf. also x. 10. And thus, as time went on, this opinion gained strength, till at length it assumed the coarsest and most revolting form.

+Corn. a Lapide on 2 Cor. xii. 7 almost exalts this interpretation into an article of faith: "Videtur communis fidelium sensus, qui hinc libidinis tentationem stimulum carnis vocant: vox autem populi est vox Dei."

"glorified;" nor would this struggle, hidden as it must have been in his own heart, have exposed him to the contempt of others. But indeed from painful trials of this kind we have his own assurance that he was free: "I would," he says, "that all men were even as myself" (1 Cor. vii. 7). "Ah no," said Luther, "he was too hard pressed by the devil to think of such things."

4. And in turn Luther propounded his own view of the thorn in the flesh. He complained that the older churchmen were unable from their position to appreciate St. Paul's meaning, and thus he consciously threw into the interpretation of the passage his own personal experiences. It was certainly not carnal longing, he thought, it was not any bodily malady. It might mean external persecution, as others had maintained, but he inclined more and more to the view that spiritual trials were intended, faint-heartedness in his ministerial duties, temptations to despair or to doubt, blasphemous suggestions of the devil.* This view naturally commended itself to the leaders of a new form of religious belief, owing to the difficulties of their position; and spiritual temptation was the account of St. Paul's trial in which the reformers generally acquiesced. From them it found its way into Protestant writers of a later date, subject, however, to some modifications which adapted it to the more equable temper and the more settled opinions of their own day.

*In his shorter and earlier commentary on the Galatians (1,519) Luther explains it of "persecutions; in his later and fuller work (1,535) he combines spiritual temptations with persecution; and lastly in the Tabletalk he drops persecution and speaks of spiritual trials only, xxiv. § 7 (Vol. xxii. p. 1092 of the Halle edition). This last passage forms a striking contrast to the language of a Lapide quoted in the last note. "Those were high spiritual temptations," says Luther, "which no Papist has understood," with more in the same strain. Thus each of these writers makes his own interpretation in a manner a test of orthodoxy. Other references in Luther's works to the "thorn in the flesh," are Vol. viii. p. 959, xi. p. 1,437, xii. p. 561.

J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D.

The Preacher's Finger-Post.