such great hopes by one saint of God implied their acceptance by all other saints. We must not even think that the man, who one day saw heaven clearly open before him, spent all the days of his life on the same high level of assurance. We are dealing with a subjective hope, the child of religious experience; we are not dealing with a dogma. Prophecy and apocalyptic came in before the hope of immortality attained definite dogmatic limits. But the experience handed down by the Psalmists, as we may suppose, gave wings to the dogma, once it was established, or, to vary our figure, breathed into its dull clay something of the breath of life. And, finally, the hope of immortality was again recast by Christ, in His person, His teaching, His death, resurrection, and ascension.

IV.

The first point upon which doubt challenges, and successfully challenges, the traditional religious teaching of the Old Testament is in the matter of that family solidarity which the Second Commandment implies both in its promise and in its threat. We must understand that, in an early age, when men's ideas of moral personality and of the sacredness of the individual were incomplete, it seemed fitting that not only prosperity and distress, but guilt and righteousness should be shared among men, nation by nation, clan by clan, family by family. And this mood of mind may have lasted for a long time in certain quarters. Many of the Bible historians take pleasure in recording traditions which imply that God executed judgment in this fashion,-causing not only Achan to be put to death, but Achan's family, or killing by miracles not Dathan and Abiram only, but their wives and little ones.' We cannot infer from this that the traditions in question received their present form at a very early date. The archaic theory of God's justice may very likely have lingered on as the traditional legal view, in some quarters, although elsewhere, among the prophets, the moral view was being modernised. Our first symptom of moral development in regard to this matter is found in the history of

the reign of king Amaziah, who, we are told, though he executed justice on the conspirators who had murdered his father, 'put not to death' their children, according to that which is written in the book of the law of Moses' (2 Kings xiv. 6; cf. Deut. xxiv. 16). It is maintained by criticism, that Deuteronomy is later than the time of Amaziah. But there is no reason for doubting the historical accuracy of this tribute to a king, who does not escape, in other points, the usual blame of neglecting to suppress worship in the high places.' His behaviour marks a conspicuous advance in moral civilisation; it betrays the earlier working, as we may suppose, of that growing sense of justice which subsequently received authoritative approval in the verse which we have already quoted from Deuteronomy. And, from the time that kings could act so, and subjects take notice of their behaviour, it would be growingly difficult to maintain the old hard and fast rule, that mankind must be judged in the mass. When the Deuteronomist's protest is added to this growing popular discontent, we recognise that the days of the old belief are numbered.

The further history of this individualist protest is connected with the period of national disintegration just before the exile. Cheyne suggests, with much probability, that Josiah may have undertaken his disastrous expedition against the Pharaoh in the consciousness of having faithfully carried through the Deuteronomic reform, and of having thus, as he may have supposed, earned a right to God's protection while he was fighting Israel's battles and defending Israel's territory.1 If so, we can see what a very great spiritual crisis Josiah's defeat and death constituted; we can understand that, for the moment, prophetic religion would be terribly discredited among the masses of the people; we can understand that the Wisdom problem would spring into life,—the problem, how the wicked could prosper, and how the righteous (viz. here-and oftenlaw-abiding Israel) could suffer. One possible explanation of

1 Jeremiah: his Life and Times, p. 93. Dr. Cheyne inclines to think that Habakkuk retains very much this point of view, ib. p. 134.

the people's suffering was that God was punishing them for the disobedience of past generations, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children.' This theory seems to have been generally adopted in some quarters, and expressed in the sneering proverb-for now, at any rate, the proverb was used to give point to a sneering criticism of God's providence- the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' Of course the great prophets of the day did not for a moment admit the truth of this theory. Jeremiah and Ezekiel found sin enough in their contemporaries to account for the Divine severity, without reckoning in those offences of earlier generations, which the Israelites of their own day were appropriating and filling up.' Jeremiah and Ezekiel could appeal to the consciences of their contemporaries, undeterred by sneers. Nevertheless it was desirable to meet the criticism, however cynical it might be, and however bad the men might be who urged it. For the criticism implied that society was outgrowing its inherited moral standards. Such a time is always a time of danger-not least when the critics of traditional morality are themselves bad men, who care for no morality. Hence the prophetic religion had to recast men's moral theories. It had authoritatively to abrogate the view, that punishment is hereditary.

Jeremiah does his part of this task in his great prophecy of comfort. It is in the picture of the future golden age that he inserts the Deuteronomic principle that 'Every one shall die for his own iniquity' (xxxi. 30). In that time of spiritual and social regeneration, he affirms, the people's proverb will lose its force. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But, if Jeremiah affirms this principle as part of a future Divine administration, Deuteronomy had already introduced it as part of a present human administration.

Ezekiel goes further than Jeremiah. Indeed, that religious individualism, which is to a large extent latent in Jeremiah,— which is constituted by the circumstances of his lot, but which

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is not, by him, translated into a theory,-comes to the front in Ezekiel, and is pushed perhaps to an extreme. Jeremiah was a conspicuous sufferer for righteousness' sake. He was wellnigh a solitary sufferer. The current ran against him; a more ostensibly patriotic policy was the popular policy; men could only keep on the side of Jehovah and of His servant' by separating from the mass, and making themselves conspicuous in isolation. All this lies at the root of Ezekiel's religious theories. Jeremiah, for instance, had said, 'Thus said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth' (xv. 1). When Ezekiel reproduces this doctrine of despair, he elaborates it further; though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in' the land, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God;' they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.' This is repeated some three times (xiv. 14, 16, 18, 20). Here the announcement of the land's irreparable fate is closely mixed up with the announcement of an individualist morality. The same thing appears in Ezekiel's account of his personal responsibility as a prophet (iii. et seq. xxxiii.). It is a relief to him, as it could hardly have been, perhaps, to an earlier prophet, to make sure of delivering his soul,' while the house of Israel crashes in ruins beside him. And more; he is conscious of being despatched by God to deal with the souls of individuals, while his predecessors had dwelt almost entirely on their mission to the nation, as such, or to its rulers. Finally, when Ezekiel recurs to the popular proverb, which Jeremiah had abrogated, so to say, for the Messianic age, Ezekiel abrogates it off-hand. He does not, any more than Jeremiah, deny that the proverb may correctly represent some of God's past dealings with men. But he asserts it shall no longer do so, that is the form in which the revelation of the sacredness of the individual soul is made by God through Ezekiel. As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all

souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die' (xviii. 3, 4, etc.). The doctrines of subjective morality, personal responsibility, the sacredness of human personality, appear in this chapter full-grown; and the prophet betrays a noble enthusiasm for that Divine righteousness which he is vindicating. His doctrines appear indeed in a paradoxical form. He says nothing of immortality, nothing of resurrection; it is in the earthly life that he looks to see God's justice manifested. Truth is revealed one portion at a time; and Ezekiel's part was to develop the moral consciousness in the direction of subjective morality. He says nothing of that wider social life in which alone men can find their true salvation; social religion was in ruins around him, and Providence used him to develop the doctrines, not of social, but of personal moral life. Finally, we must note the impracticability of Ezekiel's doctrines in the form in which he announces them. They amount to a prophetic programme of God's providential government, in which God is pledged to kill on the spot every sinner who is guilty of mortal sin. Death does not mean eternal punishment in this chapter; nor does it mean annihilation, or dissipation of the soul-substance. Death means death. Yet the prophet tells us that sinners [not guilty of mortal sin?] are to be allowed opportunity of repentance, and, if they repent, shall live in God's favour as though they had never forfeited it.-Experience fails to bear out the prophet's postulates. If God had instituted such a nursery-discipline in Israel—had there been no more trial or triumph of faith-revelation would have been cut short, and moral growth arrested. Ultimately, Ezekiel's doctrines must be blended with the doctrine of immortality and the Christian doctrine of patience under suffering. In order to blend with these other doctrines, his own doctrines must be modified. But they are announced by themselves, in their actual paradoxical shape, in order that they may be driven more securely home into men's minds. Subjective morality is an element in the ultimate moral synthesis. It is a contribution towards the future-yet