of human passion and
doubt and cruelty; and to view it as a level plain of religious equality
is to make serious mistakes. _Ecclesiastes_ is by no means on the same
level with _Isaiah_, nor _Proverbs_ with the _Sermon on the Mount_.
Doctrines and principles that are drawn from texts chosen at random from
all parts of the Bible are sure to be unworthy statements of the highest
fellowship with God.

Nor does mere chronological rearrangement of the material do justice to
the progress; there was loss as well as gain. All mountain roads on
their way to the summit go down as well as up; and their advance must
be judged not from their elevation at any particular point, but from
their successful approach towards their destination. The experiences of
Israel reach their apex in the faith of Jesus and of His immediate
followers; and they find their explanation and unity in Him. In form the
Jewish Bible, unlike the Christian, has no climax; it stops, ours ends.
Christians judge the progress in the religious experience of Israel by
its approximation to the faith and purpose of Jesus.

The Bible is a _selected_ record of religious experience. Old Testament
historians often refer to other books which have not been preserved; and
there were letters of St. Paul which were allowed to perish, and
gospels, other than our four, which failed to gain a place in the Canon.
A discriminating instinct was at work, judging between writings and
writings. We know little of the details of the process by which it
compiled the Old Testament. The Jewish Church spoke of its Scriptures as
"the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings"; and it is probable that in
this order it made collections of those books which it found expressed
and reproduced its faith. In the time of Jesus the Old Testament, as we
know it, was practically complete, although there still lingered some
discussion whether _Esther, Ecclesiastes_ and the _Song of Songs_ were
sacred books. We should like to know far more than students have yet
discovered of the reasons which Jewish scholars gave for admitting some
and rejecting other writings; but, whatever their alleged reasons, the
books underwent a struggle for recognition, and the fittest, according
to the judgment of the corporate religious experience of the devout,
survived.

The first Christians found the Jewish Bible in use as containing "the
oracles of God"; and as it had been their Lord's Bible it became theirs.
No one of the first