QUES. 28.-2 John 10, "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine" (the doctrine of the Christ?), What would this embrace? Would it be limited to fundamentally false doctrine as to His person or work?

ANS.-Yes ; the doctrine concerning both the person and work of Christ-the great foundations which constitute Christianity.

You would not close your door against a person who thought that a sheep of Christ might yet perish. You would pity his being a stranger to the grace of God, and seek to lead him into the sense of his need of it. But if a "Higher Critic," or a Millennial Dawnist, and others of the same sort, came to your door, denying the inspiration of the Scriptures, the eternal deity of our Saviour, the only way of salvation through the blood of Jesus, etc., then "receive him not into your house" would be your plain duty.

QUES. 29.- Does 1 Tim. 2 :15 refer to the birth of the Saviour? The Revised Version gives "through the childbearing. " If not, how can the proviso in the latter clause of the verse be applied?

ANS. – There is, we believe, no thought whatever of our Saviour's birth in the passage. The apostle has referred to the woman's place in the house of God. She is not to teach, nor to rule. he toes back to the Fall to show reasons for this. It naturally bring-go remembrance woman's part in the penalty, under the government of God (Gen. 3:16); for God cannot allow the man or the woman to forget ever an act whose consequences were so appalling ; and to this day the penalty abides, as all know too well. But grace delights to come in when the government is felt ; therefore the proviso at the end of the verse. God's preserving care will be over women of such a character, through the dangers and pains of childbearing.

QUES. 30. – Would the Hiram mentioned in 1 Kings 7 :14 be the same as in 2 Chron. 2 :14? If so, why is he in one place said to be the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan ; and, in the other, of the tribe of Naphtali ?

ANS. – We have no doubt whatever that it is the same person mentioned in both scriptures. The discrepancy in his mother's identity arises from this :that in 1 Kings it is the gives her history, whilst in 2 Chron. it is the kin narration in 2 Chron. is the Holy Spirit's as well and therefore, being truth, He narrates truthfully king of Tyre to King Solomon, which contains this easy for the king to make, seeing how nearly the identified with each other.

QUES. 31.-What explanation would you give of the seeming contradictions of Gen. 7:2; 6 :18, 19 ; 7:15 :also, of 7:4, 12, 17, 24 ; 8 :3, 5, 6-14 ? In the first case, it is the number of each kind taken into the ark ; in the second, it is the number of days the flood prevailed, that is in question. In a theological college it is taught that the reason is, that the accounts of events were written on tablets, and that these became mixed, and were put together in the wrong order, probably by Moses when compiling the five books.

ANS.-A comparison of the various passages referred to in the questions, if the preaching of the Cross is believed, will show there are not even any seeming contradictions. When the record speaks of animals going into the ark in pairs, or by twos, it is plain the question is one of their salvation from the flood-"to keep them alive" (chap. 6 :20). It is equally plain that when "clean animals " are spoken of as going in, it is a question of perpetuating on the new earth the life that is to be saved from the flood. Noah evidently understood it so, for by his sacrifice "of every clean beast and of every clean fowl" he was saying, The life that has been saved from the flood has no title to be perpetuated on the new earth apart from the value of a sacrifice that is acceptable to God. The acceptability of Noah's sacrifice is clearly the ground on which God pledged Himself to "smite" not again "every living thing," and to continue uninterruptedly, "while the earth remains," the succession of the seasons. See 8 :21, 22.

Both questions find their real answer in the cross of Christ. Christ is the true Ark, by means of which we are saved from the flood of the wrath of God-the due of our sins. But being thus saved, the acceptability of the sacrifice of Christ is our title to eternal life; we abide perpetually before the face of God in the fragrance of the work of the Cross. These statements, then, looked at in the light of Calvary, are not contradictions.

The same is also true with regard to the various statements concerning the number of days the flood prevailed. The "forty days and forty nights" (chap. 7:4, 12, 17) are the time of the rain-pour, and typify the time during which Christ was enduring the forsaking of God on the cross. What an awful rain-pour it was! In verse 24 we are not told that the rain-pour, but " the waters," prevailed on the earth " a hundred and fifty days." Now it is evident these 150 days began with the commencement of the rain pour. These days speak of the time of the reign of death. The application is simple. If "one died for all, then all have died" (2 Cor. 5:14). See New Version. When Christ was forsaken of God, and until He rose from among the dead, all men were as dead in God's sight-lying under the judgment of death. So, then, the 110 days after the rain-pour ended-during which the waters still prevailed upon the earth-typify the time our Lord was in death.

In chapter 8 we read that after the 150 days, on the seventeenth day of the seventh mouth, the ark rested on Ararat. Here we have the type of resurrection-the resurrection of Christ. But believers are viewed by God as risen with Him. See Eph. 2 :i; Col. 2:12; 3 :1. Everywhere, except on resurrection ground, the waters of the flood prevail. Christ risen, and those risen with Him, are not under judgment; but the wrath of God-the wrath of the cross- abides on those who do not believe (John 3:36).

Verse 5 tells us that "in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen." Christ has not only been raised from among the dead, but He has been exalted to heaven. Believers-those who are in the ark, 1:e., in Christ-by the revelation of the heavenly things which God has made over to them, have learned to look there. The blessed scene on which they thus look is not under the judgment of God, though everywhere else the waters prevail. The dove does not find, in a world to which the cross of Christ applies, any place of rest except in the risen Christ.

In the "olive leaf" we may see, I think, a type of the national revival of the nation of Israel, through whom the Gentile nations of the world are to be blessed in millennial times. But even then the waters of judgment will not be altogether dried off. It is not until the first heavens and earth pass away, and the great white-throne judgment takes place, that the new earth appears, where there are no waters of wrath.

The story of the flood, as we possess it in our Bibles, looked at in the light of the Cross, is not a narrative made up of various records, badly patched together, but a story marked by unity, in which all the parts fit together harmoniously, and gives us, what unbelief stumbles at, a " preaching of the Cross " that, to faith, is " the wisdom of God." In the light of this wisdom, how foolish is the learned criticism that sees nothing but inconsistency and conflicting statements ! C. C.