prejudiced observations, we too must inevitably make shipwreck. Solomon failed, even

though he retained the wisdom which was given him by God.  Are we wiser than

Solomon when we venture beyond the written Word?  We are so conscious of our

limited knowledge in view of these tremendous themes, that we dare not assume finality

in any one particular doctrine.  Our only hope is to keep absolutely loyal to what God

had said, and to remember that the moment we go beyond and supplement God's

revelation by our deductions and theories, the moment we criticize His right to hide as

well as to reveal, that moment we embark on a voyage chartless and rudderless, saved

from shipwreck only by a miracle of grace.

Yet one more consideration.

In Dan.x.21 and xi.2 there is a statement which is

worthy of careful study.

The angel proceeds to give a most marvellously detailed account, first of the events

which were about to take place within a comparatively short time of this announcement,

and then of the yet future events of the time of the end, or as he says in Dan.x.14, "Now I

am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days." The

point to which we would direct the reader's attention is that what the angel came to tell

Daniel was already "noted (writing, v.24,25; sign, vi.8,9) in the Scripture of truth." What

Scripture? The events foretold in Dan.11: are not found written in any of the Scriptures

which had been given up to the time of Daniel. If this be so, the expression suggests the

idea that there may be Scriptures of truth to which the angels have access, and that the

Scriptures which we possess contain selections, given by God at different intervals, from

that heavenly scroll which contains possibly ever so much more than we can as yet grasp.

The angels do not know everything. Principalities and powers are learning now, through

the church, the manifold wisdom of God.

We certainly do not possess a complete account of all God's purposes.  Dan.11:

shews us that He knew fully, and had recorded in the Scriptures to which the angel had

access the doings of the kings of Persia and of Greece. We are sure that His knowledge

was not limited in the least, and that He knew the complete course of the history of

Greece and Persia, although the Scriptures we have received do not treat of their histories

beyond the scope of the particular purpose for which they have been written. Our Bible

centres around Israel and Jerusalem.  Whenever a nation came into touch with Israel,

they came within the scope of revelation.  Is it not certain that the One who wrote the

history of Israel from start to finish could write the history of England or France equally

as well? Certainly, and for aught we know the Scriptures of truth from which the angel

took the small portion given in Dan.11: recorded the rise and fall of the Roman Empire,

and the complete histories of all the nations of the earth.

At once we see how limited the Scriptures really are, and that by divine appointment.

There are lines of truth which enter the sacred record in Genesis which commenced a

long way back before the record of Genesis begins. When we read that Satan abode not

in the truth, we have a statement which we believe, but we are all only too conscious that

the revelation is also exceedingly limited.  We do not know anything of Satan's sin or