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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE

BAMPTON LECTURES
FOR M.DCCC.LXIV.

OXFORD :
EY T. OOMBE, M.A., E. PICKAKD HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.
TIUNTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

THE

PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE
IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT,
CONSIDERED IN EIGHT LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
1864,
ON THE FOUNDATION OF
THE LATE EEV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.
CANON OF SALISBURY.
BY
THOMAS DEHANY BERNARD, M.A.
OF EXETER COLLEGE,
HECTOR OF WALOOT.

SECOND EDITION.

MACMILLAN AND CO.
M.DCCC.LXVI.

EXTRACT
FEOM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the
" Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of
" Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the
" said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and
" purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and
" appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox-
" ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents,
" issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations,
" and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re-
" mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser-
" mons, to be established for. ever in the said University, and
" to be performed in the manner following :
" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in
" Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
" of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining
" to the Printing- House, between the hours of ten in the
" morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
" Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox-
" ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent
" Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term.

Vi EXTRACT FEOM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL.
" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture
" Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Sub-
" jects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to
" confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine au-
" thority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the
" writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and prac-
" tice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord
" and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy
" Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre-
" hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec-
" ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months
" after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the
" Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of
" every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of
" Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ;
" and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the
" revenue of the Land or Estates given for estabhshing the
" Divinity Lecture Sermons j and the Preacher shall not be
" paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.
" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali-
" fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath
" taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the
" two Universities of Oxford pr Cambridge ; and that the
" same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser-
" mons twice."

PREFACE.

J.HE title given to these Lectures may perhaps suggest
different expectations as to their scope. It may appear to
some to announce an intention of drawing from the New
Testament materials for a historical enquiry into the growth
of christian doctrine, as it took place in the minds and
under the hands of the Apostles. To others it may indi
cate a purpose of shewing that the New Testament itself
exhibits a scheme of progressive doctrine, fashioned for
permanent and universal use. The Lectures will be found
to address themselves not to the first, but to the second
of these attempts; not examining the New Testament col
lection, in order to ascertain the chronological sequence of
fact, but contemplating it, as it is, for the purpose of ob
serving the actual sequence of thought. In so doing, we
are concerned, not only with the component parts of the
New Testament, but with the order in which they are
placed. On this subject some prefatory words are needed,
lest it should seem that the order here followed has been
adopted, merely because it comes naturally to us, as that
with which we are familiar in our own Bibles.

PREFACE.

When this particular arrangement of books, which may
be, and often have been, otherwise arranged, is treated as
involving a course of progressive teaching, it may seem
that an unwarrantable stress is laid on an accidental order,
which some may regard as little more than a habit of the
printer and the binder. The Lectures themselves ought to
give the answer to this idea; for if the familiar order does
exhibit a sequence of thought and a sustained advance of
doctrine, then the several documents are in their right
places, according to the highest kind of relation which
they can bear to each other; and if they had come into
our hands variously and promiscuously arranged, it would
yet be incumbent on one who would study them as a whole,
to place them before him in the same, or nearly the same,
order as that which they have actually assumed.
It will be seen that the importance here ascribed to the
order of the books is ascribed strongly to its chief divisions,
and more faintly to its details. The four Gospels, the Book
of Acts, the collection of Epistles, and the Apocalypse, are
regarded as severally exhibiting definite stages in the course
of divine teaching, which have a natural fitness to succeed
each other. Within these several divisions, the order of
the four Gospels is treated as having an evident doctrinal
significance (Lecture II.), and a certain measure of propriety
and fitness is attributed to the relative positions of the
Pauline and the Catholic Epistles, and again in a less
degree to that of the several Pauline Epistles themselves,
(Lecture VI.)
But while it belongs to the scope of the Lectures to
point out reasons of internal fitness for a certain arrange
ment of the books of the New Testament, it does not
enter into their design to discuss the subject on its other

PREFACE. IX
side, and to treat of the custom of the Church in re
gard to the order of the canon. Yet this is a point
on which, in some minds, enquiry will naturally arise,
and to them some short account of the state of the case
is due.
In speaking of the custom of the Church, it must first
be remembered, that the New Testament was not given
and received as one volume, but that it grew together by re
cognition and use. As the several books gradually coalesced
into unity, it might be expected that there would be many
varieties of arrangement, but that they would on the whole
tend to assume their relative places, according to the law
of internal fitness, rather than on any other principle which
might exercise a transient influence, as for instance that
of the relative dignity of the names of their authors, or
that of their chronological production or recognition. In
fact, this tendency shews itself at once, in the earliest
period to which our enquiries are carried back by extant
manuscripts, by catalogues of the sacred books given by
ancient writers, and by the habitual arrangement of the
oldest versions. A short summary of the testimony derived
from these sources is given in the first Note in the Ap
pendix, by reference to two writers whose works have laid
the Church under no common obligations'1. From that re
view of the case, it will be apparent that the order in
which we now read the books of the New Testament is
that which, on the whole, they have tended to assume ; and
that the general internal arrangement, by which the entire
-collection forms for us a consecutive course of teaching,
has been sufficiently recognised by the instinct, and fixed by
the habit, of the Church. » See Note I.

PREFACE.

It remains to add a word of explanation as to the method
in which the Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament
has been here treated. Two ways of handling the subject
may suggest themselves : one, that of exhibiting the gradual
development of particular doctrines, through successive stages
of. the divine course of instruction ; the other, that of
marking the characteristics and functions of those stages
themselves as parts of a progressive scheme. The first
method would be suited to the purpose of proving the fact
of the progress of doctrine : the second to the purpose of
shewing that that fact involves the unity of a divine plan, and
therefore the continuity of a divine authority. The latter
purpose appeared the more likely to be practically useful,
at least in the present day. The advanced character of the
doctrine in some books, as compared with others, is indeed
sufficiently obvious, and is not only admitted, but sometimes
exaggerated into a supposed incongruity, or even incon
sistency, in the views of the sacred writers. It was,
then, not the reality of the progress of doctrine, but the
true character of it, which seemed especially to solicit
attention; and in this point of view the subject is here
considered. It was in fact originally suggested by the strong disposition,
evinced by some eminent writers and preachers, to make a
broad separation between the words of the Lord and the
teaching of his Apostles, and to treat the definite statements
of doctrine in the Epistles, rather as individual varieties of
opinion on the revelation recorded in the Gospels, than as
the form in which the Lord Jesus has perfected for us the
one revelation of himself.
Such a habit of thought must frustrate the provision
which our great Teacher has made, for enduing those that

PREFACE. XI
believe on his name with the vigour of a distinct, and the
repose of a settled faith. One of the most effectual safe
guards against that danger will be found in an intelligent
appreciation of the progressive plan on which God has
taught us in his written Word : and if the view which is
taken in these Lectures of the range of New Testament
teaching should, in any quarter and in any measure, con
tribute to that end, the prayer which has been associated
with their preparation will have received its answer. In
all our works the first and the last resort is the thought
of that mercy which answers prayer. I have need to
revert to it now. One who has taken up a subject con
nected with the Holy Word, under a strong sense of the
usefulness which may belong to a due exposition of it, must
feel a proportionate sorrow in the review of an inadequate
treatment. But it is enough. The desires and the regrets
which attend our ministrations in the Lord's household are
better uttered to God than to man.
For one defect only it seems right to offer an excuse.
I think that many of the points, which in the Lectures
are necessarily touched in a cursory manner, ought to have
been more fully worked out and illustrated in Notes and
References : and it would certainly have been a satisfaction,
in rapidly skirting the confines of so many fields of recent
and laborious study, to borrow contributions from writers
by whom they have been thoroughly explored. Only a
few such additions have been made, as they occurred at
the moment. I may be allowed to plead that the circum
stances, in which I was placed during the preparation of
these Lectures, have made it impossible for me to do more.
Scarcely had this office been confided to me, before I was
called to enter on the careNof a parish of fifteen thousand

Xll PREFACE.
souls, the affairs of which required immediate, and have
compelled almost incessant attention. Of the effect of this
pressure of duties it will not be proper for me to say
more, than that it has caused the omission which is here
acknowledged.

ANALYSIS OF THE LECTUKES.

LECTURE I.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
St. John xvii. 8.
SUBJECT proposed. Its connection with the ministry of the word,
and with the present tendencies of thought.
I. Preliminary positions.
i. There is divine teaching in the New Testament — doctrine given
by the Father to the Son — by the Son to men. X.
2. The divine teaching coincides in extent with the New Testa-/ '/'*¦
ment. Not to be restricted to words of the Lord in the flesh .-j, >
Effect of such restriction. Forbidden by the Lord's words.
Not to be extended through the whole Christian age. Pro
gress of doctrine through all Church history — is a progress
of apprehension by man, not of communication by God.
No advance in divine teaching after the apostolic age ever
admitted by the Church.
3. The plan of the divine teaching is represented in the New
Testament. In what sense it can be said that it exhibits
a scheme of doctrine progressively developed.
II. Outlines of the subject.
1. Reality of the progress of doctrine. Visible in the Old Testa
ment — in the New Testament.

xiv ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT.
2. Stages in the progress of doctrine in the New Testament —
marked by Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Apocalypse.
3. Principles of the progress of doctrine in the New Testa
ment — constituted by the relations of the doctrine (a) to its
Author, (/3) to the facts on which it is founded, (y) to the
human mind, (8) of the several parts of the doctrine to
each other.
Survey of the New Testament as a progressive scheme, (pp. 1-32.)

LECTURE II.
THE GOSPELS.
St. Mark i. 1 .
The beginning of the Gospel. The whole life and ministry of Christ
on earth may be thus described — represented in the New Testament
by the four Gospels.
I. The Gospel Collection in its relation to the whole New Testament
forms the initiatory stage of a progressive plan. Fitted to this
place and function, as presenting the person of Christ. Effect of
the transparent style — of the fourfold repetition — of the fourfold
variation. Communication of personal knowledge of Jesus Christ
is the beginning of the Gospel.
II. The Gospel Collection in itself exhibits a progressive plan — (1) in
the division into two distinct stages ; (2) in the character of the
synoptic Gospels relatively to each other; (3) in the character
of St. John's Gospel relatively to the others. Unity of the whole
representation — one Lord Jesus Christ. Unity and progress in
the parts imply design in the whole — the Holy Ghost the de
signer.
The Gospel Collection, in its general effect, prepares us for further
teaching by creating the want, giving the pledge, depositing the material,
and providing the safeguard, (pp. 33-60.)

II-IV.J ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. XV
LECTURE III.
THE GOSPELS.
Heb. ii. 3.
The Lord himself the first Teacher. His personal teaching in the
Gospels is initiatory.
I. 1. Includes the substance of all christian doctrine. Its occasional cha
racter — but the occasions pre-ordained. Instances of pregnant
sayings. 2. Yet does not bear the character of finality, — a. in its form — /3. in
its method — y. in its substance — as moral teaching, full and
open, as revelation of a mystery, reserved and anticipatory.
The mystery being fundamental to the ethic, this reserve
creates the need of further teaching. Instances in the doc
trines of Forgiveness of sin and Acceptance in prayer.
II. 1. Is a visibly progressive system. Comparison of the first and the
last discourses, Matt, v-vii. and John xiv-xvii.
2 . Yet declares itself incomplete, and refers us to a subsequent stage
of teaching. -Transitional character of the last discourse.
Plain assertions of incompleteness. Promises of things to
be spoken after. The personal teaching of Christ to be
completed in the dispensation of the Spirit.
Saving purpose of the whole testimony, which only attains its end in,
those who " have life through his name." (pp. 61-89.)

LECTURE IV.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Acts i. 1-4.
The Gospels and the Acts linked together as parts of one scheme—
the one commencing, the other continuing, the teaching of Jesus
Christ. Two points to be observed in the second stage of divine teaching
in the New Testament.

Xvi ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT.
I. The Teacher is the same. Evidence of this. The Book of Acts is
a record of the personal action of the Lord Jesus in the per
fecting of his word and the formation of his Church. The
method of this action : —
1. Special interventions. Survey of these. Given at critical
moments, and at the steps _of [progress — particularly in the
history of St. Paul. Relations of the course of action to
the course of doctrine, — as the pledge of its authority —
as the means of its completion. Testimony of the Epistles
to this personal action of the Lord in the progress of
doctrine. St. Paul's statements as to the sources of his
doctrine.
2. Habitual guidance of the Apostles by the Holy Ghost. Nature
of the gift at Pentecost — shewn, from the promise, from the
facts, and from the testimony of the Apostles, to have involved
the Gospel itself. Hence a divine authority attaches to the
whole Apostolic teaching, in its interpretations and inferences
as well as in its witness of facts.
II. The method is changed. Reason for the change. The change is a
sign and means of progress. The history of salvation being finished,
must be followed by the interpretation of it, and by the exhibition
of its effects in human consciousness. This is achieved by the
change in the method of divine teaching, signified by the words,
" He dwelleth with you and shall be in you." Action of the
indwelling Spirit to be distinguished according to its purpose — in
the founders of the Church to communicate truth — in the mem
bers of the Church to receive it. (pp. 90-119.)
LECTURE V.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Acts v. 42.
Further questions to be answered by the Book of Acts. Its purpose to
answer them. Character and scheme of the Book. Its place and function
in the evolution of doctrine.
I. It gives the general character of the christian doctrine in its second
stage.

V, VI. j ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. Xvii
I. A preaching of Christ. Comparison of the preaching recorded
in the Gospels and that recorded in the Acts — the one of the
kingdom, the other of the person. The difference in the
preaching accounts for the difference in. the effect.
2. A preaching of the work of Christ, in its main features and their
results — of his death as the source of forgiveness, of his resur
rection as the source of life. Progress of doctrine in the sum
ming up and exposition of the past.
II. It gives the course of events through which the doctrine was matured.
Outlines of the history in this point of view. The doctrine cleared
and formed in the course of this history, chiefly in respect of two
principles: a. The Gospel is the substitute for the Law — Jewish
theory of the Law — Judaising attempts negatived and superseded ;
|3. The Gospel is the heir of the Law — inheriting its ideas and its
Scriptures. St. Paul's conflict for these positions. Largeness of
the results deduced from them in the Epistles.
Value of a divine summing up of the meaning and effects of the mani
festation of Christ, (pp. 120-147.)

LECTURE yi,
THE EPISTLES. ,
Rom. i. 17.
Marks of the continuity of doctrine, in passing from the Acts to the
Epistles. The point at which the Book of Acts leaves us — it has pre
sented the Gospel as a system, but 1. in its external aspect — all the dis
courses in the Book are addressed to those who are not yet Christians ;
2. as a doctrine in outline — coextensive with the Apostles' Creed.
Need of further divine teaching. The Epistles are the voice of the
Spirit within the Church to those who are within it — presenting the internal
aspect of the Gospel, and filling up its outlines by perfecting the christian
faith and educating the christian life.
The Epistles are fitted for this work by their
I. Form. The Epistolary form peculiar to the New Testament — indi
cates fellowship — addresses itself to actual life; and various
conditions of mind. b

xviii ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT.
II. Method. One of reasoning, interpretation of Old Testament Scrip
tures, utterance of personal feelings and convictions — is a
method of association rather than of authority, of education
rather than of information, yet pervaded by authority, and
blended with direct revelation.
III. Authorship. Chiefly that of St. Paul, who had not been with
Jesus and was born out of due time. Inference, that these
writings form a stage of doctrine in advance of that in the
Gospels, as shewing the results of the manifestation of Christ.
The same kind of teaching in the Catholic Epistles, by four
other authors, chosen representatives of the Twelve.
IV. Relative characters, (i) St. Paul's Epistles, grouped and cha
racterised, form a body of doctrine. (2) Need and effect of the
Epistle to the Hebrews. (3) The Catholic Epistles confirma
tory and supplementary.
The Epistles a provision for the exigencies of the christian life. The
exigencies must be known — the provision must be used. (pp. 148-178.)

LECTURE VII.
THE EPISTLES.
1 Cor. i. 30.
The doctrine in the Epistles, as a stage in advance of the doctrine in the
preceding books, is distinguished by
I. Its general character — a doctrine of the life in Christ — shews the fulfil
ment, and gives the interpretation, of the promise, "At that day ye
shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you."
Discrimination of the points in the promise. In the Epistles all
things are " in Christ Jesus." Need of a correspondence with this
character in our own habit of mind.
II. Particular doctrines as affected by this general character. Examples.
(1) Doctrine of salvation — in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Increased
definiteness, especially as to the consciousness of atonement and
redemption. (2) Doctrine of adoption — in the Gospels — in the

VII, VIII.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. xix
Epistles. The form of it fuller — the ground of it clearer. A new
sense of it from the gift of the Spirit. (3) Doctrine of worship —
in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Plainer revelation of access by
sacrifice — by mediation — in the Holy Ghost. (4) Ethical doctrine
— in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Advanced to a higher point by
the knowledge of higher relations, motives, and powers found " in
Christ Jesus."
Retrospect of the course of doctrine — its unity, and progress. Our per
sonal duty in regard to it. (pp. 179 — 204.)

LECTURE VIII.
THE APOCALYPSE.
Rev. xxi. %.
The Apocalypse fulfils the promise, " He shall shew you things to come"
— and completes the line of history and prophecy. Is related to the last
discourse in St. Matthew, as the Epistles are to that in St. John. The
Lord himself is still the revealer.
Connection between the progress of prophecy and the progress of
doctrine. Doctrinal bearing of the book in
I. The want which it supposes — concerned with the destinies of the body,
the Church. The corporate life distinguished from the individual
life in the Epistles. Contrast between the ideal character of the
Church and the indications of its actual history. In the later
Epistles the tokens and revelations of the future grow darker.
Thus a want has been created which demands a further word of
God. State of mind to which the Book is addressed.
II. The satisfaction which it provides — as being a doctrine of consum
mation. 1. A doctrine of the Cause of the consummation. The personal
salvation of the individual and the general salvation of the
Church have the same ground, namely, the Atoning Sacri
fice, — implied by "the Lamb," as the Apocalyptic name of
Christ.

XX ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [KECT. VTII.
2. A doctrine of the History of the consummation — shewing the
inner nature of events — by connecting things seen with things
not seen — by presenting the earth as the battlefield of spiritual
powers.
3. A doctrine of the Coming of the Lord— the announcement of
this Is the keynote of the Book — all else a part of this. In
the Epistles the coming is connected chiefly with the personal
life — here with the corporate life — as the close of the world's
history.
4. A doctrine of Victory — completes the teaching of the Epistles on
the victory of the Lord — and of his people.
5. A doctrine of Judgment. " The Prince of this world is judged."
Judgment of the usurping Power — of the world — of nations —
of persons.
6. A doctrine of Restoration. There is to be a perfect humanity.
Humanity only perfect in society. The city a type of society
in its maturity. Failure of earthly societies to realise the ideal.
Realisation promised in the Bible. Need of the final vision to
complete the teaching of God. The Bible an account of the
preparation of the City of God — by expectation, prophecy, and
type- — by the reconstitution of men's relations to God, and to
each other — both effected by the Gospel. Other systems have
despaired of human society. Completeness of the Bible in
providing for the perfection of man, in a corporate as well as
a personal life.
Final survey of the progressive teaching of the New Testament in its
several stages, represented by the — Gospels — Acts — Epistles — Apocalypse.
Fitness of this survey to increase the sense that the doctrine is not of
the world — and the confidence that it is of God. (pp. 205 — 235.)

LECTURE I.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
St. John xvii. 8.
I have given unto them the words which thou gavesi me.
UN the truth of this saying stands the whole
fabric of creeds and doctrines. It is the ground of
authority to the preacher, of assurance to the be
liever, of existence to the Church. It is the source
froin which the perpetual stream of christian teach
ing flows. All our testimonies, instructions, ex
hortations derive their first origin and continuous
power from the fact that the Father has .given to
the Son, the Son has given to his servants, the
words of truth and life.
I am now called, not so much to preach the
words thus given to us, as to enquire concerning
them. It is a secondary and subsidiary ministry.
Our first charge is, "Go stand and speak in the
temple to the people all the words of this life."
We go ; and our words not only meet the "vyantsi
B

2 LECTURE I.
of conscience, but stir the activities of thought ;
and a cloud of questions rises round us, which must
be dissipated while it is gathering, but which will
still gather while it is being dissipated. Thus the
preaching of the words of life to the people is
evermore attended by an incidental necessity for
extensive and various discussion.
The institution of these Lectures is a testimony to
that necessity, and a testimony also to the relation
which such discussion bears, to the main object for
which the Word was given. For if this pulpit
is devoted on these occasions to the deliberate
treatment of some particular question, that is only
on account of the bearing which such questions
may have on the work which the Church fulfils
in testifying the Gospel of the grace of God.
More especially is it fitting that one, who is
habitually engaged in the work of preaching and
teaching, should keep as near as he can to this
ultimate practical aim. Therefore, invoking the
guidance of God, I shall submit to you some
considerations on the progress of doctrine in the
New Testament, a subject which on the one side
touches the living ministry of the Church at its
very heart, and on the other is specially affected
by the present tendencies of sacred criticism.
Into all our parishes and all our missions the
thousands of evangelists, pastors, and teachers are
sent forth with the Bible placed in their hands,
and with solemn charges to draw from its pages
the gospel which they preach. But when those

LECTURE I. 3
pages are opened, they present, not the exposition
of a revelation completed, but the records of a
revelation in progress. Its parts and features are
seen, not as arranged after their development, but
as arranging themselves in the course of their
development, and growing, through stages which
can be marked, and by accessions which can be
measured, into the perfect form which they attain
at last. Thus the Bible includes within itself a
world of anticipation and retrospection, of prepara
tion and completion, whereby various and vital
relations are constituted between its several parts.
These relations enter as really into the scheme of
Scripture as do the several parts themselves ; and
must be rightly understood and duly appreciated,
if the doctrine, which the Book yields upon the
whole, is to be firmly grasped by the student or
fairly presented by the preacher.
In this way the subject of progressive teaching
in Scripture is implicated with the living ministry
of the Church. How it is affected by the present
tendencies of sacred criticism there is no need to
explain, for it is known to all that the studies of our.
day are directed to a minute and laborious examina
tion of the internal characteristics of the books of
Scripture, and more particularly of their mutual
relations, and of the differences of doctrine both in
amount and form which they exhibit on comparison
with each other. Notwithstanding all reasons for
anxiety, sometimes even for grief and indignation,
which we may find in the actual handling of the
B 2

4 LECTURE L
subject, we have cause to be thankful that the
progressive character of revelation is thus coming
more distinctly before the mind of the Church. In
regard to any subject the observation of successive
stages of design must be expected ultimately to
conduce to a more thorough comprehension of the
thing designed, and will also naturally tend to place
the observer in closer contact with the mind of the
designer. So will it be with the written word.
Only a part of the general subject is before us
now. We shall be occupied with the last stage
through which the revelation of God was perfected,
as exhibited in the canonical books of the New
Testament. But though only a part of a larger
subject, this is itself one of great extent and various
aspect, and on this account some preliminary words
are necessary, in order to fix the point of view from
which it will be regarded. I shall therefore devote
the chief part of this introductory lecture to secure
for myself the following positions.
i. That by doctrine shall be here meant divine
teaching, or truth as communicated by God.
2. That the course of divine teaching under the
christian dispensation shall be considered to coincide
in extent with the New Testament Scriptures.
3. That the relative character and actual order
of the parts of the New Testament shall be taken,
as adequately representing the progressive plan on
which this course of divine teaching was perfected.
When I have strengthened these positions by
such explanations as time will allow, I will close

LECTURE L 5
this introduction of the subject, by pointing out
that the progressive system of teaching in the New
Testament is an obvious fact, that it is marked by
distinct stages, and that it is determined by natural
principles. I. I. First, then, I assume that the doctrine here
spoken of is divine teaching, and that by its pro
gress is meant a systematic advance in its commu
nication from God.
That some doctrine contained in the New Testa
ment must be thus characterized,, we are assured
by the assertion of the Lord Jesus in the text : " I
have given unto them the words which thou gavest
me." Words then have been given to men, which,
not only in their original source, but in their inter
mediate channel, are absolutely and incontestably
divine. Over and above those discoveries of the
mind of God which are contained in the natural
order of things, and which we may discern by an
intuitive faculty or infer by a reasoning process, we
have that, which, in the clearest, fullest, strongest
sense, must be called the " word of God." Nay, he
has not only given us a word; he has done more,
he has given us words (py/mara), separate, articulate,
definite communications, each as truly divine as is
the whole word which they compose. Such words
of God were spoken of in old time as " coming to"
particular persons, who were to be the messengers
of those words to others. The Prophets testified,
when they spoke, that " the word of the Lord came
to them ; " and the testimony was authenticated of

6 LECTURE L
God and accepted of men. But the communications
made through them were only introductory. " In
sundry parts and in divers ways God having spoken
of old to the Fathers in the Prophets, at the end of
these days spake to us in his Son." Those to whom
the word of God came were succeeded by him who is
himself the " Word of God." He became man, and
stood Jforth as the one real and eternal Prophet, the
medium of communication between the mind of God
and the mind of man. Then he was in the world,
but he " was in heaven," in the concourse of men tut
" in the bosom of his Father." His flesh was as a veil
between the two worlds, and he who dwelt in it read
on the one side the secrets of the Most Holy, and on
the other presented them to the apprehensions of
mankind. On the one side he received, on the other
he gave. He shewed to the world the works which
he had seen with his Father ; he spoke to the world
the words which he had heard with his Father ; and
in closing his personal teaching in the flesh, he lifted
up his eyes to heaven, and said, " I have given unto
them the words which thou gavest me." Imagination
itself can go no farther. If we asked for assurance
that men had really received the words of God, it
would be impossible to conceive a higher authority,
a more plain assertion, or a more unqualified state
ment. On this point I heed say no more. My only
purpose in touching it has been to refresh in your
minds the remembrance, that the doctrine about
which we enquire is, in some part of it at least, truly
and incontestably divine.

LECTURE L 7
2. More perhaps needs to be said in order to jus
tify the next step which I would take, in the assump
tion that the course of this divine teaching coincides
in extent with the Scriptures of the New Testament.
Have I the right to extend the course of divine
teaching so far 1 If so, have I the right to refuse
to extend it farther ? At first sight the text might
suggest that the character of doctrine, which has
been just asserted, should be limited to the words
spoken by the lips of the Lord Jesus when on earth.
If we pass beyond this, and include words spoken by
the lips of men, we may seem compelled to extend
our thoughts to a progress of doctrine carried on to
the end of time. In neither of these cases will the
course of the divine communication of christian truth
coincide with the extent of the New Testament. In
the one case it will be comprised in the Gospels
alone, which leave us some of their most peculiar
doctrines only in short summaries or pregnant germs ;
in the other case it may be prolonged through an
indefinite series of accessions, which will always leave
the Church in doubt, as to what the faith delivered
to it is, and still more in doubt as to what it may
hereafter turn out to be.
What then are the words to which the description
in the text applies ? or rather, within what limits
shall we seek them %
Undoubtedly the Lord speaks of all the words
which he had already uttered to those disciples as
their teacher in the days of his flesh. But is
the saying true only of those words % Is it to be

8 LECTURE L
restricted to that stage of teaching which had then
reached its conclusion, and of which at the time the
assertion might seem to be made 1 Or is it also true
of other words 1 words for instance which he gave
after he was risen 1 or, again, words which he gave
after he was glorified 1
To those who would study the evolution of doc
trine in the New Testament this question is of
vital importance, for if, after we have passed the
first stage of teaching, the authority which we re
cognised there is withdrawn, our treatment of the
subsequent teaching must be conducted in an altered
spirit and on other principles. Having bowed in
silence before the Divine Teacher, we shall recover
our freedom of opinion when we are left with his
followers. Only at . first shall we tread securely on
the rock : we must then look well to our steps, and
be free to choose our path among the irregularities
and uncertainties of a more shifting soil ; for we
shall pass from words which the Son of God gave
to men, to the expansions of those words and the
deductions from them which the men who first
received them have given to us. Our study of the
progress of doctrine within the limits of the New
Testament would thus be entirely changed in its
character, as we passed from the Gospels to the
subsequent books. Only in the first stage would
the progress of doctrine bear the meaning of the
progress of its communication by God. In the
second stage it could but signify the progress of its
apprehension by men. The Acts and Epistles would

LECTURE I. 9
thus form only the first , chapter of the history of
the Church, separated from its subsequent chapters
by a much narrower interval than that which marks
them off from the Gospels which precede them.
They would in fact be simply specimens of human
apprehensions of divine truth ; specimens of singular
value, because produced under peculiar advantages ;
but yet, like any other individual apprehensions,
modified by the personal character and historical posi
tion of those who formed them. They would there
fore be liable to such deductions on these accounts as
historical criticism might suggest, and would remain
rather as warrants for various explications by other
minds and in other ages, than as fixed canons of the
truth for ever.
I ask then whether the giving of the words of
God was completed when the text was uttered, or
whether there was a distinct part of the process
yet to come 1
The discourse in which the saying occurs has
supplied the answer. Its distinctive character is
that of transition, closing the past but opening
the future, representing a later stage of teaching
as the predestined completion of the earlier, and
cementing both into one, by asserting for both the
same source, and diffusing over both the same
authority. This function in the progress of divine
teaching, which belongs to the discourse in the 14th,
15th, and 1 6th chapters of St. John, must come more
distinctly into view at a later stage of our enquiry,
It is now sufficient to refer to it in passing, as

10 LECTURE I.
7 * .
' an evidence that the very words, of which the text
specifically and indubitably speaks, include the asser
tion of the same divine gift and authority for other
teaching which was yet to come.
Thus we stand on the declaration of the giver
of the word himself, when we consider the progress
of christian doctrine in its communication from God
as extending, not only over one stage in which it was
delivered by the Lord in the flesh, but through a
second stage in which it was delivered by the same
Lord through the Spirit. It might indeed have
seemed natural, at the point where the voice of Jesus
ceases, to draw the line which should terminate the
words which were given by the Father to the Son,
and by the Son were given to men, a fine of broad
demarcation, separating those words from all others
whatever. But that very voice forbad the act, and
admonished us that, when it should seem to have
ceased, it must yet be recognised as carrying on the
course of communications which were not then com
plete. I now say no more on this important point,
because a clear understanding upon it ought to be
one of the chief results of the enquiry which lies
before me.
But a second question is waiting for me now. If
I see that the proposal to restrict the divine au
thority to the communications of the Lord's own lips
has been negatived by himself, I am left to extend
that authority to communications from the lips of
men. Then where am I to stop 1 Am I any longer
within the limits of the New Testament ? I have

LECTURE I. 11
looked forth on the ocean. Am I, or am I not,
actually launched upon it 1 I am compelled to turn
towards the vast and confusing prospect, in order
to mark the limits within which I claim the right
to remain.
Now if the second part of the New Testament
simply rehearsed to us certain definite revelations,
which the writers alleged that they had received,
no difficulty would exist. Their testimony to these
would be on the same footing (or nearly so) with
the testimony of the Evangelists as to the discourses
of our Lord. But this is not their method. We have
the revealed truth presented to us in the Epistles,
not only as a communication from God, but also as
an apprehension by man. The great transition from
the one stage to the other is exhibited before our
eyes as already effected. We have the gospel, as it
existed in* the mind of Peter and of Paul, of James
and of John. It is thus presented to us in combina
tion with the processes of human thought and the
variations of human feelings, in association with
peculiarities of individual character, and in the course
of its more perfect elaboration through the exigencies
of events and controversies.
But is not this account of the second part of the
New Testament also the account of the whole sub
sequent history of doctrine in the world; that is, of
Church history in its essential and inward character 1
Certainly it is so ; and therefore the Acts and the
Epistles stand to the ecclesiastical historian as the
first chapters of his work, for there he already finds

12 LECTURE I.
the aspects which the revealed truth bears to human
minds and assumes in human hands, and the manner
in which its parts and proportions come to be dis
tinctly exhibited through the agency of men and the
instrumentality of facts. And this is a process which
goes on through descending ages, and in which every
generation bears its part. It has gained accessions
from all those varieties of the human mind which
have been placed in contact with revealed truth, from
the idiosyncrasies of persons, of nations, of ages, from
Fathers and Councils, from controversies and heresies,
from Hellenist, Alexandrian, and Roman forms of
thought, from the mind of the East and the mind of
the West, from corruptions and reformations of reli
gion, from Italy and England, from Germany and
Geneva, from authority and enquiry, from Church
and Dissent. These words and others like them re
present the varying measures of apprehension, and
the varying kinds of expression, which the gospel
revelation has found among men. The " develop
ments of doctrine," (to use a word which some time
since was very familiar to many of us) — the develop
ments of doctrine thus originated were the joint pro
duct of the revealed truth and the condition of the
mind which received it. The revealed truth was
one, but the conditions of the human mind are in
finitely various, and hence an endless variety in the
developments themselves,-^a variety which some
times melts into a higher harmony, but more often;
jars on our ears in irreconcilable discord.
I am not here concerned with the degrees in which

LECTURE I. 13
different developments have represented or perverted
truth, and in which they have more conspicuously
exhibited the element of the divine truth or that of
the human infirmity. I would only observe that
through all this confusion there is in some sense a
progress of doctrine. Even by misapprehensions and
perversions the relations of the Word to the human
mind are more perfectly disclosed. In partial sys
tems of religion those parts of the entire scheme
which they have more particularly adopted often
come to be seen under a stronger light. But espe
cially it is evident that certain great features of truth
emerge from periods of conflict and the driving mists
of controversy, and swell upon the sight with outlines
more defined and a power more recognised than had
seemed to belong to them before. The names of
Athanasius, Augustine, and Luther recall in a mo
ment some of the most obvious examples of this fact,
in regard to the doctrines of the Nature of Christ, of
Original Sin, and of Justification by Faith.
There were periods then at which these doctrines
stood forth with a vividness, precision, and force,
which gave them as it were a new place in the appre
hensions of men, affecting of course by their increased
definiteness and expansion the proportions of the
whole body of truth. These however are only pro
minent instances of a general and continuous fact.
Every age, every Church, every sect, every contro
versy, in some way or other contributes something to
the working out, the testing, or the illustrating of
some part of the revelation of God. Our English

14 LECTURE 1.
mind has borne its part, and the religious movements
of our own day will deposit some residuum of mate
rials for future thought and knowledge. Our mis
sionary efforts will, in this respect also, have results
of their own, and Christianity in India or in China,
when it has in some degree lost its English type,
and entered into full relations with the peculiar
minds of those peculiar races, will perhaps make as
distinct additions to the history of doctrine, as we
recognise in passing from the theology of the Eastern
to that of the Western Church. The history upon
the whole both has been and will be a long disclosure
of the perverse tendencies and infirm capacities of
man. Yet a special providence over the Church and
the living Spirit in it has been proved as well as
promised : and he who looks back upon the tortuous
and agitated course of thought, perceives that the
truth is not only preserved, but in some sense ad
vanced, the definitions of it becoming more exact,
the construction of it more systematic, and the de
ductions from it more numerous.
Thus the history of the apprehension of Christian
truth by man, which commences within the New Tes
tament, is continued in the history of the Church to
the end of time ; and still, while it is continued, it
is in some sort a history of progress, and one in which
the Spirit of God mingles, and which the providence
of God moulds.
What then* is it which draws the line of separa
tion between the apostolic period and all the subse
quent periods of this history \ It is this — That the

LECTURE L 16
apostolic period is not only a part of the history of
the apprehension of truth b.y man : it is also a part
of the history of the communication of truth by God.
It is the first stage of the one, and the last stage of
the other. The aspect which the Gospel bears in the
writings of the Apostles is a communication from
God of what it really is, a revelation of what he in
tended that it should be in the minds of men for
ever. This character of the apostolic writings has,
without variation of testimony, been acknowledged
by the Church from the beginning ; but this acknow
ledgment has been confined to these writings, and
has never been extended to subsequent expositions
pr decrees. Councils and doctors have claimed a
right to be heard, only as asserters and witnesses of
apostolic teaching. No later communications from
heaven are supposed or alleged. What has been
handed down, — what is collected out of the writings
of the Apostles, — is the professed authority for all
definitions and decrees ; and all reference to (what
may appear to be) other authority is based upon the
fact, asserted or implied, that in the quarters ap
pealed to there was reason to recognise some special
connection with the apostolic teaching. This fact,
moreover, comes out most clearly at those moments
in which (what might be called) an advance of doc
trine is seen most evidently to take place. If the
doctrine of the Nature of Christ shews a new dis
tinctness and firmness of outline after Nice and
Constantinople, yet that form of the doctrine pro
fesses to be, and when examined proves to be, only

16 LECTURE L
a formal definition of the original truth. Nothing
new has been imported into it ; only fresh verbal
barriers have excluded importations which were
really new. If the doctrine of Justification by Faith
seems, at the era of the Reformation, like a new
apparition on the scene, yet it is advanced, and is
received, only as the old Pauline doctrine reasserting
its forgotten claims.
Even palpable innovations have supported their
pretensions by the plea of an imaginary tradition,
descending from the days when it was confessed that
the communications of God had been completed. Our
own days have seen fresh evidence of the tenacity
with which the Romish Church holds to this theorv,
while making that last addition to the articles of the
faith which seemed to imply that it was abandoned.
Then, when the pretence of a tradition appeared to
have finally given way under the ever accumulating
mass of novelties, minds accustomed to the logic of
facts began to cast about for some other theory,
which should admit of being reconciled with them.
The exposition of such a theory began in this pulpit,
and was completed in the communion into which
its author speedily passed. It was a theory which
virtually claimed for the Church the power to create
new doctrine, instead of a mere authority to deter
mine what was old. But the claim could not secure
adoption, though it had been boldly acted upon,
and seemed necessary to the controversial position of
Rome. The settled sense of Christendom as to the
revelation of the truth was not to be violated.

LECTURE I. IT
Newly-" defined" doctrines were still to be pronounced
true and necessary on the ground that they had been
held by the Apostles, though no evidence of that fact
survived, and that they had been handed down by
tradition, though no trace of the tradition could be
found. The gift thus ascribed to the " Infallible Au
thority" was not an inspiration to know the truth of
new doctrines, but a revelation of the fact that they
were old. The new position has been in fact aban
doned by those who offered, but have not been suf
fered to hold ita ; and we are still able to say, that
only in transient moments of enthusiasm, and by
some insignificant and eccentric sects, has there been
any definite allegation, that doctrinal communications
from God have been received since the last Apostle
died. The sum of what has been said is this. (First),
There are words (definite doctrinal communications)
of which it is said by the Lord Jesus, " The words
which thou gavest me I have given them." (Secondly),
These words are not only those which he spake
with his lips in the days of his flesh ; they include
other words, afterwards given through men in the
Spirit, during a period of time which is represented
to us by the books of the New Testament. (Thirdly),
Those words were finished in that period, and have
received no subsequent additions. The description
in the text not only cannot be shewn to belong, but
has never been supposed to belong, to any words
which have been spoken since.
a See Note II.

18 LECTURE I.
On these three points the judgment of the Church
has been all but universal and unchanging. In
speaking therefore of progress of doctrine in the
New Testament, I speak of a course of communica
tion from God which reaches its completion within
those limits, constituting a perfected scheme of divine
teaching, open to new elucidations and deductions,
but not to the addition of new materials.
3. The books of the New Testament are the form
into which this divine teaching has been thrown for
permanent and universal purposes, and by the will of
God they constitute the only representation of it for
all men and for ever. I have now to add that they
give the representation, not only of its substance,
but also of the plan on which it was progressively
matured. It must here be remarked that there are two ways
in which we may exhibit the progressive develop
ment of any system of things, whether it be a
scheme of religious doctrine, a science, a political
constitution, or anything else which has completed
itself by degrees — one of which may be characterized
as the historical, the other as the constructive method.
In the one case we enquire after, the exact succession
of events through which the result was reached ;
in the other we discriminate the stages of advance
in the result itself. The representation of progress
made in the one case would be regulated simply by
the order of fact, while that which would be pro
duced in the other would be rather governed by the
order of thought. Now if we consider the New

LECTURE I. 19
Testament as representing a progressive development
of doctrine, it is so in the latter sense more than in
the former. It is rather a constructive than a simply
historical representation For instance, in the de
velopment of the manifestation of Christ in the
flesh, the words and deeds recorded by St. John
must be restored, on the historic principle, to their
proper places, in the actual order of events ; on the
constructive principle, they properly coalesce into a
separate whole, as bringing out a view of that mani
festation, which is an advance in the order of thought
upon the view which the synoptic Gospels present.
So in a historic representation of the formation of
apostolical doctrine we should have to trace -the
successive steps and occasions of its advance,: to
secure the exact chronological arrangement of St.
Paul's Epistles, and to insert them in their several
places in the narrative of his labours. On the other
hand, the purposes of a constructive representation
may be better served by keeping the records of the
external activity of the Church separate from its
directly doctrinal writings, or by placing those doc
trinal writings in a different order from that of their
chronological production. Thus the New Testament,
as a whole, presents to us a course of teaching on the
• • • * ¦
constructive rather than on the historic principle ;
and it is in this sense that I propose to take the
book as an adequate representation, not only of the
substance of the divine teaching, but of the plan and
order of its progress.
It may be said, that there is a difference between
c 2

20 LECTURE I.
the progress of doctrine as it actually was during the
time which the New Testament covers, and the repre
sentation of it which we have in those particular
writings. Yes ! and there would be a difference
between the actual course of some important enter
prise, — say, of a military campaign for instance, —
and the abbreviated narrative, the selected docu
ments, and the well-considered arrangement, by
which its conductor might make the plan and ex
ecution of it clear to others. In such a case the
man who read would have a more perfect under
standing of the mind of the actor and the author
than the man who saw ; he would have the whole
course of things mapped out for him on the true
principles of order. Such is the position of every
reader of the New Testament, who accounts that the
Lord, by whom the historical development of truth
was guided, is also the virtual author of that repre
sentation of it which lies before him.
We have not then to make out a chart from
materials given to us, but to study one which is
already made. Tracing the course of doctrine as it
is seen to advance through those pages, we shall
have no need to reconstruct for ourselves the actual
order in which the truth was historically developed.
Whatever were the measures and gradations by
which it was opened out to the Church at first, here
are the measures and gradations by which it is
opened out to the Church for ever. Indeed, the
plan on which the Lord perfected his promised
teaching was one which could only be seen in

LECTURE I. 21
retrospect. Conducted through the medium of per
sons and events, and by the use of local occasions,
the method of procedure must at the time have very
imperfectly disclosed its real system and coherence.
Parts of the truth for instance were being cleared and
settled in some Churches, which perhaps were scarcely
enquired for in others, yet the decision was of the
Lord, and destined for the whole body. A transient
occasion demanded the interference of a particular
Apostle, and through his sentence was given some
fundamental and eternal principle. Among all that
was done and written and said, in that scene of in
tense activity and incessant movement which the
apostolic writings open to us, it would have been
hard indeed at the time to follow with steady eye
the great lines of advancing doctrine, and to single
out the acts and documents which would adequately
represent the results secured. Only when these
results had been firmly deposited in the Church,
could the successive contributions of the divine
teaching be recognised, and their relative order dis
cerned. To exhibit this plan of things there was
need, not of a mass of accidental records, but of
a body of records selected and arranged. It might
seem that we had no right to attribute such a
character as this to a collection of writings which
-are upon the face of them independent and occa
sional. Yet it is certain that, when taken as a whole,
this is its effect, and that it makes upon the mind
the impression of unity and design. He who reads
through the Koran, (albeit the work of a single

22 LECTURE I.
author,) finds himself oppressed, as by a shapeless
mass of accidental accretions. He who reads through
the New Testament finds himself educated as by an
orderly scheme of advancing doctrine. The several
books seem to have grown into their places as com
ponent parts of an organic whole ; and " the New
Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"
lies before us as an account of a perfected revelation,
and a course of divine teaching designed and pre
pared by one presiding mind.
II. Having now accomplished the preliminary
steps, I will close this introductory Lecture by
pointing out the reality of the progress of which I
speak, the stages through which it is perfected, and
the principles by which it is regulated.
i. The reality of this progress is very visible ; and
more especially so when we regard the New Testa
ment as the last stage of that progressive teaching
which is carried on through the Scriptures as a
whole. Glance from the first words to the last, " In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
— "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." How much lies
between these two ! The one the first rudiment of
revelation addressed to the earliest and simplest
consciousness of man, that, namely, which comes to
him through his senses, the consciousness of the
material world which lies in its grandeur round him :
the other the last cry from within, the voice of the
heart of man, such as the intervening teaching . has
made it ; the expression of the definite faith which
has been found, and of the certain hope which has

LECTURE L 23
been left, by the whole revelation of God. The
course of teaching which carries us from the one to
the other is progressive throughout, but with differ
ent rates of progress in the two great stages which
divide it. In the Old Testament the progress is
protracted, interrupted, often languid, sometimes so
dubious as to seem like retrogression. Accessions
take place in sundry parts, in divers manners, at
times under disguises of earthly forms, seeming to
suggest mistakes, which have to be themselves cor
rected. Yet through it all the doctrine grows, and the
revelation draws nearer to the great disclosure. Then
there is entire suspension. We turn the vacant page
which represents the silence of 400 years, — and we
are in the New Testament.
Now again there is progress, but rapid and un
broken. Our steps before were centuries ; now they
are but years. From the manger of Bethlehem on
earth to the city of God coming down from heaven
the great scheme of things unrolls before us, without
a check, without a break. It is in harmony with
processes of nature and with human feelings, that
preparations should be slowly matured, but that final
results should rapidly unfold. When life becomes
intense it can no more endure delays, or develop
itself by languid progression. The root was long
before it shewed the token of its presence, the stem
and leaves grew slowly, but yesterday the bud
emerged from its sheath, and to-day it is expanded
in the flower. A swift course of events, the period
of one human life, a few contemporary writers have

24 LECTURE I.
given us all the gospel that we need to know under
our present dispensation, all that we shall ever know
till Jesus comes again.
But there is, as has been observed, a plan of pro
gress though its course is swift, and I would take
note first of its stages and then of its principles.
2. Its stages I do not now examine ; but just mark
them off as they catch the eye. First we are con
ducted through the manifestation of Christ in the
flesh : we see and hear and learn to know the living
person, who is at once the source and the subject of
all the doctrine of which we speak. He is presented
as the source of doctrine, delivering with his own lips
the first Christian instructions, the first preaching of
a present gospel and the pregnant principles of truth.
He is presented as the subject of doctrine, for it is
himself that he offers to us by word and deed as the
object of our faith, and the events which we see ac
complished in his earthly history are the predestined
substance of all subsequent instruction. But within
this stage of learning there is not only continuous
development by the course of events and accumu
lation of facts, but at a certain point a great change
occurs, which is visible to every eye. It is the point
where we pass from the synoptic Gospels and come
under the teaching of St. John. Now we rise to
heaven, and go back to " the beginning,'' and set forth
from " the bosom of the Father." Now we are taught
to recognise the glory of the person of Christ, with
a consciousness not changed but more distinct, with
acknowledgments not new but more articulate. In

LECTURE L 25
the former Gospels we have walked with him in the
common paths of life ; in this we seem to have joined
him on " the holy mount." It is almost like the
change which was witnessed by the three disciples,
who had walked conversing by his side, and then
suddenly saw his countenance altered and his raiment
white and glistering. Such is the effect upon our
minds, not merely of the last Evangelist's own expres
sions, but of that selection of words and acts which it
was his commission to make and to leave.
We close the Gospels and open the books which
follow. We have passed a great landmark and are
farther on our way ; yet the line of doctrine which
we pursue seems to have sunk to a lower level, for
we cease to be taught by the lips of the Incarnate
Word, and are remitted to the discourses and writings
of men. Is this progress % He assured us that it
would be ; and we find that it is.
We are under the dispensation of the Spirit ; and
in the book of Acts are borne, by seeming accident
but by invisible guidance, straight along that line of
fact and of thought in which we are to find the full
developments of the truth which was given in the
Gospels. In matter of doctrine the book of Acts is our intro
duction to the Epistles. Here if the authority of the
teacher seems lowered from what it was in the
Gospels, the fulness of the doctrine is visibly in
creased. Its more mysterious parts are seen ex
panded and defined. Statements which might seem
of doubtful meaning in the former stage have found

26 LECTURE L
a fixed interpretation in the latter. Suggestions of
thought in the one have become habits of thought in
the other. What were only facts there have become
doctrines here ; and truths, which just gleamed from
a parable, or startled us in some sudden saying, are
now deliberately expanded into manifold and recog
nised relations with the feelings and necessities of man.
The nature and consequences of the work of Christ
on earth, the offices for men which he now fulfils in
heaven, the Hving relations which he bears to his
people in the Spirit, the discoveries of his majesty
and communications of his glory which are ready to
be revealed in the last time, all these are seen in the
apostolic writings, sometimes asserted as perspicuous
doctrine, more often blending and kindling together
in the inward life of the spirit, giving the form to
the character and the motives to the life.
Yet a further change takes place as we reach the
close of the Scriptures. This inward and personal fife
in the Spirit is not all. There is a kingdom of Christ,
which has its form, its history, its destinies. In the
later Epistles we see a constituted society, and hear
the sounds of a coming conflict : the Church appears
on the defensive, and the steps of invisible powers are
moving round her. The prophetic book which fol
lows transports us into the unseen world, and opens
the temple of God in heaven, and shews us the con
nection of the history of the Church with things
above and things below ; and guides through the
dim confusion of the conflict to the last victory of
the Lamb, leaving us at last among the full effects

LECTURE I. 27
of redemption, in a new heaven and a new earth,
and in a holy society and city of God.
3. Having cast our eye along the stages of advance,
we next enquire after the principles by which it is
governed ; and we find them in the relations which
the doctrine bears to its author, which it bears to the
facts on which it is founded, which it bears to the
human mind to which it is addressed, and which its
component parts bear to each other.
a. The relation of the doctrine to its author is the
ground of its continuous unity, and unless there be
unity we have no right to speak of progress : for
succession is of many, but progress is of one. The
unity of the New Testament doctrine lies in this, that
it is the teaching of one mind, the mind of Christ.
The security for this is given to us in two ways : first
by the fact that there is no part of the later and
larger doctrine which has not its germs and principles
in the words which he spake with his own lips in
the days of his flesh. It is provided that all which
is to be spoken after shall find support and proof
from his own pregnant and forecasting sayings. Se
condly, it is made clear by his own promises before
hand, by facts which evidence his personal adminis
tration, and by the distinct assertions of the men
whom he employs, that, when his own voice has
ceased on earth, it is nevertheless he who teaches
still. The testimonies of this are scattered along our
whole path, till we come to the last vision itself,
in which he personally reappears, " to shew unto his
servants the Revelation which God gave unto him,"

28 LECTURE I.
renewing thereby for the last time the assertion
of our text, " I have given unto them the words
which thou gavest me."
jS. The relation of the doctrine to the facts on which
it is founded is a principle by which a certain mea
sure of progress is necessarily constituted. Chris
tian doctrine does not ground itself on speculation.
It begins from the region and the testimony of the
senses. Its materials are facts, and it is itself the
interpretation and application of them. It is there
fore reasonable that the facts should be completed,
before they are clearly interpreted and fully applied.
Jesus must have died and risen again before the doc
trine concerning his death and resurrection can be
brought to light. Not till the Son of Man is glo
rified can we expect to arrive at a stage of doctrine
which shall give all the meaning and the virtue of
facts which till then were not completed. Up to
that time we are in the midst of a history of which
his own saying is true, " What I do thou knowest not
now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
7. The relation of the doctrine to the human mind
does also plainly necessitate a particular kind of pro
gress in the method of its communication. The
doctrine was not meant to be an opinion but a power :
" The words that I speak unto you they are spirit
and they are life." It therefore had to pass from
the form of a divine announcement into the form of
a human experience. It had to estabhsh its own
connection with the world of human thoughts and
feelings. Once spoken by the mouth of the Lord, it

LECTURE I. 29
might perhaps have been left to make this transition
according to the natural laws of the human mind.
But the transition in itself was too great, the conse
quences of error in the first stage of it would be too
momentous, for the Author and Finisher of our faith
to leave the Church to her ordinary resources at so
critical a moment. He would give a divine certainty
and authority to the first human apprehensions of his
truth. He would make it sure that he had himself
conducted those first experiences and applications of
the word, by which future experiences and applica
tions might be guided and tried for ever. There
fore the word spoken to men by the voice of Jesus
changed into a word spoken in men by his Spirit,
creating thus a kind of teaching which carried his
word into more intimate connection with human
thought and more varied application to human life.
S. Lastly, the relation of the several parts of doc
trine to each other would call for a' certain orderly
course of development. There is a natural fitness
that the knowledge of the Lord himself should pre
cede the knowledge of his work, and that we should
wait on his ministry on earth before we apprehend
his ministry in heaven, and that we should see that
we are reconciled by his death before we understand
how we are saved by his lif e ; embracing the merito
rious means before we expatiate among the glorious
issues. It is reasonable that an acquaintance with
Christ himself, and a knowledge of his work and
grace, should be given first, and that, from the source
thus provided, the rules and motives of conduct

30 LECTURE L
should afterwards be elicited. It is right that we
should be fully and clearly instructed in the things
of our present dispensation, and in the life of faith
through which we are passing now, and in the king
dom of an inward and spiritual grace, and then thaf
we should be subsequently informed, and more dimly
and briefly too, of the great history of the unseen
conflict with which we are more remotely concerned,
and of its final issues when the former things will
have passed away and God shall make all things
new. These various parts of the doctrine, though in
some degree commingling and interfused, do yet on
the whole sort themselves out in Gospels, Epistles,
and Apocalypse.
Lift up now your eyes on this monument of a dis
tant age which you call the New Testament. Behold
these remains of the original literature of a busy
Jewish sect ; these occasional writings of its leaders,
emanating from different hands and gathered from
different localities. They are delivered to you col
lected and arranged, though by means which you
cannot ascertain. They are before you now, not as
accidentally collected writings, but as one book ; a
design completed, a body organised, and pervaded by
one inward life. The several parts grow out of and
into each other with mutual support, correlative func
tions, and an orderly development. It is a " whole
body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplies, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, making in
crease of the body to the building itself up" in truth.

LECTURE I. 31
It begins with the person of Christ, and the facts
of his manifestation in the flesh, and the words which
he gave from his Father ; and accustoms us by de
grees to behold his glory, and to discern the drift of
his teaching and to expect the consequences of his
work. It passes on to his body the Church, and opens
the dispensation of his Spirit, and carries us into the
life of his people, yea down into the secret places of
their hearts ; and there translates the announcements
of God into the experiences of man, and discovers a
conversation in heaven and a life which is hid with
Christ in God. It works out practical applications,
and is careful in the details of duty, and provides for
difficulties and perplexities, and suggests the order of
Churches, and throws up barriers against the wiles
of the devil. It shews us things to come, the course
of the spiritual conflict, and the close of this transient
scene, and the coming of the Lord, and the resurrec
tion of the dead, and the eternal judgment, and the
new creation, and the life everlasting.
Thus it is furnished for all emergencies and pre
pared for perpetual use. It dominates the restless
course of thought", and is ever being interpreted by
experience and events. It is an authority which sur
vives when others perish, and a fight which waxes
when others wane. By it, as the instrument of God
for the education of men, nations are humanised and
churches sanctified. And yet more real and lasting
than these are the ultimate results which it secures.
An elect nation is being gathered from among us, and
an eternal Church prepared, which shall supplant all

32 LECTURE 1.
transient and provisional societies in that day for
which the whole creation waits. Here is the final
scope of the Book of our covenant, in its combina
tion with tbat older volume which it continues and
completes. Then is it not to each of us a matter of the deepest
personal concern, that the truth which it teaches and
the spirit which it breathes should have entered into
his own soul ; and that he should thus become a par
taker in the life which it reveals, an example of the
character which it demands, and an inheritor of the
portion which it promises'? But this cannot be, unless
he yield to the Written Word the confidence which
it claims. Oh, deal worthily, deal trustfully with such
a guide as this ! Venture your souls on the words of
which the Lord has said, " I have given unto them
the words which thou gavest me." Receive the mes
sage, receive the form in which it is left to you, " not
as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word
of God," and then you will find that it " effectually
worketh also in them that believe ; " for he who " obeys
from the heart that form of doctrine into which he is
delivered," finds that a course of progressive teaching
is opened in his own soul, to which the Holy Scrip
ture will never cease to minister, and which the
Holy Spirit will never cease to guide.

LECTURE II.

THE GOSPELS.

St. Mark i. i .
The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
W ITH reverential and affectionate interest we look
back to the beginnings of those things which possess
our allegiance as established powers, or are daily
enjoyed as familiar blessings. The thought that
they had a beginning, that there was once a time
when they were not, gives a freshness to the feelings
with which we regard them ; while the comparison
of the state of commencement with the state of per
fection brings with it a natural pleasure, in mark
ing the tendencies and the tokens of all that has
happened since. No words can open the heart to
these impressions so powerfully as those which have
just been uttered. The beginning of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, places us at the open
ing of the mystery of godliness, of the salvation of
the world, of the glory which fills the heavens, and
of the kingdom which enduiea-fiaeyer.

34 LECTURE II
The expression with which St. Mark opens his
narrative implies that the Gospel is then an estab
lished fact and a completed scheme, and that he here
returns to the moment when the fact began to assert
itself before the world as already present, and the
scheme to shew itself as in actual progress. The
beginning of the Gospel (according to this Evan
gelist) is not found at the birth of Jesus, when the
communications of Heaven were made but to few,
and died suddenly into silence ; but from the time
when John did baptize in the wilderness, and when
Jesus began to shew himself, and " the word of the
beginning of Christ" was publicly proclaimed, never
to be again suspended till it should have become the
word of a completed Gospel. It is indeed the habit
of the Apostles to represent the publication of the
Gospel as historically commencing at the same point
of time. "The word," says St. Peter, "which God
sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by
Jesus Christ, — that word began from Galilee, after
the baptism which John preached a ;" and St. Paul,
in presenting to the Jews " the word of this salva
tion," dates its proclamation from the time "when
John had first preached before his coming the bap
tism of repentance to all the people of Israel b."
But the expression which is used in the text of
the opening of the public life of Jesus may also be
truly applied to the whole period of that fife. The
Gospel, considered as fact, began from the Incar
nation, and was completed at the Resurrection;
» Acts x. 36, 37. l> Ibid. xii. 24.

LECTURE II. 35
but the Gospel, considered as doctrine, began from
the first preaching of Jesus, and was completed in
the dispensation of the Spirit. When the Lord
quitted the world, he left the material of the Gospel
already perfect, but the exposition of the Gospel
only begun ; and in the subsequent consciousness
of his disciples, the period of the commencement of
the word and the period of its perfection must have
been strongly discriminated from each other.
When living in the perfect dispensation of the
Spirit, and going to others, in the fulness of the
blessing of the Gospel of Christ, they would re
member how that Gospel dawned gradually on their
minds during the few years in which its facts had
been passing before their eyes, how imperfectly they
had understood those facts, how inadequately they
had apprehended the teaching by which the facts
were accompanied, how true it was that what their
Lord did they knew not then, but that they were
to know it afterwards. To them that whole period
of time must have seemed but an initiatory stage,
a " beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son
of God."
And so it was. The Gospel which Jesus preached
was a Gospel which in its main particulars had
yet to be fulfilled, and which could not be fully
opened till it had been fulfilled. While the facts
were .still incomplete, the doctrine was yet in its
commencement ; and we have on this account the
right to describe by the words of the text, not only
the first steps but the whole of the manifestation
D 2

36 LECTURE II
of Christ in the flesh. The beginning of the- Gospel
is a name which in one sense comprehends " all that
Jesus began both to do and teach until the day when
he was taken up."
To us this stage of the divine teaching is repre
sented by the writings of the four Evangelists ; and
I would now consider this collection, first relatively,
as the beginning of the orderly development of the
christian doctrine in the whole New Testament, and
then separately, as a course of teaching which bears
within its own fimits a certain character of systematic
advance. Two such topics, included in a single Lecture, can
receive little more than a suggestive treatment ; but
I pray that this may not occasion any defect of that
careful reverence, with which the fourfold Gospel
must be ever touched by those who see in it the
very ark of the covenant, where the cherubim of
glory overshadow the mercy- seat.
I. First, then, we have to observe how the Gospel
collection is fitted to its place and fulfils its function,
as the commencement of the christian doctrine in the
New Testament.
Now the christian doctrine is a doctrine con
cerning facts which have occurred and a person
who has been manifested within the sphere of human
observation. The foundations of all that is to be
known of the word of life are laid in "that which
was seen with the eyes, and heard with the ears, and
handled with the hands" of men. Then it is neces
sary for every learner that, before all inferences or

LECTURE II. 37
, applications, the facts themselves as mere pheno
mena should first be rendered in the clearest light.
Hence our elementary lessons are narratives of the
simplest form. A plain report of words and deeds,
easy and inartificial in the extreme, in which the
most stupendous events elicit no articulate expression
of feeling, without appearance of plan or system, with
scarcely a comment or reflection, and in which a word
of explanation almost startles us — such is the cha
racter of the three first of those writings which
form the ground and contain the material of all
subsequent christian doctrine. No literary fact is
more remarkable than that men, knowing what these
writers knew, and feeling what they felt, should have
given us chronicles so plain and calm. They have
nothing to say as from themselves. Their narratives
place us without preface, and keep us without com
ment, among external scenes, in full view of facts,
and in contact with the living person whom they
teach us to know. The style of simple recital, un
clouded and scarcely coloured by any perceptible
contribution from the mind of the writers, gives
us the scenes, the facts, and the person, as seen in
the clearest fight and through the most transparent
atmosphere. Who can fail to recognise a divine
provision, for placing the disciples of all, future ages
as nearly as possible in the position of those who
had been personally present at " the beginning of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God \ "
The importance, in the whole course of instruction,
of first fixing on the mind both the objective reality

38 LECTURE II
of the facts and the living portrait of the person,
is further intimated by the fourfold repetition of
the history. Four times does the Lord walk before
us in the glory of grace and truth, and, whatever
correspondences or variations the Gospels may ex
hibit in other parts of their narratives, four times
are the great facts of the death and resurrection of
Christ rehearsed to us in the minuteness of circum
stantial detail. We do not go forward to further
disclosures, till the historical facts have been ensured
to us by testimony upon testimony, and the portrait
has grown familiar to us by line upon line.
Far on in the holy books, when the scriptural
structure is nearly perfected, our eyes are turned
back to the ground of visible, audible, tangible
realities from which we started.
" That which was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled
of the Word of life, (for the life was manifested, and
we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto
you that eternal fife, which was with the Father and
was manifested to us,) that which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have
fellowship with usc."
Yes, it is true. We have fellowship with those
that speak, not only in their spiritual relations with
their Lord (which they fully understood only after
he was gone), but in their remembrances of him in
that earlier time when he was yet with them. Their
L i John i. 1-5.

LECTURE II. 39
witness is effectual for this end. For us also it is all
real. He dwelt among us. We beheld his glory.
We caught the gracious words that proceeded out of
his mouth. So things went with him. So he looked
and moved and spoke. So he wrought and suffered
and died. We have stood by the cross of Jesus.
We have entered the empty sepulchre. We have
seen him alive after his passion. He has shewn us
his hands and his feet. We have been led out as
far as to Bethany, have seen the hands lifted up to
bless, and watched the ascending form.
Open these pages where we will, the sense of
reality revives within us. We feel afresh that we
have not followed cunningly devised fables, have not
loved an idea, or trusted in an abstraction, We know
in whom we have believed, and feel that our Re
deemer is our friend. We are solemnised as in a
holy sanctuary, and secure as in a familiar home. We
have escaped from doubt and debate, and no longer
criticise or reason. We have recovered the mind of
little children. We sit at the feet of Jesus : and the
faith which came into his presence languid and dis
concerted, departs invigorated and refreshed.
Brethren, let me urge upon you the habitual study
of the holy Gospels for this revival of the reality.
and simplicity of faith. Let me urge it more espe
cially upon those who converse in the region of
abstract ideas, whether they frequent the ordered
paths of systematic divinity, or wander in the free
excursions of speculative thought. Dear as the Gospel
stories are to the simple peasant, they are yet more;

40 LECTURE II.
necessary to the student and the divine ; for there are
influences in abstract thought and in dogmatic discus
sion which will drain the soul of life unless fitting
antidotes be used : and there is no antidote so effec
tual, as is found in a continual return to those scenes
of historic fact in which the word of God has given
us our first lessons in Christ.
This necessity for habitual converse with the evan
gelical narratives is a sufficient proof of the wisdom
which assigned them the place and the space which
they actually fill, and especially which ordained that
the picture of our Lord's earthly life should be given
to us not in one gospel, but in four.
I suppose we all feel how different would have
been the effect of possessing one " Life of Christ,"
however full and systematic. We spend more time,
and (if I may use the expression) feel more at home,
in the four successive chambers than we should have
done in one long gallery ; and the impression of all
that is there shewn to us sinks deeper into the heart,
from the repetition of many passages of the story
under slightly varying lights and in different relative
connections. Lively attention, minute observation,
careful comparison, and enquiry which is never fully
satisfied, are awakened at eveiy step by that singular
combination of resemblances and differences ; and the
mind is thus engaged to dwell longer on the scenes,
conversing among them in a more animated spirit,
and with an interest which is perpetually refreshed.
We know the immense expenditure of labour in our
own day on the comparative characteristics of the

LECTURE II 41
Gospels, and the manifold attempts to harmonise or
to reconstruct them, to ascertain the point of view of
the writers, and to account for the variations in their
selection and position of incidents and in the turn
which they give to discourses. Whatever be the
spirit in which such attempts are made, they at least
afford an incidental witness to the care which divine
wisdom has taken to detain and occupy our minds at
the outset in those scenes in which alone we can
learn to know Jesus Christ himself
It is plain that the four histories are modified
by their own instinctive principles of selection and
arrangement, which do not indeed announce them
selves, and almost elude our attempts to ascertain
them, but yet result in giving four discriminated
aspects of their common subject, as the Royal Law
giver, the Mighty Worker, the Friend of Man, and
the Son of God — four aspects, but one portrait ; ' for
if the attitude and the accessories vary, the features
and the expression are the samed.
Who does not perceive the immense assistance
hereby given to us for receiving the knowledge
of Christ \ One representation, however full, would
still have suggested the thought, "This is the
impression made upon a single mind. Who can say
what part of it is due to the idiosyncrasies of the
witness ? If we had the impressions of another mind,
perhaps we should have a different image." As
it is, we derive the impression from four differ
ent quarters, and the image is still the same. It
d Note III.

42 LECTURE II
is represented from four different points of view ; but,
however represented, it is the same Jesus. The con
ception is one, and its unity attests its truth. We
feel that we see him as he was. No human being that
ever trod the earth has left behind a representation of
himself more clear and living, and more certain in its
truthfulness, than is that which we possess of the.
Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee.
From time to time some fresh portrait may appear.
Some adventurous imagination, charmed and yet per
plexed by the Gospel story, may attempt to recon
struct it in accordance with the spirit of the world.
Unable to receive as real the sole example of sinless
humanity, it may introduce into the picture touches
of the error and infirmity which are not there : and
may mistake the awful gleams of the indwelling
Godhead for the glimmer of an enthusiasm which
deludes and is deluded. The world may read the
bold romance, and half commend the creation of
fancy. But the creations of fancy perish as they
rise, and the Jesus of the Gospels remains ; not
only as a perfect ideal, but as a vivid reality, a
representation which appears, after every fresh
attempt to change it, more glorious in majesty and
beauty, and more conspicuous also for truthfulness
and life.
In placing the statement of the person of Christ
as the first work of the Gospel histories, and as
the beginning of the Gospel itself, I speak in ac
cordance with the spirit of those books and of the
whole ensuing system of doctrine. Jesus Christ

LECTURE It. 43
created the Gospel by his work ; he preaches the
Gospel by his words ; but he is the Gospel in
himself. The expression is but the condensation
of a hundred passages of Scripture which declare
him to be that, which, in more timid but less
adequate language, we might say that he wrought,
or that he taught, or that he gave. " I am the
resurrection and the life"." He "is our peace f," he:
"is our lifeP," he "is the hope of glory11." "He
of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption1 :" and they who
are saved " are made partakers of Chiistk," not
merely of his gifts, whether they be gifts of grace
or glory. Is it not indeed the distinguishing
feature of the Christian system, that it places
the foundation of salvation in living relations with
a living person, rather than in the adoption of
opinions or of habits 1 that under it the believer
is, not the man who maintains the doctrine of the
Trinity, or holds "justification by faith," but the
man who has "come to" Christ and "abides in"
him 1
These are the Lord's own words : they are fun
damental words in relation to all that is added
afterwards : they are, in matter of doctrine, the
beginning of the Gospel. The writings of the;
Evangelists do not present to us a scheme of doc
trine as to the nature of Christ or as to the work
which he does. They present to us the Lord Jesus,
e John xi. 25. f Eph. ii. 14. s Col. iii. 4.
h Col. i. 27. . ' 1 Cor. i. 30. k Heb. iii. 14.

44 LECTURE II
himself, as he shewed himself to men in order to
win their confidence and fix their trust. Men
learned to know him and to trust him before they
fully understood who he was and what he did.
The faith which, in the Gospel stories, we see
asked for and given, secured and educated, is
a faith that fastens itself on a living Saviour,
though it can yet but little comprehend the method
or even the nature of the salvation. Thus the New
Testament, in giving us these narratives for our
first lessons in Christian faith, teaches us that the
essential and original nature of that faith lies, not
in acceptance of truths which are revealed, but in
confidence in a person who is manifested. " He that
cometh to me," " He that believeth on me," is the
Lord's own account of the child of the new
covenant who is the fit recipient of advancing doc
trine. Faith, as seen in the Gospels, results not
in the first place from the miracles which justify
and sustain it, but from the personal impression
which appeals to the conscience and the spirit in
man. The first disciples believed before a miracle
had been shewn. It was imputed as a fault, " Except
ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe1 :"
and it was a condescension to inferior spiritual
sensibilities when the simple word "Believe mem"
was changed to " Or else believe me for the very
work's sake." As it was with those disciples so
also is it with ourselves. The evidential works
have their own most important, most necessary
\ John iv. 48. m Ibid. xiv. n.

LECTURE II 46
office : but the Lord himself is his own evidence, and
secures our confidence, love, and adoration by what
he is more than by what he does.
We pass on from the Gospel histories into a
dispensation of invisible offices and spiritual rela
tions, and we carry with us the personal knowledge
of him by whom these offices and relations are
sustained. It is this which secures that they
should not be to us a svstem of ideas and abstrac
tions, of words and names. The Mediator between
God and man, the High Priest in the spiritual
temple, the King on the unseen throne, is this
same Jesus who went in and out among us, whom
we have seen sitting in the house at Bethany, or
by the well at Sychem, receiving sinners, preaching
to the poor, comforting his friends, and suffering
little children to come to him. With an acquaint
ance already formed, a confidence already secured,
and a love already awakened, we can pass with a
prepared heart to more abstruse revelations of the
same Lord, when he is presented as the righteous
ness of the sinful in the Epistle to the Romans,
as the predestined source of life in the Epistle
to the Ephesians, as the sacrifice and priest of
the new covenant in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Having first known himself, we are ready for the
Spirit to take of the things which are his and shew
them to us.
II. Our reflections hitherto have turned upon the
relation which the Gospel collection bears to the
whole New Testament, and we have looked at it

46 LECTURE II
as the beginning of a course of doctrine extending
through the books which follow. It is now further
to be noted, that its oivn separate work is itself
fulfilled on an apparent plan of progressive de
velopment, which is constituted by the relative cha
racters of the Gospels viewed in the order which
they have habitually assumed.
(i.) The collection is divided into two parts by
a line of demarcation perceptible to every eye and
recognised in every age ; the first three Gospels
forming the one part and the fourth Gospel the
other. The former naturally precedes, and in its
effect prepares us for the latter. We are to learn
the great lesson of the manifestation of Christ :
and here, as in most other subjects, the order of
fact is not the order of knowledge. In the order
of fact the glory of the divine nature precedes the
phenomena of the earthly manifestation ; but in
the order of knowledge the reverse is true. Events
occurring in time, a place in human history, and
the external aspect of a life, must supply the ante
cedent conditions for the higher disclosures. Thus
the triple Gospel, which educates us among scenes
of earth, prepares us for that which follows. Our
minds are led along that very course of thought
over which they would have moved if we had been
eye-witnesses of the manifestation of Christ, in that
we are familiarised with its ordinary aspect and
most frequent characteristics, before our thoughts
are rivetted on those peculiar passages in which the
revelation of glory is most concentrated, and which

LECTURE II. 47
serve to interpret all that we had before felt to be
implied. (2.) Again, if the synoptic Gospels are taken by
themselves, we observe, even within the limits of
¦this division, certain orderly steps of advance. Each
of these narratives has its' own prevailing character,
whereby it makes its proper contribution to the com
plete portrait of the Lord : each also has its own
historical associations, whereby it represents a sepa
rate stage in the presentation of Christ to the world.
Both the internal characters and the historical associ
ations of the several Gospels have been fully wrought
out by recent writers, and are now generally under
stood. Yet they must be shortly noticed here, for
the due elucidation of the statement that the books
in combination constitute a progressive course.
The record of St. Matthew, ever recognised as the
Hebrew Gospel, is the true commencement of the
New Testament, shewing how it grows out of the
Old, and presenting the manifestation of the Son
of God not as a detached phenomenon, but as the
predestined completion of the long course of historic
dispensations. It is the Book of the Generation of
Jesus Christ, the Son oi David, the son oi Abraham.
It founds itself on the ideas of the old covenant. It
refers at every step, especially in its earlier chapters,
to the former Scriptures, noting how that was ful
filled which was spoken by the prophets. It is
a history of fulfilment, presenting the Lord as the
fulfiller of all righteousness, the fulfiller of the Law
and the Prophets, not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

48 LECTURE II.
It set him forth as a King and Lawgiver in that
kingdom of heaven for which a birthplace and a
home had been prepared in Israel : and thus cor
responds to that period in the historical course of
events when the word was preached to none but to
the Jews only".
The Gospel of St. Mark is traditionally connected
with St. Peter, who first opened the door of faith to
Gentiles, and has the appearance of being addressed
to such a class of converts as it was given to that
Apostle to gather, men, like the devout soldiers of
Caesarea, in whom the Roman habit of mind was
coloured by contact with Judaism. It is the Gospel
of action, rapid, vigorous, vivid; Entering at once
on the Lord's official and public career, it bears us
on from one mighty deed to another with a peculiar
swiftness of movement, and yet with the life of pic
turesque detail. Power over the visible and invisible
worlds, especially as shewn in the casting out of
devils, is the prominent characteristic of the picture.
St. Peter's saying to Cornelius has been well noticed
as a fit motto for this Gospel, " God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with
power, who went about doing good and healing all
those who were oppressed of the devil." In rela
tion to the expansion of the word from its first
home in Jewry to its ultimate prevalence in the
whole earth, this Gospel occupies an intermediate
position between those of St. Matthew and St. Luke.
Its representation of the Lord is disengaged from
" See Note IV.

LECTURE II. 49
those close connections with Jewish life and thought
which the first Gospel is studious to exhibit, while it
is wanting in that breadth of human sympathy and
special fitness for the Gentile mind at large, which
we recognise in the treatise of St. Luke.
This latter Gospel intimates its character in this
respect by a genealogy which presents to us not the
son of Abraham, but the son of Adam ; and it carries
out the intimation by special notice of our Lord's
familiar intercourse with human life, his tender sym
pathies with human feelings, his large compassion for
human woes. The preface, addressed to a Gentile
convert, indicating the position of the writer in re
gard to the facts which he will relate, and speaking
in the language of classical composition, shews us at
the outset that we have passed from Jewish asso
ciations to a stage in the history of the world, when
its purpose of expansion has been proved, and its
character of universality established. The whole
tone of this Gospel constitutes it pre-eminently a
Gospel for the Gentiles, specially adapted to the
Greek mind, then, in some sense, the mind of the
world. Its internal character thus accords with its
historical position, as the Gospel of St. Paul, written
by his close companion, and circulated, we cannot
doubt, in the Churches which he founded.
As the book of Acts shews us three stages in the
outward progress of the Gospel, first within the
bounds of Judaism, then, in the work of St. Peter,
spreading beyond those limits in the Roman direction,
and finally in the ministry of St. Paul, delivered

50 LECTURE II.
freely and fully to the world; so do the synoptic
Gospels, as they stand in the canon, correspond with
a singular fitness to those three periods. We are
going forward as we pass through them, and are
completing the representation of Christ, not by mere
repetition or fortuitous variation in our point of view,
but in a certain orderly sequence, corresponding to
that in which the knowledge of him was historically
opened to the world. The evangelical narratives are
the proper monuments of a Gospel, which first as
serted itself as the true form of Judaism and the
legitimate consummation of the old covenant, and
then unfolded its relations with the whole race of
mankind, and passed into the keeping of a Catholic
Church. 3. If in traversing the synoptic Gospels we march
in the line of a historical advance, it is still more
plain that we do so when we pass to the teaching of
St. John.
The Gospel of Christ had no sooner completed the
conflicts, through which it established its relations to
Judaism and to the world, than it entered on those
profound and subtle, those various and protracted
controversies, which turned on the person of Christ.
This was the natural course of events, whether we
regard the tendencies of human thought, the wiles
of the deviL or the government of God. If the
revelation of Christ himself (as distinguished from
what he taught and what he wrought) is the foun
dation of the whole Gospel, it would be first to
explore this mystery that the activities and subtleties

LECTURE II. 51
of thought would address themselves ; it would be
first to destroy this mystery that the assaults of the
enemy would be directed; it would be first in se
curing this mystery that the divine guidance of the
Church would be made manifest. One Apostle, the
first and the last of the " glorious company," was chosen
as the chief instrument for settling human thought,
defeating the wiles of the devil, and certifying the
witness of God. There was but one moment in which
the conditions for such a production could co-exist.
It must be after a speculative theosophy had begun
to form its language and manifest its aberrations.
Yet it must be while the voice of an eyewitness
could still be lifted up, to tell what eyes had seen,
and ears had heard, and hands had handled of the
Word of Life ; so that the clearest intuitions of the
divinity of Jesus might be for ever blended with
the plainest testimony of the senses concerning him.
Such a moment was secured by the providence which
ordained that John should live till the first heresies
had shaped themselves. The disciple who first came
to Jesus, who followed him most closely, who lay in
his bosom, who stood by his cross, who believed when
others were confounded, who saw with more penetrat
ing eye the glory which they all beheld, was reserved
to complete the written statement of the person
of Christ, in a record which has been designated
from ancient days as " the Gospel according to the
Spirit." As the other Gospels respectively make prominent-
the ideas of law, of power, and of grace, so does this
E 2

52 LECTURE II
present the glory of Christ. " We beheld his glory,
the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father0." All
the disciples beheld it, but there was one whose pure,
lofty, and contemplative spirit fitted him to be the
best recipient, and therefore the best exponent, of the
sublime disclosure. To him, therefore, the office was
assigned, and his Gospel is its fulfilment. He begins,
not like his predecessors from an earthly starting-
point, from the birth of the son of Adam, or the son
of Abraham, or the opening of the human ministry,
but in the depths of unmeasured eternity and the
recesses of the nature of God ; and then bringing
the First-begotten into the world, traces with adoring
eye the course of word and deed by which he mani
fested forth his glory, and at last delivers his record
to others, " that they may believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, and that believing they may have life
through his name P."
We have now seen that in the three synoptic
Gospels the representation of Christ, as he lived and
conversed amongst men, is carried on by three suc
cessive stages, from its first Jewish aspect and funda
mental connection with the old covenant to its most
catholic character and adaptation to the Gentile
mind ; and that these steps correspond to and are
connected with the historical stages of advance, by
which the word of God passed from its first home to
its destined sphere of influence. We have seen that
in the fourth Gospel we rise to a more distinct
apprehension of the spiritual mystery involved in
° John i. 14. p Ibid. xx. 31.

LECTURE II. 53
the picture which has been presented ; and further,
that this advance also is connected with historical
conditions, subsequent in time to those under which
the preceding books originated. The course of
teaching thus produced is according to that principle
which places the earthly things as the introduction
to the heavenly, and keeps everything in' "its own
order, first that which is natural, and afterwards that
which is spiritual."
And yet these stages of progress are constituted
only by differences of degree. There is nothing
expanded in one book which has not been asserted
in another. Take whatever may seem to you the
distinguishing idea of any one of them, and you
find a strong expression of it in all the others. The
Judaism of St. Matthew reaches out to the calling
of the Gentiles ; and the catholic spirit of St. Luke
falls back upon its Jewish origin. St. John, in ex
hibiting the divine nature of Christ, exhibits only
what the others have everywhere implied and fre-'
quently affirmed. " The Johannean conception of
Christ," as it has been termed by some, who would
place it in opposition to preceding representations,
is in fact their explication and confirmation. In the
former Gospels we behold the Son of God, pro
claimed by angels; confessed by devils, acknowledged
by the voice of the Father ; with authority and
power commanding the visible and invisible worlds,
and at the central moment of the history transfigured
on the holy mount before the eyewitnesses of his
majesty. The first word in the Temple declares

54 LECTURE II
to his earthly parent his conscious relation 'to his
Father ; the last charge to the Apostles founds the
Church in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost ; while, in the intervening period,
some voice of self-revelation more deep than usual is
from time to time suffered to fall upon our ears ;
like that which so many commentators have noticed
as a kind of anticipation of the language of St. John,
" All things are delivered to me of my Father ; and
no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father,
neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him'!."
On the other hand, it is in the record of St. John
that we read words which, if found in another
Gospel, would have been eagerly urged as antag
onistic to " the Johannean conception" We can
imagine what use would then have been made of
the argument (John x. 34-36) founded on the text
" I have said ye are gods," or of the assertions,
" The words which ye hear are not mine," and
" The Father is greater than I." Now standing
in connection with the claim to the incommunicable
Name, and with the statements, "All things that
the Father hath are mine," and "I and the Father
are one," that argument and those assertions cannot
be mistaken ; but they serve to confirm the unity
of that revelation of God manifest in the flesh, of
which one aspect is more fully exhibited in one
part, and the other aspect in the other part of the
Evangelical record r.
'i Matt. xi. 27, and Luke x. 22. r Note V.

LECTURE II. 55
Asserting then the peculiar development which
the last Gospel gives to the doctrine of the person
of Christ, we also assert that there is no variation
from the original conception. The exposition is con
tinuous ; the picture is one. From the beginning
of St. Matthew to the end of St. John it is one
Lord Jesus Christ, as really the Son of Man in the
last Gospel as in the first, as really the Son of God
in the first Gospel as in the last. Only we find, in
passing under the teaching of St. John, that here the
great mystery shews more vivid and mature ; that
the intuitions of it have become more conscious and
clear, and the assertions of it more definite and
indisputable ; that we have advanced from the
simple observation of facts to the state of restro-
spection and reflection, and that we have attained
to the formation of a language fitted to the highest
conceptions of him, who is the Only-begotten of the
Father, the Life, and the Light, and the Truth, and
the Word Eternal.
Such is the character of the Gospel collection,
regarded as an exposition of the doctrine of the
person of Christ. As a scheme characterised by
unity and progress it has obviously the appearance
of design : and the appearance of design is an argu
ment for its reality.
But whose design is this, which appears not in
the separate books, but in the collection taken as
a whole 1 The agents were severed from each other,
arid wrote as their respective turns of mind and
historical circumstances determined. Where then

56 LECTURE II
was the presiding mind which planned the whole,
and, in qualifying and employing the chosen agents,
divided to every man severally as he would % By
the voice of the Church as a body, by the ever
accumulating consent of her several members, an
unchanging answer comes down from age to age.
The Spirit of the Lord is here.
Yes! the Spirit was to testify of Jesus, and
the four-fold Gospel is his permanent testimony.
In it he has provided that the foundations of our
faith should be laid in the region where the
foundations of all human knowledge lie, namely,
in the evidence of the senses, in that which "eyes
have seen, ears have heard, and hands have handled
of the Word of Life." He has provided that the
object of our faith should be known to us as he
was known to those who saw him, that he should
be clearly known by the simplicity, fully known
by the variety, and certainly known by the unity,
of the narratives which give to the world the
perpetual and only representation of its Redeemer.
Finally, he has provided that the representation
should be completed by a progressive course of teach
ing, which first familiarises us with the conversation
of our Lord among men in its general and ordinary
aspect, and then admits us to the more concentrated
study of the glory and the mystery, which had
already made themselves felt at every step.
I have only to add, that the divine teaching
thus given, even when viewed separately, has the
appearance of being not a whole scheme ending

LECTURE II 57
in itself, but a part of a larger scheme. I mean that
the general effect of the manifestation which is made
in the Gospels is such as almost necessitates farther
disclosures. One shining with the glory of the Only-begotten
of the Father, but clothed in the poverties and in
firmities of man, has walked before us in power and
weakness, in majesty and woe. He has come close to
us, and drawn us close to him ; has touched every
chord of our hearts ; has .secured our implicit trust,
and become the object of adoration and love : then
he has hung upon a cross, has sunk into a grave, has
risen, has. ascended, and is gone. It was a brief dis
pensation, and is finished once for all. What did it
mean \ What has- it done 1 What are our relations
with him. now % and in what way has this brief ap
pearance affected our position before God and the
state and destiny of the soul % What is the nature
of the redemption which he has wrought, of the sal
vation which he has brought, of the kingdom of God
which he has opened to all believers ?
These were questions left for the Disciples when
Jesus was gone ; and, when the reader of the Gospel
story reaches its close, these questions remain for
him. The Disciples would recal what their Master
had spoken, in order to gather the whole result of
the words of his lips. The reader also will review
that personal teaching of Christ which is interwoven
with his visible manifestation, and will ask whether
it gives an answer to the questions which the mani
festation suggests ; whether it does so fully or par-

58 LECTURE II
tially, as a final communication, or as the com
mencement of information to be completed after
wards. This is the subject which will next claim
our attention, as the first step in the enquiry, how
the Christian doctrine was added to the Christian
facts — the divine interpretation to the divine inter
vention. The relations between these two parts of the
Gospel have now in some measure come into view.
We have seen that the evangelical narrative creates
the want and gives the pledge of an evangelical doc
trine ; that it also deposits its material and provides
its safeguard.
a. The narrative creates the want, in that it
leaves the mind of the reader in a state of desire
and expectation, since the stupendous facts which it
recites cannot but suggest anxious enquiries which
wait for clear replies, and vast speculations which
demand a firm direction.
/3. And this want seems to carry with it the
pledge that it is raised in order to be satisfied. We
feel sure that God has not given us the external
manifestation of his Son, and then left the questions
which arise out of it unanswered and the hopes
which it suggests undefined. In the fulness and
vividness of the record of the facts we find an
implied assurance, that their purposes and results
shall also be made clear, and receive in their proper
place their own proper exposition.
y. Again, the history deposits the material of
the doctrine ; for that material is nothing else than

LECTURE II 59
Christ manifest in the flesh — his incarnation, his
obedience, his holiness, love, grace and truth, his
death and passion, his resurrection and ascension,
and then, beyond these, his glorified life, and his
coming and his kingdom, in which the past history
finds its necessary and predicted issues. These,
brethren, are the topics of the evangelical teaching,
and the constituent elements of the truth, seeing
that in this manifestation of the Son of God all that
men had known before has received its full illustra
tion and its final seal, and that which they had not
known has been once. for all revealed. All that is
to be learned is comprised within this circle. The
deep mine of truth lies beneath this spot. " In him
(as the mystery of God) are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge3."
8. Lastly, the narrative provides the safeguard of
the doctrine. Before we arrive at the latter form of
teaching, we have been secured against its possible
dangers, having been already taught in the most
effective way to feel that our trust is not in a name
which we learn, but in a person whom we know ; not
in a scheme of salvation, but in a living Saviour.
I cannot say how strongly I feel the value of the
Gospel narrative in this last point of view ; and I feel
it most when I observe the effect of other metiiods,
which have trained the minds of disGiples mainly by
schemes of doctrine without the admixture in its due
proportion of the ever fresh and healthful element
of history. Blessed be the wisdom of God, which
» Col. ii. 3.

60 LECTURE II
has ordered the teaching of the New Testament upon
its actual plan, laying first the living knowledge of
the Lord Jesus as the broadest and safest basis for
doctrine and instruction in righteousness. The order
thus observed in the written word teaches how the
knowledge of Christ will best be opened out to every
single soul. He only is duly prepared for more
abstract revelations of the nature of the redeeming
work and of its present and future issues, in whose
heart the past manifestation in the flesh is clearly
reflected, and who thus has worthily received into
his own soul " the beginning of the G ospel of Jesus
Christ the Son of God."

LECTURE III.
THE GOSPELS.
Heb. ii. 3.
1 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at
the first began to be spoken by the Lord?
TROM age to age this question has fulfilled its
office. Men, trusting in their immunity from cri
minal acts, have found themselves confronted by an
accusation which they could not answer; and con
victed of guilt of which they had never thought.
Still may this question reach one heart after another
amongst ourselves, and flash the sense of sin and
ruin on those who even now, and even here, are
practically neglecting so great salvation !
Not, however, on this question, but on the fol
lowing words, have I now to fix your attention ;
words which are added to aggravate the sin of that
neglect, and to illustrate the certainty of a corre
sponding retribution ; but which do so by the mention
of a fact which falls into our present line of thought

62 LECTURE III
at the point which we have now reached. This
" so great salvation began to be spoken by the Lord,
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ;
God also bearing them witness by signs and won
ders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his
own will."
It began to be spoken by the Lord. The word of
the old covenant is repeatedly declared to have
been " received by the disposition of angels a" —
" ordained by angelsb" — " spoken by angels0." The
ministering spirits, the messengers and servants of
the Lord, were employed to introduce the pre
paratory system. On the other hand, the salva
tion of the new covenant is introduced, not by the
servants, but by the Lord in person. His introduc
tion of it was not confined to providing its con
ditions and foundations, by the manifestation of
himself, and by the redemption which he wrought.
He was the messenger and teacher of this salvation,
as well as its author and giver. It was fully wrought
by the Lord ; but, besides that, it began to be
" spoken" by the Lord, its announcement coming
first from his own lips. Yet this personal speaking
was only a certain stage in the course of its pub
lication. It began to be spoken by the Lord, (ap%hv
Xaftovcra \a\eio-da 8ia rov Kvplov,) and when he ceased
to speak the word was not yet completed. It was to
be cleared and assured to the world by those that
heard him ; who, having been educated and com
missioned by him for the purpose, proceeded to
B Acts vii. 53. b Gal. iii. 19. c Heb. ii. 2.

LECTURE III. 63
preach the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down
from heaven, and with adequate proofs of the co-
attestation of God.
This account of the personal ministry of the Lord
Jesus, as an initiatory stage of the word of salvation,
gives me the subject of which I have now to treat.
Evidently it is one of the very highest importance in
its bearings on the subsequent stages of doctrine ; on
which we shall enter in a very different spirit, if we
consider the word spoken by the Lord in person as a
finished vjord, or if we regard it as a word begun.
As steps which may be of use towards attaining
a true view of the case, I would lay down the
following propositions.
First, The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels
includes the substance of all christian doctrine, but
does not bear the character of finality. Secondly,
The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels is a visibly
progressive course, but on reaching its highest point
announces its own incompleteness, and opens an
other stage of instruction.
I. i. The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels in
cludes the substance of all christian doctrine. Never
was teaching more natural than his. It was drawn
forth by occasions as they arose. It shaped itself
to the character, the words, and the acts of those
whom he met in the highway of the world. It
borrowed its imagery from the circumstances and
scenery of the moment. Such teaching as this would
not seem likely to embrace the whole circle of truth.
We should expect to find it partial and fragmentary ;

64 LECTURE III.
full in some points, deficient in others, according as
the occasions for evoking it had or had not arisen.
Yet surely the whole course of the manifestation
of the Son of God would be governed not by accident,
but by a special divine predestination : and there must
have been a providential appointment of the fittest
occasions and the most perfect conditions, in order
that he who came from God to speak the words of God
might adequately accomplish his mission. Then the
general state of the religious atmosphere at the time
of Iris appearing, the strongly discriminated develop
ments of opinion in Pharisees and Sadducees, the
condition of individuals who came across his path,
the scenes and circumstances in which he met them,
were all prepared by divine governance, to further
the effectual fulfilment of his mission as the teacher
of men. Thus it came to pass, that not only in set
discourses (which seldom occur), but in transient
conversations and sudden replies, in words drawn
forth by the appeals of the wretched, by the temp
tations of enemies or by the errors of disciples, in
strong denunciations of the wicked or in tender con
solations of the weak, the mind of Christ has been
expressed on all points, and the store of divine
sentences is full.
Shall I enter into detail, and begin to shew how
the whole argument on justification in the Epistle
to the Romans is involved in the assertion, that " the
Son of Man was lifted up, that he that believeth
on him should not perish but have everlasting life d 1 "
d John iii. 14, 15.

LECTURE III. 65
: — how the exposition of the christian standing in the
Epistle to the Galatians is comprehended in the
words, "The servant abideth not in the house for
ever, but the son abideth ever. If the son make
you free ye shall be free indeed 0V — how the sacri
ficial doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews is im
plied in all its parts by the words, " This is my blood
of the new covenant which is shed for you and for
many for the remission of sinsf1" Though such proof
in detail is here impossible, it would yet be easy to
shew that every doctrine expanded in the Epistles
roots itself in some pregnant saying in the Gospels ;
and that the first intimation of every truth, revealed
to the holy Apostles by the Spirit, came first from
the lips of the Son of Man. In each case the later
revelation may enlarge the earlier, may shew its
meaning and define its application, but the earlier
revelation stands behind it still, and we owe our
first knowledge of every part of the new covenant
to those personal communications in which the sal
vation began to be spoken by the Lord.
In all things he was to have the pre-eminence (ev
iraa-iv avrbs Trparrevcov), in speaking as well as in acting,
not only as the Life, but also as the Light of men.
The more we study the records of that short ministry
in the flesh, the more we are impressed with the fact
that all the past and all the future are gathered
up in it. Past inspired teaching here finds its
meaning interpreted and its authority sealed, whilst
(so to speak) the several chapters of future inspired
e John viii. 35, 36. f Matt. xxvi. 28.

66 LECTURE III
teaching are opened by pregnant summaries and
certified by antiSipatory sanctions. That is indeed
a time " of large discourse, looking before and after,"
and the words of Prophets . on the one side, and of
Apostles on the other, are for ever justified and
maintained by the words of him who came between
them. There was nothing then on the lips of the
preachers of the Gospel, but what had been " begun
to be spoken" by its first preacher ; and in following
to their utmost the words of the Apostles we are
still within the compass of the words of the Lord
Jesus. 2. Yet those words do not bear the character of
finality. The doctrine defivered in the Gospels
appears to need, and to promise, further explana
tions, combinations, and developments. The cha
racter of that ministry on the whole is introductory.
It is so in its form, in its method, and in its sub
stance. a. Our Lord's general teaching, in regard to its
form, is cast in the mould of parable or proverb.
So it appears more especially in the first three
Gospels as compared with the fourth : and it is
agreed on all hands that the former represent
the ordinary course of the teaching of Jesus ;
and that the latter purposely collects into one
view those stronger assertions of divine mysteries,
which were made on particular occasions, and
which, when thus combined, form for us a more
advanced stage of revelation. Yet in St. John

LECTURE III. 67
also the characteristic form of parable continues,
though its visible diminution corresponds with the
increased intensity of revealing light.
There can be no need to exhibit the fact of
this prevailing character of our Lord's discourse.
It is to be noticed, not only in the large amount
of professed parables, but in the general habit of
proverbial sayings, that is, sayings which glance
by us, as condensed and momentary parables,
Suggesting much that it would take long to tell,
or, at least, sayings which have more or less
the shape and air of proverbs, complete in them
selves, terse and pointed, fashioned for common
memory and common use, meaning more than
they say, and, by strong antithesis or seeming
paradox, fitted to arouse reflection, and to fix
on the mind some principle of thought or conduct.
This characteristic of our Lord's teaching does
not exist in that of his servants. It is peculiar
and distinctive : and not without reason, for it
falls in with that character of germinating fulness
which has been already ascribed to the personal
ministry of Christ ; and not less plainly with
that character of initiation which is now to be
asserted. It is of the essence of proverbial speech that
it detaches itself from particular occasions, that
it has a capacity for various applications, and
a fitness for permanent use, and embraces large
meaning within narrow limits. It therefore fitted
well the lips which were to utter the great principles
F 2

68 LECTURE III.
of christian thought, and to leave them amongst
men for all times and occasions. Yet this form
of teaching belongs to the introduction of know
ledge. It seems intended to set the mind working,
and to rouse the spirit of enquiry by partial or
disguised discoveries of truth. " To them that
are without," said our Lord, "all these things are
done in parables S ;" intimating that the use of
that form of instruction is appropriate to the pre
liminary and probationary stage. In its fullest
degree it belongs originally to those that are
without, though, by means of light afterwards
afforded, it continues to minister large instruction
to those that are within. To the multitude our
Lord's teaching was mainly of this character : to
his disciples it was obviously less so. To them "it
was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God, but to others in parables11." Yet to them
also, through all their time of training, we see
that this mode of speech is largely used, and
when the personal intercourse is about to close,
they receive the assurance that the teaching of
the future will herein differ from that of the
past : " These things have I spoken unto you in
proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no
more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew
you plainly of the Father1." The words remain as
a sunicient testimony that the peculiar character
b Mark iv. n. eicelvois rdis ?£<o — yet certainly not to keep them
without, but as the appropriate means to draw them within.
h. Luke viii. 10. j John xvi. 25.

LECTURE III. 69
of language, in which the salvation began to be
spoken by the Lord, is a mark of an intro
ductory stage, and, so far as it prevails, is both
a sign that the time for shewing plainly is not yet
come, and a pledge that it is to follow.
jS. As the form of the teaching leads to this con
clusion, so also does its method. It is seemingly
to a great degree a method of chances and
occasions ; carried on by words suited to the
moment, by separate addresses, or replies to particu
lar persons, and by explanations added to particular
acts. It is moreover in these communications,
rather than in the deliberate discourses, that the
higher revelations of his Gospel are for the most
part contained. When "he opened his mouth and
taught" in the Sermon on the Mount, he delivered
to those who were entering his kingdom the
great principles of moral righteousness. But it
is from words dropped as it were in a private
Conversation by night, or in collision with the
provocations of unbelievers, or amid sighs and
sorrows by the grave of a friend, that we derive
our plainest assurances of the mysteries of his
salvation. While we gather up the precious things
of his ordinary discourses, we are made sensible
that other truths are implied, deeper than those
which are announced, and from time to time the
words which assert those deeper truths break with
a kind of suddenness on our ears. It would
hardly appear likely that such a mode of teach
ing was intended to be final, rather we should

70 LECTURE III.
expect it to prove (as in fact it did) the prefatory
announcement of a coming system of truth, in
which the several sayings would discover their co
hesion and the condensed assertions would expand
into their fulness.
y. If the form and method of the personal teaching
of Jesus suggest the conclusion, that it was meant
to be, not the whole of his teaching to men, but only
the initiatory stage of it, that conclusion becomes
more sure when we come to consider the substance
of the doctrine itself.
The doctrine bears a double character. It is, first,
the clearing, restoring, and perfecting of truth already
known ; and it is, secondly, the revealing of a mys
terious economy which had not yet been divulged.
It is, I suppose, obvious to every reader of the
Gospels, that the doctrine contained in them is much
more full and explicit in the first of these characters
than it is in the second ; that all which belongs to
human duty and character comes out habitually to
view in the clearest light, while the discoveries of
that secret scheme of things, by which the divine
purposes are worked out, are either made by impli
cation, or are marked by a certain brevity and reserve.
This fact is generally recognised, and especially by
those minds which shrink from the more mysterious
parts of revelation. These fall back upon the Lord's
own teaching in the Gospels, as containing more
to which they can cordially assent, or at least less
which troubles and perplexes them, than they find
in the writings of his followers. All that troubles

LECTURE III. 71
and perplexes them is indeed there ; but the restricted
measure of its exposition allows them more easily
to ignore its presence. Such men fly to the Sermon
on the Mount, and linger over parables and dis
courses, which instruct us in the great original truths
of the fatherhood of God, of heartfelt prayer, of
love and forgiveness, of lowliness and truth, of
obedience and self-sacrifice, of confidence in pardoning
mercy, and of faith (yet only general and preliminary)
in him whom God hath sent.
It is indeed true that in passing through the
synoptic Gospels we meet with few express and
definite assertions of the real nature and effects of
the mediatorial work of Christ ; and if we drop
out of notice those few strong sayings, and are con
tent to take the lowest meaning of every expression
that sounds ambiguous, and are resolutely insensible
to the suggestion of typical miracles and to the im
plications contained in the whole history, we may
perhaps arrive at the Gospel of St. John with no
higher convictions than were expressed by the
enquirer, whom we there find uttering the dubious
acknowledgment, "Master, we know that thou art
a teacher come from God," (on airb Qeov eAjJXu&xj
81 SatricaXos). But having acknowledged this much, we must
from this point acknowledge much more. We find
that the Gospel on which we have entered has col
lected for us the scattered sayings, in which, from
time to time, our Lord asserted his highest offices,
and opened the mystery of his work. One after

72 LECTURE III.
another the great testimonies concerning himself fall
on our ears : yet, in regard to every one of them,
we are made to feel that the intimations given are
at the time beyond the apprehensions of the hearers,
and this not only on account of the dulness of the
particular persons, but because the testimonies imply
events which have not yet happened, and are frag
ments of a revelation for which the hour is not yet
come. Glance through a few of these sayings : — The
heavens open, and the angels ascending and de
scending on the Son of Mank ; the Temple destroyed
and raised up again in three days1 ; the birth of
water and the Spirit111 ; the Son of Man who came
from heaven, who goes to heaven, and who is in
heaven" ; the lifting up like the serpent in the wilder
ness, that men may not perish0 ; the water which he
will give, springing up into everlasting lifeP ; the
eating the flesh and drinking the blood as the means
of everlasting life and of being raised up at the last
day'i. These sayings, and many others like them, are
uttered to hearers whose perplexity is made apparent,
and are at the time left unexplained, to await the
light which they are to receive from future events
and later discoveries. This (if I may so call it)
anticipatory character of our Lord's teaching, with
regard to the work which he came to fulfil, strikes us
most forcibly, when we compare his mode of speaking
on the subject with the full and explicit language
k John i. g i . 1 Ibid. ii. 19. m Ibid. iii. 5.
n Ibid. 13. o Ibid. 14. p Ibid. iv. 14.
1 Ibid. vi. 54.

LECTURE III. 73
which becomes familiar to us in the writings of his
Apostles. And if this account of one part of his teaching
be true, an evident consequence follows in regard
to the other part. Grant that the discoveries of the
redeeming work of Christ are in any measure re
stricted, and deferred, and it follows that a large part
of the teaching on human duty must be restricted
and deferred in proportion. Instructions in faith
in himself must wait for their perfecting, until the
things to be believed concerning him have grown
clear. Instructions in our relations to God (whether
bearing on the hope of a penitent or on the confidence
of a child) have not obtained their completion, while
the grounds of forgiveness and acceptance are in any
manner obscure. Finally, instructions on duty and
character must be deficient in some of their most
important elements, while the motives which flow
from redemption cannot be assumed as recognised,
because Jesus has not yet died ; while the life " in
the Spirit, and the power of the resurrection, and
the citizenship in heaven, cannot be realised, because
Jesus has not yet revived, risen, and ascended.
In illustration of these assertions I will instance
the treatment of the two doctrines of the forgive
ness of sins and the success of prayer. We know
how intimately in the evangelical system these two
doctrines are associated with the personal agency
of our Redeemer, the one with his atoning sacrifice,
the other with his priestly mediation. But it is
certain that in his own teaching on earth they are

74 LECTURE III
not so treated. Other truths concerning them are
brought forward when these are absent.
Take the first example. " Forgive and' ye shall
be forgiven1-;" " Her sins, which are many, are for
given, for she loved much*;" "I forgave thee all
that debt because thou desiredst me*;" "He smote
upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me
a sinner11," and then " went down to his house jus
tified rather than the other." Lastly, in the great
parable of forgiveness the erring son simply returns,
and the Father falls on his neck and kisses him.
" Father," says he, " I have sinned against heaven
and before thee," and straightway he is clothed
with the best robe, and has the ring on his hand,
and the shoes on his feet. " He was dead and is
alive again : he was lost, and is found." There is
no mention of any intercessor, no typical hint of
sacrifice or other atonement, no condition anywhere
supposed, but what is included in " because thou
desiredst me," or in the presence of penitence and
tenderness of heart, and the absence of an un
forgiving spirit towards others. Yet at other times
there fall from the Lord's own lips some few words
at least, which reveal himself as the channel, and
his blood as the purchase, of the forgiveness which
he preaches so freely. " The Son of Man has power
on earth to forgive sinsx;" "My blood shed for
many for the remission of sins?." These sayings
give a momentary insight into the depths of the
r Luke vi. 37. B Ibid. vii. 47. ' Matt, xviii. 32.
11 Luke xviii. 13. x Matt. ix. 6. y Ibid. xxvi. 28.

LECTURE III 75
subject, and disclose something of the mysterious
means by which forgiveness has been procured, and
through which, when once revealed, it must be
sought. It is evident that such a revelation can
not remain as a mere associated idea, that it must
become fundamental, and give a peculiar and dis
tinctive character to the christian doctrine of the
forgiveness of sins. But we see that it is not
wrought out in the Gospels. Must we not then
expect that this will yet be done 1 and that, in
some future stage of divine teaching, we shall find
the word " Forgive and ye shall be forgiven" ele
vated and opened into " Forgiving one another as
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you %" and the
hope of forgiveness placed for ever on its true basis
of faith in him, " in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sinsa."
Again, take the doctrine of acceptance and suc
cess in prayer. How earnest and how strong are
our Lord's declarations on this subject ! It is need
less to rehearse them, but these precious assurances
are here connected only with the earnestness, im
portunity, and simplicity of the worshippers, and
with a general faith in the Father's will to give
good things to those that ask him. We might be
ready to say, " The whole instruction amounts to
this, — Dismiss all heathen and all Pharisaic notions
on this subject. Go simply to God as your Father.
Ask, and ye shall receive." Yet he who has taught
us, before he ceases to speak, adds something more,
? Eph. iv. 32. a Ibid. i. 7.

76 LECTURE III.
At the highest point of his teaching we hear him
say, " No man cometh unto the Father but by
meb;" " If ye shall ask anything in my name J will
do itc." Here is an immense accession of revelation,
which, when fully comprehended, must give its
character to the whole christian doctrine and to
the whole christian habit of prayer. But if we are
ever to see this consequence wrought out by divine
teaching, we must find it in some future stage of
instruction, in which the access to the Father by
the Son, and the new and living way which he
has consecrated for us, and the offices of the High
Priest over the house of God, shall be recognised
as the true grounds of the full assurance of faith,
for him who draws near to God in prayer.
The argument then stands thus. The doctrine of
the Gospel includes special revelations which must
from their nature become the foundations of moral
and spiritual life. But in the doctrine of the
Gospels they are not so treated, nor indeed could
they be, since the revelations themselves are chiefly
anticipatory allusions to facts which have not yet
taken place. In these revelations the teaching cul
minates rather than commences. They are the point
at which it arrives, not that from which it starts.
The doctrine does not therefore bear the character
of finality. We expect another stage, in which
these special revelations shall be, not only cleared
and combined, but shall hold that fundamental
place in the whole system of instruction which
b John xiv. 6. c Ibid. xvi. 23.

LECTURE III. 77
they tend inevitably to assume. And thug, from
the consideration of the substance and proportions
of the doctrine in the Gospels, as well from the
observation of its form and method, I conclude
that I am here only in an initiatory stage of divine
teaching, and that another part of the course must
lie before me. »
II. But I am not left to draw this conclusion. The
doctrine of the Gospels not only looks as if it
were to be followed by another stage of teaching,
but declares that such is the fact. I come to my
second proposition, that the personal teaching of the
Lord is a visibly progressive system, which, on reach
ing its highest point, declares its own incompleteness,
and refers us to another stage of instruction.
I. Place side by side the first discourse in St.
Matthew and the last in St. John, and the truth of
the first part of this proposition is at once apparent,
namely, that the personal teaching of the Lord is
a visibly progressive system. The Sermon on the
Mount at the opening of the ministry, and the ad
dress in the upper room defivered at its close, are
separated from each other, not only by difference
of circumstance and feeling, but as implying on
the part of the hearers wholly different stages in
the knowledge of truth. There is a greater interval
between these two discourses than there is between
the teaching of the Gospels as a whole and that of
the Epistles.
The first discourse is the voice of a minister
of the circumcision clearing and confirming the

78 LECTURE III.
divine teaching given to the fathers. Blessings,
laws, and promises are alike founded on the Old
Testament language, which the speaker at the
same time adopts and interprets. He keeps in
a line with the past, while he makes a clear
step in advance. He gives, not so much a new
code, as a new edition of the old one. The word
of authority, "I say unto you," is directed not
to destroy but to fulfil. It is the authority of the
original law-giver, clearing up his own intentions,
and disallowing the perversions of men. As plainly
as the first discourse links itself to the past, so
plainly does the last discourse reach on to the
future. If the one reverts to what was said in old
time, the other casts the mind forward on a day
of knowledge which is dawning and a new teacher
who is coming. In passing from the one point to
the other, we have left behind us the language and
associations of the Old Testament : we have entered
a new world of thought, and hear a new language
which is being created for its exigencies. What
makes the thought and the language new \ One
single fact ; namely, that the true relation of the
Lord Jesus to the spiritual life of his people is now
in a measure revealed. " Ye believe in God, believe
also in me :" — this is the keynote of the whole
address. And in the same strain it continues, "No
man cometh unto the Father but by me;" "Abide
in me and I in you;" "Without me ye can do
nothing." How foreign would such words have
been in the Sermon on the Mount ! We are

LECTURE III. 79
hot unprepared for them here, though even here
they mean more than can be yet understood. I do
not speak of single expressions, but of the whole
doctrine on faith and prayer, and love, and service,
and hope, and life. All subjects have here
assumed their distinctively christian character :
they are "in Christ Jesus." The faith fixes itself
on him, and on the Father through him. The
prayer is "in his name." The love is a response
to his love. The service is the fruit of union
with him. The hope is that of being with him
where he is ; to abide in him is the secret of
life, safety, fruitfulness, and joy; and the guiding
power of this new state is not the explanation
of a law,, but the gift of the Holy Ghost the Com
forter. Compare these ideas with those which
characterise the first Gospel teaching, and you
see how far you have been carried from the point
at which you started.. You see how much must
have intervened in the gradual revelation of Christ,
and in the gradual advance of his teaching, before
such a stage of doctrine could be reached.
And much had intervened. To shew how much,
it would be necessary to trace through all the Gospel
record the unfolding of the salvation, as it began
to be spoken by the Lord, and the steps by
which it was brought about, that the Master and
the disciples should become the Saviour and the
believers, and that the external hearing and follow
ing should pass into the mysterious relations of
an inward and spiritual union. It is enough to

80 LECTURE III.
recal the fact that, through all the works of
mercy, the corrections of error, and the instructions
in righteousness, a deeper lesson yet is sinking
into the minds of his hearers, in the growing
sense of a profound and ineffable relation borne
by him to the human race and to every human
soul. He makes it felt, that he stands before
men as the one object on which faith must fasten,
as the one who has power on earth to forgive
sins, who is come to seek and to save that which
is lost, who gives rest to the heavy laden, as the
giver of eternal life, as the quickener of whom
he will, as the bread which came down from
heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die,
as giving his flesh for the life of the world, his
fife a ransom for many, his blood as the blood of
the new covenant shed for many for the remission of
sins. Testimonies like these gather as we advance ;
and while the Lord in his ordinary teaching fulfils
his mission as the expounder of the laws, and
the example of the character, and the prophet of
the destinies of the kingdom of God, he discloses
at the same time by these scattered sayings a
far deeper and more fundamental relation to that
kingdom and to all its several members.
But while these disclosures are yet in progress
they are suddenly cut off. The ministry must
end : the hour is come. We enter the upper room,
and attend the last discourse, which is the close
and the consummation of the teaching of the Lord
on earth.

LECTURE III. 81
2. We turn then to that portion of the word of
God which extends from the beginning of the 14th
to the end of the 17th chapter of St. John. There,
in words most simple but unfathomably deep,
addressed first to men and then to God, there
flow forth the thoughts which belong to that
hour. Oh tender solemn words ! oh words of
majesty and love, of divine sorrow and joy ! words
for the saddest moments, the loftiest moments, the
last moments of life ! Not in the cold spirit of
one who would prove a point do I turn to them
now, though it be indeed to decide a question.
But what a question ! Not one affecting some
single doctrine which some text in the discourse
may touch, but one affecting all the doctrine
before and after, all that began to he spoken by
the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that
heard him. It is the question whether the point
which we have reached is final or central : whether
the true teaching of God here reaches a close or
effects a transition. There is no uncertainty in
the answer, for to give that answer is one main
purpose of the discourse. The Lord speaks to
the occasion. He would have it understood to
what point in the progress of his teaching we
are come, and what is the relation between that
which is now ending and that which is about to
begin. At the first glance it is plain that the character
of the discourse is distinctly transitional, that it
announces not an end, but a ehange; and that, in
a

82 LECTURE III.
closing one course of teaching, it at the same time
opens another. As the first discourse linked the
personal teaching of Christ to the Law and the
Prophets which went before it, so the last discourse
links that teaching to the dispensation of the Spirit
which is to come after it. The fact on which the
first is founded is that the Law of God has been
given to men as the guide to righteousness : the fact
on which the last is founded is that Jesus himself
has now been presented to men as the object oi faith.
And as it was intimated in the one case that the
lesson of righteousness was yet incomplete, and was
to be perfected by Jesus himself, so it is intimated in
the other that the lesson of faith is yet incomplete,
and is to be perfected by the Holy Ghost whom he
will send.
First, the narrative is careful to shew us that this
lesson of faith had been imperfectly learned. The
auditors are the men whom the Lord had chosen
and trained, and who had watched most closely the
whole course of his manifestation. Yet, as he pro
ceeds, what do we hear 1 " Lord, we know not whi
ther thou goest, and how can we know the way 1"
" Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us." " How is
it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not
unto the world 1" " What is this that he saith 1 we
cannot tell what he saith." By such voices of faint
and partial apprehension or of sore perplexity, we
learn how far the teaching of the past had gone with
them, in regard to those truths which were being
then set forth.

LECTURE III. 83
But it might be, notwithstanding, that the course
of divine instruction was complete, and that events
yet to come and reflection on the past would be suf-
cient to open to them its meaning. Not thus does
the Lord reply. Mingled with sad reflections, that
he has been so long time with them and that yet
they have not known him, he gives the consoling
assurance that their instruction in the truth is not
yet ended. A part of it is over, but only a part ;
and a part which had its hindrances as well as its
helps. The presence of Christ in the flesh had been
a help to what they had already learned ; it was a
hindrance to what they had now to learn d. While
he sat there before them in the body, it was hard to
understand the mystery of a spiritual union. That
hindrance is to be removed ; " It is expedient for
you that I go away."
Then the teaching which he had given them must
close. Yes, but another teaching shall be substituted ;
which shall be also his, though suited to the new
relations which he shall bear to them in his glorified
state. " It is expedient for you that I go away, for
if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto
you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you."
Then follow those precious promises of the coming
and office and work of the Holy Ghost, which ex
pand their fulfilment over the whole Church and
throughout all ages. But while it is clear that, in
the way of extension and of inference, many of the
words allow and invite this wider application, it is
d See Note VI.
G 2

84 LECTURE III
far more evident that in their first intention they
are directly addressed to those who heard them, and
meant to meet the question of the particular crisis
which had then arrived e.
No more distinct assurance could have been given
that those future teachers of the world were not
then at the end, but only at a certain point in the
progress of their education, and that a teaching re
mained for them, which should both continue and
surpass that which they had already received.
But had they not heard the truth from their
Lord % Yes ; and it was to be the office of the
Spirit to recall to their minds the truth which they
had heard, as the text and substance of their future
e " I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com
forter, that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of
truth ; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not,
neither knoweth him : but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you,
and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come
unto you." John xiv. 16-18. " At that day ye shall know that I
am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." ver. 20. " These
things have I spoken to you, while abiding with you ; but the Com
forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your re
membrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." ver. 25, 26. " When
the Comforter is come, he shall testify of me." xv. 26. " He shall
reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment : of
sin, because they believe not on me ; of righteousness, because I go
to my Father, and ye see me no more ; of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit
of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all truth ; for he shall not
speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speakj
and he shall shew you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he
shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." xvi. 8—14.

LECTURE III. 85
knowledge. "He shall bring all things to your re
membrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." But
though in the teaching of Jesus all the truth might
be implied, it was not all opened; therefore the
Holy Ghost was to add that which had not been
delivered, as well as to recall that which had been
already spoken. There is an evident contrast in
tended, with regard to extent of knowledge, between
" these things which I have spoken while yet present
with you," and " all things which he shall teach you."
Nay, there is the plainest assertion which could be
made, that things were to be said afterwards which
had not been said then ; and those not few but many
— (" I have yet many things to say unto you") — not
of secondary importance but of the highest moment
("Ye cannot bear them now" — ov 8vvao-6e fiacrraXeiv).
They are things of such a kind as would now weigh
down and oppress your minds, seeing that they
surpass your present powers of spiritual apprehen
sion. But these many and weighty things shall not
be left untold : " When he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he shall guide you into all the truth." He
shall guide you (68r}yfaei), as by successive steps and
continuous direction (els Trao-av rrjv aXqOeiav), into the
whole of that truth of which the commencements
have now been given ; and especially into the
highest and central part of it. For it is also made
plain on what subject this light shall be poured,
and into what mysteries this guidance shall lead.
"He shall testify of me;" "he shall glorify me;"
" he shall take of mine and shew it unto you ;"

86 LECTURE III.
" at that day ye shall know that / am in the Father,
and. ye in me, and I in you." Not then for some
secondary matters (details of Church order or rela
tions of Jews and Gentiles) was this light and
witness of the Holy Ghost reserved (though to these
questions also the divine guidance extended), but
rather for the great and central mystery of godliness,
embracing the nature, work, and offices of Jesus
Christ, his mediatorial relations to the Father and
to the Church, the redemption of men by his blood,
and the salvation of men by his life. But instead
of attempting to enumerate these great ideas, it were
better to comprehend them all in his own vast and
unexplained expression, " He shall take of mine (en
tov efjLov Xrj^rerai), and shall shew it unto you."
We have now reviewed the teaching of our Lord
in the flesh, in order to draw from it an answer to
this question, "Is the revelation of the great salva
tion given to us in that teaching to be considered
as final and complete V The answer has been, " No !
It has not the appearance of being final, and it
explicitly declares that it is not complete. When
it was ended, it was to be followed by a new testi
mony from God, in order that many things might be
spoken which had not been spoken then."
The testimony came ; the things were spoken ; and
in the apostolic writings we have their enduring
record. In those writings we find the fulfilment of
an expectation which the Gospels raised, and recog
nise the performance of a promise which the Gospels
gave. If we do not, the word of salvation, which

LECTURE III. 87
began to be spoken by the Lord, has never been
finished for us. Then, not only would the end be
wanting, but the beginning would become obscure.
The lessons of holiness would still shine in -their
own pure light, and the rebukes of human error
would shew in their severe outlines ; but the words
which open by anticipation the mystery of the great
salvation, flashing sometimes on its deep foundations,
sometimes on its lofty summits, would but dazzle
and confuse our sight ; and we should be tempted
to turn from their discoveries, as from visions which
had no substance, or from enigmas which we could
not interpret.
And so in fact they treat the personal teaching
of Christ who give not its due honour to the sub
sequent witness of his Spirit, regarding the apostolic
writings as only Petrine, Pauline, or Alexandrian ver
sions of the Christian doctrine, interesting records
of the views of individuals or schools of opinion
concerning the salvation which Jesus began to speak.
No ! the words of our Lord are not honoured (as
these men seem to think) by being thus isolated ; for
it is an isolation which separates them from other
words which also are his own, words given by him in
that day when he no longer spake in proverbs, but
shewed his servants plainly of the Father. The brief
communications in which the salvation began to be
spoken by the Lord must lose half their glory, if a
mist and darkness be cast over that later teaching
which was ordained to throw its reflex light upon
them.

88 LECTURE III.
Our thoughts have now arrived at the point where
the day of " speaking in proverbs" changes into the
day of " shewing plainly." It is a critical moment ;
for, whatever progress of doctrine the change may
involve, all our satisfaction in its increased distinct
ness of outline and accumulated fulness of detail
must depend on our assurance that the teacher is
still the same. My next duty will therefore be that
of noting the care which he himself has taken to
fix that assurance on our minds. His care is never
wanting where it is needed, and we have cause to
praise his holy name that in this, as well as in so
many other ways, he has knit together the one body
of his written word by living and indissoluble bands,
so that its interdependent parts fulfil effectually their
several functions, in commencing or completing the
one testimony of the great salvation.
It is of the testimony that I now speak. More
happy is that common ministry in which we present
the salvation itself. Only for the sake of the salva
tion does the testimony exist. There is a deep
interest for every considerate mind in the form,
the plan, the character, of the sacred writings ; but
it is not a merely literary or intellectual interest :
it is one created by the object for which the writings
are given. The reader of the Gospels is not suffered
to close the volume without a solemn admonition
of the purpose for which it has been placed in
his hands. " These things are written that ye may
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that
believing ye may have life through his name."

LECTURE III. 89
Does it wound our hearts to see this wondrous
record misapprehended, its unity denied, its glory
darkened1? Perhaps it is a sadder sight in the eye
of heaven when its inspiration is vindicated, its per
fection appreciated, its majesty asserted, by one who
at the same time for himself neglects the great sal
vation. Such a case is not impossible — perhaps is
not uncommon. The Day will declare it. At least
let it be remembered, that the study of the testimony
is one thing, and the enjoyment of the salvation
is another, and that the record of the things which
Jesus did and said has attained its end with those
only, who, " believing, have life through his name."

LECTUEE IY.

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Acts i. 1-4.
The former treatise have I made, 0 Theophilus, of all that
Jesus began both to do and teach,
Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through
the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom
he had chosen :
To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by
many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speak
ing of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God :
And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that
they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise
of the Father, which, saith he, ye have lieard of me.
WlTH these words we enter on a new stage of
history and of doctrine, and they are words which
connect it with the past. The links of Scripture
(if I may so call them) uniting one part to another,
and assisting our sense of the continuity of the whole,
are worthy of especial notice. Thus the Gospels have
been brought to a fit and (as it seems from the final
words) an intended conclusion, at the end of the
twentieth chapter of St. John ; but yet another
chapter is added, as if dictated by some after-

LECTURE IV. 91
thought, which in its effect links the whole Gospel
record to the book which succeeds it. The miracle
which had already foreshadowed the work of the
fishers of men is repeated, but with altered circum
stances, typical of the change which was at hand.
For now the Lord is no longer with them in the
ship, but stands dimly seen upon the shore ; yet
from thence issues his directions, and shews the
presence of his power working with them in their
seemingly lonely toil. Then the charge is left to
" feed his sheep," and lastly, the future destinies of
the two chief Apostles are suffered to be faintly seen.
In like manner does the book of Acts at its
opening attach itself to the preceding record ; throw
ing back our thoughts on "the former treatise of
all that Jesus began both to do and teach," and then
passing rapidly in review the last circumstances
which connect the Apostles with their Lord, as
the instruments which he had chosen and prepared
for the work which he had yet to do. Thus
the history which follows is linked to, or (may I not
rather say) welded with, the past ; and the founding
of the Church in the earth is presented as one con
tinuous work, begun by the Lord in person, and
perfected by the same Lord through the ministry of
men. This is the point on which I have now to
insist. "The former treatise" delivered to us, not
all that Jesus did and taught, but " all that Jesus
began both to do and teach, until the day when
he was taken up." The following writings appear
intended to give us, and do in fact profess to give

92 LECTURE IV.
us, that which Jesus continued to do and teach after
the day in which he was taken upa.
There are then two points which claim our at
tention when we pass beyond that day, and enter
on the second stage of New Testament doctrine.
One is that the authority is continued ; the other
is that the method is changed. Our enquiries will
naturally be directed, (i) to the evidence for the first
fact, and (2) to the reasons for the second.
I. First, then, I turn to the books which lie before
us, to ask what evidence they give, that the divine
authority, which was self-evident in the first .stage
of teaching, is continued also in the second, or, in
other words, that this is as really as the other a part
of revelation, and a period of divine communication
of truth to man. The fundamental part of this
evidence consists in the words, which were cited in
the last lecture, from the mouth of the Lord himself :
for in the words of his lips is centred the evidence
for all teaching which he has given us through the
lips of men. But we are now to see how these
intimations are supported in the books which follow.
1. We find, then, that the doctrinal writings of the
Apostles are prefaced by the book of Acts, some
account of that which was done being given as an
introduction to the record of that which was taught.
The function of this book in the scheme of Scrip
ture is of very high importance, in other respects, to
which we must advert hereafter, and especially in
that which concerns us now. It is a record of the
a Note VII.

LECTURE IV. 93
personal action of the Lord Jesus Christ in the
first evolution of his gospel and formation of his
Church. With him and with his last words on earth the
book begins, reminding us of his commission and
commands to the Apostles whom he had chosen.
Then we see him depart, and they are left to their
work. Yet they do not begin it till the promised
Spirit is come ; they wait for the promise of the
Father, which they have heard of him. One trans
action in the interval shews their own assurance
that he who directed them so lately intends to
direct them still : " Thou, Lord, which knowest the
hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou
hast chosen, that he may take part in this ministry
and apostleship D." Such language intimates the re
lation in which they still felt themselves to their now
unseen Master. But soon the promised gift is be
stowed, and the dispensation of the Spirit has begun.
And what in their view is the dispensation of the
Spirit \ It is the agency and gift of Jesus. " Being
by the right hand of God exalted, and having re
ceived of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,
he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and
hear0." This view of the operation of the Spirit, as the
medium through which the Lord Jesus wrought and
taught, is carried through the whole course of the
history which follows. As in the promise, so in the
history, " The Comforter will come unto you" — " /
b Acts i. 24. c Ibid. ii. 33.

94 LECTURE IV.
will come unto you," — are but two sides of one and
the same fact. On critical occasions and at each
onward step the hand of the Master is made dis
tinctly visible. The first martyr dies for a testimony,
which is felt to be an advance on what had been
given before, being understood to imply that "this
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and change
the customs which Moses delivered us;" and his
words are sealed by the vision of his Lord in glory.
The consignment of the Gospel to the Ethiopian
proselyte was another step in advance, and for this
" the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip." The
preaching of the word to Gentiles, and their ad
mission into the Church, was a greater step ; and
for this the Lord intervenes by the mission of an
angel to Cornelius, by a vision and a voice of the
Spirit to Peter, and by a kind of second Pentecost
to the converts themselves. But, when the greatest
step of all is to be taken in the onward course of
the Gospel, then most visibly does the great Head
of the Church make manifest his personal adminis
tration. A new Apostle appears ; not like him who
was added before Pentecost, completing the number
of the original college, and losing his individuality
in its ranks ; but one standing apart and in advance,
under whose hand both the doctrines and the des
tinies of the Gospel receive a development so ex
tensive and so distinct, that it seemed almost another
Gospel to many who witnessed it, and to some who
study it seems so still. How striking is the special
authentication appropriated to this stage of teaching !

LECTURE IV 95
This man's conversion, education, commission, direc
tion, the Lord Jesus undertakes himself. Suddenly
he meets him in the way, shines forth upon him
in a light above the brightness of the sun, speaks
to him by a voice from heaven, calls him by name,
convinces, adopts, directs him, commands Ananias
concerning him, and (apparently on repeated occa
sions) announces the use which he has decreed to
make of " the chosen vessel." The subsequent his
tory is marked by continual testimonies of the same
divine intervention, given at every step which might
involve the doubt whether it were of Paul or of
Christ. When his soul clave to the ministry among
his own people, he was forced from it by immediate
command : " It came to pass that, while I prayed
in the Temple, I was in a trance, and saw him saying
unto me, Make haste and get thee quickly out of
Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony
concerning me : depart, for I will send thee far
hence unto the Gentiles d." When he had fixed
himself as a settled teacher in Antioch, " the Spirit
said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto I have called them." When he would
have confined himself to the eastern continent, and
turned, in his contemplated circuit, first to Asia and
then to Bithynia, " the Spirit suffered him not," and
a divine message enabled him to "gather assuredly
that the Lord had called him" to carry his Gospel
into Europe. Again, in Corinth the Lord's own
voice directed him to remain, as in the head-quarters
d Acts xxii. 17, 18, 2 i.

96 LECTURE IV.
of the Grecian world. In Jerusalem, when dis
heartened and perhaps doubtful of the course he
had taken, his Master came to assure him of the
acceptance of his past testimony, and announce the
purpose that he should bear witness also at Rome ;
and finally, in the shipwreck itself, when all hope of
being saved was taken away, the declaration of the
divine purpose was made yet more distinct : " Fear
not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar."
Thus does he, who at the commencement of
the history was seen to pass into the heavens,
continue to appear in person on the scene. His
Apostles act, not only on his past commission,
but under his present direction. He is not wholly
concealed by the cloud which had received him
out of their sight. Now his voice is heard ; now
his hand put forth ; and now through a sudden
rift the brightness of his presence shines. And
these appearances, voices, and visions are not mere
incidental favours ; they are, as we have seen,
apportioned to the moments when they are wanted,
moments which determine the course which the
Gospel takes, and in which a manifestation of
divine guidance proves the divine guidance of
the whole. The ship rushes on its way, shunning
the breakers, dashing through the billows, certain
of its track. The crew work it, but do not guide
it. We can see the strong movements of the helm,
and from time to time discern a firm hand which
holds it. No chances, no winds or currents, bear
it along at their will, but he who has launched

LECTURE IV 97
it guides it, and he knows the course which it
takes. The divine direction, which is thus exhibited
in the book of the Acts, is indeed the direction
of a course of action rather than a course of teach
ing. It seems to be the guidance of the move
ments of the Gospel, rather than of the formation
of the Gospel ; and our present enquiry is con
cerned with the progress of its formation, not with
the progress of its extension. Yet in the apostolic
period these two kinds of progress co-exist, and
(as it were) cohere ; and the outward divine
direction of the one is offered as surety for the
inward divine direction of the other. In the earlier
period, the things which Jesus began to do were
the proof and support of the things which he
began to teach ; and in the later period, that which
he continued to do, in the acts of his Apostles,
is the pledge that in their doctrine also it was he
who continued to teach. The inference is natural
and is plainly intended, — If the introductory his
torical book manifests the direction of the Lord
in the acts of these 'men, then in the subsequent
doctrinal books we must- own his direction in their
teaching. Such an inference would be reasonable,
if we regarded the teaching as simply an accom
paniment of the acting ; such an inference is in
evitable, when we see that the delivery of the
truth to the world is the one end and object of
what is done.
I must further observe, that the facts recorded
H

98 LECTURE IV.
in the book of Acts are not only a pledge of the
divine authority of the doctrine in the Epistles,
but are also the means through which that doc
trine was perfected. As the Gospel was guided
through its conflict with the contemporaneous Ju
daism ; as it spread from the Hebrews to the
Grecians, to the dispersion, to the devout persons,
to the heathen beyond ; as it passed from Jerusalem
to Antioch, to Corinth, to Rome ; as it was pre
sented to men first through Peter, and then through
Paul, — its doctrines were gaining at every step
in definiteness and fulness. Questions arose which
compelled decision ; new states of mind in receivers
of truth called out, not new principles of truth,
but new applications of it ; and the growth of
Churches and the advance of christian life led to
the settlement of points, which could not have been
raised till such a state of things had arisen. Under
these circumstances, a divine guidance of events was
only a means for the divine guidance of doctrine.
If the Lord himself sensibly interfere, to send Peter
to Ca?sarea, and to call Paul to bear his name
before Gentiles and kings, then not only those steps,
but the doctrinal results of them, are visibly in
cluded in the purpose of God and marked with
the seal of heaven.
More than this we can hardly ask for from the
book of Acts, seeing that its province is in the
outward scene, and its office is to record the march
of events. We pass from it to the Epistles with
the fullest assurance which such evidence can afford,

LECTURE IV. 99
that the doctrine which they contain is given by
the Lord Jesus, and that, if it appear an advance
upon that which he spake with his lips in the days
of his flesh, that advance has been matured by
himself. In the Epistles which have for their province,
not history but doctrine, some direct statements on
this subject might perhaps be expected. Whether
expected or not, they are certainly found. The great
body of the Epistles are the writings of St. Paul.
The change in the aspect of their doctrine as com
pared with the Gospel type bears chiefly the impress
of his mind. It has been called, and may be properly
called, the Pauline doctrine. Is it also absolutely
the doctrine of Christ % or is it an individual variety
of that doctrine, to be regarded (so far as it seems
peculiar) as one allowable form of the original truth 1
a token that there shall be, a warrant that there
may be, various systems of opinion in the Church ?
The question in fact is this, Is the voice of Raul
speaking in the Scriptures to be taken by the Church
as the voice of Jesus ? This question has been an
swered by the history in the Acts. We have already
recalled to our minds the special choice, and call,
and commission, and direction, which were assigned
to the Apostle born out of due time ; the confir
mation of his proceedings when they were most
questioned, the divine fellowship in his course when
it seemed most lonely. But there is yet a more
direct answer than this ; one which his own words-
supply.
H 2

100 LECTURE IV
In his writings in general he is careful to assert
the reality of his apostleship, as conferred by imme
diate appointment and bearing the seal of God ;
and it is observable, that the strength of these ex
pressions is proportioned to the occasions when the
authority of the office involves the authority of the
doctrine. In the Epistle to the Galatians, when
he has to maintain his gospel as being the gospel,
we find the precision which marks the language of
one who knows what insinuations he has to negative :
" Paul, an Apostle, not of men (air avdpanrwv), neither
by men (oY avBptim-ov), but by (Sia) Jesus Christ, and
God the Father, who raised him from the dead."
He declares himself to have been placed, not ori
ginally from men, nor mediately by any man's
ministry, but by the very hand of Christ, in the
chair from which his instructions are delivered, and
thus he attaches the authority of the commission
to the instructions which are given under it. But
he goes farther, and affirms that those instructions
themselves were no less immediately received from
the Lord Jesus, than was the commission under
which they were defivered.
Let me ask your attention to the language which
this Apostle uses, when speaking of the sources
whence the matter of his preaching was derived.
Take first two passages from the First Epistle to the
Corinthians. He says (ch. xi. 23-25), " I have re
ceived of the Lord that which also I delivered unto
you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was
betrayed^ took bread ; and having given thanks, he

LECTURE IV 101
brake it, and said, Take, eat : this is my body, which
is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me.
Likewise also he took the cup, when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood :
this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance
of me." Again (ch. xv. 1-7), the same expression,
though less full, is used in reference to another class
of facts : " Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel
which I preached unto you, which also ye have
received  For I defivered unto you first of all
that which I also received, how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that he
was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures : and that he was seen of
Cephas, and then of the twelve ; after that, he was
seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; . . . .
after that, he was seen of James ; then of all the
Apostles." Now place by the side of these state
ments two others, taken from the Epistles which
follow. To the Galatians he says (ch. in, 12), "I
certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was
preached of me is not after man ; for / neither
received it of man (irapa avQpw-wov wapeXafiov), neither
was I taught it, but by revelation (Si1 cnroicaXv-^ew?)
of Jesus Christ ;" and to the Ephesians (iii. 2, 3) he
speaks in the same strain, though with less emphatic
precision : " Ye have heard of -the dispensation of the
grace of God, given to me to you-ward : how that
by revelation he made known unto me the mystery,"
(koto. airoKtiXv^nv eyvwpio-e fxot to fivar^piov).
Between the first and the second of these pairs

102 LECTURE IV
of texts a very remarkable difference appears. In
the first, St. Paul seems to represent his own preach
ing as a link in the chain of tradition, " I received,"
" I delivered," (vapeXa^ov, -rrapeSwica) : nor yet as the
first link, for even the fuller expression, rendered
" I received of the Lord," (a7ro tov icupiov,) does not
so fitly import an immediate communication, as a
reception of that which had originated from the
Lord, and was handed down by his commandment d.
St. Paul, therefore, here appears to stand, in respect
to the sources of his information, on the same
footing as the Evangelist who was associated with
him, and to speak of the facts of the manifestation
of Christ, " even as they delivered them unto us
(kuOoos TrapiSoo-av fnj.lv), who from the beginning were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." On the
other hand, in the second pair of statements, the
contrary assertion is made, namely, that his gospel
was not received from man, nor taught by man,
but communicated immediately by revelation of the
Lord Jesus.
The state of the case thus brought to light is in
exact accordance with the view which is here taken
of the manner in which the Lord perfected his
word. The Gospel which the Apostles preached
was a combination of historic facts with their spi
ritual interpretations ; . and the expression, " Gospel
which I preached," is used by St. Paul in different
places with more immediate reference to the one
or the other of these elements. In the passages
a See Note VIII.

LECTURE IV. 103
from the Epistle to the Corinthians he speaks of
the first and fundamental part of his preaching,
referring expressly to the publication of historic
facts : — Christ died — he was buried — he rose again —
he was seen of Cephas, &c. On the same night that
he was betrayed he took bread — he gave thanks,
and brake it — he said, Take, eat, &c. ; and we learn
that the Gospel, as a body of historic fact, was
received by the Apostle Paul, as by all others who
had not seen the Lord in the flesh, from those who
were the appointed witnesses of his visible mani
festation. In the two latter passages it is otherwise.
Not the historic facts, but "the mystery" connected
with them, is spoken of (in the address to the
Ephesians) as the subject of the revelation received.
And the Gospel of which he writes to the Galatians
is plainly not thought of on its historical, but on
its doctrinal side. The "other Gospel" into which
the converts were " being removed" was not another
account of the life of Jesus, but another set of
inferences connected with it. When he went up
to Jerusalem by revelation, and privately commu
nicated to those of reputation "the Gospel which
he preached among the Gentiles," we are sure that
he laid before them, not the substance of the history
which we read in St. Luke's narrative, but the sub
stance of the doctrine which is embodied in his
own Epistles. The whole argument to the Galatians
turns upon the doctrinal element of the Gospel. It
is of this, therefore, that he so solemnly affirms that
he was not taught it by agency of man, but received

104 LECTURE IV
it as direct revelation from the Lord ; and this
affirmation is made, not merely in respect of the
general doctrine, but specifically of those parts of
it which it was given to him to develop and defend :
" the Gospel which was preached by me,"—" my
Gospel," as he elsewhere calls it, the Gospel under
that particular aspect which he admits to be the
subject of extensive doubt and complaint. The part
in the progress of doctrine committed to St. Paul
was to define, to settle, and to carry out to its
practical consequences the principle of free justifi
cation in Christ, which (as a principle) was acknow
ledged and held before his voice was heard ; and
we learn from his own statements, that, for this
special work, not only a special commission, but a
special revelation was given him by the Lord Jesus,
so as to clear and settle his own mind, on those
points on which he was sent to clear and settle
the minds of others. In this way he was a minister
and a witness, not of those things which he had
heard from others, nor of those things which he
had only thought out for himself, but of those things
which his Lord had shewed him in personal visits
and distinct communications, according to the an
nouncement made at the first commencement of
this peculiar intercourse, " I have appeared unto
thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister
and a witness, both of those things which thou
hast seen, and of those things in the which I will
appear unto thee," (tlv re e?oey wv re 6(p6fjo-ofjtxi o-oie).
e Acts xxvi. 1 6.

LECTURE IV. 105
No ! he was not only an inspired teacher adorned
with the title of Apostle ; he was an Apostle in the
strictest sense of the word, a commissioned witness
to others of direct communications of Jesus Christ
to himself; one appointed to confirm to others the
salvation which, in his own hearing, had begun to
be spoken by the Lord.
The appearances and revelations vouchsafed to the
Apostle of the Gentiles are thus conspicuously seen
to connect themselves with the agency assigned to
him in the progress of doctrine ; and the more care
fully we~examine his history and weigh his language,
the more sensibly do we feel ourselves in the presence
of that great fact, on the reality of which the faith of
succeeding ages has reposed, namely, the continued
personal administration of the Lord Jesus in found
ing his Church and perfecting his word.
This administration was manifested, as we have
seen, by selection of agents, direction of events, an
gelic messages, visits in visions, special instructions,
and distinct revelations ; yet these numerous inter
ventions do not constitute the entire system of divine
guidance, or even the chief part of it, but are rather
to be regarded as additions to the normal method of
administration which they serve both to assist^ and
authenticate. 2. The normal guidance of the Apostles by their
Lord was not occasional, but habitual, not through
separate interventions, but through the Holy Ghost
dwelling in them. So the promise ran that it should
be ; and so in fact it was.

106 LECTURE IV.
The Day of Pentecost is the opening of the second
period of the New Testament dispensation. It stands
alone, as does the day which now we call Christmas :
the one the birthday of the Lord, the other the birth
day of his Church ; the one proclaimed by praises
sung by hosts in heaven, the other by praises uttered
in the various tongues of earth. That change is
significant : for now the Spirit conveys the true
knowledge of the wonderful works of God into the
recesses of the human heart. A dispensation is
begun, in which the mind of God has entered into
mysterious combination with the mind of man, and
henceforth the revealing light shines, not from with
out, but from within.
" O God, who at this time didst teach the hearts
of thy faithful people by the sending to them the
light of thy Holy Spirit !" So speaks the Collect for
Whitsunday ; and, in so speaking, seizes at once the
central idea of the event. That idea is often imper
fectly apprehended ; for in the dispensation of the
Spirit there is so much that is visible on its surface,
that our thoughts are apt to be arrested before they
penetrate to its centre. Tongues and prophecies,
and signs and wonders, gifts of the Holy Ghost dis
pensed according to his will, are visible results of
the event, and they witness to the Gospel and clear
its way. Below these superadded faculties, we are
conscious of a mighty influence in the region of the
emotions. We feel the presence of that comfort and
strength, of that glow and fervour and joy, by which
we see the men animated in the exercise of their

LECTURE IV 107
new powers, and hear them speak with tongues and
magnify God. But we must go further. The new
powers seem as it were born from the new impulses,
but whence do the new impulses proceed % Is there
not a cause for these 1 Does the Holy Spirit limit
his entrance into man to the region of emotion, which
is but the surface of our nature, without reaching
those inner spings from which, according to the laws
of that nature, the emotions should themselves be
quickened 1 No ! be sure that the Holy Ghost has
occupied the heart and centre of our being, and that,
as the tongues are given as a vent for the fervour
of emotion, so the fervour of emotion has its own
origin in a sudden access of intellectual light. New
apprehensions of truth, new views of things, which
those thus visited had seen but had not understood,
now burst in a moment on their minds, and from
that moment continued to grow more distinct and
more extended before their now enlightened eye.
God at that time not only stirred, but taught,
the hearts of his faithful people, and sent to them
not only the warmth but " the light " of his Holy
Spirit. If this had not been so, what fulfilment would
there have been of those promises of the Lord which
we lately recalled to mind, respecting the nature
and effect of the gift which was to follow his de
parture 1 He told his Apostles that they should
" receive power," and he told them that they should
receive " comfort," but we have seen that that on
which he chiefly dwelt was the light of knowledge

108 LECTURE IV
which should rise upon their minds. " In that day
ye shall know ;" " he shall bring all things to your
remembrance ;" " he shall teach you all things ;" " he
shall guide you into all truth ;" he shall receive of
mine and shall shew it unto you." These are plain
assertions. It is enough that they were made by him
who gave the gift, and certainly knew how to de
scribe it. The rehearsal of these assertions belonged
to the last stage of our enquiry; the evidence of their
fulfilment is the thing before us now.
Those to whom these promises are given exhibit
at the time a dimness of apprehension, a perplexity
and disorder of thought, an incapacity to understand
the things which they hear and see, which we, en
lightened from the fight which they afterwards ob
tained, most unreasonably count to be wonderful.
It could not have been otherwise with the strongest
and most penetrating intellects. But the fact of
their condition of mind is undoubted, whether we
ascribe it to personal deficiency or to the necessity
of the case.
They were dealt with accordingly. From the mo
ment when they saw their Lord ascend, they were in
full possession of all the external facts of which they
were appointed to bear witness. But they were not
in possession of the spiritual meaning, relations, and
consequences of those facts, and therefore the hour
of their testimony was not come, and the interval
was passed not in preaching but in prayer. As
soon as the promise is fulfilled they lift up their
voice and speak. Never were men so changed.

LECTURE IV 109
Who does not note the accession of boldness, faith
fulness, and fervour ! But these are not separated
and unsupported gifts. They manifestly have, their
origin in the certainty of assurance and intensity
of conviction. The Trapp>]o-la proceeds from irXypo-
(popla ; according as it is written, " I believed and
therefore have I spoken, these also believe and there
fore speak." Their clear firm testimony rises in a
moment before the world, never hesitating or waver
ing, never to sink or change again, only manifesting
more fully, as time advances, the largeness of its
compass and the definiteness of its announcements.
Ever after they speak as men would do, who were
conscious of a ground of certainty which could not
be questioned, who could say that things "seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to themf ;" that their
word was "not the word of man but the word of
Gods ;" that it was " the Spirit that bore witness11 ;"
that they " preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven1;" that "things which eye
had not seen nor ear heard, and which had not en
tered into the heart of man, had been revealed to
them by the Spirit, which searcheth the deep
things of God;" that they "had received, not the
spirit which is of the world, but the Spirit which
is of God, that they might know the things which
are freely given of God ; " that they " spoke these
things, not in words which man's wisdom taught, but
which the Holy Ghost taught ;" and that they " could
f Acts xv. 28. b 1 Thess. ii. 13.
n 1 John v. 6. '1 Pet. i. 12.

11.0 LECTURE IV
be judged of no man," because " none knew the mind
of the Lord so as to instruct him, and they had the
mind, of Christ k." It is enough. The three testi
monies concur — the testimony of him who gave the
Spirit, the testimony of those who received it, and
the testimony of the facts which ensued on its re
ception. Are we then at a loss to know what was the
nature of the gift which the Holy Spirit brought
for the purposes of the apostolic work ? Certainly
it was vast and various — " a sevenfold gift ; " but its
most essential part lay not in tongues and powers
which witnessed to the Gospel, not in the fervour
and boldness which preached it, rather it was the
Gospel itself
The Gospel which the Apostles preached consisted
of two elements, a testimony of external facts which
fell within the region of the senses, and a testimony
of the virtue of those facts in the predestined go
vernment of God, and of the consequences of them
in the spiritual history of men, neither of which
was it possible for the senses to certify. For the
first testimony they needed but a clear and faith
ful memory. For the second also the same faculty
would suffice, but only up to a certain point ;
namely, as far as they had received and under
stood the exposition of transcendental truth from
the lips of the Lord Jesus. But we have seen
that the salvation only began to be spoken by the
Lord, and that he himself asserted that it would
k i Cor. ii. 9-16.

LECTURE IV 111
not be fully revealed by him, or understood by them,
until the Spirit came. If the Spirit on his coming
did not complete that revelation, then the Gospel
which the Apostles preached must have been, in
some of its most important features, partly a word
of God and partly a word of man. Their witness
of the death, and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus
would demand an unqualified acceptance, but their
representation of the sacrificial character and atoning
merits of the death, of the life-giving power of the
resurrection, and of the mediatorial office in heaven,
would be the result of their own inferences from the
words which they had gleaned from their Lord ; and,
instead of being judged of no man, they would be
judged of every man who could take a different view
of the words which they repeated from that which
they had taken themselves™. Thus the whole system
of their doctrine would stand (like the image in the
dream) on feet part of iron and part of clay, and
would not wait long for the hour of its overthrow.
But he who, in the face of all which has been now
recalled to mind, should still treat their doctrine in
this fight, would plainly accuse of falsehood, not only
the men, but their Lord himself; who, if he spoke
true when he gave them the Spirit, led them thereby
"into all the truth." The guarantees for this fact
could hardly have been plainer or stronger than they
are. We thank God that he has provided them, and
we pass into the second stage of New Testament
teaching with adequate assurances that he who be-
m See Note IX.

112 LECTURE IV.
fore taught us on earth, now teaches us from heaven,
and that we still " hear him and are taught in him."
II. We have not then changed our teacher, but he
has changed his method: and I have now to point
out the reasons of the change, by shewing that it
was fitted to conduct the advance of doctrine from
the point at which it had then arrived.
It may be said that the change was simply a
matter of necessity, because he who had spoken
with his lips was now to be received up into glory,
and could no longer talk with his servants on earth.
But though the change might be necessary, it was also
"expedient" — expedient for them. So he represents
it to his mourning and perplexed disciples, and adds
the support of a strong asseveration. " Nevertheless
I tell you the truth, it is good for you that I go
away ; for if I go not away the Comforter will not
come unto you&." The change then takes place as
an advantage to those who are subjected to it.
For them a stage of revelation has come which
demands a method of teaching more penetrating
and internal than that which they had till then
enjoyed. It is in this character that the superiority of the
later method consists, as is pointed out by the plain
distinction, " He dwelleth with you, and shall be in
you." Here are two methods appropriated to the
two stages of New Testament teaching : and it is
clear as day that the second is an advance upon the
first. In the one, the teaching power is separated
s John xvi. 7.

LECTURE IV. 113
from, and external to, the mind which is being
taught ; in the other, it is interfused and commingled
with it. The words, in the one, are divine announce
ments fitted to form the apprehensions of man : the
words, in the other, are expressions of human appre
hensions already formed under the divine agency.
The teaching power has thus changed its method,
in order to meet the exigencies of a more difficult
stage of instruction.
The facts are finished when Jesus is glorified ;
the manifestation of the Son of God is perfect, the
redemption is accomplished, and the conditions of
human salvation are complete.
The history must now be treated as a whole, of
which the plan and purpose have become apparent.
The time is come for the full interpretation of the
facts, of their effects in the world of spirit, and of
their results in human consciousness.
A doctrine then is needed, which shall sum up
the whole bearing of the manifestation of Christ,
which shall throw a full light on its spiritual effects,
and which shall guide the minds of men in their
application of it to themselves. Such a doctrine
might be given from God in one of two ways : by
voices from heaven, declaring what view men ought
to take of the history which had passed before them,
and what their faith and feelings ought to be con
cerning it ; or by voices from men themselves,
expressing the view which they did take, and the
faith and feelings which were actually in their hearts.
In the one case, we should have Apostles, who would
i

114 LECTURE IV.
be to us the messengers of God, only while they
testified that they had received such and such revela
tions, and while they recited those revelations to
us word for word : but all their other words would
come to us on their own merits, as simply the words
of holy and enlightened men. In the other case, we
should have Apostles, whose representations of their
own view of all which they had heard and seen, whose
expositions of their own convictions and feelings,
and of the processes of their own thoughts con
cerning the things of Christ, would be to us so
many revelations from God of what he intended to be
the result of the manifestation of his Son in human
hearts. Who does not see that this kind of teaching would
exceed the other in completeness and effectiveness ?
It would be more complete ; for we should thus
have the word presented to us in the final form
which it was meant to take* that, namely, of a word
dwelling in us — a divine announcement changed
already into a human experience. It would be more
effective ; inasmuch as example is more so than pre
cept, and the same voice, being to us both the voice
of God and the voice of man, would affect our
hearts with the double power of certainty and sym
pathy. Such a method of teaching could only be
possible, under some system of divine action which
should fuse into one the thoughts of God and the
thoughts of man ; and this was effected by the gift
of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles for the work
whereto they were called.

LECTURE IV. 115
I say for the work whereto they were called, for
the same Spirit is diverse in operation, and divides
to every man severally as he will. When the Church
was anointed from above, the manifestation of the
Spirit pervaded her whole frame, " like the precious
ointment on the head, which ran down upon the
beard, even: upon Aaron's beard, and went down to
the skirts of his garments." Even " on the servants
and on the handmaids" did the Lord pour out of his
Spirit, and the supernatural presence was disclosed in
a vast scale of various gifts, ranging from that which
was intense and supreme to that which- was super
ficial and ancillary. But we speak now of that which
was supreme. " First Apostles." . The .ointment is
poured first upon the head ; and from thence the
glittering drop's, descend upon the raiment. All
the members have not the same office : — Are all
Apostles f No ! the authorities, standards, and types
of truth are so by. direct commission, and the gift
which they receive, is one which makes them so
indeed, As: the, offiee, so is the gift. An. incom
municable office has an incommunicable . gift. An
office which is to be solitary and supreme in the
Church for ever has a gift adequate to secure the
implicit, confidence of long-descending ages-.
¦ Voices may be heard among^us now which tend
to impair that confidence ; complaints of the dis
tinctive use of the word 'inspiration,' as applied
to the Scripture writers ; assertions that " the Scrip
tures are before, and above all- things, the voice of
the congregation." I 2

116 LECTURE IV
On what do these complaints and assertions rest %
On the true conviction, that, in all the Church, and
in all ages, there is the presence of the same Spirit.
Yes ! and on the false assumption, that the gifts
of the Spirit are to all the same gifts. There is
no principle in the Bible more clear, than that the
gifts of the Spirit are diverse, and are, in cha
racter and proportion, adapted to the works which
God assigns, and appropriated to the offices which
he creates. Now it is certainly one thing to be a
member, and another thing to be a founder, of the
Church. It is one thing to receive or to propagate
the truth, and another to deliver it with the au
thority of God, and to certify it to the world for
ever. The same clear view of the way of salvation, and
of the unsearchable riches of Christ, which gladdened
the soul of St. Paul, might gladden the soul of one
who heard his words, and may now gladden the soul
of one who reads them. For both there is the same
Spirit and the same testimony ; but the Spirit is
given to the one, that he may originate that testi
mony, to the other, that he may receive it. There
is a difference between being builded into the holy
temple, which is the habitation of God through
the Spirit, and being constituted a foundation, on
which the future building is to rise at first and to
rest for ever. Such was the separate function of
the Apostles of the Lord and Saviour, a function
which they shared with the special messengers of
God who went before them, and -even with their

LECTURE IV. 117
Lord Himself. " Ye are built," said they to their
brethren, — " Ye are built on the foundation of the
Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being
the chief corner-stone"." The corner-stone is but
part of the foundation, though it be the first and the
chief part ; and this consolidation of the corner-stone
with the adjacent foundations, as one basement to
sustain the building, exhibits in the plainest manner
the fact, that the Church, in respect of its faith,
rests upon a testimony which was delivered, partly
by Jesus Christ in person, and partly by the agents
whom for that purpose he ordained. Their inspi
ration as believers associates them with the whole
Church ; their inspiration as teachers unites them
only with their Lord.
The consciousness of this position appears in the
records of their preaching, and breathes through
all their writings a lofty and unyielding authority.
They speak as men having the Spirit to those to
whom it is also given, yet as men empowered to
deliver the truth which the others were only enabled
to receive. St. Paul addresses himself to " those
that are spiritual," but he shews them that it is
he, and not they, who is "put in trust with the
Gospel," and that the word which he utters is one
to which they can add nothing, and in which
they can change nothing. St. John exhorts those
" who have an unction from the Holy One," but
as having himself a kind of anointing in which they
do not share, whereby he delivers the " message,"
n Eph. ii. 20.

118. LECTURE IV.
and the "witness," and the " commandment," which"
they on their part recognise and accept. No ! the :
voice that sounds from these pages is not the voice
of the congregation, but the voice of those who
founded it by the will of God ; and that character ¦
the congregation itself has asserted for the word
in all ages. The written word has been the canon
of the Church, because it was a voice which came
to it, not because it was. a voice which proceeded
from it0.
To us at this day this word has come ; and to
us at this day. the anointing from the Holy One
flows down. For you, for me, (thank God!) the
teaching of the Spirit remains. It remains for the !
servants and the handmaids : and many an obscure
and lowly brother in the streets around us can say
for himself, as truly as St. Paul could say, " I have
received the Spirit that is of God, that I may know
the things which are freely given to me of God." But
one who thus speaks can know that his convictions
are really the teaching of the Spirit of God only in
so far as they correspond with the eternal types
of truth, which ascertain to us what the teaching
of the Spirit is. Now, as in those apostolic days,
he which is spiritual can shew that he is so, only
" by acknowledging that the things which" those
appointed teachers " wrote to us are the command
ments of the Lord ;" for the gift of the Holy Ghost
to others is not a gift whereby they originate the
knowledge of new truths, but a gift whereby they
"See Note X.

LECTURE IV. 119
recognise and apprehend the old unchanging mys
tery, still receiving afresh the one revelation of
Christ, ever approaching, never surpassing the com
prehensive but immovable boundaries of the faith
once defivered to the saints. This is the gift, the
only gift, which we desire for our Church and for
ourselves ; for it is one which makes the written
word a living word, which fills a Church with joy,
and seals a soul for glory.

LECTURE Y.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Acts v. 42.
They ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
JESUS CHRIST is gone up into glory, and the
Holy Ghost has come down into men : and we
have seen that these events are represented to us,
not as closing the course of revelation, but as
opening a new stage of it. The questions which
met us on the threshold have been answered, and
we go forward, with the full assurance that our
first teacher is our teacher still, and that his
second method of instruction is an advance upon
the first.
We have now to ask, first, What change appears
in the aspect of the doctrine f and then, What is the
plan on which it continues to advance ?
For a reply to these questions I address myself to
that introductory book which gives us the external
history of this part of the dispensation of truth.

LECTURE V. 121
It is not the function of a historical record to work
out expositions of doctrine, but such a book may
be expected to present the general character which
the doctrine bore, and to clear to our view the
agencies and the stages by which it was matured.
This is precisely what is done in the book of Acts.
It is the purpose of the book to do it ; a pur
pose which ought to be more fully recognised than
it is.
There are works which are done with so natural
and graceful a facility, that it seems to the superficial
observer as if anyone could have done them, or as
if he who did them was only guided by casual
impulse, while a more careful student will perceive
that singular gifts were necessary to produce the
results which seem so easy, and that a comprehensive
design and an accurate judgment presided over ar
rangements which appear fortuitous. Such a work
is the Acts of the Apostles. In a narrative all alive
with graphic details, and written in a style of ani
mated simplicity and natural ease, it carries us
through a period of human history of incalculable
interest and importance : one in which the effects of
the manifestation of the Son of God were developed
and tested ; in which the life which he had intro
duced among men disclosed its nature and power,
and the truth which he had left commenced its
struggles and conquests ; in which the christian
Church was constituted, gradually detached from its
Jewish integuments, and brought to the consciousness
of its freedom and catholicity ; in which it verified

122 LECTURE V.
its credentials, proved its arms, recognised its des
tinies, and commenced its victories ; in which im
pulses were given which would never cease to
vibrate, and precedents were established to which
distant ages would refer ; in which solemn and ex
citing scenes, marvels and miracles, saintly and heroic
characters, their labours, their conflicts, their suffer
ings, their journey ings, their collisions with all classes
of men, seem to force upon the historian a confusing
multiplicity of materials. Yet through all this he
makes his way straight in one direction, as a man
guided by that instinct of selection which belongs to
the ruling presence of a definite purpose. It is just
this definiteness of purpose which is apt to pass un
observed. It is nowhere announced, and the uncon
strained freedom of manner and easy inartificial style
suggest no thought of it. We seem sometimes to be
reading a collection of anecdotes or personal memoirs
of certain Apostles, and some critics have dealt with
the book, as if indeed it were but a chance collection
of stories with which the author had happened to
become acquainted, or as if a fragment of the acts
of St. Peter had been prefixed to a journal of the
travels of St. Paul.
But we know St. Luke's intelligent, enquiring mind,
his opportunities of information, his "perfect under
standing of all things from the very first," his
personal intercourse with those "who from the be
ginning had been eyewitnesses and ministers of
the word." We cannot for a moment suppose that
his acquaintance with the "acts of the Apostles"

LECTURE V. 123
was limited to the facts recorded in the book ; that
he knew nothing of the proceedings of John or
James, or of the manifold movements and events ¦
which were going on by the side of those which
he has related. In fact, there is not a book upon
earth in which the principle of intentional selection
is more evident to a careful observer. There is
indeed no. reason given, why one speech is reported
and one event related at length, in preference to
others which are passed over or slightly touched ;
yet when we reach the conclusion we see the reasons
in the result. We find that by an undeviating
course we have followed the development of the
true idea of the Church. of Christ, in its relations
first to the Jewish system, out of which it emerges,
and then to the great world, to which it opens
itself. When the words and deeds of Philip or
Stephen, of Peter or Paul are implicated with this
progress of things, we find ourselves in their com
pany, but when we part from St. Peter without
notice of his after-course, when we leave St- Paul
abruptly at the commencement of his two years
m Rome, we are given to -understand that we
have been reading, not their personal memoirs, but
a higher history, which certain portions of their
careers serve to embody or to illustrate. *Even
when the book is considered by itself, the unity
and completeness of the result is plain ; but when
we look at it in its place in Scripture, observe its
function there, and its relation to the books which
follow, we see most clearly the definite purpose with'

124 LECTURE V.
which it places us and keeps us in that particular"
line of historical fact which involves the progress
of doctrine.
It may be said that this is claiming too much ;
for that, whatever amount of design may be at
tributed to the author of the "Acts," we cannot
ascribe to him the prophetic purpose of fitting his
book to its present place in Scripture. No, certainly
not to him; but the Church has ever held that
another Mind presided over what was written in
these pages, a Mind which purposed that we should
have a Bible, and which, guiding the production of
its component parts, has made it what it is.
I speak in accordance with this view of Scripture
when I ask, What is the office which the book of
Acts fulfils in the evolution of doctrine in the New
Testament 1
For a reply to this question I would point to three
results which the book unquestionably yields.
i. It places in the clearest light the divine au
thority oi the doctrine given during the period which
it covers, as a doctrine delivered by those who, for
that particular purpose, were filled with the Holy
Ghost, and were agents of the personal administra
tion of the Lord Jesus Christ. This, the first and
most important part of the office of the book, has
been considered in the last Lecture.
2. It represents the general character of the doc
trine delivered by the Apostles to the world.
3. It traces the steps of external history through
which the doctrine was matured.

LECTURE V. 125
¦ These are the parts of its office on which I have
now to dwell.
I. The general character of the doctrine as it
appears in the Acts of the Apostles is presented in
the words of the text, " They ceased not to teach
and preach Jesus the Christ," (oik eiravovTo 818a-
tricovTes Kai evayyeXi^ofievoi 'I^o-ow tw XjojcttoV). Similar
expressions continually recur : " he preached Christ
unto thema ;" " he preached unto him Jesusb ;" " he
preached Christ in the synagogues c ;" they " spake
unto the Grecians preaching the Lord. Jesus d;" "he
preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection6." No
such announcements as these are heard in the Gos
pels. The preaching spoken of there is not of the
person but of the kingdom. Jesus comes " preaching
the kingdom of Godf;" "preaching the Gospel of
the kingdoms ;" and his parables and common teach
ing are not prominently about himself, but about
" the kingdom of heaven." So also his disciples are
sent out "to preach the kingdom of God," and are
even charged to " tell no man that he was Jesus the
Christ h," and are forbidden to publish the manifesta
tions of the fact " until the Son of Man be risen again
from the dead1." And because of the absence of this
personal proclamation by himself or his servants, we
find John the Baptist troubled and perplexed, and
sending a deputation of his followers in the hope of
a Acts viii. 5. b Ibid. 35. ° Ibid. ix. 20.
d Acts xi. 20. e Ibid. xvii. 18. f Luke ix. 2.
e Matt. iv. 23, and Mark i. 14. h Matt. xvi. 20.
» Matt. xvii. 9.

126 LECTURE V
extracting such a public declaration ; and the mul
titude at a later time complain, " How long dost
thou make us to doubt 1 If thou be the Christ, tell
us plainly k ;" and the High Priest, at the very last,
unable to obtain testimony to such a public claim, is
compelled to resort to adjuration — "Art thou the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed1?"
The change in the key-note of the preaching is
very significant. Things had been tending towards
it. The presentation of Christ to men had been
going forward, and the scheme on which it is set
before us in the Gospel collection marks the gradual
manner in which the eye, looking for the kingdom,
had come to be fixed upon the person. In the teach
ing of the first Gospel the idea of the kingdom, in
that of the last the idea of the person, is predominant.
In the Acts the two expressions are sometimes
united, as when the Samaritans " believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God
and the name of the Lord Jesus m :" and yet again,
with more evident purpose, in the end of the book,
where Paul's exposition to the Jews at Rome stands
as the last appeal to that people — "To whom he
expounded, testifying the kingdom of God and per
suading them concerning Jesus :" and yet again in
the closing verse, which describes the two years'
continuous ministry by the words "preaching the
kingdom of God, and teaching those things which

k John x. 24. 1 Mark xiv. 61.
m Acts viii. 12.

LECTURE V. 127
concern the Lord Jesus Christ"." Evidently on pur
pose are the two expressions combined in this final
summary, in order to shew that the preaching of the
kingdom and the preaching of Christ are one : that
the original proclamation has not ceased, but that in
Christ Jesus the thing proclaimed is no longer a
vague and future hope, but a distinct and present
fact. In the conjunction of these words the progress
of doctrine appears. All is founded upon the old
Jewish expectation of a kingdom of God ; but it is
now explained how that expectation is fulfilled in
the person of Jesus ; and the account of its realiza
tion consists in the unfolding of the truth concern
ing him (to. irep\ rod 'Ir/a-ov). The manifestation of
Christ being finished, the kingdom is already begun.
Those who receive him enter into it. Having over
come the sharpness of death, he has opened the
kingdom of heaven to all believers. Those, there
fore, who were once to "tell no man that he was
Christ," are now to make " all the house of Israel
know ass redly that God hath made that same Jesus,
whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ ;"
yea, they are to proclaim that fact to every nation
under heaven.
It is, I apprehend, by this change in the character
n Acts xxviii. 23, 31. Aiap.apTvp6u.evos rrjv fiatrikelav toO ©eoO,
ireldav re avroils to. irept toO 'Intro v. (ver. 23.) Krjpvtrtrtav rf/v fiacrikelav
tov Qeov, Kai BiSdtTKtov to. irep\ tov Kvplov 'Irjtrov. (ver. 31.) Compare
this summary of the apostolic teaching at the end of the book with
the summary of the last teaching of Jesus at its beginning : — St'
fiiiepmv Tt-trtrapaKovra dnTavo/ju-vos avrois Kai \eytov ra nepl Ttjs fiatri-
\fias tov Qeov. (i. 3.)

128 LECTURE V
oi the preaching, that we are to explain the sur
prising difference in the effect oi the preaching, as
seen in the Gospels and in the Acts. For some three
years, probably, did Jesus preach in the Temple, in
synagogues, in houses, on the seashore, and by the
wayside ; yet it is obviously but a scanty band of
professed believers whom he leaves upon the earth,
and these too appear possessed but with a dubious
and uncertain faith. On occasion of an important
gathering in Jerusalem, "the number of names to
gether were about an hundred and twenty0." The
largest number we ever hear of is that mentioned
by St. Paul — " above five hundred brethren at onceP;"
and of these, according to St. Matthew, " some
doubted 1" But a few days later Peter lifts up his
voice, and " the same day there were added unto
them about three thousand souls r." And so the word
grows and multiplies, till we hear of "a great
company of priests obedient to the faith s," and
"many ten-thousands of Jews which believe4;" be
sides the suddenly-rising, rapidly-growing Churches
in all parts of the Gentile world. Men have some
times expressed their wonder at this difference in the
effect of the Lord's own preaching and of that of his
disciples ; and they have been fain to ascribe it to
the outpouring of the Spirit, which wrought a sudden
change in the hearts of the hearers. But we have
no encouragement to suppose that the three thousand
who believed on the day of Pentecost received any
0 Acts i. 15. p 1 Cor. xv. 6. q Matt, xxviii. 17.
'' Acts ii. 41. 5 Ibid. vi. 7. * Ibid. xxi. 20.

LECTURE V. 129
special gift of the Spirit (such as originated on that
day) until after they believed. This was promised
by the Apostle as a gift, not preceding, but ensuing
on their baptism. " Repent," said he, " and be bap
tised every one of you for the remission of sins,
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."
No ! It is not on the hearers, but on the preachers,
that the mighty influence is said to have come. The
true reason for the change in the effect of the doc
trine is found in the change which had passed upon
the doctrine itself, when " the Spirit of truth was
come" to fulfil the prediction " He shall glorify me."
Christ was not preached before he suffered ; after he
was glorified he was. In the former period, he and
his followers "preached the kingdom of God;" in
the latter, " they ceased not to teach and preach
Jesus Christ." Thus the great change in the effect
of the preaching, which might seem at first sight
to derogate from his glory, is, on further considera
tion, seen to enhance it. Only when it is possible
freely and fully to publish the one " name under
heaven given among men, whereby they must be
saved," are their consciences thoroughly roused and
their trust decisively secured. So has it been, and
so shall it be in the Church for ever. Oh, that the
apostolic lesson may still have its fruit amongst
ourselves ! that our evangelists may still know where
their power lies ! and especially that it may be said of
all who go forth to the work from this place, " They
ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ !"
2. But now comes the question, What was this
K

130 LECTURE V.
preaching of Christ % Some have paraphrased it as
the preaching of his doctrine, of the holy lessons
which he taught. Some, again, as the setting forth
of his holy character, the beauty of his life, and the
attraction of his love. But if this were the main
idea of preaching Christ, then certainly the relative
effect of his own teaching and of that of his disciples
ought to have been just the reverse of what it was ;
for the actual hearing of the gracious words which
proceeded out of his mouth, and the actual sight
of his holiness and love, must be supposed more
effectual than the mere account of them by others.
Then Jesus Christ ought to have gathered the
thousands and his disciples the hundreds ; and the
faith inspired in the first period ought to have been
more decided and intense than that awakened in the
second. But the contrary was the case. There was
then something in the later preaching which was not
present in the earlier. Was it that the Messiahship
of Jesus was then openly proclaimed, which men
had before been left to infer from the things which
they heard and saw % It was this — but more than
this. Not only was the fact of the Messiahship pro
claimed, but the nature of it was explained. The
Christ who was now proclaimed was one who had
died and risen again, and whom the heavens had
received till the time of the restitution of all things.
In these three facts the manifestation of the Son of
God had culminated, and in them the true character.
of his mission had appeared. The old carnal thoughts
of it had been left in his grave, and could- never rise

LECTURE V 131
from it again. It was the " Prince of life" who had
risen from the dead ; it was the " King of glory"
who had passed into the heavens. And no less did
these facts declare the spiritual consequences of his
manifestation ; since they carried with them the im
plication of those three corresponding gifts, which we
celebrate for evermore, saying with solemn joy, " I
believe . . . the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of
the body, and the life everlasting."
Towards these topics the preaching of Christ in
the Acts of the Apostles continually turns. Observe
how the first and present blessing (the forgiveness of
sins) is ever adduced, as the result of the wondrous
history which the chosen witnesses rehearse. When.
they have told of the cross and passion, it is in this
consequence flowing from it unto men that their ser
mons culminate and close. " Him hath God exalted
to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to
Israel and forgiveness of sins" ;" " Repent and be bap
tised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for
the remission of sinsx ;" " Repent ye therefore and be
converted, that your sins may be blotted out^ ;" " Be
it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that
through this man is preached unto you the forgive-r
ness of sins ; and by him all that befieve are justified
from all things from which ye could not be justified
by the law of Moses2;" " To him give all the pro*
phets witness, that through his name whosoever
believeth on him shall receive remission of sinsa."
"Acts v. 31. x Ibid. ii. 38I r Ibid. iii. 19.
' z Ibid, xiii. 38, 39. a Ibid. x. 43. ' >
K 2

132 LECTURE V
Such is the burden of the apostolical preaching, as
exhibited in the rapid sketches and brief summaries
given in this book. It is a doctrine of " redemption
by his blood; even the forgiveness of sins," conveying,
through the simple act of faith, a present cleansing to
the conscience, as the necessary qualification for the
glory which is to follow.
Then, in the next place, that glory is shewn to arise
from the resurrection of Jesus, as the preparation for
it does from his sufferings. I need not remind you of
the " great power" with which, from one end of the
book to the other, " the Apostles give witness of the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Everywhere they
preach a " Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen
again." This event is presented by them not simply
as the seal of his teaching, or more generally (to use
the poor and shrunken phrase of later times) as the
proof of his divine mission, but as itself the cause and
the commencement of that new world and eternal life
which was consciously " the hope of Israel," and un
consciously the hope of man. Turn especially to the
latter part of the book, and study the position taken
by St. Paul in the last crisis of his controversy with
the Jews. See how he falls back upon the resurrec
tion of Christ, as involving the realization of the hopes
of his people and the fulfilment of all the promises
of God. Some have treated as a mere expedient for
his own deliverance at the moment that one voice
which he cried in the Council, "Men and brethren,
I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee ; of the hope
and resurrection of the dead I am called in question"

LECTURE V. 133
But he needed no expedient, for he was then in
Roman hands and under Roman protection. It was
no pretence to serve a turn ; it was the genuine
language of his heart. In all his other speeches at
this crisis the same idea reigns predominant.
" I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise
made of God unto our fathers : unto which promise
our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and
night, hope to come : for which hope's sake, King
Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why is it judged
by you a thing incredible if God raises the dead?"
It is the self-same sound which we heard in the first
discourse given us from his lips, when he cried to
the Jews of the Pisidian Antioch, " Now we declare
unto you glad . tidings, how that the promise which
was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the
same unto us their children, in that he hath raised
up Jesus again."
And when we read his mind upon this subject
more fully in i Cor. xv., and indeed in the whole of
his writings, we see how truly the resurrection of
Christ did, in his view, include the realisation of all
the hopes with which the old covenant was pregnant ;
how entirely it was to him the cause and actual com
mencement, as well as the pledge and promise, of the
resurrection and the life to man.
But I must not go further into this subject. I had
only to indicate that the general character of the
doctrine which appears in the Acts of the Apostles is
an advance upon that delivered in the Gospels. I say
that it is so, inasmuch as. it. does more than merely

134 LECTURE V
testify to the facts of the manifestation of Christ, as
(to use an imperfect illustration) the summing up of
a judge is an advance upon the evidence on which
it is founded, since it adds to the rehearsal of that
evidence the selection of its critical points, the repre
sentation of their force and bearing, and the intima
tion of the conclusions to which they lead. Thus
does the preaching of the Apostles sum up the result
of all that the Gospels have disclosed, by the direct
preaching of Jesus to men's souls, and by preaching
him especially as the Christ who has been perfected
by death and resurrection ; by death which pro
vides for the present necessities of conscience in the
forgiveness of sins, and by resurrection which pro
vides for the longings and hopes of the soul in the
life everlasting. The messengers of God in this book
cease not to teach and preach Jesus the Christ, as a
Saviour by these means and in this sense.
II. It is, however, the book not of the words, but
of the acts of the Apostles, and we accordingly find
in it the intimations rather than the expositions of
doctrine. It assists our present enquiry in a manner
more appropriate to its historical character, by laying
down for us the course of external events through
which the doctrine was matured.
I have already adverted to the systematic plan of
the book, as following out this course of events with
the instinct of an undeviating purpose. It carries us
straight from the Gospels to the Epistles, as the
span of some great bridge continues the road between
dissevered regions. Take it away and what a chasm

LECTURE V. 135
appears ! " Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to saints
that are in Rome, in Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi,
Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae." Who is this Paul, and in
what sense is he an Apostle % We knew him not
when the twelve were ordained. We saw him not
among the witnesses of the resurrection. How came
the Gospel to these places % and is it the same Gospel
for these Gentiles as it was for the Jews % As for
James, and Peter, and John, and Jude, we know and
revere their commission : but we saw them last in
partial ignorance and error, and we hardly know what
the value of their words may be.
We have noted on a former occasion the answers
to these questions which the Book of Acts supplies—
the anointing of the Holy Ghost qualifying the men
to fulfil the commission which they had received,
the guidance of Christ given to their steps and
his attestations to their words and works, the call
and commission of St. Paul and his special appoint
ment to a special work, and the spread of the
Gospel in the world, and the rise of the Gentile
Churches. By means of this information we are
brought to the point at which we can open the
apostolic writings, first with a due sense of their
divine authority, and then with a sufficient acquaint
ance with the persons, scenes, and facts with which
they are connected, and (I may further add) with effec
tive supports to our conviction of their genuineness
and authenticity. But neither of these functions of
the book is precisely that for which we now enquire.
Between Gospels and Epistles there is need for a

136 LECTURE V
connection of a more internal kind. During the in
tervening time the doctrine was not only spreading,
it was clearing and. forming itself, or rather was
being cleared and formed by the hand of its Divine
Author. This was effected through a certain line of
events and through the agency of particular persons.
With these events and persons the Book of Acts is
occupied. It begins at Jerusalem, it ends at Rome. Between
these two points questions have been settled, prin
ciples carried out, and divinely implanted tendencies
disclosed. Especially have the relations of the Gospel
to Jew and Gentile been fixed for ever. We see how
all the story progressively ministers to this result.
First Peter presents the Gospel as the fulfilment of
prophecy and completion of the covenant made with
the fathers. Then the Hellenist element seems to
eclipse the Hebrew, and Stephen rises to reason and
to die. A large space is therefore given to the
speech, which sets forth the progressive nature of
the dealings of God with Israel, and shews the drift
of that current of thought on which we are launched.
The death of Stephen is not only an individual
martyrdom, like that of James, so briefly mentioned
afterwards ; it is a great crisis, and stands as such in
the narrative, with a clear intimation of the position
which was assumed on the one side and rejected on
the other. Straightway the Gospel spreads. First
Hebrew, then Hellenist, by the ministry of Philip it
soon becomes Samaritan, and at the next step by that
of Peter goes in to men uncircumcised. In the story

LECTURE V. 137
of Cornelius we have a detailed statement of the
means by which the Lord manifested his will, that
the Gentiles should hear the word and believe. Then
we pass from the side of Peter to that of the new
Apostle, to whom the carrying out of this principle is
committed. Antioch becomes our starting-point, where
the disciples are first called Christians. We follow
the steps of the traveller, and see far and wide that
God hath also to the Gentiles granted repentance
unto life. Then an opposing power is felt within the
Church, and christian Judaism asserts that there is.
departure from the original scheme. The Council
meets, and by testimonies of Scripture and of fact
infers the verdict of God, and issues the high decision,
" It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." Then,
and not till then, Europe is entered, and the great
centres of Greek life are occupied ; but still in every
place does the Apostle address himself first to the
Jews, and everywhere they reject and persecute him.
Finally, he returns to the head-quarters of the nation,
and presents himself there with every circumstance of
conciliation, but claiming his place in the covenant
and as a preacher of the hope of Israel. The scenes
and speeches of that crisis are given with fulness,
because they define the position of the Christianity
which St. Paul represents towards the Jewish system,
and its final and furious rejection by the Jewish
people15. " Believing all things which are written in
b Not, as some have put it, because Luke happened to be present.
Rather, Luke was present because the scenes and speeches were to
be reported.

138 LECTURE V.
the Law and in the Prophets, and having committed
nothing against the people or customs of his fathers0,"
he and his creed are forced from their proper home.
On it as well as him the Temple doors are shut.
Lastly, before the Jews at Rome he closes the long
struggle with the peroration furnished him by pro
phecy : — " Well spake the Holy Ghos' by Esaias the
prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people
and say, Hearing ye shall ear, and shall not understand ;
and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. For the
heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are
dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed ; lest
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and should be
converted, and I should heal them. Be it known
therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent
unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear itd."
Now let no man think that the rejection of Jews
and admission of Gentiles were the only result of
this long history. Another result has been involved
in it : Christianity itself has been finally drawn out of
Judaism, the delicate and intricate relations of the
two systems being dealt with in such a way, that
(so to speak) the texture of living fibre has been
lifted unimpaired out of its former covering, leaving
behind only a residuum of what was temporary, pre
paratory, and carnal. In fact, the doctrine of the
Gospel has been cleared and formed ; cleared of the
false element which the existing Judaism would
have infused into it, and formed of the true elements
c Acts xxiv. 14; xxviii. 17. d Ibid, xxviii. 25-28.

LECTURE V. 139
which the old covenant had been intended to prepare
for its use.
Two great principles, it seems -to me, were fought
for and secured, which may be expressed (though
not with strict accuracy) by saying that the Gospel
is the substitute for the Law, and that the Gospel is
the heir of the Law.
a. In saying that the Gospel is the substitute for
the Law, I do not mean that it is so, as doing what
the Law had done before it came, nor yet as doing
what the Law had been meant, but had failed, to
do ; but only as doing that which the Law had
been supposed to do. The Gospel provides for
individual souls the means of justification and the
title to eternal life. This the Law had not done,
had not been meant to do, and by Prophets and
Psalmists had . been asserted not to do. Yet it had
sunk deep into the mind of those who were under
it, that this was the very thing which it did. Scribes
taught, distinctly, and the people were possessed with
the idea, that there had been a Law given which
could give life, and that righteousness was by that
Law. Here was the conviction which had entwined
itself with their patriotism and their religion. Here
was their pride and boast, and the prerogative
which severed them from all mankind. Then, as
now, they looked for a Messiah, who was to perfect
the keeping of the Law, and (in some sense) to save
other nations by reducing them to its obedience,
and (as appeared in the sequel) many received
Jesus himself as the Messiah, without any material

140 LECTURE V.
change in that idea. But when the death of Jesus
was preached as procuring, and the resurrection of
Jesus as originating eternal life, and when the simple
act of faith in him was proclaimed as the means
of sharing it, the antagonism of the two doctrines
appeared. It was first in the arguments of Stephen, and
afterwards in the preaching of Paul, that this par
ticular feature of the christian system made itself
felt in its bearing on the great Jewish error. Hence
the passion, the virulence, and the rancour with
which the two men were pursued. " This man ceaseth
not to speak blasphemous words, against this holy
place and the lawe" — so ran the accusation against
the first martyr : and years afterwards the super
intendent of his execution heard the same words
shrieked out against himself, " Men of Israel, help !
This is the man who teacheth all men everywhere
against the people, and the law, .and this placef."
False and odious allegations ! Yet the doctrine of
which the two men were the great exponents did
really involve a flat contradiction of the prevailing
Jewish theory about the people, and the law, and
that place. Within the christian Church the same
theory held its gEOund, and in that quarter cost
the Apostle a still closer and keener conflict, in
order to vindicate and establish for Jew as well as
Gentile the great principle, " By grace are ye saved
through faiths," or, as St. Peter expressed the same
e Acts vi. 13. f Ibid. xxi. 28.
s Eph. ii. 8.

LECTURE V 141
truth, " Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
we shall be saved, even as theyh."
Still the anxious pastor in his parish, still the
self-observant Christian in his own heart, learns how
deep-seated and how stubborn is that principle in
human nature, which seeks the starting-point of
' salvation in self rather than in God, in doing rather
than in receiving, in work rather than in grace. By
the common Jewish theory of the Law, that principle
had fortified itself strongly, and clothed itself glo
riously, with the usurped sanctions of God. The Ju-
daising doctrine would have perpetuated that usur
pation in the Christian Church, and, in so doing,
would have neutralised the Gospel itself. The keen
eye of the selected champion saw in a moment the
fatal consequences of customs turned into doctrines,
which others, who believed as he did, were perhaps
inclined to regard with indulgence, as signs of an
affectionate veneration for ancient ordinances.
In his writings we see how his -penetrating eye
discerned the danger, and how his unsparing hand
averted it : we see also that the intuitive discern
ment and the impulsive vigour were the result of
a deep personal experience, both of the error which
he resisted, and of the truth which he defended. In
the Acts we are carried through the period of this
contest in the outward course of events, and when
the history ceases in the hired house at Rome, the
Gospel has fought itself free, and severed itself from
Judaism, not merely in its form, but in its essence,
h Acts xv. n.

142 LECTURE V.
proclaiming salvation by the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and not by the works of the Law.
(8. The other principle which is contended for and
secured is, that the Gospel is the heir of the Law ;
that it inherits what the Law had prepared. The
Law, on its national and ceremonial side, had created
a vast and closely-woven system of ideas. These
were wrought out and exhibited by it in forms
according to the flesh — an elect nation, a miraculous
history, a special covenant, a worldly sanctuary, a
perpetual service, an anointed priesthood, a cere
monial sanctity, a scheme of sacrifice and atonement*
a purchased possession, a holy city, a throne of David,
a destiny of dominion. Were these ideas to be lost,
and the language which expressed them to be dropped,
when the Gospel came \ No ! It was the heir of
the Law. The Law had prepared these riches, and
now bequeathed them to a successor able to unlock
and to diffuse them. The Gospel claimed them alL
and developed in them a value unknown before. It
asserted itself as the proper and predestined com-
tinuation of the covenant made of God with the
fathers, the real and only fulfilment of all which
was typified and prophesied ; presenting the same
ideas, which had been before embodied in the narrow
but distinct limits of carnal forms, in their spiritual,
universal, and eternal character. The body of types
according to the flesh died with Christ, and with
Christ it rose again a body of antitypes according to
the Spirit. Those who were after the flesh could
not recognise its identity : those who were after

LECTURE V. 143
the Spirit felt and proclaimed it. The change was
as great, the identity was as real, as in that mystery
of the resurrection of the body which the same
preachers shewed : in which the earthly frame must
lay aside the flesh and blood which cannot inherit
the kingdom of God, and must reappear, dead and
raised again, another and yet the same, " sown in
weakness and raised in power, sown in dishonour
and raised in glory, sown a natural body and raised
a spiritual body."
But I should speak amiss, if I left it to appear
that the Gospel inherited the ideas only of the
preceding dispensation, and not, in one sense, their
form also. Their written form it did inherit, un
changed and unchangeable. The Law and the
Prophets, as scriptures, as a book, were still under
the new dispensation what they had been under the
old — the voice of the Spirit and the word of God;
Nay ! this written word belonged to the new 6\\s-
pensation more truly than to the old, for these
scriptures also were now raised to newness of life;
and were recognised as prepared for the uses to
which they were now applied, and written less for
the immediate than for the ulterior purposes ; as
St. Peter has expressed it, " Not unto themselves, but
unto us they did minister the things which are now
reported unto you by them that have preached
the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent
down from heaven1." This is ever the position of
' i Peter i. 12.

144 LECTURE V.
St. Paul, for, as one has truly said, "None of the
Apostles has laid such stress upon the Holy Scrip
ture, as the Apostle of the Spirit and libertyk."
And as this appears in his writings, so does it also in
the history. From his first reported speech at the
Pisidian Antioch1, which bases all upon the Scrip
tures, still he goes on with the Scriptures in his
hand, till he stands and is judged, "believing all
things which are written in the Law and in the
Prophets111 ;" and finally parts from the Roman Jews
after "persuading them concerning Jesus, both out
of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets, from
morning till evening"." This then is the position
taken at the beginning and fought for to the end ;
and it is a striking sight to see how resolutely
St. Paul insists that he and his doctrine are the
true representatives of the Law and the Prophets,
while he is being persecuted and cast out, as having
betrayed and blasphemed them.
These two principles — what the Gospel does with
out the Law, and what the Gospel derives from the
Law — do in fact contain the main substance of
apostolic teaching. On the one side, the principle
that men are "justified freely by God's grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus0" is laid
as the deep foundation of all the various forms and
applications of evangelical truth. On the other, the
principle that the same things which were done
k Baumgarten on the Acts, vol. iii. 78, (Clarke's Tr.)
1 Acts xv. 13-41. m Ibid. xxiv. 14.
n Acts xxviii. 23. ° Eom. iii. 24.

LECTURE V 145
under the old covenant in the region of the flesh
are done under the new covenant in the region of
•the spirit, opens out into the doctrine of the media
torial work of Christ in the true tabernacle, the
sacrificial character of his death, the atoning virtue
of his blood, the sanctification of believers as a
kingdom of priests and an holy nation, and their
destined inheritance" in a promised land and a holy
city of their God. The expansion of these doctrines
fills and forms all the Epistles, and each is distinctly
wrought out by itself, the one in the Epistle to the
Romans at the beginning, the other in the Epistle
to the Hebrews at the end, of the course of the
Pauline writings.
It is in the Epistles themselves that we behold
this expansion and formation of doctrine. In the
Book of Acts we are conversant rather with the
providential circumstances through which the result
was obtained. Great principles are wrought out and
settled in men's minds only through some such
process as is here disclosed ; namely, by persons
-raised up to represent them, by consultations, reason
ings, debates concerning them, by events which
.compel their more distinct assertion and test their
hidden strength, and by the action of opposing prin
ciples, firmly resisted in their fierce assaults, or in
stinctively rejected in their subtle approaches. This,
..the common course of the development and esta
blishment of all principles, is here presented to us
as carried on under the manifested guidance of the
'Lord himself; who, by special interventions, raises
L

146 LECTURE V.
up the persons, guides the events, and certifies the?
issues with his own signature and seal.
Blessing and praise be unto his holy name, be
cause he has done this I For he has thus added
to the manifestation of himself his own direction
as to the way in which it is to be used. On what
a sea of uncertainties we should else have been
launched ! Observe the vague' and wavering doc
trine which ensues, whenever the divine attestation
of the apostolical teaching meets with discredit or
mistrust. Now the Gospel is nothing but a re
publication, pure and perfect, of the Law of God ;
now it is a proclamation of his universal fatherhood ;
now an exhibition of the beauty of holiness and the
attraction of love ; now the revelation of a righteous
King and Head of the human race ; now it seems.
little else than a negation, a sweeping away of all.
the ideas which a teaching supposed to be divine^
had fashioned through preceding ages. So it is when
men proceed, as if the summing up of the mani
festation of Christ had not been done for them,,
but was left for them to do. From all partial or
perverted representations our refuge is with those
who were actually commissioned to do it, and who,,
under a divine guidance adequate to the exigencies
of that commission, ceased not to teach and preach
Jesus Christ. Through the blessed ordinance of a
written word they have not ceased to do so now-
To us, even to us who are here alive this day, they
preach him still ; a Christ " who died for our sins
and rose again fos our justification ;" a Christ who-

LECTURE V 147
saves without the Law, yet one who is witnessed
by the Law and the Prophets. So they preach, and
so we believe. This was the beginning of the con
fidence and the rejoicing of the hope to the Church
at its birth, and this beginning it will hold firm
unto the end. It is for us to see that we bear our
part in the long history of the faith, finding its
reality in the joy of our own salvation, and trans
mitting its testimony to the generation to come.

L 3

LECTURE VI.
THE EPISTLES.
Rom. i. i, 7.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated
unto the gospel of God . . . To all that be in Rome, beloved of God,
called to be saints : grace to you and peace from God our Father,
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
J.HESE words are the beginning and end of the
long superscription which opens the series of Apo
stolic Epistles. That superscription forms a close
and living union with the preceding book, in which
we have known Paul the servant of Jesus Christ,
his calling to be an Apostle, his separation to the
gospel of God, and have left him at its close testi
fying to that gospel in Rome itself. A still more
intimate union will disclose itself to any one who
studies the position which he takes up for his
gospel and himself in the Book of Acts, and then
considers the succinct and explicit assertion of the
same position in the intervening verses of this super
scription, where he characterises the gospel to which
he was separated as that " which God had promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, con-

LECTURE VI 149
cerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh ;
and declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection
from the dead : by whom," he adds, " we have re
ceived grace and apostleship for obedience to the
faith among all nations, for his name : among whom
are ye also the called of Jesus Christ." Here the
Apostle seems to stand before us as he did in the
previous history, firmly holding his ground in the
prophetic and historic line of the old covenant, and
from that standing-point opening the dispensation
of the Spirit, which has its source and its pledge
in the resurrection, and claiming " all nations" for
the " obedience oi faith."
This witness of continuity is especially important
in passing from the apostolic history to the apo
stolic writings, since the history gains significance
from the doctrine, and the doctrine derives authority
from the history. The persons and events in the
Book of Acts are important because they were or
dained for the working out of the truth of the
Gospel. But what is that truth which they worked
out? Summaries of its general character occur in that
book continually, and the points which are being
cleared and established are strongly indicated : but
we have only summaries and indications, and the
sketches of doctrines presented to us are taken rather
from without than from within. If we except the
debate in the council of Jerusalem and the charge

150 LECTURE VI
to the elders of Miletus, all the discourses reported
in this book are addressed to those who are not
yet Christians. So Christ was preached to the.
world — but how was he taught to the Church'?
This element is wanting in the history : yet it
is one which we should have naturally looked to
find ; and, as we are brought into contact with so
many Churches, on whose incipient and unsettled
Christianity the labour of St. Paul was spent, its
absence is really remarkable. We are told how
he passed two years at Ephesus, and a year and
a half at Corinth, " teaching the word of God among
them," how, revisiting his Churches, " he gave them
much exhortation," and how he " was long preaching"
in one assembly or another of the brethren : but
no particulars of these preachings, teachings, and
exhortations are given : and, considering that we
have specimens of every kind of address to those
that are without, we might well ask, why there is
no example to shew how men were taught after
they had believed. But they who hold that the
scheme of Scripture as a whole is of the Holy Ghost-
will not ask that question ; for they see that this
omission is part of a plan, which provides this in
formation for us in a more worthy and perfect
way ; namely, by placing in our hands the collec
tion of Apostolic Epistles.
These writings are addressed to those who are
already Christians ; as our text describes them, "called
of Christ Jesus — beloved of God — called saints."
Such high titles, repeated in the successive super-

LECTURE VI 151
iscriptions, warn us that we are here in the esoteric
circle of doctrine. Whatever progress of doctrine
these writings exhibit, that fact is the key to it.
It must be a distinctly subjective progress, working
out the results of the manifestation oi Christ in
the consciousness of men.
Observe the point at which we have arrived, by
the time that we finish the Book of Acts, and open
the Epistle to the Romans. The facts oi the mani
festation of Christ have been completed, and have
been testified in all fulness and certainty by the wit
nesses chosen of God. They have not only testified
oi the facts, they have summed them up ; have an
nounced their scope and purpose in the counsels
of God, as effecting the redemption of the world,
,and have called men to partake in the fruits of
that redemption by believing and being baptised.
They have given this testimony, not as of them
selves but with the Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven, whose witness is united with their own,
and whose indwelling presence is given also to
those who receive the testimony, in order to open
its meaning ' and to seal its truth. Thus a holy
Uhurch is formed, which gradually proves itself
catholic, and shews at once its power of expansion
and its spirit of unity ; and within its protecting
.frame-work there exists a communion of saints,
a common participation in the same spiritual posses
sions by all whom a union with Christ has sepa
rated and sanctified to God ; and thus men are
joined to the Lord and united with each Qther, and

152 LECTURE VI
rest in the consciousness that they have found the
forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
the life everlasting. In its fundamental articles
the Creed is now complete.
To this point the Book of Acts conducts us, and
at this point it leaves us.
It may be said, what more should follow 1
Christians exist. Christian communities are formed.
Let them now be left to their ordinary and per
manent resources.
So it might have been. — So in God's mercy it
was not.
A new life had begun, intellectual, moral, and
social, teeming with elements which could not but
work and expand. It would have been hard to
say with what force they would do so, or in what
direction. Now the great ideas of the Gospel are
old and familiar ; and the very words which repre
sent them have been sorely battered by controversy,
and worn thin by use. But then the revelation
of Christ had just broken, like an unexpected
morning, on a weary and hopeless world. The
stupendous events which had so lately passed on
earth, the present actual relations with heaven
which were witnessed to men by proofs within
and around them, the prospect of things awful
and glorious hastening on, and perhaps already near
at hand, must have given a stimulus to thought
and feeling, the first sensations of which it is not
easy for us now to estimate. The Father revealed,
the Son incarnate, the Holy Ghost sent down from

LECTURE VI 153
heaven — redemption wrought, salvation given, the
resurrection of the body, the eternal judgment, the
second death, the life eternal — new principles of
thought, new standards of character, new grounds of
duty, new motives, new powers, new bonds between
man and man, new forms of human society, new
language for human lips— rail coming at once upon
men's minds, placed them, as it were, in a different
world from that in which they had lived before.
At the same time they carried into that world of
thought all the tendencies, infirmities, and per
versities of our nature, and revealed truth had to
settle itself into lasting forms, to find its adequate
expression, and. to have its moral and social conse
quences deduced, under a variety of influences un
congenial to itself. So critical a period, on which
the whole future of the Gospel hung, would seem to
cry aloud for a continued action of the living word
of God ; such as might, with supreme authority,
both judge and guide the thoughts of men, and
translate' the principles which they had received
into life and practice.
The Lord recognised this necessity. He met it by
the living voice of his Apostles ; and their Epistles
remain as the permanent record of this part of their
work. They are the voice of the Spirit, speaking
within the Church to those who are themselves
within it, certifying to them the true interpretations
and applications of the principles of thought and life
which as befievers in Jesus they have received. This
is the function in the scheme of divine instruction

154 ¦ LECTURE VI
which belongs to these writings ; and I propose
now to note some particular aspects in which their
designation and adaptation to it will appear. With
out entering yet into the examination of their actual
doctrine, we shall see that the Epistles are fitted to
form a course of teaching of the kind described, by
their form, their method, their authorship, and then-
relative character.
I. The form in which this teaching is given to
us is very significant. " The epistolary form," says
Bengel, " is a pre-eminence of the Scriptures of the
New Testament as compared with those of the 01da."
It is a suggestive remark, reminding us of that open
communication and equal participation of revealed
truth, which is the prerogative of the later above
the former dispensation ; indicating too that the
teacher and the taught are placed on one common
level in the fellowship of truth. The Prophets
delivered oracles to the people, but the Apostles
wrote letters to the brethren, letters characterised
by all that fulness of unreserved explanation, and
that play of various feeling, which are proper to
that form of intercourse. It is in its nature a
more familiar communication, as between those who
are, or should be, equals. That character may less
obviously force upon us the sense, that the light
which is thrown on all subjects is that of a divine
inspiration ; but this is only the natural effect of
the greater fulness of that light ; for so the moon
beams fix the eye upon themselves, as they burst
a See Note XL

LECTURE VI 155
through the rifts of rolling clouds, catching the
edges of objects and falling on patches of the land
scape ; while, under the settled brightness of the
universal and genial day, it is not so much the
fight that we think of, as the varied scene which
it shews.
But the fact that the teaching of the Apostles is
represented by their letters, is a peculiarity, not only
in comparison with the teaching of the Prophets, but
with ancient teaching in general, which is perpetuated
either in regular treatises or in discourses or conver
sations preserved in writing. The form adopted in
the New Testament combines the advantages of the
treatise and the conversation. The letter may treat
important subjects with accuracy and fulness, but it
will do so in immediate connection with actual fife.
It is written to meet an occasion. It is addressed
to particular states of mind. It breathes of the heart
of the writer. It takes its aim from the exigencies,
and its tone from the feelings of the moment. In
these respects it suits well with a period of instruc
tion, in which the word of God is to be given to
men, not so much in the way of information, as in
the way of education; or in other words, in which
the truth is to be delivered, not abstractedly, but
with a close relation to the condition of mind of its
recipients. Thus it is delivered in the Epistles. Christ has
been received ; Christian life has commenced ; Chris
tian communities have been formed ; and men's minds
have been at work on the great principles which

156 LECTURE VI
they have embraced. Some of these principles in
one place, and others of them in another, have been
imperfectly grasped, or positively perverted, or prac
tically misapplied, so as to call for explanation or
correction ; or else they have been both apprehended
and applied so worthily, that the teacher, filled with
joy and praise, feels able to open out the mysteries
of God, as one speaking wisdom among them that
are perfect. These conditions of mind were not indi
vidual accidents. Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus,
supplied examples of different tendencies of the
human mind in connection with the principles of the
Gospel — tendencies which would ever recur, and on
which it was requisite for the future guidance of the
Church that the word of God should pronounce. It
did pronounce in the most effectual way, by those
letters which are addressed by the commissioners of
Christ, not to possible but to actual cases, with that
largeness of view which belongs to spectators at a
certain distance from the scene, and with that close
ness of application which personal acquaintance dic
tates and personal affection inspires.
Thus the fuller expositions of truth contained in
the Epistles are based on what the first principles of
the Gospel had already wrought in human hearts ;
and its doctrines are cleared and settled, developed
and combined, in correspondence with the ascertained
capacities and necessities of believers.
II. From the adaptation of the form I pass to
that of the method which the apostolic writings
employ in the completion of evangelical doctrine.

LECTURE VI. 157
The one is in perfect harmony with the other. It
is a method of companionship rather than of dicta
tion. The writer does not announce a succession
of revelations, or arrest the enquiries which he
encounters in men's hearts by the unanswerable
formula, " Thus saith the Lord." He rouses, he
animates, he goes along with the working of men's
minds, by shewing them the workings of his own.
He utters his own convictions, he pours forth his
own experience, he appeals to others to "judge
what he says," and commends his words " to their
conscience in the sight of God." He confutes by
argument rather than by authority, deduces his
conclusions by processes of reasoning, and esta
blishes his points by interpretations and applica
tions of the former Scriptures. Such a method
necessarily creates a multitude of occasions for hesi
tation or objection, and it has been proposed to
meet these difficulties by the principle, that we
are bound to accept the conclusions as matter of
revelation, but not to assent to the validity of the
arguments or the applicability of the quotations.
The more we enter into the spirit of the particular
passages which have been thought to require that
qualification, the more we feel that it can only
have seemed necessary, from a want of real and
deep harmony with the mind of Scripture. But
I have no call to enter on that subject ; my purpose
is simply to draw attention to the fact, that not
only in the conclusions given, but in the methods
employed in reaching them, there is an outward

158 LECTURE VI.
guidance of the christian mind and a visible purpose
to provide such guidance.
Consider, for instance, the argument on justifica
tion in the early part of the Epistle to the Romans,
which accomplishes every step by the aid of the
former Scriptures. Why all this labour in proving
what might have been decided by a simple announce
ment from one entrusted with the word of Godl
Would not the apostolic declaration that such a
statement was error, and that such another was
truth, have sufficed for the settlement of that par
ticular question 1 Doubtless ! but it would not have
sufficed to train men's minds to that thoughtfulness
whereby truth becomes their own, or to educate them
to the living use of the Scriptures as the constituted
guide of enquiry.
It is the same with those records of personal
experience, and those effusions of personal feeling,
which teach us how the revelation of Christ tells
upon the believer's heart. We see, for instance,
in the 7th and 8th chapters of the same Epistle,
the writer's own heart thrown open ; first in its
passage from the law of sin and death to the law'
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; and then
in the assured consciousness of the vast and various
blessings, present and future, which belong to the
children of God, and the heirs together with Christ,
whom nothing shall be able to separate from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus their Lord.
This is not only definite information, it is also effective
education, shewing the revelation of God as wrought

LECTURE VI 159
into its ultimate and subjective form ; and assisting,
by sympathy, and ratifying by example, the same
processes in other hearts.
Yet we should speak amiss, if we represented the
education of christian thought as carried on in the
Epistles . only by methods which seem to place the
Apostle on the same level with his readers. No !
there is everywhere present, in the lofty and un
wavering testimony, the sense of an authority which
makes all things sure ; and whenever occasion arises,.
as from Galatian perverseness or Corinthian disorder,
it asserts its unhesitating and uncompromising claims.
Again, when need so requires, there is a change in
the common method ; and the progress of doctrine
is effected in the prophetic manner, by definite
additions to former revelations : as when St. Paul
informs the Thessalonians, " in the word of the.
Lordb," of some particulars not before made known,
as to the manner in which the dead and the living;
will meet the Lord at his appearing. Thus apo
stolical authority and direct revelation diffuse over
the Epistles their certainty and their majesty ; but
yet the presence of these more commanding elements
is not suffered to overpower that general character
of doctrine, which is proper for those who are of
full age, and who have themselves " an unction
from the Holy One, that they may know all things*0,"
The mind of the teacher still enters into a free
companionship with the mind that is taught, so
as to exercise and educate the spiritual . faculties,
b i Thess. iv. 13-17. c 1 John ii. 20.

160 LECTURE VI
at the same time conducting them with decisive
authority to conclusions which they might else have
failed to reach.
III. Turn now to the authorship of these writings.
If the form and method of this scheme of christian
education are important features of it, so also is
the selection of its agents ; for here, as in other
departments of education, we may say that " the
master is the school."
Who are the appointed teachers of the Church 1
Peter and John, the two chief Apostles ; James
and Jude, the brethren of the Lord. We take
knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus,
and own the highest authority which association
with him can give. But the chief place in this
system of teaching does not belong to any one of
them, nor to all of them together. Their united
writings form but a second volume, and that a
very thin one, just one-fifth of the bulk of the
first, to which moreover it bears in some degree
a kind of supplementary relation. The office of
working out the principles of christian faith into
full proportions and clearly defined forms was as
signed to another, to " Paul, the servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the
Gospel of God, which he had promised afore by
his Prophets in his holy Scriptures."
Now is it not a remarkable, and almost a startling
fact, that this great office should have been assigned
to one who had not been a witness of the Lord's
life on earth, and had nothing to tell of things

LECTURE VI. 161
which he had seen with his eyes, and heard with
his ears, and his hands had handled of the word
of life 1 We remember the indispensable importance
of this qualification for the original apostleship,
as expressed on the appointment of Matthias, " Of
these men which have companied with us all the
time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among
us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that
same day in which he was taken up from us, must
one be ordained to be a witness with us of his
resurrection." Yet on him who had never com
panied with him, or even with them, for one single
day, the most important, or, at least, the most
extensive and enduring part of the apostolic work
devolved. The peculiar qualifications, which in
other respects fitted St. Paul for the work whereto
he was called, have ever received a just appre
ciation and ample treatment. We can all perceive
the active habit, the fervent spirit, the strong will,
the warm affections, the tender sensibility, the exer
cised intellect, the subjective tendencies of thought,
the vivid consciousness of his own inward history,
the combination of Greek and Hebrew training, the
thorough grounding of the mind in the Law and
the Prophets, the profound experience of the false
theory of Judaism, in its effects on his own heart,
and in the practical consequences to which it once
carried him ; finally, the suddenness with which
the Gospel came upon him, making him to know
with a singular distinctness what is the contrast
between salvation sought by law through works,
M

162 LECTURE VI,
and salvation found by grace through faith, and
what is the change in the whole world within, when.
the law of the Spirit of fife in Christ Jesus makes,.
a man free from the law of sin and death.
Perhaps it is commonly felt that these qualifica-.;
tions outweighed the disadvantage at which he stood
in comparison with the other Apostles who had
been with Jesus, and that this accounts for the
addition to their number of one in other respects
specially fitted for the work, although born out of
due time. But it will better consist with the prin
ciples on which his whole history must be judged,
if we say, that his being bom out of due time was
itself one of his qualifications.
Now we must remember that it is the Lord,
foreseeing and foreordaining all, who directs the
course of these events. If, after choosing and train
ing the Twelve, he calls another man, who has
had no share in that training, and specially commits
to him a department of the apostolic work, we,
cannot speak of such a step as an afterthought and..
supplement, as we might do if it occurred in some
human undertaking, in which the original arrange
ments had proved inadequate. We may be sure
that the call of St. Paul after the manifestation;
of Christ was finished, was as much a part of the
divine plan, as was the call of the Twelve when
that manifestation was beginning, and that the
later call must have corresponded as truly with
his appointed work, as the earlier call did with
theirs.

LECTURE VI. 163
We are here led to the more distinct observation,
that the apostolic testimony was twofold, — first to
the facts of the manifestation of Christ, secondly
to its intended consequences in the spiritual state
of man.
It was necessary that those who were to represent
the Lord to the world, in his words and deeds, his
mind and life, should be men on whose hearts the
holy image had been stamped by closest intercourse,
and who could testify to others of what their eyes'
had seen. They who were so qualified did their
work, and gave the knowledge of Jesus to mankind.
Modern study traces the distinct outlines, and finds
the solid fragments of their oral narratives deposited
in the written Gospels. Still, further, St. Luke's
preface shews that these narratives were the regu
lar instruments of christian education, "the things
wherein" catechumens " were instructed d." This
kind of instruction has found its permanent form in
the fourfold Gospel.
But believers were also to be trained to the full
apprehension of the effects of the manifestation in
their own spiritual life. The apostolic teaching on'
this subject is represented for ever by the Epistles,
and those documents are in a remarkable degree
restricted to that particular office. We should
naturally have expected in apostolic teaching an
abundant reference to the words and acts of our
Lord Jesus, as the prolific sources of instruction.
But we do not find such reference, nor anything
& \6yoi rrepi t>v Karq-^fjBns. Luke l. 4.
M 2

164 LECTURE VI.
like it, till we come to the Epistles of James, Peter,
and John, and catch again the sound of words which-
we had heard from their Master and ours. , The
great doctor of the Church had no such remem
brances. His relations with the Lord only com-,
menced after Jesus was glorified and the dispen
sation of the Spirit had begun. If the others were-
the Apostles of the manifestation of Christ, he was
the Apostle of its results; and, in the fact of passing
under his teaching, we have sufficient warning that
we are advancing from the lessons which the life;
and the character, and the words of Jesus gave,-
into the distinct exposition of the redemption, the
reconciliation, the salvation which result from his
appearing. In this way it was provided that the
two correlative kinds of teaching, which the Church
received at the first, should be left to the Church
for ever in the distinctness of their respective de
velopments ; for this distinctness of development in
the second kind of teaching is both announced and
secured by its being confided to St. Paul
Yet a danger might arise ; a danger which did:
attend his living ministry, and which recent theories
have been eager to revive. It might appear, that the'
Gospel which he preached was not so much a stage:
of progress as an individual variety, and that in
following it out we had diverged from the track of
the original doctrine, and were no longer sustained,
by the authority of the Twelve.
The Twelve, therefore, are joined with St. Paul,
as authors together with him of the doctrinal canon

LECTURE VI 165
of the Church, fulfilling this office through Peter and
John, their natural leaders and original representa
tives, and in a more restricted measure through
James and Jude, the brethren of the Lord, to the
former of whom, in the second stage of the Church's
history, so eminent and peculiar a position is as
signed. Had we been permitted to choose our in
structors from among " the glorious company," three
of these names at least would have been uttered by
every tongue ; and besides our desire to be taught
by their lips, we should, as disciples of St. Paul,
have felt a natural anxiety to know whether " James,
Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars," " added
nothing toe," and took nothing from, the substance
of the doctrine which we had received through him.
It was the will of God that this anxiety should be
met. We have not been left to conjectures and
surmises. We have words from these very Apostles:,
expressing the mind of their later life, words in
which we recognise the mellow tone of age, the
settled manner of an old experience, and the long
habit of Christian thought. We not only meet the
men whom we should wish to hear, but we meet
them at the point where we should wish to hear
them, now the venerated authorities in the Church
which they had long since founded, and fully cog
nizant of its intervening history.
Thus, if the collection of Epistles be intended to
exhibit the fulness and maturity of Christian doc
trine, the selection of its authors corresponds to the
e Galatians ii. 9.

166 LECTURE VI
end in view ; the man who is best fitted to conduct,
being associated with the men who are best fitted
to confirm, the exposition, and development of the
Gospel of Christ.
IV. In the last place I must advert, though it
is only possible to do so very slightly, to the relative
characters of the several Epistles, as complementary
one to another, and constituent parts of one body of
teaching. i. The Pauline Epistles appear, with very small
variation, to have been habitually ranged in that
order in which we read them now ; and it is one
which on the whole, and in a certain measure, pro
duces the effect of a course of doctrine. They fall
naturally into groups, which stand, relatively to each
other, in the places which they ought to occupy for
purposes of progressive instruction. The Epistles to
the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians have a cor
rective and decisive character. They are the voice
of the doctor of the Church, expounding with blended
argument and authority the meaning and the bearing
of the principles of the Gospel, which his hearers
had already received ; so as to decide the uncer
tainties, and correct the divergences, which will
always characterise every second stage in the history
of truth. When the enjoyment of a new discovery
passes into reflection upon it, and impressions begin
fo define themselves in words, and "good tidings"
are shaping themselves into doctrines and laws of
fife, a time of danger and necessity has come. Then
the vagueness and the incorrectness of many first

LECTURE VI 167
impressions come to light ; then old habits of
thought are found still to survive, and old principles
return to enter into damaging or destructive com
bination with those by which they had seemingly
been expelled. Then, through treacherous aits,
through perverse moral tendencies, and even through
logical weakness, the tender system of truth may
suffer, in the period of its formation, injuries which
will be for ever fatal. The reader of the first three
Epistles finds himself in the presence of such a state
of things, and feels that the necessities, which are
there met by the word of the Lord, would, if not
thus provided for, have destroyed all security in any
further advance of thought.
Especially in this point of view does the Epistle to
the Romans claim the place which it has habitually
held as the first step in the epistolary course. The
subject on which it gives a full and decisive ex
position is not only vital but fundamental; namely,
the need, the. nature, and the effects of the justifica
tion for individual souls which the Gospel preaches
and which faith receives. As there can be no repose
for a soul while that first point of personal anxiety,
" How can man be just with God V is left unsettled ;
so there can be no solidity for a system of doctrine
till the true answer to that question has been dis
tinctly shaped and firmly deposited. Moreover, if
the Gospel of St. Matthew fitly opens the whole
evangelical record by connecting it with the former
Scriptures, so ; also for the same reason does this,
great Epistle" fitly . open the doctrinal series; far.

168 LECTURE VI
what the one does in respect of fact, the other
does in respect of doctrine, justifying throughout
the intimation with which it opens that the Gospel
will here be treated as that " which God had promised
before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." In
the constant references, and in the whole line of
argument, we see the illustrious genealogy and lineal
descent of the christian doctrine of justification by
faith, traced,- like that of Jesus himself, from Abraham
and David, and vindicated by the witness of the Law
and the Prophets ; so that we enter on the final
exposition of the truth with a settled sense, that in
all the successive stages of its revelation the truth
has still been one.
, In the Epistles to the Corinthians we have passed
into another region of thought, conversing now
among, the Greeks who seek after wisdom. In the
presence of a spirit of self-confident freedom, both
in thought and conduct, or in other words, in pre
sence of the essential spirit of the world, rising
again like a returning tide, the Gospel develops
its divine and indefeasible authority, claims the
subjection of the mind, and regulates the life of
the Church.
In the Epistle to the Galatians it encounters, not
the spirit of a presumptuous freedom, but the spirit
of a wilful bondage, which returns after its own
stubborn and insensate fashion to the elements of
the world and of the flesh. In repelling this ten
dency, the apostolic doctrine asserts more strongly
than ever its character as a revelation of Jesus

LECTURE VI 169
Christ, and shines out more clearly as a dispensation
of spirit and of liberty.
Thus in the first three Epistles the first questions
have been answered and the first dangers averted;
and the apostolic or Pauline doctrine has established
its divine character f and developed its essential fea
tures. ;
The following Epistles differ from this first group
in the comparative absence of the controversial' atti
tude and of the judicial tone. As those whose minds
are now cleared, settled, and secured, we readily fol
low the Apostle to that more calm and lofty stage of
thought on which he stands in his Epistles to the
Ephesians and Colossians ; when, no longer in colli
sion with human error, he expatiates in the view of
the eternal purposes of God, and of the ideal per
fections of the Church in Christ. If inspiration was
asserted in the other Epistles, here it is felt. We
hear, not as before, the doctor of the Church ex
pounding, confuting, and deciding, but rather a pro
phet of truth speaking as one borne along by the
Holy Ghost s. Yet in both Epistles this high strain
passes by the most natural transition into the plain
est counsels, and in the intervening Epistle to the
Philippians the voice is not that of a prophet" but
of a friend.
f In the Eomans, by connecting itself with the inspiration of the
Old Testament ; in the Corinthians and Galatians, by asserting its
own, (see especially i Cor. ii. and Gal. i.).
i S' viro irvevpAros tlyiov tpepopevos; "Who can read Eph. i. and ii.
without being reminded of this expression of St. Peter, by the sus
tained swell and unbroken flow of the thoughts -and language %

170 LECTURE VI.
Finally, the Thessalonian Epistles complete St.
Paul's addresses to seven Churches, and, though first
in the date of production, may fitly be read last in
the permanent order, as being specially distinguished
by the eschatological element, and sustaining the con
flict of faith by the preaching of " that blessed hope"
and " the glorious appearing and the coming of the
day of God V
To this body of doctrine the Pastoral Epistles
aidd their suggestive words, on the principles and
spirit of that office, which is at once a government
to order the Church and a ministry to serve it ;
so that, in the acknowledged writings of St. Paul,
we advance from the first momentous question of
justification for individual souls, through a thousand
various exigencies and unfoldings of the life of faith,
till we reach the outer circle of ministerial provision
for the care of the Church and the stewardship of
the truth.
2. But, in passing through this course of teaching,
we have been in continual contact with the remi
niscences, the ideas, the imagery, and the language
which are natural to one who was by origin and
training a Hebrew of the Hebrews. With all his
evangelical expansiveness of spirit, and all his an-.
tagonism to the false theory of the Jewish system,
he yet has taught the things of Christ, and pre
sented the universal salvation, under forms of speech
h A characteristic made very noticeable in the present division
by chapters, each chapter in the first Epistle closing with the men
tion of this subject.

LECTURE VI 171
and in a cast of thought which are derived from the
school of the Law. Every moment it becomes a
more serious question, whether this language is to
be allowed for, as inaccurate in itself but under the
circumstances of the case inevitable, or whether it
is to be insisted on, as the method prepared in the
purpose of God for the most adequate expression of
spiritual truth. The question was indeed decided
by the two facts, that the old covenant itself was
a divine ordinance, and that its historical relations
with the new covenant were a divine provision. Still
it was of high importance to the clearness and fixed
ness of the doctrine, that this connection between the
two covenants should be deliberately shewn to con
sist, not in rhetorical illustration, but in a divinely
intended system of analogies. This is the permanent
office of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, if not
St. Paul's, is confessedly Pauline, and, apparently
on account of its uncertified authorship, has usually
taken its place in succession to his acknowledged
writings. In its origin it evidently belongs to the
last hour of transition and decision, when a large
number of men, who were at once Jews and Chris
tians, stood perplexed, agitated, and almost dis
tracted, as they seemed to feel the ground parting
beneath their feet, and hardly knew whether to throw
themselves back on that which was receding, or for
ward on that to which they were called to cling. In
an intense sympathy with this perplexity, and even
anguish, prevailing in the Hebrew-Christian mind,
and in an intense anxiety as to its issue, the Epistle

172 LECTURE VI.
was written ; a living voice of power in a time of
change and fear, yet a comprehensive exposition of
the advancing course of revelation, and of the rela
tions between its two great stages. But more par
ticularly is it to be noticed here, that this Epistle
throws a stronger light than other writings had done
upon the progress of doctrine during the Christian
period itself. For, first, it expressly recognises the fact
that " the word of the beginning of Christ1" had been
enlarged by intervening teaching into a " perfection,"
which many of those who are here addressed had sin
fully and shamefully failed to receive ; the teachers
sent from God having wrought out for them full ex
positions of truth, to which their old prepossessions
had closed their hearts. And, secondly, it exhibits the
further fact, that this perfecting of the truth, by the
full and definite interpretation of the principles of
the Gospel, had been accomplished by means of the
true reading of the Old Testament in the light of the
knowledge of Christ k.
3. From the Pauline writings we pass to the col
lection of the Catholic Epistles. For all internal rea
sons they are better read in the place which they
occupy in our Bibles, than in that which the older
manuscripts generally assign them, preceding the
Epistles of St. Paul ; for they are in effect the con
firmation and the supplement of his doctrine1.
This character cannot here be proved, and it
j Heb. vi. I. dtpe'trres tok rrjs apx^* T°S Xpttrrov Xoyov iirl rrjv TeXewi-
rryra tpepdpeda. k See Note XII.
1 See the latter part of Note I. in reference-to this arrangement. '

LECTURE VI. 173
scarcely needs to be, for it is now in the main
acknowledged. The personal characteristics of these
writers are unlike those of St. Paul ; the aspects
of the truth are different, but the substance and the
features are the same. Each writer, by the strongly
distinguished lines of his own individuality, makes
still more conspicuous the unity of the common
faith. The Epistle of St. James alone makes at first-
sight an opposite impression, and instead of har
monising with the full development of evangelical
doctrine, may appear to belong to an earlier, or
rather a retrograde stage ; and if taken as an in
tended exposition of the essential features of
christian truth, it might be thought to imply an
Ebionite view of the Gospel, and even to betray
an Ebionite origin. But the careful and candid
student sees that the language employed distinctly
pre-supposes the evangelical doctrine, and by sup
plementing other expositions of it does in fact-
acknowledge and confirm themm.
The harmony of the Epistles of St. Peter and
St. John with the Pauline doctrine is sufficiently
obvious, and the former Apostle not only practically
(as is the case in an eminent degree), but pointedly
and professedly sets his seal to the development
which the Gospel had received in the teaching of
the Apostle of the Gentiles, assuring those who had
accepted the doctrine that " this is the true grace
of God wherein ye stand";" and again, instructing:
m See Note XIII. . n i Peter v. 12.

174 LECTURE VI.
those to whom the " beloved brother Paul" had
written " according to the wisdom given unto him,"
that they are to regard those writings as on a
level with " the other Scriptures0."
On the Gospel doctrine itself, which is thus con
firmed, a fresh light seems to be thrown by the
spirit of these precious Epistles, the faith expounded
by St. Paul kindling into fervent hope in the
words of St. Peter, and expanding into sublime love
in those of St. John. At the same time the reader
cannot fail to note how these writings of the original
Apostles, by express references, by borrowed language,
and by their whole spirit, seem to bind the doctrine
which the Epistles have developed to the Gospels
in which it first began to be opened. Finally, he
may observe with admiration the singular fitness
of the few words of St. Jude to close the series
of writings, through which the faith has been
wrought out and consigned to the Church for
ever. It only remains for our last instructor to
exhort us " earnestly to contend for the faith once
for all delivered to the saints;" to warn us of the
dangers of relapse ; to entreat us " to build our
selves up on our holy faith, and praying in the
Holy Ghost to keep ourselves in the love of God,
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto
eternal life;" and, finally, to commend us "to him
who is able to keep us from falling, and to present
us faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy."
0 2 Peter iii. 16.

LECTURE VI. 175
With such charges, warnings, and commendatory
prayers is the didactic portion of the New Testa
ment left in our hands. We have now observed its
function in the whole scheme of instruction, as ad
dressed to those who have believed the Gospel, for
the furtherance and perfecting of their education in
Christ. We have seen that it is adapted to this
work by the epistolary form, which contemplates
those who are addressed as partakers in the same
life with those who address them, and as brethren
in the family of God. Secondly, by the method
adopted, in which the teacher, putting forth all the
varieties of his own mental energies, exercises and.
trains the spiritual faculties of those who are taught,
while conducting them to definite and ascertained
conclusions. Thirdly, by the appointment of the
chief author, whose proper work only commences at
the point where the testimony of the manifestation
of Christ in the flesh is finished, and passes into
the testimony of his present relations with men in
the spirit. Lastly, by the relative characters of the
collected writings, whereby the exigencies of the spi
ritual life are met at every point and provided for
in natural though informal succession.
In concluding this survey I would suggest two
questions which it may well leave upon our minds.
First, What is our own experience of the exigencies
thus provided for % The Gospel history accepted as
true, some general statements concerning its conse
quences adopted, and a position in the christian com
munity assumed — these things, seem to satisfy the

176 LECTURE VI
minds of many among us. We see that the word
of God does not contemplate so sudden and easy a
satisfaction. It supposes that the believer in Jesus
has entered on a vast world of life and thought.
It supposes the existence of enquiries, anxieties,'
aspirations. It supposes a mind thoroughly aroused
by the importance, the grandeur, and the glory of
the truth which has come before it — a mind which
purposes with itself " to apprehend the things for
which also it is apprehended of Christ Jesus." It
supposes the existence of hindrances, difficulties,
oppositions — things to be struggled through, as well
as things to be striven after. What do you know
of all this % Till you do know something of it, the
Epistles are not for you. They are not written to
suit a cool indifference, or to gratify a taste for
discussion. The real condition for their use is the
existence of that inward life for the necessities of
which they provide. A man must turn the pages
of the Epistle to the Romans with a sense of per
plexity and distaste, if his own heart own no serious
enquiry after the righteousness of God. The dis
covery in the Epistle to the Hebrews of all that
is transacted within the vtil, by the effectual minis
try of the eternal Priest, can have for him but the
slight interest which may attach to ingenious typo
logy, if he feel no daily necessity to come himself
to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need ; and the glorious standard
of Christian character which every Epistle offers
can but repel him, as something overstrained and

LECTURE VI 177
inapplicable to actual life, if he have not recognised
himself as bought with the precious blood and risen
again with Christ. The whole scheme and course
of teaching, meant for those who are " called to be
saints," loses not only its force but its. meaning for
those who have no such project as those words
imply. The second question is this : If the exigencies
which, are thus supposed are really felt by us, what
use do we make of the word which is given to meet
them \ We have seen that that word does not lead
us to the entrance of the christian life and then leave
us at the threshold It recognises fully, it warmly
enters into, all those anxious questions which arise
in your hearts, as to the real nature of the work of
Christ in which you are taught to trust, of that
salvation which you desire to receive, of that life
which you are called to lead, of those relations to
God in which you are placed, of those great pros
pects which lie before you. And shall negligence
or distrust deprive you of the assistance thus pre
pared, and leave you to encounter the thoughts
which crowd upon the awakened soul, as if you
had to deal with them only by means of your own
resources ? You are not so left. For those within
the Church, those who have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, those who own the holy calling, all this
teaching is made ready. To them it is expressly
addressed, and for their various necessities it is
adapted. But it does not yield its true uses to a
critical reference or an occasional consultation ; only
N

178 LECTURE VI.
through a constant companionship and familiar inter
course does it tell effectually for its destined ends,
and accomplish the blessed transformation of the
poverty and vanity of this poor human life into the
glory and reality of a life that is in Christ.

LECTURE VII.
THE EPISTLES.
i Cor. i. 30.
Of him are ye in Christ Jesus.
I TAKE this text, because it appears to me to con
tain the fundamental idea, which underlies the whole
range of the Epistles, and gives the specific character
to their doctrine.
The specific character of their doctrine, as com
pared with the preceding parts of the New Testa*-
ment, is the question which lies before me now.
Some kind of doctrinal progress must necessarily
be attributed to these writings, if their words are
taken as words of God ; for everything in them
which is not simple repetition must be in some sense
addition, either giving information wholly new, or
explaining, enlarging, and arranging that which
former teachings had imparted.
It would therefore be fit, at the point which these
Lectures have reached, to make some collection of
N 2

180 LECTURE VII.
these additions, or rather some selection of the
chief instances of them ; unless it should appear
that this stage of the progress of doctrine is marked
by such distinctive features, as suffice by them
selves to describe the nature of the advance which
has been made, and to supersede the accumula
tion of particulars by the peculiarity of a general
character. I. In what has been already advanced the existence
of such a general character has been implied, and
its nature has been in some degree defined.
We have looked upon the doctrine of the Gospels
as the manifestation oi Christ to men, giving the
conditions and the materials of a spiritual life which
was to follow. We have looked upon the doctrine of
the Acts of the Apostles, as the preaching of Christ
to men, summing up the results of his appearing,
proclaiming him with the witness of the Spirit, and
gathering those who receive him into the form and
the life of a Church. We have observed that the
Epistles take up the line of teaching at this point,
being a voice within that Church to those who are
themselves within it ; that they are appropriated by
their superscriptions to those who are already called,
separated, and sanctified in Christ ; that they are
marked by their form and method as instruments
of education to the spiritual life after it has begun ;
and that the appointment of their chief author im
plies the purpose of teaching things which followed
the completion of the work of Christ on earth, in his
offices and ministrations in heaven, and in the dis-

LECTURE VII 181
pensation of the Spirit amongst men. If the actual
contents of the Epistles correspond with these in
timations, their doctrine must necessarily bear a
specific character as compared with that of the Gos
pels and the Acts. As the manifestation of Christ
when it was finished made way for the preaching
of Christ, so the preaching of Christ when it has
been received opens into the life in Christ. The
Epistles pre-suppose the existence of this life,.
both in the community and in the individual, and
their doctrine is directed to educate and develop it.
The fundamental thought in every page is that
expressed in my text, " Of him are ye in Christ
Jesus." They are little words, but they make an announce-:
ment of vast significance and boundless consequences.
Writer and readers regard themselves and each other
as having now entered on an existence, which for
spiritual beings seems the only real one. " Ye are".
says the Apostle. After speaking of "things that
are not" and of " things that are," he turns to his
fellow-believers, and says, " but ye are." And whence
is this existence found ] From him (<?£ avTov), from
God himself, as its immediate origin and still con
tinuous author. And where is it found \ " In Christ
Jesus." In Christ Jesus! As the simple voice of faith
this word is ever uttered with joy unspeakable and-
full of glory. But preacher or commentator, who
may attempt to sound the depths or open the trea-'
sures of its meaning, must feel his tongue falter

182 LECTURE VII.
under the sense of the inadequacy of every ex
plaining word. Let us, however, at least assert the
reality of the fact which it expresses, for it is
no symbolical form of speech, but the statement
of a fact, as real in regard to the spirit, as the fact
of our being in the world is real in regard to the
body. How does the vivid consciousness of this reality
glow in the pages which are before us now! Christ
has been manifested, preached, received ; and what
is the state which has ensued, as exhibited in the
consciousness of those who have received them 1
They are not merely professors of his name,
learners of his doctrine, followers of his example,
sharers in his gifts. I may go further. They are
not merely men ransomed by his death, or destined
for his glory. These are all external kinds of con
nection, in which our separate life is related to his
fife only as one man's life may be related to another's,
by the effect of what he teaches, of what he gives,
and of what he does. But it is assumed in the
Epistles, that befievers in Jesus are no longer living
a life that is only external, and, as it were, parallel
to his life. They are in Christ Jesus, and he also
is in them.
At the close of his manifestation he foretold a
state of consciousness, which his disciples had not
attained while he was with them in the flesh, but
which would be enjoyed by them under the suc
ceeding dispensation. "At that day ye shall know
that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in.

LECTURE VII 183
youa." The language of the Epistles is the echo of
this promise. It is the voice of those who have
entered on the predicted knowledge, and who view
all subjects in the fight of it.
They know that the Lord Jesus " is in the Father ;"
or, as it is more fully and distinctly expressed by
himself, that "he is in the Father, and the Father
in himb ;" not indeed with that character of know
ledge which belongs to a later age, when abstract
dogmatic statements were fashioned from their warm
and living words, but rather with that kind of
knowledge, to secure which to the Church for ever
those statements were needed and were framed.
These writers know the truth, that the Father is
in the Son, as constituting the power of the work
of Christ on earth ; and the truth, that the Son
is in the Father, as constituting the power of his
mediation in heaven. On the one side, " God was
in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself0;" on
the other, it is "with Christ in GodA" that the
Christian's present life is hid.
Furthermore, these writers know that believers
are in Christ and Christ in them, and shew that
knowledge, not only by frequent assertions and a
universal supposition of a close and vital union be
tween the members and the head, but by a full
development of both the aspects of this union which
the words of the Lord present.
Believers are in Christ, so as to be partakers in all
a John xiv.. 20. b Ibid. x. 38 ; xiv. 10 ; and xvii. 21.
c 2 Cor. v. 19. d Col. iii. 3.

184 LECTURE VII.
that he does, and has, and is. They died with him,
and rose with him, and live with him, and in him
are seated in heavenly places. When the eye of
God looks on them they are found in Christ, and
there is no condemnation to those that are in him,
and they are righteous in his righteousness, and
loved with the love which rests on him, and are
sons of God in his sonship, and heirs with him of
his inheritance, and are soon to be glorified with
him in his glory. And this standing which they
have in Christ, and the present and future portion
which it secures, are contemplated in eternal coun
sels, and predestined before the foundation of the
world. As the sense of this fact breathes in every page,
so also does the sense of the correlative fact, that
Christ is in those who believe; associating his own
presence with their whole inward and outward life.
They know that Jesus Christ is in them, except
they be reprobates e (rejected ones). They live, yet
not they, but Christ liveth in themf, and the evSv-
vafiwv X|o/a-Toy is their strength and their songg. This
indwelling of Christ is by the Holy Ghost, so that
the same passages speak interchangeably of the
Spirit being in us, and of Christ being in ush; or
of the Holy Ghost being in us, and our members
being the members of Christ1 : and so this word,
"I in you," includes the whole life of the Spirit
in man, with all its discoveries, impulses, and achieve-
• 2 Cor. xiii. 5. f Gal ii. 20. e Phil. iv. 13.
h Rom. viii. 9, 10. ' 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19.

LECTURE VII 185
ments, its victory over the world, its conversation in
heaven, and earnest of the final inheritance.
Thus, through the different but correlative rela
tions represented by the words, " Ye in me, and I
in you," human life is constituted a life in Christ ;
and, through the still higher mystery of the union
of the Father and the Son, is thereby revealed as a
life in God. " At that day ye shall know that I am
in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Yes ! as
we pass through the Epistles, we see that that day
is come, and that the consciousness thus predicted
has been attained. It is no flight of mysterious
rhetoric, but the brief expression of the settled,
habitual, fundamental view of the state of those
who are here addressed, " Of him are ye in Christ
Jesus." This idea underlies all that is said, gives the point
of view from which every subject is regarded, and
supplies the standard of character and the rules of
conduct. We move in a new world of thought, and
are raised to a level of doctrine which we had not
reached before, though the Gospels had prepared us
for it, and the Acts had led us towards it. In the
Gospels we have stood like men who watch the rising
of some great edifice, and who grow familiar with the
outlines and the details of its exterior aspects In
the preaching of the Acts we have seen the doors
thrown open, and joined the men who flock into
it as their refuge and their home. In the Epistles
we are actually within it, sheltered by its. roof,
encompassed by its walls ; we pass, as it were, from

186 LECTURE VII.
chamber to chamber, beholding the extent of its
internal arrangements and the abundance of all
things provided for our use. We are here " in
Christ Jesus." That is the account of the difference
which we feel, and which lies in the opening out
of the whole effect of the Gospel, rather than in
additions made to its particular doctrines. The pre
sence which was lately before our eyes, and drew us
towards itself, now absorbs and wraps us round,
and has become the ground on which we stand,
the air which we breathe, the element in which we
live and move and have our being.
The Churches are "in Christ ;" the persons are "in
Christ." They are "found in Christ" and "preserved
in Christ." They are "saved" and "sanctified* in
Christ ;" are " rooted, built up," and " made perfect
in Christ." Their ways are " ways that be in Christ ;"
their conversation is " a good conversation" in Christ ;
their faith, hope, love, joy, their whole life is "in
Christ." They think, they speak, they walk " in
Christ." They labour and suffer, they sorrow and
rejoice, they conquer and triumph "in the Lord."
They receive each other and love each other " in
the Lord." The fundamental relations, the primal
duties of life, have been drawn within the same circle.
" The man is not without the woman, nor the woman
without the man in the Lord k." Wives submit them
selves to their husbands " in the Lord ;" children obey
their parents "in the Lord." The broadest distinc
tions vanish in the common bond of this all-embracing
k I Cor. xi. u.

LECTURE VII 187
relation. " As many as have been baptised into Christ
have put on Christ ; there is neither Greek nor Jew,
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female ; they are all one in Christ Jesus 1."
The influence of it extends over the whole field of
action, and men " do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."
The truth which they hold is "the truth as it is in
Jesus;" the will by which they guide themselves
is "the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
them." Finally, this character of existence is not
changed by* that which changes all besides. Those
who have entered on it depart, but they " die in
the Lord," they " sleep in Jesus," they are " the dead
in Christ ;" and " when he shall appear," they will
appear ; and when he comes, " God shall bring them
with him," and they shall " reign in life by one —
Jesus Christ."
Pardon, my brethren, the necessarily slight and
rapid manner in which you have now been reminded
of this pervading characteristic of the Apostolic
writings. Yet, swiftly as I am compelled to proceed,
I must delay a moment ; for there is a question-
which one who rehearses such words ought not to
leave unspoken. What correspondence is there be
tween our own habit of thought and the christian
consciousness which speaks in these pages 1 I mean,
not in regard to particular doctrines or precepts,
but in regard to that one fact which embraces them
all— that which the text expresses, " Of him are ye
1 Gal. iii.. 28.

188 LECTURE VII
in Christ Jesus." That is not the statement of a
doctrine, but the summary of a life. Surely I must
ask — Is it a life which I am living now 1 I glance
over these pages, and see the holy and beloved name
shining in every part of them, and mingling its
presence with every thought and feeling, every
purpose and hope. I see an ever-present conscious
ness of being1' in Christ, and a habit of viewing all
things in him. Must I not look down into my
heart, and ask whether my own inward life bears
this character 1 Let me accept nothing in exchange
for this. Men bid me live in duty and truth, in
purity and love. They do well. But the Gospel
does better; calling me to live in Christ, and to
find in him the enjoyment of all that I would
possess and the realisation of all that I would be
come. In suggesting these personal enquiries, I
have scarcely taken a step out of my way, for the
very point before us is this, that the progress of
doctrine in the Epistles is constituted, not in the
first place by the communication of new information,
but by the recognition of a spiritual state which
has been attained, and by the education of the
spiritual life pertaining to it.
II. It now remains for me to point out that this fun
damental character does of itself constitute a visible
advance in the several parts of doctrine, both chang
ing their aspect, and enlarging their bounds ; and for
this purpose it is necessary to select some particular
subjects in which this change may be studied.
i. We turn first to the primary doctrine of salvation

LECTURE VII. 189
by Jesus Christ. In the Gospels this doctrine ap
pears in its most general form. To a great degree
it is typically represented, through the bodily heal
ing or saving which points to the like work in the
world of spirit. On some occasions that faith, by
which men are " made whole" or " saved" (as the
one word is variously rendered) in the lower sense,
is declared to be the means of the higher blessing,
and to have secured for the applicant " forgiveness
of sins." To these intimations, definite invitations
and assertions are added. He who speaks is " come
to save the world ;" " to seek and to save that which
is lost ;" men are called to " come to him that they
may have life ;" " he that believeth on him is not
condemned ;" " he shall never perish, but have ever
lasting life :" and from time to time some words are
spoken, which suggest the method in which the sal
vation is wrought — words which tell of " the Lamb
of God who taketh away the sins of the world ;" of
being " lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness,"
that those who look may live ; of " life given as a
ransom for many ; " and of " the blood of a new7
covenant shed for the remission of sins." But, in
reaching the Epistles, who is not struck with the
definiteness and development which the whole doc
trine, especially this last part of it, has obtained.
Here men have already received the great truth in
its first aspect, and have believed on the Lord Jesus
for the remission of sins. Their minds, however,
must work ; and they search into the real depth
and extent pf the general assurances, in which their

190 LECTURE VII.
souls at first found rest and joy. The word of God
guides them through its commissioned interpreters.
Thus the grounds of this salvation in the work of
Christ, and the means of it in their own faith,
are brought clearly and vividly into view, and the
attention is fixed upon the way in which men, being
sinful, are made the righteousness of God. In every
variety of expression the reality of the atoning work
of Christ is made sure ; in every connection of
thought it is made present. God " has set him
forth to be a propitiation for sins through faith in
his blood m;" "We are reconciled unto God by the
death of his Sonn ;" " We are justified in his blood0;"
" We have redemption through his blood, even the
forgiveness of sinsP;" we, " who were far off, are
made nigh by the blood of Christ "J ;" " He hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in
himr;" "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for uss ;" " By his own
blood he entered in once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us1 ;" " He was once
offered to bear the sins of many" ;" " He put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself";" "He bore our
sins in his own body on the treex ;" " Ye are re
deemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a
Lamb without blemish and without spot?;" "The
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from
m Rom. iii. 25. n Ibid. v. 10. ° Ibid. v. 9.
p Eph. i. 7. 'i Ibid. ii. 13. r 2 Cor. v. 21.
B Gal. iii. 13. * Heb. ix. 12. « Ibid. ix. 28.
" Heb. ix. 26. * 1 Peter ii. 24. y Ibid. i. 19.

LECTURE VII 191
all sinz;" "He is the propitiation for our sins, and
not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
world a."
Such is the constant voice of the apostolic teaching,
and such also is the constant voice of that christian
consciousness which the apostolic teaching forms and
certifies. Those who are in Christ are already in
mates of that holy " temple," which we see reared in
the Gospels and opened in the Acts ; and for them
the altar of the cross is the one central object, visi
ble from the remotest precincts, and sanctifying all
around it, while the one sacrifice thereon completed
is the ever-present condition of all which is- celebrated
or enjoyed within. No mist invests the object to
which all eyes are turned, such as may suggest or
excuse the doubt whether that object be truly an
altar, and the act accomplished on it a sacrifice
indeed. Not here do we see believers " clinging
(as it has been expressed) to the ground of fact"
under the feeling that " mystery is the nearest ap
proach that we can make to the truth ; that only
by indefiniteness can we avoid putting words in the
place of things ; that we know nothing of the objec
tive act on God's part by which he reconciled the
world to himself, the very description of it as an act
being only a figure of speech ; and that we seem to
know that we never can know anything0." Instead
of this we find a firm unsparing use of various but
kindred forms of speech, each supplementing and
z i John i. >j. » i John ii. 2.
b Jowett on the Epistles, vol. ii. p. 482.

192 LECTURE VII.
confirming the other, and having in the minds of
those who use them a recognised and settled force,
derived from ordinances which they have always held
to be divine, and which they now understand to have
been pre-ordained for the very purpose of preparing
the ideas and the language, in which they are here
expressing the things of Christ.
Mysteries of course remain ; and the truths deli
vered, however distinct and clear in their central
parts, have their circumference in regions which the
eye cannot reach. I only observe that these central
parts of the truth of our salvation become more dis
tinct and clear as we advance beyond the threshold
of the Gospel : and that in the Epistles, as standing
amongst those who are in Christ, we receive a fuller
interpretation of the things which he spake with
his lips, concerning the salvation which we were to
find in him.
2. Proceed now to another doctrine respecting
the christian state — namely, that those who are
saved are also sons.
One chief feature of the teaching in the Gospels is
found in the word " Father." Jesus appears amongst
men in the character of the Son. His first spoken
word utters the consciousness of that relation, " Wist
ye not that I must be among the things of my Fa
ther0?" His first introduction to men ratifies it:
" This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased d :'*
and so he goes forth into the world as the Son of the
Father. In right of this relation he straightway
c Luke ii. 49. d Matt. iii. 17.

LECTURE VII. 193
associates in it those who receive him : and when, in
his first instructions, he lifts up his eyes on his disci
ples to teach them the principles of the kingdom of
God, he bases everything upon this relation between
them and their God. " Pray to thy Father « ;" " Thy
Father will reward f ;" " Your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of s •" " That ye may glorify your
Father11;" " That ye may be the children of your
Eather which is in heaven.1 ; " " Be ye perfect, as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect K" So the whole
course of his teaching tends to that intertwining
of his own relation to God with theirs, which is
finally expressed on the eve of his departure : — " My
Father and your Father, my God and your God1."
And this language is not a mere general declaration
of the universal fatherhood of God ; for it is always
addressed to his disciples as such, to the little flock,
whom the world will persecute, and to whom, " it is
their Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom111 :."
and it is further declared that the consciousness of
it is only awakened in those who hear his word,
for " no man knoweth the Father save the Son,, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him11 ;" and
the right to enjoy and feel this relation, is repre
sented by St. John as a gift to those who receive
him, and believe in him : " To as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become, the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name : which
e Matt. vi. 6. t Ibid. 4. e Ibid. 8. & Ibid. v. 16.
i Matt. v. 45. k Ibid. 48. 1 John xx. 17. m Luke xii. 32.
n Matt. xi. 27.
O

194 LECTURE VII.
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor cf the will of man, but of God0."
What advance is made in the Epistles upon the
doctrine thus announced % It appears there in a
fuller form, and with plainer statements of its
ground in the work of Christ, who is the Son sent
forth, " made under the law to redeem (buy out,
e^ayopaa-rj) those who were under the law, in order
that (tW) we might receive the adoption of sons p :"
and with stronger assertions also of the means, on
our part, through which the sonship is enjoyed.
" Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is
born of Godi ;" " Ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesusr." But the substantive
addition made to the doctrine fies in the region of
consciousness, and in the experience of the inward
life. Believers are in Christ, and so are sons of
God, but, having become so, they find that Christ
also is in them, giving them the mind of sons
and the sense of their sonship. " Because ye are
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts, crying, Abba, Father s." " The Spirit
itself witnesseth with our spirit, that we are the
children of God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs
of God, and joint-heirs with Christ1/' " This revela
tion is not only seen in the particular passages which
assert it, but its presence is felt in all parts of the
Apostolic writings, and, as we read, we become
more and more sensible that Christ in the Spirit
0 John i. 12. p Gal. iv. 5. q 1 John v. 1.
r Gal. iii. 26. s Ibid. iv. 6. * Rom. viii. 16, 17.

LECTURE VII. 195
has perfected his teaching in the flesh, and that
those who are in him have now learned all that
was meant by his word " Your Father."
3. Turning now to the department of duties, let
us take the first of them — the personal approach
to God in worship, prayer, and praise.
Speaking often on this subject, our Lord instructs
us to come to God as a Father, and as one who
seeth in secret u ; to worship in spirit and in truth v ;
to pray always, and not to faintw ; to pray as sinners
who need mercy*, as children who are sure to be
heard >' ; and whatsoever things we ask to believe
that we receive themz. In his last discourse words
are dropped, which seem to place the whole subject
on a fresh basis : " No man cometh unto the Father
but by me;" " If ye shall ask anything in my name,
I will do it. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in
my name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy
may be fulla."
In the Epistles these (at the time) anticipatory
words have found their explanation ; and thereby
all the previous instruction is fully realised. Men
are in Christ Jesus, and therefore they come to
God by him. The whole character of worship and
prayer is now derived from, the consciousness, that
" through him we have access by one Spirit unto
the Father0." God is approached as a Father indeed,
because he is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ
u Matt. vi. 8. v John iv. 24. w Luke xviii. 1.
* Luke xviii. 13. y Ibid. xi. 11-13- z Mark xi. 24.
a John xiv. 6,14, and xvi, 23, 24. b Eph. ii. 18.
O 2

196 LECTURE VII.
in whom the worshipper is found : and therefore
the two names are united in every voice and almost
every mention of prayer. Through him also we
have the access (t^v Trpoa-aywyhv), or (as it is soon
afterwards expressed) " access with confidence by
the faith of himc." The right of entrance is secured,
and the means by which it was secured are present
to the mind. We have " boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus d." Sacrifice has been
offered, the barriers are gone, a new and living
way is opened. And yet, further, there is (as the
word implies) a present introduction by the living
intervention of an eternal Priest, ministering in the
true sanctuary, with active mediation and perpetual
intercessions for all who come to God by him.
Furthermore, this access, which is through the Son,
is also " by one Spirit." To those who are in Christ
the Holy Ghost is given, as the consequence of their
union with him, and thus there is the Divine presence
in the soul of the worshipper ; and so, in the highest
and most perfect sense, he worships the Father in
spirit and in truth, and prays "in the Holy Ghost,
" the Spirit itself helping his infirmities, when he
knows not what he should pray for as he ought,
and making intercession for him with grOanings
that cannot be uttered6." Passing into the midst
of such discoveries as these, we feel that the doctrine
of prayer has attained its perfect form, by combina
tion with the doctrine of the Trinity, and that the
highest fulfilment of all which had been enjoined
c' Eph. iii. 12. d Heb. x. 19. e Rom. viii. 26.

LECTURE VII. 197
upon those who were with Jesus has become possible
for those who now are in him. *
4. The ethical teaching of the New Testament
shall be my last example. There also the like
kind of advance appears. I need not recall by any
special references the characteristic features of our
Lord's moral teaching in the Gospels. They are
present to all our minds. That standard of character
and rule of conduct have secured the reverential
recognition of the common conscience of mankind,
and the genuine admiration of unbelief itself. It
has been felt, even in unlikely quarters, that in
those holy discourses and that perfect example,
human character appears in a state of purity and
elevation which is nowhere else to be seen : and
especially that this moral system shines most brightly
in those points where other systems fail, namely,
the truthfulness of inward cleansing, the majesty
of lowliness, and the glory of love. Can there be
advance on such a code as this, given by the Lord
himself, when, as a man among men, he shewed
and taught what human perfection is 1
Yet when we pass to the Epistles we are sensible
of a momentous change. The standard is the same
in its general elevation and in the proportions of
its several parts. Where then is the change 1 I
answer, in the position of those who are to use it,
in the relations of which they are now conscious,
and therefore in the motives by which they are to
be influenced, and in the powers which they are
supposed to possess. " Our duties," as Bishop Butler

198 LECTURE VII.
observes, "arise out of our relations'1." Therefore
every revelation of unknown relations must affect
in some way the character of our duties. This
truth comes strikingly into view, as we follow the
unfolding of the spiritual relations of believers to
their Lord.
Observe first the position which the Lord Jesus
attributes to those whom he teaches, and the con
sequent motives to which he appeals, in those in
structions in righteousness which he gave in the
days of his flesh. He urges the special relations in
which those who have joined him stand. They are
under peculiar obligations, and a peculiar govern
ment. They are his disciples6, and the children of
their Father*; they must "do more than others S."
He charges them as being their master, and counsels
them as being their friend ; and, as time goes on,
uses the power of his example, and at last appeals
to the claims of his love : " I have given you an
example, that ye should do as I have done to youh ;"
"As I have loved you, that ye love one another1:"
then finally opens that deeper relation, from which
their future fruitfulness must be derived : " Abide in
me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can
ye except ye abide in mek."
That last saying, which was at the time a parable*
they soon knew as a fact. When the redemption
d Analogy, Part II. ch. i. sect. 2.
c Luke xiv. 26, 27, 43. f Matt. v. 45. s Ibid. 47.
h John xiii. 15. i Ibid. xv. 12. k Ibid. 4.

LECTURE VII. 199
was completed, and he was gone from their side,
they found themselves in a closer and deeper union
with him than they had understood before. Hence
forth it was in the relations with him, on which they
had entered in the Spirit, that they found both the
motives of duty and the power for its fulfilment.
The Epistles first unfold the fulness of the grace in
Christ, and then beseech us " by the mercies of God"
that we " present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable ser
vice1." They base their practical instructions on the
consciousness of being redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ m, of being risen with Christ", of
having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us0. All
goodness, righteousness, and truth are the fruit of
the Spirit dwelling in us. We live in the Spirit,
therefore we are to walk in the Spirit p ; we have
received Christ Jesus the Lord, therefore we are to
walk in him'i ; we are to flee fornication, because
it would defile the members of Christ r ; we are to
put away corrupt communications, because they will
grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are
sealed to the day of redemption" ; we are to forgive
one another, because God for Christ's sake has for
given us ' ; to receive one another, because Christ
received us to the glory of Godu; and to give to
fathers, because we know the grace of our Lord Jesus
1 Rom. xii. i. m i Pet. i. 18. n Col. iii. i.
o Rom. viii. a, 13. p Gal. v. 22-25. « Col. ii. 6.
' 1. Cor. vi. .19. B Eph. iv. 29, 30. .* Ibid. 32.
u Rom. xv. 7.

200 LECTURE VII.
Christ, who, when he was rich, for our sakes became
poor, that we through his poverty might be made
rich x ; our conversation is to be worthy of God,
who has called us to his kingdom and glory ?; we
are to mortify our members upon the earth, because,
when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we also
shall appear with him in glory'-.
This character of ethical teaching is nowhere more
conspicuous than in the calm depths of the Epistle
of St. John, where the sense of fellowship with God
is the ground of walking in the fight a ; and "he
that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also
so to walk, even as he walked0;" and every man
that hath the hope in Christ purifieth himself, even
as he is pure0 ; and the love which laid down
his life for us is the reason for a willingness to
lay down our lives for the brethren d; and the
whole spirit of love one to another is the reflection
of that love of God, wherewith he first loved us,
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
einse. We recognise then the advance of ethical doctrine,
not only or chiefly in its more various and detailed
practical development, but in the fact that the prin
ciples, motives, and conduct of fife are habitually
drawn from the ever-present consciousness of the
great salvation. It is a habit of thought, up to which,
but not into which, the moral teaching of Jesus
x 2 Cor. viii. 9. y 1 Thess. ii. 12. a Col. iii. 4, 5.
a 1 John i. 6. b Ibid. ii. 6. <= Ibid. iii. 2, 3.
d 1 John iii. 16. e Ibid. iv. 7-10.

LECTURE VII 201
had led us ; a habit of thought, which corresponds
with those relations towards himself, into which
men fully entered only when his voice on earth
had ceased. If there is this visible progress of doc
trine in the department of christian ethics ; if, in
respect of distinct exhibition of principles and mo
tives, the teaching of the Apostles surpasses that of
their Lord ; it is plain that this fact is a necessity
from the nature of the case. Till Jesus was glorified,
his spiritual relations with believers could not be
fully unfolded ; and till those relations were appre
hended, the motives arising out of them could not
be called into action, nor the life resulting from them
be clearly brought to light.
I have now adverted to some principal subjects on
which we have received the teaching of God in the
New Testament, as illustrations of the change which
that teaching exhibits in the latter part of the
volume. If we multiplied these examples to the
utmost, our comparison of the aspect which every
separate doctrine bears in the Gospels with that
which it presents in the Epistles would still have
the same result. We should still see that the later
doctrine differs from the earlier, only as being its
TrXypwa-is, its completion and fulfilment. The Lord
himself was perfected and glorified, not in the days
-of his flesh, but after they were ended. So also was
his doctrine ; but as in the later stage he is still
the same Lord, so it is still the same doctrine. Its
meaning is defined, its extent is disclosed, its con
sequences are deduced. Parable and proverb are

202 LECTURE VII
changed into great plainness of speech. What seemed
a figure is shewn as a fact. What was intimation
of something future is become assertion of something
present. Motives are supplied, powers are assured,
by which that which was enjoined is realised, and
a life which had seemed impossible is now become
simply natural. Revelation has only enlarged itself
to meet necessities and fill capacities which its former
words had purposely created. The earlier teaching
contemplated the coming of a day for its disciples,
in which many things should be said to them which
they could not bear then. In the later teaching that
day is come. At first they are taught as those who
are ivith Jesus, afterwards as those who are in Christ.
They know now that he is in the Father, and they
in him, and he in them. When that consciousness
is given, a standing-point is reached from which new
worlds of thought may be surveyed. They are sur
veyed in the Epistles, and there the chosen teachers
spread before us the unsearchable riches of Christ.
They say to us, "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus;"
and they shew us what that state implies, of ca
pacities, possessions, responsibilities, duties, and des
tinies ; of relations to God and man, of connection
with things in earth and things in heaven. They
shew that to produce and to perfect this state are
the ends of the preaching of the word, of the in
stitution of the sacraments, of the ordinance of the
ministry, of the life and order of the Church ; yea,
of the divine government of the world, and of all
that bears on human history. " All things are

LECTURE VII. 203
for your sakesf;" "All are yours, whether Paul, or
Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ;
and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's s."
And so the great course of divine teaching has
reached its highest stage. After slowly moving on,
through the simple thoughts of patriarchal piety,
through the system and covenant of the Law, and
through the higher spirituality of the Prophets, it
rose suddenly to a lofty elevation when God spake
to us in his Son ; and, even higher yet, when the
Son ascended back into glory, and sent down the
Holy Ghost to take up his unfinished word, and
open the mysteries which had been hid from ages
and generations. Each stage of progress based itself
on the facts and instructions of that which went
before. The Law was given to the children of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Prophets spake
to those who were under the Law ; Jesus Christ
came to those who had been taught by the Prophets ;
the Holy Ghost instructed those who had received
Christ. Beyond, and outside this course of teaching, lay,
and still lies, the great world of human beings.
Lord, and what shall these men do % What is that
to thee 1 Follow thou me.
Oh ! let us follow. It is not the object of reve
lation to answer those enquiries, natural as they
are. It is its object to lead those to whom it comes
into that fulness of knowledge, and up to those
f 2 Cor. iv. 15. Si Cor. iii. 21-23.

204 LECTURE VII
heights of blessing, towards which, in its own his
torical progress, it so steadily advanced, and which
its final stage attained.
Let not searchings of heart as to what others shall
do, or the sense of the thousand questions which must
wait for their solution a few years longer, divert
us from now pressing into that inner circle of ex
perience to which the Word of God conducts us.
There we shall find it true that " he that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself^"
There we shall repeat within ourselves the words
with which the last Apostle closes his Epistle :
" We know that the Son of God is come, and hath
given us an understanding, that we may know him
that is true, and we are in him that is true, even
in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and
eternal life1." There we shall feel that we have
reached results for our own inward life answerable
to all the preparations which went before — answer
able even to the great facts in which those pre
parations culminated, when the Only-begotten of the
Father came down to earth to take us into himselfi
and returned into glory to unite us to God.
h i John v. 6. i Ibid. 20.

LECTURE VIII.
THE APOCALYPSE.
Rev. xxi. 2.
I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
lHESE words open the last vision of prophecy and
the last teaching of Scripture.
It had been the promise of the Lord to his dis
ciples that the Holy Ghost, whom he would send
to them from the Father, should not only lead them
into all the truth, but should also shew them things
to come : and we find the promise fulfilled in both
its parts. The predictions of the great transitional
discourse, concerning the coming dispensation of the
Spirit, have their permanent justification in the
canonical books which follow; and as the Epistles
respond to the assurance, " He shall lead you into
all the truth," so does the word, " He shall shew
you things to come," find its distinct fulfilment hi
the Apocalypse. That book continues the line of
predictive history running through the New Testa
ment, and is the consummation of the sure word
of prophecy which pervades the Bible as a whole.

206 LECTURE VIII
I have already had occasion to observe that the
words spoken by our Lord in the flesh give the
substance of all the later doctrine, and prove to be,
as it were, the heads' and summaries of chapters
which were to be written afterwards. As all the
great doctrinal features of the Epistles are found
in germ in separate sayings of the Lord, so also
the main outlines of the Apocalypse are given us
in parables and sayings, which trace the future
histoiy of his kingdom. And more particularly it
is to be noticed, that this book bears the same
relation to the last discourse in St. Matthew, which
the Epistles bear to the last discourse in St. John.
In the upper room where the last Passover and
the first Eucharist had been celebrated, and in the
midst of the little company which then represented
the Christian Church, the Lord spoke the words
which opened the mystery of the spiritual life, a
mystery afterwards to be fully unfolded by the Holy
Ghost, in the day when they would know that he
was in the Father, and they in him, and he in them.
Sitting on the Mount of Olives with Jerusalem
spread before him, and questioned as to the sign
of his coming and of the winding up of the age,
he gave the outlines of a prophetic history, which
contained the substance, bore the character, and
must rule the interpretation, of the later and larger
revelation. Again, as in the case of the doctrinal teaching,
so in the case of the prophetical, its unity is assured
to us by the testimonies that the teacher is the

LECTURE VIII. 207
same in the later as in the earlier stage. Not only
do we find in the spoken words of the Lord the
condensed substance of that which follows ; not
only do we hear, from him, that this part of his
teaching is to be continued by the Holy Ghost,
whom he will send to shew us things to come ;
but a peculiar care is taken in this last communi
cation from heaven, to bring fully before the mind
of the Church the reality of the presence of the
Lord himself in his revealing word. " The revela
tion of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him, to
shew unto his servants the things which must come
to pass," is a repetition, and a particular application,
of that assurance on which all the Gospel rests,
" I have given unto them the words which thou gavest
me." Even the visible discovery of this fact is not
withheld. If Paul, as the great expositor of the
present spiritual life, had seen Jesus Christ him
self, and received immediately from the Lord that
which he had delivered unto men ; so John, as the
prophet of the things to come, saw the well-re
membered form again, surrounded with the symbols
of majesty and judgment, and looked upon his coun
tenance, now like the sun shining in his strength,
and heard his voice as the sound of many waters.
Thus the continuity of the line of prophecy within
the canonical books is made as clear as that of the
line of doctrine ; both commencing in the words of
Jesus in the flesh, both perfected by the words
of Jesus in the Spirit.
But it may be asked, If. the line of prophecy is

208 LECTURE VIII
to be distinguished from the line of doctrine, what
place can the former subject claim in Lectures which
are appropriated to the latter \
Taking prophecy as predicted fact (however par
tially discovered or symbolically disguised), it will
stand in the same relation to doctrine as is held
by history or recorded fact. In the doctrine of
the Gospel that relation is the very closest ; for
it is a doctrine which rests upon events. Its foun
dation is in facts which have come to pass, and
will yet come to pass. Jesus died — he ascended—
he will come again — he will reign in glory. These
are external facts. They enter the region of doc
trine (as we commonly use the term) through their
consequences to ourselves, through their effect on
our own inward consciousness, through the uses
and applications which may be made of them. If
Jesus died — to bear our sins ; if he ascended — to be
manifested in the presence of God for us ; if he will
come again — to judge our state ; if he will reign in
glory — to perfect our salvation ; then these facts, in
themselves external to us, are external no longer.
They are among the grounds of a whole system of
thought and habit of feeling, and, when taught as
such, they grow into a scheme of doctrine. But as
in history (I mean that which is commonly described
as inspired history) all the events have not the same
connection with doctrine, but some only an indirect
and remote one, so also is it in prophecy ; and par
ticular facts, or a whole series of events, may be
intimated in the way of prediction for other reasons,

LECTURE VIII. 209
but not for any immediate bearing which they have
upon doctrine.
It results from these observations that the progress
of prophecy, taken as a whole, is so bound up with
the progress of doctrine, that the enlargement of
the one must in some degree involve the enlarge
ment of the other. It also results that the one is
still to be distinguished from the other, and there
fore that it does not belong to such an enquiry as
I now pursue to trace the details of a predicted
course of events.
I am free then from all necessities of detailed
apocalyptic interpretation ; having only to render
some account of the general doctrinal bearing of this
revelation of things to come, and to point out what
additions of that kind are made in the last book, to
the treasures which the preceding documents have
accumulated for our use. The separate accessions
of information it would take long to gather, but their
general character is visible at once.
I. The former Scriptures have revealed the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Saviour, not only of individual
souls, but also of " the body, the Church." The final
result of his appearing is shewn not only in the
peace, the holiness, the participation and inherence
in him of each separate person, but in the formation
of a corporate existence, a society in which man is
perfected, d kingdom in which God is glorified.
The parables and sayings of the Gospels present
this kingdom of God as having its own life and end,
its own history and destiny, in which those of its
p

210 LECTURE VIII
individual members are involved. Soon its visible
shape appears. A society is formed, and, if glorious
things were spoken of the city of God under the
old covenant, still more glorious things are spoken
of this, which is "the house of God," "the Church
of the living God a," " the habitation of God through
the Spirit b." It is not a mere aggregate of separate
parts, but possesses an organic life, as "the body
of Christ" "fitly joined together and compacted by
that which every joint supplieth, according to the
effectual working in the measure of every part, making
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in
lovec." It is endued with a corporate personality,
in which the full results of redemption will appear :
for it is the spouse of Christ, which he loved, and for
which he gave himself, and which he will present
unto himself a glorious Church, " not having spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing d." In this view, the
Church is not so much for the sake of the individual,
as the individual for the sake of the Church. Its
perfection and glory, its full response to the work of
Christ, its realisation of the purposes of God, con
stitute the end to which the existence of each member
ministers. This line of thought runs through the
Epistles, and forms a distinct advance upon that
which works out the development of personal salva
tion. I have now to point out that it is not perfected
in the Epistles, but demands such a continuance and
such a close as it receives in the Apocalypse.
The sense of sharing in a corporate existence, and
a i Tim. iii. 15. b Eph. ii. 22. c Ibid. iv. 16. d Ibid. v. 27.

LECTURE VIII. 211
in a history and destinies larger than those which
belong to us as individuals, tends to throw the mind
forward upon a course of things to come, through
which this various history is to run, and these glo
rious destinies are to be reached. More especially is
this the case, where there is a strong contrast between
the ideal expectations which we have formed and the
actual realisation which at any particular time we
behold. When present things in a measure disappoint
us, we turn more eagerly to the brighter future, and
look beyond the darkened foreground to the fight
which glows on the horizon. Who does not feel, in
reading the Epistles, that some such sense of present
disappointment grows upon him, and that such dark
shadows are gathering on the scene 1
How fair was the morning of the Church ! how
swift its progress ! what expectations it would have
been natural to form of the future history which had
begun so well ! Doubtless they were formed in many
a sanguine heart : but they were clouded soon. It
became evident that, when the first conflicts were
passed, others would succeed ; and that the long and
weary war with the powers of darkness had only just
begun. The wrestlings "against principalities and
powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness in
heavenly places6" were yet to be more painfully
felt, and befievers were prepared to Be "partakers
of Christ's sufferings," and not to "think it strange
concerning the fiery trial which was to try them,
as though some strange thing happened to themf."
e Eph. vi. 12. f i Pet. iv. 12, 13.
P 2

212 LECTURE VIII.
But worse for the Church than the fightings
without were the fears within. Men who had long
professed the Gospel "had need to be taught again
what were the first principles of the oracles of God s.
They were " falling from grace," and " turning back
to weak and beggarly elements, whereto -they desired
again to be in bondage11." "Some had already
turned aside after Satan \" and, where there was no
special prevalence of error, a coldness and worldli-
ness of spirit drew forth the sad reflection, "All
seek their own, not the things which are Jesus
Christ's K" Contentions were rife, and schisms were
spreading ; and men, in the name of Christ and of
truth, were "provoking one another, envying one
another." New forms of error began to arise, from
the combination of christian ideas with the rudi
ments of the world and the vagaries of oriental phi
losophy. Here were men, like Jannes and Jambres
who withstood Moses, " resisting the truth, reprobate
concerning the faith \" Here were " Hymenasus and
Philetus, who concerning the truth had erred, saying
that the resurrection was past already m." Here was
the ¦v/'evowi'ivuo? yvSxri^ ", teeming with a thousand
protean forms of falsehood. While the Apostles
wrote, the actual state and the visible tendencies
of things shewed too plainly what Church history
would be ; and, at the same time, prophetic intima
tions made the prospect still more dark : for " the
£ Heb. v. 12. h Gal. iv. 9 ; v. 4. '1 Tim. v. 15.
k Phil. ii. 21. l 2 Tim. iii. 8. «> Ibid. ii. 17.
n 1 Tim. vi. 20.

LECTURE VIII. 213
Spirit spake expressly, that in the latter times men
would depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits and doctrines of devils0," — that "in the last
days grievous times should come," marked by a
darkness of moral condition which it might have
been expected that Gospel influences would have
dispelled i', — that "there would be scoffers in the
last days, walking after their own lusts, and saying,
where is the promise of his coming i V — that the day
of the Lord would not be, " till the apostacy had
come first, and the man of sin had been revealed, the
son of perdition, the adversary who exalts himself
above all that is Galled God or an object of worship ;
so that he sits in the Temple of God, shewing himself
that he is Godr." " The mystery of lawlessness was
already working, and as antichrist should Gome, even
then were there many antichrists3," men "denying
the Father and the Son," " denying the Lord that
bought them V " turning the grace of God into
lasciviousness"," and "bringing on themselves swift
destruction." I know not how any man, in closing the Epistles,
could expect to find the subsequent history, of the
Church essentially different from what it is. In
those writings we seem, as it were, not to witness
some passing storms which clear the air, but to feel
the whole atmosphere charged with the elements of
future tempest and death. Every moment the forces
o i Tim. iv. i. p 2 Tim. iii. 1-5. « 2 Pet. iii. 3.
r 2 Thess. ii. 4-7. s 1 John ii. 18, 22. '2 Pet. ii. 1.
" Jude 4.

214 LECTURE VIII.
of evil shew themselves more plainly. They are
encountered, but not dissipated. Or, to change the
figure, we see battles fought by the leaders of our
band, but no security is promised by their victories.
New assaults are being prepared ; new tactics will
be tried ; new enemies pouro n ; the distant hills are
black with gathering multitudes, and the last exhor
tations of those who fall at their posts call on their
successors to " endure hardness as good soldiers of
Jesus Christ x," and "earnestly to contend for the
faith which was once delivered to the saints y."
The fact which I observe is not merely that these
indications of the future are in the Epistles, but that
they increase as we approach the close, and after the
doctrines of the Gospel have been fully wrought
out, and the fulness of personal salvation and the
ideal character of the Church have been placed in
the clearest light, the shadows gather and deepen on
the external history. The last words of St. Paul
in the second Epistle to Timothy, and those of
St. Peter in his second Epistle, with the Epistles
of St. John and St. Jude, breathe the language of
a time in which the tendencies of that history had
distinctly shewn themselves ; and in this respect
these writings form a prelude and a passage to the
Apocalypse. Thus we arrive at this book with wants which it
is meant to supply ; we come to it as men, who not
only personally are in Christ, and who know what
as individuals they have in him ; but who also, as
* 2 Tim. ii. 3. y Jude 3.

LECTURE VIII 215
members of his body, share in a corporate life, in the
perfection of which they are to be made perfect, and
in the glory of which their Lord is to be glorified.
For this perfection and glory we wait in vain, among
the confusions of the world and the ever-active, ever-
changing forms of evil. What is the meaning of this
wild scene 1 what is to be its issue % and what pros
pect is there of the realisation of that which we
desire 1 To such a state of mind as this, and to the
wants which it involves, this last part of the teaching
of God is addressed, in accordance with that system
of progressive doctrine which I. have endeavoured to
illustrate, wherein each stage of advance ensues in
the way of natural sequence from the effect of that
which preceded it.
Brethren, I would that this state of mind, these
desires and wants, which the last revealing word
supposes in those to whom it comes, did exist more
extensively and distinctly among us. I think we
must all feel that the piety of our day encloses itself
too much within the limits of individual life.
That I should be pardoned, saved, and sanctified
— that / should serve before God, and be accepted in
my service — that / should die in peace and rest in
Christ — that / should have confidence and not be
ashamed before him at his coming — these are worthy
desires for an immortal being, and for these the
Gospel provides. But it provides for more than
these ; making me the member of a kingdom of
Christ, and the citizen of a city of God. There
ought surely to be a consciousness within me

216 LECTURE VIII.
corresponding to that position ; there ought to be
affections, which will associate me in spirit with
that larger history, in which my own is included ;
and which will make me long that the kingdom
of Christ should come, and the city of God be
manifested. The blessedness, ascribed to him that
reads, and those who hear, the words of this pro
phecy, can belong only to those who read it and
hear it thus.
II. Such being the state of mind which the book
pre-supposes, and such the wants to which it is
addressed, I have now to point out some leading
characteristics of its doctrine, in order to shew what
are the satisfactions which it provides. These cha
racteristics, though distinguished from each other,
will yet all be found to combine into one. The doc
trine of the book is a doctrine of consummation.
i. It is a doctrine of the cause of the consum
mation. It educes the result from one source — the
atoning death of Jesus. Is this an advance in doc
trine % Has not the nature and efficacy of the great
sacrifice been already sufficiently disclosed % Yes,
certainly, in its bearing on personal salvation ; but
this book exhibits the connection between the per
sonal and the general salvation, in the identity of
their common cause. The personal salvation for each
several soul has been expounded in the Epistles
as found in Christ Jesus, and more particularly in
our redemption to God by his blood. In these
writings the sacrifice and propitiation of his death
are ever before our eyes, as the cause of our resto-

LECTURE VIII. 217
ration and the source of all our other blessings.
When, in this book, we pass on from the personal
to the general life, and are to see the victory secured,
and the kingdom brought in, we may perhaps expect
that the Lord will now appear only with ensigns
and titles, of majesty, as the conqueror and the king.
It is not so. The opening doxology, " To him that
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own
blood" strikes the note of all which is to follow.
When the historic vision begins, one is sought who
may open the sealed purposes of God, and conduct
them to their end. " Then I beheld, and lo ! in the
midst of the throne, and the beasts, and the elders,
stood . . . . a Lamb as it had been slain a," and his
appearance wakens the song, "Thou art worthy to
take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for thou
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and
nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and
priests : and we shall reign on the earth." So the
vision proceeds, and from the beginning to the end,
through the long conflict, and in the midst of the
glorious issue, there is still one title for him who con
quers, and judges, and reigns. It is the Lamb who
makes war and overcomes ; and from the wrath of
the Lamb, kings and nations flee. It is the ' Lamb
in whose blood his servants also overcome ; in whose
blood they have washed their robes ; before whom
a v. 6-10. This passage is fundamental, as shewing the growid
of the power and the means of the victory, by the intentional con
trast of images. 6 \ttwv iviKrjtrev . . . ISov apviov as itrtpaypevov.

218 LECTURE VIII
they stand in white raiment ; and to whom they
ascribe salvation. In the Lamb's Book of Life the
names of the saved are written. The Holy City
is the bride, the Lamb's wife. The Lord God Al
mighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the
light of it ; and the river of the water of life flows
for ever from the throne of God and the Lamb. In
the peculiar title, thus studiously employed, and illus
trated by the repeated mention of the slaying and the
blood, we read the doctrine, that the ground of the
personal is the ground of the general salvation, that
the place, which the sacrifice of the death of Christ
holds in the consciousness of the believer, is the
same which it also occupies in the history of the
Church, and that he conquers for us, and reigns among
us, and achieves the restoration of all things, because
he has first offered himself for us, and is the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world.
No view of the death of Jesus which fuses it with
the rest of his example could have suggested the
title, by which this prophecy so persistently desig
nates the conqueror and the king.
2. We have here, in the next place, a doctrine of
the history of the consummation ; I mean that be
sides a prophetic record of the facts of the history, we
have (what is of much higher value) an exposition of
the nature of the history. The book is a revelation
of the connection between things that are seen and
things that are not seen, between things on earth and
things in heaven ; a revelation which fuses both into
one mighty drama, so that the movements of human

LECTURE VIII. 219
action and the course of visible fact are half shroud
ed, half disclosed, amid the glory and the terror of
the spiritual agencies at work around us, and of the
eternal interests which we see involved. We are
borne to the courts above, and the temple of God is
opened in heaven, and we behold the events on earth
as originating in what passes there. There seals are
broken, trumpets are sounded, and vials are poured
out, which rule the changes of the Church and of
the nations. While we are looking down through
the rolling mists on things that pass below, we
are all the time before the throne of God and of
the Lamb, and among the four and twenty elders,
the four living beings, and the innumerable com
pany of angels ; and we hear voices proceeding out
of the throne, the cries of disembodied spirits, and
hallelujahs that roll through the universe. We see
further, that there is cause for this participation of
the world above in the events of the world below,
for it becomes every moment more plain, that the
earth is the battle-field of the kingdoms of fight and
darkness. There is a far bolder revelation than we
have had before of the presence and action of the
powers of evil. The old Serpent is on one side as,
the Lamb is on the other, and the same light, which
shews the movements of the Head and Redeemer of
our race, falls also upon those of the enemy and
destroyer. In the sense of this connection between
things seen and things not seen, fies the secret of that
awe and elevation of mind, which we felt as children
when we first turned these pages ; and the assurance

220 LECTURE VIII
of it has an ever-increasing value to him, who has
painfully sought to test the mingled forms of good
and ill, and to discern some plan and purpose in the
confused scene around him.
After noting the instruction given on the cause
and the history of the great consummation, I come
now to that which is given on its constituent parts,
namely, the coming of the Lord, and the attendant
facts of victory, judgment, and restoration.
3. The book is a doctrine of the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. "Behold he cometh
with clouds, and every eye shall see himb." That
is the first voice, and the keynote of the whole.
The Epistles to the seven Churches (symbolical re
presentatives of the whole Church in its various
conditions) all take their tone from this thought, and
are the voice of a Lord who will " come quickly."
The visions which follow draw to the same end,
and the last voices of the book respond to the first,
and attest its subject and its purpose. " He which
testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus c." Whatever
else the christian desires is bound up in this pros
pect. The deliverance of the creation from its present
groans and travail, the redemption of our body, the
perfection of man in a holy community, and the
realisation in outward things of the tendencies of
the renewed nature, all these hopes wait on the
one hope of "his appearing." Towards that hope
our eyes have been steadily directed in the former
b Rev. i. 7. c Ibid. xxii. 20.

LECTURE VIII. 221
apostolic writings; but it is here presented, not so
much in relation to our personal life, as to the
kingdom of God and to the world itself upon the
whole. It appears here as the o-wreXela tov atwvos,
towards which all things tend, and which the fuller
manifestation of evil and the seeming victories of
the enemy are themselves ordained to prepare.
Differences and uncertainties of interpretation as to
the details of this progressive history still leave us
under the sense, that it is a history of the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This as
surance, enjoyed at all times, grows clearer in the
days of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy, and the
darkest times which the prophecy forebodes will be
those in which its fullest uses will be found.
4. The doctrine of the coming is in itself a do©?
trine of victory; and that character pre-eminently
belongs to the apocalyptic teaching. " In the world
ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world." These were the last
words of the Lord's last discourse ; and ever after
we feel their power in the actions, the bearing, and
the words of his servants. They wrestle against
the world, and principalities, and powers, but as
men who are upon the conquering side, and who
know that their Lord has already overcome these
enemies, and triumphed over them in his cross.
Therefore they also " are more than conquerors
through him that loved themd/' and they record
their conviction, that "whatsoever is born of God
d Rom. viii. 37.

222 LECTURE VIII
overcometh the world ; and that this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith e." In the
Apocalypse this spirit is still more distinctly felt ;
for there the virtual victory becomes a visible vic
tory, both for the Lord and for his people. Every
promise in the seven Epistles is addressed " to him
that overcometh ;" and the last Epistle unites the
victory of the servant with the victory of the Lord :
" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with
me on my throne ; even as I also overcame, and am
set down with my Father on his throne f." When
the prophetic visions are to commence, the opening
of the book is represented as the result of victory s.
The first vision presents one who " goes forth con
quering and to conquer ;" and then, through all the
changes of the conflict, we have the anticipations
and presages of final victory. We are told of those
who "overcome by the blood of the Lambh;" we
hear their shout of triumph, and see the palms in
their hands ; until in the last crisis the conquering
armies of heaven sweep into sight, following the
victor who has " on his vesture and on his thigh a
name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords1."
5. But victory for one side is overthrow and con
demnation for the other ; so that we have here also
6 1 John v. 4. f Rev. iii. 21.
B Rev. V. 5- ®0v evtKrjtrev 6 Xeo)» 6 &>v ex rijs tj>v\jjs 'loi8a dvoi£at
rb /3i|3Aioi>. The variety of the words employed in the Authorized
Version (overcome, prevail, conquer, victory) to represent the one
word in the Greek, has the effect of diminishing the impression which
this feature in the language would otherwise make on the reader.
h Rev. xii ii. i Ibid xix. n-16.

LECTURE VIII 223
a doctrine of judgment. " The prince of this world
is judged." That saying might stand as the sum
mary of a large part of the book. He is judged —
judged as the prince of this world — and this world
is involved in his judgment. The reality of some
possession of this world by the power of evil, and
the certainty of its judicial consequences to him and
to it, had been revealed with increasing distinct
ness through the former writings ; till in two of
the last Epistles the " terrible voice of most just
judgment" had swelled into the full tones, to which
our ears had been accustomed in Old Testament
prophecy. I need not recall by particular citations
the manner in which this line of teaching is carried
out in the Apocalypse, the various forms of strong
development in which the power of evil is repre
sented as appearing, or the plagues, and punishment,
and final overthrow, which are its portion from the
Lord. The opening proclamation of the coming
notifies also its effect on the world : " Every eye
shall see him, and they also which pierced him,
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of
himk." And these sounds continue. Things do not
melt quietly into the peace of the kingdom of God.
There is a crash of ruin, and a winepress of the
wrath of Almighty God, and a lake that burns with
fire and brimstone. And this judgment falls, not
only on principles and powers of evil, but on nations
of men ; and not only on nations, but on separate
persons, even on " every one who is not found
k Rev. i. 7.

224 LECTURE VIII
written in the book of life." He who does not
accept the reality of the world's rebellion and ruin,
and of the wrath and judgment which it brings,
must certainly reject this whole book from the
canon ; and, with it, must tear away large and living
portions of every preceding book of Scripture.
6. The features of apocalyptic teaching, which have
now been noticed, may serve as instances of the
whole character of the doctrine, which is combined
with its predictions ; and which, as a doctrine of
consummation, is an evident advance, in that par
ticular direction, on the doctrine of the Epistles.
But it is when the prophecy carries us beyond the
great crisis, that this advance is most clearly seen.
The coming of the Lord is not the last thing which
we know. After that event has closed the present
age, after the victory has been won, and the judg
ment has dealt with things that are past, the final
results appear, and the true life of man begins.
The doctrine of the book is ultimately and pre
eminently one of restoration.
" I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the
first heaven and the first earth were passed away,
and there was no more sea. And I John saw
the holy city, new Jerusalem, corning down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband." In taking these words for my
text I placed myself at the point where the whole
teaching of Scripture culminates. Here, at the last
step, we have a definite and satisfactory completion
of the former doctrine of the future. There is to

LECTURE VIII. 225
be a perfect humanity ; not only perfect individually,
but perfect in society. There is to be a city of God.
" The Holy City '."—there is the realisation of the
true tendencies of man. " New Jerusalem !" — there
is the fulfilment of the ancient promises of God.
Dwell for a moment on the word " city," under
the remembrance of what it was to those in whose
language the book is written. The city is a con
stitution of society complete in its own local habita
tion ; the visible collection of buildings being a
symbol of the organised life within. It is the most
perfect realisation, and the most convenient repre
sentation, of society in its maturity; in which the
various relations of men are so combined, as to
promote the welfare of the several members, and
secure the unity of a. common life to the whole.
"It is" (as has been said) "the perfecting of the
self-provisions of Nature, and the condition of the
highest well-being of man."
There is no need to tell how poorly this idea has
been realised in fact, nor are the causes of the failure
remote from view. In this fallen world all com
munities have grown up under hard external con
ditions, and with a deep internal disease, sustaining
all sorts of shocks and wounds, and often developing
what vigour they possess in forms of violence and
oppression. History is the record of human society.
There we see
" The giant forms of empires on their way
To ruin : one by one
They tower, and they are gone :"
Q

226 LECTURE VIII
leaving materials to be combined again, that they
may be again dissolved, and forces which renew
their eternal struggle at the same time to construct
and to destroy. Ever since Cain went forth and
builded the first city, the long experiment has con
tinued ; and he who surveys the results, in the
communities which have filled, and now fill, the
habitable world, will return from his inspection
wearied and disheartened, and little able to anti
cipate the perfection of man from the progress of
society and the education of the world.
And yet human nature is to find the realisation
of its tendencies and the fulfilment of its hopes.
The Bible opens the prospect of which history had
led us to despair. It is one long account of the
preparation of the city of God. That is one distinct
point of view from which the Bible ought to be
regarded, and one from which its contents will appear
in clearer light. We are accustomed in the present
day to read it too exclusively from the individual
point of view, as the record for each man of that
will of God and that way of salvation with which
he is personally concerned. This it is, but it is more
than this. It places before us the restoration, not
only of the personal, but of the social life ; the
creation, not only of the man of God, but of the
city of God ; and it presents the society or city,
not as a mere name for the congregation of indi
viduals, but as having a being and life of its own,
in which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his
perfection. The " Jerusalem which is above" is, in

LECTURE VIII 227
relation to the Lord, " the Bride, the Lamb's Wife1,"
and, in relation to man, it is " the Mother of us allm."
In its appearance the revealed course of redemption
culminates, and the history of man is closed : and
thus the last chapters of the Bible declare the unity
of the whole book, by completing the design which
has been developed in its pages, and disclosing the
result to which all preceding steps have tended0.
Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly
Jerusalem, and what will have been lost \ Not
merely a single passage, a sublime description, an
important revelation ; but. a conclusion by which all
that went before is interpreted and justified. We
shall have an unfinished plan, in which human capa
cities have not found their full realisation, or divine
preparations their adequate result. To the mind that
looks beyond individual life, or that understands what
is necessary to the perfection of individual life, a
Bible that did not end by building for us a city
of God would appear to leave much in man un
provided for, and much in itself unaccounted for.
But as it is, neither of these deficiencies exists. The
great consummation is there, and we are instructed to
observe, that, from the first, the desires of men and
the preparations of God have been alike directed
towards it.
1 Rev. xxi. 9. m Gal. iv. 26.
n Ylatra noKis tpvtrei etrrlv, e"nrep Ktii al npiorai Koivaviat' reXos yap avrn
eKeivtov' ij he tpvtris Te\os etrriv' otov yap eKaardv etrn t^s yevetreas
TeXetrBeitrns, Tairrjv tfiapev ttjv fpvtriv elvai eKatrrov. . . Kai rrpdrepov hrj ttj
tpvtrei 7r6\is ij eKatrros rip,S>v etrri, to yap oXov irptWepov dvayKaiov
elvai tov uepovs. — Aristot. PoUt. lib. i. ch. i. Most true principles
of the true history of man !
Q 2

228 LECTURE VIII.
At the beginning of the sacred story, the Father
of the faithful comes forth into view, followed by
those who are heirs with him of the same promise ;
and they separate themselves to the life of strangers,
because they are "looking for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God." In
due time solid pledges of the divine purpose follow.
We behold a peculiar people, a divinely-framed polity,
a holy city, a house of God. It is a wonderful spec
tacle — this system of earthly types, thus consecrated
and glorified by miraculous interventions and inspired
panegyrics. Do we look on the fulfilment of patri
archal hopes, or on the types of their fulfilment 1 on
the final form of human society, or on the figures of
the true % The answer was given by Prophets and
Psalmists, and then by the word of the Gospel, finally
by the hand of God, which swept that whole system
from the earth. It was gone when the words of the
text were written, and when the closing scene of the
Bible presented the new Jerusalem, not as the resto
ration, but as the antitype of the old0.
This vision teaches us, that the drama of the world
must be finished, and its dispensation closed, that the
Lord must have come, the dead have been raised, the
judgment have sat, the heavens and the earth which
are now have passed away, and the new creation have
appeared, before the chosen people shall see the city
of their habitation.
Meantime it is the day of preparation. The builder
0 See Alford's Prolegomena for a brief summary of arguments
for the traditional date.

LECTURE VIII. 229 -
of the eternal city first " prepares his work without,
and makes it fit for himself in the field, and after
wards builds his house p." There was much to be
done, and it takes long to do it. The members of the
intended society must be sorted and collected out of
the mass of mankind. They must also be tested and
trained. The very grounds on which the future work
is to rest must themselves be laid. The perfect society
is to be founded on men's relations to God, and is to
be compacted by their relations to each other. The
true relations were destroyed by sin, and it was ne
cessary that they should be constituted afresh.
This is done in Jesus Christ. Propitiation and
atonement, reconciliation and redemption, are words
which express the restoration of the broken relations
with God, as accomplished by the work of the Me
diator. Those who receive Christ Jesus the Lord
are thereby in a state of grace. Sin no longer divides
and estranges them from God. He has returned to
them, and they to him. They have fellowship with
the Father and with the Son by the Holy Ghost.
God dwells in them, and they in him. Thus in each
separate soul are beforehand established those rela
tions with God in Christ, which shall hereafter glo
rify the community of the saints, in the day when
" the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it,"
and " God himself shall be with them and be f their
God." To the reconstitution of men's relations to God
must also be added that of their relations to each
p Prov. xxiv. 27.

230 LECTURE VIII
other. To what an extent these have suffered from
the fall of man a glance at the history of the world
or at any section of society is sufficient to convince
us. Not only the violations, but the very institutions
of law and justice testify to the fact ; for the law is
not made for a righteous man. The inherent vice of
human society lies in the depravity of human^ nature.
If that were healed, and transmuted into universal
righteousness and love, the internal happiness and
perfection would be secured. And they are to be
secured in that city, where " the people shall be all
righteous i," and where love shall never fail. To the
formation of those habits of mind the teaching of
God is now visibly directed, and men are trained, on
the grounds and motives of the Gospel, to love one
another. Love is ever represented as " the end of the
commandment," the highest attainment of man, the
completion of his education by God. And no wonder
it is so represented, since the present prepares the
future, and that future is to be a state of society — " a
city which is compact together r." The Gospel then,
which lays in the hearts of those who receive it the
deepest grounds of fellowship, and educates them to
the habit of love, is visibly preparing the conditions
of the things to come. As if to signalise this connec
tion of the present work and the future promise of
the Gospel, it is committed to the last Apostle, who
closes the Holy Scripture, both to be our chief teacher
in the love of the brethren, and to open to our eyes
the scene in which it shall be perfected.
i Isa. Ix. 21. r ps. cxxii, 3-

LECTURE VIII. 231
Thus does the present world give scope for the
preparation of the city of God. Its fundamental
principles are being established, its members ga
thered, trained, and made ready. At the same time
all moral tendencies are being wrought out by conflict
and experience ; and the vanity of what is vain and
the evil of what is evil have space to shew them
selves, before the final fires and the eternal judgment
remove them for ever from the scene. Then, when
Babylon has fallen, the city of God will appear.
Its fabric and scenery are described in symbolic
language glowing with all precious and glorious
things ; nor do we desire an interpreter who will
tell us what the symbols severally represent, in the
future details of the glorified society. Perhaps such
an attempt would impair, rather than enhance, the
effect of the vision, which now kindles the imagina
tion of expectant faith by the entire assemblage of
its glories. I only dwell upon the fact that it is a
city which stands before us, as the final home of man
kind. If we think only of our individual portion, we
miss the completeness of Scripture in its provision
for the completeness of man. If individual blessed
ness were the highest thought of humanity, it might
have been sufficient to have restored the lost garden
of Eden, and to -have left the inhabitants of the new
earth to dwell safely in its wildernesses and sleep in
its woods8. Such dreams of human happiness have
haunted the minds of men, who have been wearied
with the disorders, corruptions, and miseries of
8 Ezek. xxxiv. 25.

232 LECTURE VIII.
society, till society in -itself has seemed to them a
standing hindrance to perfection, and almost neces
sarily an organism of evil. Thus the habit of mind
which flies from man to nature, and desires uncon
strained freedom, and would simplify to the utmost
all social relations, has ever loved to. depict a heaven
of fields and bowers, and to ask for the life of the
first Paradise again. It is worthy of remark that
the religions of the world have, for the most part,
confessed in this way their despair of human society,
and unconsciously acknowledged that in their scheme
of things the true foundations of it were wanting.
Not so does the revelation of God inform the
expectations of those who receive it. Other systems
evade the demands of the highest tendencies of man :
this provides that they shall be realised. It decrees
not only the individual happiness, but the corporate
perfection of man; and closes the book of its prophecy
by assuring the children of the living God, that " he
hath prepared for them a city."
The survey which has been made in these Lectures
has now carried us from the beginning to the end of
the New Testament, from the cradle of Bethlehem to
the city of God. We have seen that this collection
of various and occasional writings presents to us a
gradually progressive scheme, fully wrought out in
its several stages, and advancing in a natural order
of succession.
First a person is manifested and facts are set forth,
in the simplest external aspect, under the clearest

LECTURE VIII. 233
light, and with the concurrence of a fourfold witness.
This witness also is itself progressive, and in the last
gospel the glory of the person has grown more bright,
and the meaning of the facts more clear.
Then, in the Book of Acts, Christ is preached as
perfected, and as the refuge and life of the world.
The results of his appearing are summed up and
settled ; and men are called to believe and be saved.
Those who do so find themselves in new relations to
each other ; they become one body, and grow into the
form and life of a Catholic Church.
The state which has thus been entered needs to
be expounded, and the life which has been begun
needs to be educated. The Apostolic letters perform
the work. The questions which universally follow
the first submissions of the mind receive their
answers, and so the faith which was general grows
definite. The rising exigencies of the new fife are
met, both for the man and for the Church : and we
learn what is the happy consciousness, and what the
holy conversation, which belong to those who are "in
Christ Jesus."
Lastly, as members of the body of Christ, we find
ourselves partakers in a corporate life and a history-
larger than our own. We feel that we are taken up
into a scheme of things, which is in conflict with the
present, and which cannot realise itself here. There
fore our final teaching is by prophecy, which shews
us, not how we are personally saved and victorious,
but how the battle goes upon the whole ; and which
issues in the appearance of a holy city, in which

234 LECTURE VIII.
redemption reaches its end, and the Redeemer finds
his joy ; in which human tendencies are realised, and
divine promises fulfilled ; in which the ideal has be
come the actual, and man is perfected in the presence
and glory of God.
If this doctrine is not of the world, every step that
it takes in advance must make that fact more plain.
The world feels that it is so. The manifestation of
Christ it will admire and interpret for itself. The
preaching of Christ it can hear and accept in its
generality. The life in Christ through the Spirit
it cannot receive. The kingdom of Christ in its anta
gonism to itself it cannot suffer. Yes, the world is
right. In following the advancing line of doctrine
in the Scriptures, we diverge further and further
from its paths and habits of thought. But is
that a subject of regret 1 What has been the
progress of doctrine achieved by the spirit which
is of the world ? Into what can it ever lead our
souls % Into vague desires to which nothing corre
sponds, into great ideas which remain ideas still, into
uncertainty and perplexity, into vanity and vexation
of spirit. Only the written word of God, confidingly
followed in the progressive steps of its advance, can
lead the weakest or the wisest into the deep blessed
ness of the fife that is in Christ, and into the final
glory of the city of God.
Perhaps in some minds this needful confidence may
be strengthened, by a review of the books of the
New Testament in the light in which they have now
been placed. When it is felt that these narratives,

LECTURE VIII. 235
letters, and visions do in fact fulfil the several func
tions, and sustain the mutual relations, which would
belong to the parts of one design, coalescing into a
doctrinal scheme, which is orderly, progressive, and
complete, then is the mind of the reader in conscious
contact with the mind of God ; then the superficial
diversity of the parts is lost in the essential unity of
the whole : the many writings have become one
Book ; the many writers have become one Author.
From the position of students, who address them
selves with critical interest to the works of Matthew,
of Paul, or of John, we have risen to the higher
level of befievers, who open with holy joy "the
New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ," and, while we receive from his own hand
the book of life eternal, we hear him saying still,
"I have given unto them the words which thou
gavest me."

NOTES.

NOTES.

NOTE I. Preface.
X1 OR the customary order of the books of the New Testament
in ancient times we may refer to Manuscripts, Catalogues,
and Old Versions.
The testimony of Manuscripts will be at once exhibited
and certified by the following extract from Mr. Scrivener's
Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
" It is right to bear in mind that comparatively few copies
of the whole [Greek] New Testament remain ; the usual
practice being to write the four Gospels in one volume, the
Acts and Epistles in another : manuscripts of the Apocalypse,
which was little used for public worship, being much rarer
than those of the other books. Occasionally the Gospels,
Acts, and Epistles form a single volume; sometimes the
Apocalypse is added to other books  The Codex
Sinaiticus of Tischendorf is the more precious, that it happily
exhibits the whole New Testament complete: so would the
Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi, but that they are sadly
mutilated. No other uncial copies have this advantage, and
very few cursives. In England, only four such are known.
.... Besides these Scoltz enumerates only nineteen foreign
copies of the whole New Testament ; but twenty-seven in all
out of the whole mass of extant documents.
" Whether copies contain the whole or a part of the sacred
volume, the general order of the books is the following : Gospels,

240 NOTE I. [Pkeface.
Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse. A soli
tary manuscript of the fifteenth century (Venet. 10. Evan.
309) places the Gospels between the Pauline Epistles and
the Apocalypse : in the Codices Sinaiticus, Leicestrensis,
Fabri (Evan. 90), and Montfortianus, as in the Bodleian
Canonici 34, the Pauline Epistles precede the Acts ; the
Codex Basiliensis (No. 4 of the Epistles), and Lambeth 1183,
1 1 83, have the Pauline Epistles immediately after the Acts
and before the Catholic Epistles, as in our present Bibles;
Scholz's Evan. 368 stands thus, St. John's Gospel, Apoca
lypse, then all the Epistles ; in Havniens. I. No. 234 of the
Gospels (A.D. 1278), the order appears to be, Acts, Pau
line Epistles, Catholic Epistles, Gospels; in Basil. B. vi. 27
or Cod. 1, the Gospels now follow the Acts and the Epistles;
while in Evan. 51 the Under has set the Gospels last; these
however are mere accidental exceptions to the prevailing rule.
The four Gospels are almost invariably found in their familiar
order, although in the Codex Bezae they stand, Matthew,
John, Luke, Mark; in the Codex Monaeensis (X), John,
Luke, Matthew, Mark; in the Curetonian Syriac version^
Matthew, Mark, John, Luke. In the Pauline Epistles, that
to the Hebrews precedes the four Pastoral Epistles, and
immediately follows the second to the Thessalonians in the
four great Codices, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vatieanus, and
Ephraem : in the copy from which the Cod. Vatican, was
taken, the Hebrews followed the Galatians. The Codex
Claromontanus, the document next in importance to these
four, sets the Colossians appropriately enough next to its
kindred and contemporaneous Epistle to the Ephesians, but
postpones that to the Hebrews to Philemon, as in our present
Bibles ; an arrangement which at first, no doubt, originated
in the early scruples prevailing in the western church with
respect to the authorship and canonical authority of that
divine epistle a."
From extant Manuscripts I turn to the earliest Catalogues
of the sacred books which occur in the writings of Christian
* Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, pp. 60-62.

Preface,] NOTE I. UI
antiquity, and these, perhaps, are more real indications of
habit in the Church than particular manuscripts can be. It
will only be necessary to advert to a few of the most im
portant of these Catalogues, and in so doing I refer the reader
to the Rev. B. F. Westcott's History of the Canon of the New
Testament, or his shorter and more popular volume, The Bible
in the Church, books which deal with a subject lying close to
the foundations of our faith, in a spirit not less reverential
than critical, and which place within the reach of ordinary
readers, an exact, lucid, and succinct account of a history.
which was before the property of the learned.
The Muratorian Fragment, "of which the date may be
fixed with tolerable certainty, A.D. 160-170," and which "may
be regarded on the whole as a summary of the opinion of the
Western Church on the canon shortly after the middle of
the second century, commences with the last words of a sen
tence which evidently referred to the Gospel of St. Mark :"
the Gospel of St. Luke is then expressly mentioned as " the
third," and the Gospel of St. John as " the fourth." The
Book of Acts is mentioned next, and then thirteen Epistles of
St. Paul, enumerated in the following order : — Corinthians 1,
II, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians
I, II, Romans, epistles (it is observed)' written (like those in
the Apocalypse) to seven churches; then Philemon, Titus,
Timothy I, II. After observations on these books, the
Fragment diverges to spurious or disputed books, and the
assertion that the Epistle of Jude and two Epistles of John
are reckoned among the Catholic (Epistles) is the only notice
bf the. remaining books which its corrupt and apparently
mutilated state has left.
The Catalogue given by Eusebius (H. E. iii. 35), c. A.D.
340, claims a special importance on account of. his "having
been employed by Constantine to prepare the first edition of
the Bible which had the seal of a central or sovereign autho
rity. The order is the same as our own, except in as far as it
appears disarranged by the principle on which the Catalogue
is formed, namely, that of distinguishing the acknowledged
from the controverted books.

242 NOTE I. [Preface.
" First, then, we place the holy quaternion of the Gospels,
which are followed by the account of the Acts of the Apostles.,
After this we must reckon the Epistles of St. Paul ; and next
to them we must maintain as genuine the Epistle circulated
as the former of John, and in like manner that of Peter. In
addition to these books, if possibly such a view seem correct,
we must place the Revelation of John, the judgments on
which we shall set forth in due course, and these are regarded
as generally received. Among the controverted books, which
are nevertheless well known and recognised by most, we class
the Epistle circulated under the name of James, and that of
Jude, as well as the Second of Peter, and the so-called Second
and Third of John, whether they really belong to that Evan
gelist or possibly to another of the same name b."
The Catalogue of Athanasius (Ep. Alex. 326), A.D. 373,
given in a style of authoritative decision, is as follows : —
" The Books of the New Testament are these, — Four Gospels,
according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Then after these,
the Acts of the Apostles, and the so-called Catholic Epistles
of Apostles, seven in number ; thus, of James, one ; of Peter,
two ; of John, three ; and after these, of Jude, one. In
addition to these there are fourteen Epistles of the Apostle
Paul, in their order written thus ; Romans, Corinthians I, II,
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians I,
II, and that to the Hebrews; and in succession, Timothy
I, II, Titus, Philemon ; and again the Apocalypse of John c."
The testimonies of Eusebius and Athanasius are in effect
those of the Greek and Alexandrine Churches. One other
list promulgated a few years later (A.D. 397) by the voice of
a whole province, is on that account worthy to be specified,
since it is the first (certain) synodical decision on the canon
of Scripture. It is found in the proceedings of the third
Council of Carthage, at which Augustine was present. The
order is as follows : — " Four books of the Gospels, one book
of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle
Paul, one Epistle of the same to the Hebrews, two Epistles
of the apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of
b History of Canon, 481-1. • Ibid. 574.

Preface.] NOTE I. 243
Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John d ;" precisely cor
responding to our own order, except in the place given
to the Epistle of James. Lastly, as the best witness of
Italian custom we may take the Catalogue of Ruffinus (c. A.D-
410), in which the order is identical with that of the decree
of Carthage, and therefore with our own, save that the
Catholic Epistles stand as follows : — " Two of the apostle
Peter ; one of James, the Lord's brother and apostle ; one of
Jude ; three of John."
But perhaps the most important evidence to the custom
of the Church is not that of manuscripts or catalogues, but
rather that of the two venerable versions of Syria and North
Africa, which are almost coeval with the first general recog
nition of a collected New Testament. The Peshito was popu
larly and practically the Bible of the Syrian Church. The
Old Latin was, as it were, the parent of the Vulgate, which
became the common Bible of the West. The order of the
Peshito is the same as that of the best Greek manuscripts,
the four Gospels, the Acts, the Catholic Epistles (i. e. those
which it admitted), the Epistles of St. Paul (the Apocalypse
being absent). The order of the Vulgate is that which our
moaern Bibles exhibit; the Old Latin order of the Gospels,
Matthew, John, Mark, and Luke (which was ruled no doubt
by the apostolic rank of the authors), being changed by
Jerome in accordance with the Greek order, which was
derived not merely from chronological considerations, but
from a finer doctrinal instinct.
This glance at the various testimonies which survive, of
the ancient custom of the Church, is sufficient to shew that
the order with which we are familiar has substantially pre
vailed from the first recognition of the separate books as form
ing one collection or instrument. The great divisions, the
Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, occur
habitually in their natural order, and though there are many
variations (most frequently in regard to the position of the
Acts), yet they are exceptions to the general rule. The
books which compose these several divisions likewise assume
d History of Canon, 509.
R 2

244 NOTE I. [Preface.
habitually the same arrangement as at present. It is so with
the four Gospels, and with the Pauline Epistles, the order of
which is seldom varied except in respect of the place given to
the Hebrews. The only important variation, which obtains
extensively, is in the relative positions of the Pauline and
Catholic Epistles. The Manuscripts for the most part place
the Catholic Epistles next to the Acts, and before the Pauline
Epistles. In the Catalogues the opposite order is more fre
quent, and becomes increasingly so the farther we advance.
Of five-and-twenty Catalogues which are collected in the
Appendix to Mr.Westcott's History of the Canon, ranging from
v. A.D. 170 to A.D. 636, I find that seven give the first place
to the Catholic, and eighteen to the Pauline Epistles.
This last point is one of minor importance, yet as connected
with the conformation of the New Testament it has its
interest; and as some little stress is laid upon it in one of
these Lectures (the Vlth), it may be well to point out the
following reasons for the greater fitness of the arrangement
which has upon the whole prevailed.
t. There is the closest possible relation between the Book
of Acts and St. Paul's Epistles, the latter part of the Book
forming as it were the historical introduction to his writings,
so that we pass from one to the other by a natural — it might
almost seem a necessary — transition.
2. The unity and mass of St. Paul's writings properly
claim for them precedence over the fewer, shorter, and less
connected writings.
3. The course of doctrinal instruction pleads for the same
arrangement, in order that the more thorough and systematic-
treatment of fundamental subjects may precede that which is
more supplementary.
4. In the heart of the Catholic Epistles there is a note
which seems to appoint their position, namely, in the reference
(2 Pet. iii. 15, 1 6) to St. Paul's writings as previously known,
and in the express intimation of an intention to confirm their
doctrine. These considerations obviously outweigh the one reason
for the opposite order, which is found in the relative historical

Lect.L] NOTE II. 245
positions of the authors, and which, taken by itself, would
certainly postpone the productions of the later Apostle, born
out of due time, to those which bear the names of chief mem
bers of the original college.

NOTE II. Lecture I. p. 17.
In his recently published Apologia, Dr. Newman has shewn
into what form he has found it necessary to recast his doctrine
of Development, though the subject is touched in a shy and
uneasy manner.
" It (i. e. the Infallible Power which imposes doctrine) must
ever profess to be guided by Scripture and tradition. It must
refer to the particular Apostolic truth which it is enforcing or
(what is called) defining. Nothing, then, can be presented to
me in time to come as part of the faith, bufrwhat I ought -
already to have received, and have not actually received, (if
not) merely because it had not been told me. ... It
must be what I may even have guessed or wished to be in
cluded in the Apostolic revelation  Perhaps I and
others actually have always believed it, and the only question
which is now decided in my behalf is that I am henceforth
to believe that I am only holding what the Apostles held
before med."
These statements are then expressly applied to " the doc
trine which Protestants consider our greatest difficulty, that of
the Immaculate Conception ;" and, after assuring us that the
imposition of this doctrine is no burden to himself or others,
and that he " sincerely thinks that St. Bernard and St. Thomas,
who scrupled at it in their day, had they lived into this would
have rejoiced to accept it for its own sake," he adds the remark
that " the number of those (so-called) new doctrines will not
oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to promulgate even one
of them. Such is about the length of time through which
the preparation has been carried on for the definition of the
Immaculate Conception6."
11 Part vii. p. 393. • p. 395,

246 NOTE II. [Lect.
These expressions occur incidentally while the author is
shewing that " the (so-called) new doctrines" are " no burden"
to priests under the Roman obedience, which of course is true,
if the doctrines be such as they " have guessed and wished to
be included in the Apostolic revelation." But the expressions
themselves are remarkable as shewing how awkwardly Dr.
Newman's own doctrine of Development has assumed the garb
and style of his Church's doctrine of tradition ; his true ac
count of a development which historically took place veiling
itself, as by command, under its fiction of a tradition which
did not really exist.
A doctrine is for the first time promulgated by the Infallible
Authority, and imposed as an article of the faith. " The pre
paration for it has been carried on for eight hundred years."
Eight hundred years ago is the most distant point at which
any "preparation" for it can be discerned, that " preparation"
being found in the first suggestion of the opinion, and in the
rejection of it by the leading authorities of the time as new
and false; but as time goes on it gains influence and acceptance.
It is acknowledged, then, that in the thousand years preceding
it was not even in preparation, that there is no trace of it what
ever until its mediaeval dawn. According to the doctrine of
Development, the Infallible Authority would decree its truth as
having been gradually wrought out during those eight hundred
years, and at last adequately recognised by the instinct of the
Church. According to the doctrine of Tradition, it must
decree the truth of the opinion on the ground of its having
been a part of the original revelation handed down from the
beginning. In the one case it would affirm that the doctrine
would have been held by the Apostles if they had known of it.
In the other case it must affirm that the doctrine was made
known to the Apostles and that they did hold it. To this
latter theory Dr. Newman has now seen it necessary to con
form his language. " The only question now decided is that
he is holding what the Apostles held before him." The Infal
lible Authority is thus recognised, not as deciding on the truth
of an opinion, but as certifying a fact, i. e. that the Apostles
held such and such an opinion as part of the revelation given

L] NOTE II. 247
to them. If no evidence of this fact survives, if no tradition
has handed it down, if the doctrine is one which only began
to he prepared eight hundred years ago, it is evident that the
Infallible Authority can only have known the fact which it
certifies by a direct revelation.
To one who considers the exigencies of the Romish position
so glaringly exemplified in connection with the doctrine here
alluded to, it must appear that this issue of an attempt to
provide for those exigencies, by a theory in some measure
accordant with facts, is the strongest testimony to thea inera
dicable sense of Christendom, that the divine communication
of truth was limited to the Apostolic age.
The method of the perpetuation and transmission of the
truths then communicated is of course an entirely separate
question. But whether that question be determined as it is
by Rome, or as it is by us, the kind of development of doctrine
which legitimately belongs to the Church must be, on either
hypothesis, theoretically the same. It must consist in a fuller
and more systematic apprehension of the truths which were
communicated at first, not in the addition of truths communi
cated afterwards. Practically, the Church of Rome has acted
(as Dr. Newman so distinctly felt) on the latter, and not on
the former, of these principles : first adding new doctrines on
the most flimsy pretences of a tradition, and then superadding
one for which not the slenderest thread of a tradition could be
shewn.

248

NOTE III.

[Lect.

NOTE III. Lecture II. p. 41.
No more interesting and suggestive summary of the com
parative character and scope of the several Gospels could be
given, than that which is produced by simply placing their
respective conclusions side by side.

Matt, xxviii.
18-20.
Jesus came and
spake unto them,
saying, All power
is given unto me
in heaven and in
earth. Go ye therefore,
and teach all na
tions, baptizing
them in the name
of the Father, and
of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost :
Teaching them
to observe all
things whatsoever
I have command
ed you : and, lo,
I am with you
alway, even unto
the end of the
(world. Amen .

Mark xvi.
15-20.
And he said un
to them, Go ye
into all the world,
and preach the
gospel to every
creature. He that believ
eth and is baptized
shall be saved ;
but he that be
lieveth not shall
be damned.
And these signs
shall follow them
that believe ; In
my name shall
they cast out de
vils ; they shall
speak with new
tongues. They shall take
up serpents ; and
if they drink any
deadly thing, it
shall not hurt
them ; they shall
lay hands on the
sick, and they shall
recover. So then after the
Lord had spoken
unto them, he was
received up into
heaven, and sat on
the right hand of
God. And they went
forth, and preach
ed every where,
the Lord working
with them, and con
firming the word
with signs follow
ing. Amen.

Luke xxiv.
5o-53-
And he led them
out as far as to
Bethany, and he
lifted up his hands,
and blessed them.
And it came to
pass, while he
blessed them, he
was parted from
them, and carried
up into heaven.
And they wor
shipped him, and
returned to Jeru
salem with great
joy; And were con
tinually in the
temple, praising
and blessing God,
Amen.

John xx.
28-31.
And Thomas an
swered and said
unto him, My Lord
and my God.
Jesus saith unto
him, Thomas, be
cause thou hast
seen me, thou hast
believed : blessed
are they that have
not seen, and yet
have believed.
And many other
signs truly did
Jesus in the pre
sence of his disci
ples, which are not
written in this
book :
But these are
written, that ye
might believe that
Jesus is theChrist,
the Son of God ;
and that believing
ye might have life
through his name.

II.] NOTE III. 249
Here we see, i . In St. Matthew, the Royal Lawgiver, or King
and Teacher of men, endued with all authority (Zgovtria), found
ing a kingdom for all nations, with its ordinance of admission
(baptism) and its permanent laws (" Whatsoever I have com
manded you") : and still the kingdom is (as it were) a school,
in which his commissioners are charged to continue the work
of teaching which he had begun (ixad^revo-aTe— Sioao-Kovres).
2. In St. Mark, the Mighty Worker, who leaves the energy
of his action in his Church. Not here is represented the slower
process of forming and. training communities, but the bold and
world-wide proclamation, with the sure execution of its sanc
tion. (Compare the ixaBrjTevtraTe itavTa to. eOvq with the Krjpv^are
¦ndo-fl rrj KTio-et.) Then the signs of living power are to follow
those that believe, beginning with the casting out of devils in
his name. Finally, the scene is changed in a moment, and the
command and promise are seen in their fulfilment — the Lord
in heaven, the disciples on earth — they going forth and
preaching everywhere, and the Lord still working with them
and confirming the word by the signs of power.
3. In St. Luke, the Friend of Man, sending to all nations
the message of repentance and remission of sins, and ensuring
to his messengers the promise of his Father ; while the reality
of kind companionship is preserved to the end, in the mention
of localities, movements, and gestures (" He led them out as
far as to Bethany," " He lifted up His hands and blessed
them," " He was parted from them"), the parting itself
being one of love (while He blessed them), and one which
leaves behind it a state of worship and joy.
4. In St. John, the Son of God, receiving from the lately
doubting disciple the highest acknowledgment which had yet
come from human lips (d Kioto's fjov ko.1 6 &eos /jov), and then, as
it were, lifting up his eyes beyond the little company who had
seen him, and pronouncing for all ages and nations a blessing
on those who, not having seen, should yet have believed. Yet
farther, the Evangelist speaks from himself, thus characteris
tically closing the only gospel in which the thoughts of the
writer have been mingled with his narrative. He tells us that
he has given us incidents intentionally selected for a certain

250 NOTE IV. [Lect.
definite purpose, namely, to present the great object of faith
in his highest character as the Son of God, and so to secure
the result of faith in its deepest essence, "life through his
name." NOTE IV. Lecture II. p. 48.
This effect of the opening of St. Matthew's Gospel, and so
of the whole Gospel record, is well described by Lange : — -
" The genealogy, &c, with which the Gospel according to
Matthew opens, is of the greatest importance. The first
Gospel connects the New Testament with the Old, not by
giving an index of the writings of the Old Testament, but by
delineating the Old Testament genealogy of Jesus. This
serves not merely as evidence of the indissoluble connection
between the Old and the New Testament, which continued in
the secret recesses of Jewish life even during the age of the
Apocrypha, but expresses the important truth that God revealed
himself and carried on his covenant purposes, not only by the
spoken and written word, but also and chiefly in and by the
seed of Abraham, until he came in whom both impersonation
and revelation had reached their climax.
" In the Gospel by Matthew the life of Jesus is presented as
forming part of the history and life of the Jewish nation ; and
hence as the historical fulfilment of the blessing promised to
Abraham and to his seed. Jesus is here set before us as the
new-born King of the Jews, as the promised Messiah, and the
aim and goal of every progressive stage of the theocracy. He
is the great Antitype of Old Testament history, in whom every
thing has been fulfilled — the types in the law, in worship, in
historical events, and in gracious interpositions — in short, the
fulfilment of the theocracy. In and with him the old, cove
nant passes into the new, the theocracy into the kingdom of
heaven, the demands of the law into the beatitudes, Sinai into
the Mount of Beatitudes, the prophetic into the teaching office,
the priesthood into redemption by .suffering, and the kingship
into the triumph of almighty grace, restoring, helping, and
delivering a fallen world f."
f Lange, Commentary on St. Matthew, pp. 49, 50.

II.] NOTE V. 251
Again, in his other work, the same thoughts occur : —
He (St. Matthew) exhibits the Gospel in its historical
relation as the completion, the spiritual fruit of the Christolo-
gical growth in the Old Testament. It was his task to prove
to his own nation that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of
David, the Son of Abraham. (Chap. i. i.) But just because
Christ was, in his eyes, the true and spiritual King of the
Jews, and His kingdom the true theocratic kingdom of God,
did Matthew from the very first give prominence to the great
contrast between the spiritual Israel and the worldly and
hardened Israel. Thence it was that from the beginning
new conflicts were ever arising, thence that we continually
meet with fresh sufferings of the holy Heir of the ancient
theocracy till His death upon the cross, new triumphs till
the manifestation of His glory. The series of the Messiah's
sufferings runs through the whole of this gospel as its pre
vailing thought5."

NOTE V. Lecture II. p. 54.
The essential identity of the synoptist view of the person of
Christ with that given by St. John is ably asserted by Dorner.
It may be well to cite a part of his argument : —
" Taking the notices of the Synoptists together, it thus
appears that for all eternity, also for the £ <a?j altAvios in heaven,
the Person of Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man,
forms the centre point of the Christian religion, in the trials
and in the triumphs of individuals and of the Church. He is
the perfect Lawgiver. He not merely reveals, but he realizes
as well, the holy and just as the gracious will of God ; hence
is He also the Judge of the world. He has and exercises
power over the whole world, even as he does over the spiritual;
He communicates here the forgiveness of sins and the Holy
Ghost, there eternal felicity ; and the summit of the latter is
ever formed by perfect fellowship with His Person 
" It may be boldly affirmed that the entire representation of
" Life of Christ, vol. i. 249.

252 NOTE Vi. [Lect.
Christ given by the Synoptists may be placed by the side of
the Johannine as perfectly identical, inasmuch as faith, moulded
by means of the synoptic tradition, must have essentially the
same features in its conception of Christ as the Christ of
John has.
" The passages in John which speak the most loftily of
Christ are those to which the Synoptists supply exactly the
closest parallels, whilst some of the strongest traits in the latter
find no parallel in John ; comp. Matt. ix. 2 — 6 with John v.
41 (viii. ii). Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20 with John iii. 35. But as
these latter synoptic traits are assuredly capable of being with
out difficulty incorporated with John's representation of Christ,
so, on the other hand, may what John, with Paul and the
Epistle to the Hebrews, advances, that goes beyond the Synop
tists — that, namely, which has relation to the element of pre
existence — be brought into relation to them. The Christ of
the Synoptists stands already so high above the Ebionitic
Christ ; He is especially through His eschatological aspect so
linked with the world-idea, that to the synoptic faith there
needs to be added not so much a new object as simply a
stronger interest of gnosis ; and so also it is that this faith
can find satisfaction in no narrower utterance concerning
Christ than in such a one as the dogma of His pre-existence
will enunciate.
" In point of fact there are not wanting in the Synoptists
themselves the beginning of such : comp. Luke vii. 3 7, Matt.
xi. 19, where Christ calls himself the Wisdom, with Prov. viii.,
Matt. xi. 27; especially, however, Luke xi. 49 with Matt.
xxiii. 34; Matt. xiii. 17, Luke x. 23 — 24, with John viii.
56 ff \" NOTE VI. Lecture III. p. 83.
This hindrance is strongly put in some words of Draseke
quoted by Stier : —
" The old Messiah in the flesh is with them ; therefore the
new Comforter, the Spirit, is far from them. What hindered
their being comforted ? Jesus himself, who, comforting, stood
h Dorner, On the Person of Christ, Introduction, pp. 60, 61.

Ill, IV] NOTE VII. 25S
before them, was the hindrance ! As long as he, this Messiah,
bearing all the prophetic marks upon him, stood before them
in person, this his person continued to be a foundation and.
prop to that system of vanities which bewitched their heads
and hearts. The Form must pass away from their eyes before
the Spirit could enter their souls. It was good for them
that Jesus should go away. Before he, the Christ after the
flesh, went away, the Christ after the Spirit could not come.
When the former vanished, the latter appeared '."

NOTE VII. Lecture IV. p. 92.
Baumgarten's Apostolic History starts at once from the right
point of view; and the effect of this is felt through the whole
work. I subjoin a part of his criticism on the cardinal expres
sion, which indicates the relation between the two histories
treated by St. Luke, in support of that view of it which is
briefly given in the text of the lecture : —
" From the words, oov ijp^aro 6 'lr]o-ovs Troieiv re ko.1 bib&oKeiv,
we perceive that, through -the Gospel, St. Luke intends Jestfs
to be regarded as the acting subject of this history. Con
sequently, whatever else the Gospel narrates, whether the
actions of other persons or the sufferings of the Saviour himself,
his labours, either in doing or in teaching, are to be considered
as the "central point from which the whole is determined. But
now it is of especial significance that in this passage there
occurs a word which, corresponding to the term np&Tov, refers
us with equal precision, as well to what follows, as to what
precedes. It is the word rfpgaro. With good reason has
Meyer maintained that this word has a peculiar emphasis, and
has therefore rightly rejected all such expositions of it as would
explain away its force. But the explanation which he himself
proposes is equally fatal to the emphatic character which he
claims for it. He sees in it, for instance, an antithesis of this
kind, ' Jesus began — the Apostles carried on.' But the
peculiar force, which Meyer has just claimed for rjpgaTo, de-
1 Words of the Lord Jesus, vol. vi. p. 337.

254 NOTE VIII. [Lect.
pends, so far as I can see, on its position, standing as it does
before the name, which, in itself, comprises the whole subject-
matter of the Gospel 
" The impressive force of the word ijpgaro will, therefore, be
duly appreciated as soon as, with Olshausen (in loc.) and
Schneckenburger, we regard it as characterising and referring
to the whole of Jesus' labours during his existence on earth
— in other words, as describing the whole course of his
labours up to the time of his ascension as initiatory and
preparatory. " If, therefore, at the commencement of a second book, all
that had been narrated in the first is characterised as the
work of the initiatory labours of Jesus, is not this a plain
intimation that in the second book we are to look for an
account of the further continuance of those labours k ?"

NOTE VIII. Lecture IV. p. 102.
" The view, which is given in the text, of St. Paul's testi
monies, concerning the sources from which he had derived his
gospel, and particularly of his assertion, 1 Cor. xi. 23, was not
reached without some hesitation. It had once seemed to me
(as probably it does to most readers) that the interpretation of
the words eyat irap4\aBov airb rov Kvpiov, was decided by the
more definite language of Gal. i. 12 : and also that the express
mention both of the eytL and the iwpios was more natural, on
the supposition that the Apostle meant to intimate an imme
diate personal communication from the Lord to himself. The
first of these reasons is removed, if the expressions in the
Corinthians on the one hand, and those in the Galatians and
Ephesians on the other, contemplate the Gospel (as they
obviously do) from the two different sides of history and
doctrine. The second reason was merely a confirmation of
an interpretation accepted upon other grounds, and has no
great force by itself. It is an argument of the same kind, but
k Baumgarten's Apostolic History (Clarke's Tr.), sect. i.pp. 10, ii.

IV.] NOTE VIII. 255
perhaps of scarcely as much weight, as that which is adduced
on the other side from the use of airo instead of i:apa. Dean
Alford's decision (the opposite of that which is adopted in
the lecture) seems to me too hastily given in regard to a
point of so much interest; and he treats the question of
the preposition too slightingly : —
" For I (no emphasis on eyfo as Meyer, al., see ch. vii. 28
compared with 32; Gal. vi. 17; Phil. iv. 11) received from
the Lord {by special revelation, see Gal. i. 12). Meyer attempts
to deny that this revelation was made to Paul himself, on the
strength of a-no meaning indirect, irapd direct reception from
any one : but this distinction is fallacious : e.g. 1 John i. 5,
avrrj eo-rlv fj e-nayyeXla r)v aKrjK.6ap.ev an avrov. tie supposes
that it was made to Ananias or some other, and communicated
to Paul. But the sole reason for this somewhat clumsy
hypothesis is the supposed force of the preposition, which has
no existence. If the Apostle had referred only to the Evange
lical tradition or writings (?) he would not have used the first
person singular, but irapeXA^op.ev] ."
" The supposed force of the preposition, which has no ex
istence," is an over-confident expression. Against this decision
must be weighed the opinion given by others, e. g. by Winer :
" After verbs of receiving, &c, a-no has merely the general
meaning of whence : Matt. xvii. 2,5, a-nb rivmv Xap.^6.vovtn TtX-q ;
it is kings who are the Xap.(36.vovTes ; -napd would have indi
cated the immediate gathering of the taxes, and would have
been employed in this passage had the tax-gatherers been
spoken of as the \ap,^6.vovres. In the expression Xapfiavovres
Ttapd tivos the rts denotes the person actually delivering or
tendering : in Kap.^A.vovTes airo tivos it denotes merely the
proprietor  Paul, in 1 Cor. xi. 23, writes TrapeXafiov
a-nb tov Kvpiov, 'I received of the Lord,' not, the Lord
himself has directly, personally, in an a-noKaXv\jris, communi
cated it to mem."
Winer's judgment is adopted by Bishop Ellicott. On Gal.
i. 1 2, ovbe yap eyo> itapa. avdpc&Trov -napekafiov, he says, " trapa
avOpc&Tiov 'from man,' not synonymous with a-nb avOptinov,
1 Alford in loc. m Grammar of N. T. Diction, p. 388.

256 NOTE VIII. [Lect.
the distinction between these prepositions after verbs of
receiving, &c. (napa. more immediate, a-nb more remote source)
being apparently regularly maintained in St. Paul's Epistles.
Compare i Cor. xi. 23, -napiXa^ov a-nb tov Kvplov, on which
Winer (Le Verb. Comp. Ease. ii. p. 7) rightly observes, ' non
-napa tov Kvplov, propterea quod non ipse Christus praesentem
docuit.' "
The example given by Alford on the other side appears of
little value, as the enayyeXia rjv aK.t]K6ap.ev d-n' avrov is not a
saying cited by St. John as uttered to him personally by the
mouth of Christ, but a general summary of the message with
which the teachers of the Church were entrusted by their
Lord. On the whole, the force of the preposition may be
stated thus : it does not compel us to adopt either interpreta
tion, but it is more accurate, more natural, and more in ac
cordance with the usage of Scripture, when interpreted not in
the sense of an immediate, but of a more remote reception.
If we should probably conclude that the general facts of the
Gospel history (e.g. those mentioned in 1 Cor. xv. 3 — 7) were
not communicated to St. Paul by direct revelation, we should
have no reason to suppose an exception in regard to the facts
of the institution of the Lord's Supper ; unless the language
employed in regard to that subject obliged us to do so. Ap
parently that is not the case, the preposition used agreeing
rather with the opposite opinion, and certainly not being that
which would seem likely to have been chosen, if it had been
the purpose of the writer to assert the exceptional nature of
this particular communication. Thus the addition of cbro
tov Kvplov to -napiXafiov will only indicate the importance
of the acts and words of the institution, as handed down
by the known will, and (probably) by the express charge, of
the Lord.
In regard to the whole question of the sources of St. Paul's
doctrine, it seems to me that his own expressions lead us to
class them as follows : (1) the report of others, conveying to
him the historical facts of the manifestation of Christ; (2)
direct and definite revelations from the Lord Jesus, ascertain
ing to him the main features of the doctrine which it was his

IV.] NOTE IX. 257
special work to deliver ; (3) a general inspiration or guidance
of the Holy Ghost, present in his experience, in the workings
of his own mind, and more particularly in his study of the
Old Testament Scriptures.
The last mentioned method of illumination is evidently
of a progressive character. In reference- to this subject
Ellicott's observation, in his comment on Gal. i. 12, is fair
and reasonable : —
" It is a subject of continual discussion, whether the teach
ing of St. Paul was the result of one single illumination, or of
progressive development. The most natural opinion would
certainly seem to be this : that as, on the one hand, we may
reverently presume that all the fundamental truths of the
Gospel would be fully revealed to St. Paul, before he com
menced preaching ; so, on the other, it might have been or
dained, that, in accordance with the laws of our spiritual
nature, its deepest mysteries and profoundest harmonies should
be seen and felt through the practical experiences of his apo
stolical labours."
I would only wish to add to this statement of the case a
distinct mention of that continuous ministration of the Old
Testament Scriptures to his mind, which is perceptible in all
his writings, and to which attention is called in Note XII.

NOTE IX. Lecture IV. p. iii.
Every day we become more familiar with that view of the
Apostolic writings, which distinguishes between the narrator
and the commentator, assigning a commanding authority to
the bare witness of facts, of sayings of the Lord, and of reve
lations distinctly asserted, and denying such authority to the
expositions of the doctrine involved in those facts, sayings,
and revelations. In the one department of their work they
are true witnesses, delivering to us the words of God. In the
other they are fallible men, theorising or theologising under
the mingled advantages and disadvantages which might result
from their historical position. This bisection (if I may use
s

258 NOTE IX. [Lect.
the word) of the testimony of our appointed teachers, leaves
us the divine foundations of a theology, but sweeps away the
divine theology itself, which they were laid to support. We
are at full liberty to raise other edifices in its stead, or, which
will be better still, we may leave the materials unused and the
ground unoccupied. The intimations of this view of the in
spired writings are often hurtful, only because they are dis
guised ; the theory not being avowed, while the language
appropriate to it is used. It will be well to keep the theory
itself distinctly in sight, as it will explain the meaning and
expose the tendency of many arguments and insinuations
which might else make injurious impressions on unestablished
faith. Perhaps this theory cannot be better exhibited than in
the following words of one of its leading advocates : —
" As to what especially concerns the religious doctrines
contained in the Bible, it is clear from the very nature of the
case, that we are only bound to notice those doctrines which
can be directly referred to inspiration. We therefore need
pay no regard to those doctrines, which lay no claim to be
considered as inspired, and do not come before us as forming
part of a Divine revelation. Such, for instance, are the doc
trines of the Mosaic cosmogony, the simple historical narra
tives in both the Testaments, &c. Above all, those parts of
the Bible which cannot be directly derived from inspiration,
consequently everything in the writings of the prophets (and,
taking the word in a wide sense, of the apostles also) which is
in any degree of a scientific character, the result of reflection,
and in any sense whatever the work of science, true and im
portant as it may be, these, one and all, have not a binding
authority upon us. But further, all developments of doctrine,
which were in point of fact the commencement of a theology,
have a large margin belonging to them. Take, for instance,
the theological theories and peculiar views of Paul and John,
although in another regard they have an especial value for us,
yet per se they are not revelation. Their authors worked them
out with much painful thought, and their thought we also
truly regard, when striving like them to master the subject ;
yet they never claim for their theological deductions a bind-

IV.] NOTE X. 250
ing authority upon others. On the other hand, all the direct
declarations in Holy Scripture about our salvation, all the
great historical facts of the great drama of revelation, especi
ally the contents of the Gospel?, these have all a binding
authority upon us. These are the points on which Paul and;
John theologise.
" It is this assertion of the comparative authority of the
Holy Scriptures which is the only means of securing them
from forced and violent interpretations'1." It would be more
true to say — of exposing them to such interpretations.

NOTE X. Lecture IV. p. 118.
" If such a Spirit did not dwell in the Church, the Bible
would not be inspired ; for the Bible is, before all things, the
written voice of the congregation. Bold as such a theory of in
spiration may sound, it was the earliest creed of the Church, and
it is the only one to which the facts of Scripture answer. The
Sacred Writers acknowledge themselves men of like passions
with ourselves, and we are promised illumination from the
Spirit which dwelt in them1."
These words of Dr. Williams give a distinct statement of
a view of the Holy Scriptures, which is often presented in
more ambiguous language. The Bible is the voice of the
congregation, in the sense of being a voice adopted by the
congregation, as the expression of its mind for ever; and
assertions may be made concerning the Scriptures, which are
true in this sense, while they are false in the sense which
they are meant to bear : but this sense is here disclaimed by
the words " before all things," which deny that the Scrip
tures have any character antecedent to this. ¦ This denial
flatly contradicts the real voice of the congregation, which
has always acknowledged and adopted the Scriptures, in the
character of a voice which came to it, not in that of a voice
which proceeded from it. Nothing is more certain than that
b R. Eothe, in an article in Studien und Kritiken, i860.
1 Essays and Reviews, p. 78. S 2

260 NOTE X. [Lect.
the Church has always considered and avowed, that she was
called into existence by the Apostolic agency : and that the
teaching of the Apostles was the cause and not the product of
her faith. It is no less certain, that she has from the first
acknowledged and received the canonical books, as being
themselves a part, the written part, of that Apostolic teach
ing, that is to say, as being the permanent form of the word
by which her faith was first created.
This acknowledgment of the Catholic Church, concerning
her own origin and the relation of the Scriptures to it, does
in fact dispose of the questions which we often hear debated
— whether the Church is before the Bible, or the Bible before
the Church — whether the New Testament Scriptures stand
upon Christianity, or Christianity upon the New Testament
Scriptures. It is certain that the Church existed before the
Bible, and Christianity before the New Testament Scriptures ;
but it is also certain that the Church and Christianity derived
their own existence from the word which those Scriptures
contain. The word was antecedent to the existence of the
Church, as the cause is to the effect; the writing of that
word, and its reception when written, were subsequent to
the formation of the Church, but the writing only made
permanent for future time the word by which the Church
had been created ; and the reception of the writings only
recognised them as the same word in its form of permanence.
Thus while the Church is chronologically before the Bible,
the Bible is potentially before the Church ; since the written
word, which is the ground of faith to later generations of
Christians, is one in origin, authority, and substance with the
oral word, which was the ground of faith to the first genera
tion of Christians. Any one who pleases may deny this unity
of the written and the oral word. I only observe, that, if he
does so, he contradicts " the voice of the congregation."
It may further be said, that there is a sense in which some
of the New Testament Scriptures are, as writings, anterior to
Christianity, not only potentially but chronologically. If the
ministry of St. Paul was divinely ordained, and used, to de
velop the Christian doctrine, then that ministry was anterior

VI.] NOTES XI, XII. 261
to the full development of Christianity. But his Epistles
were part of his ministry, as much a part of it as his spoken
word : may we not say a more important part, as being, by
their character of writing, more deliberate and thorough. It
follows that his Epistles are, as really as his oral teaching,
chronologically anterior to Christianity as a perfected system.
Christianity therefore stands upon the New Testament Scrip
tures; not the New Testament Scriptures upon Christianity.

NOTE XI. Lecture VI. p. 154.
" Epistolicam formam prse libris V. T. habent Scripta N. T.
et in his non solum Pauli, Petri, Jacobi, Judse, sed etiam
uterque Lucae, et omnes Johannis libri. Plus etiam est, quod
ipse Dominus Jesus Christus suo nomine septem epistolas
dedit, Johannis manu, Apoe. ii. 3, ac tota Apocalypsis instar
est epistolaB ab Ipso datae. Non ad servos, sed ad liberos,
eosque emancipatos potissimum, epistolas mitti sunt solitae :
epistolicumque scribendi genus prae quovis alio aeeommodatum
est ad regnum Dei quam latissime propagandum, et ad animas
quam locupletissime aedificandas. Plus in hoc quoque genere
unus laboravit Paulus quam ceteri omnes k."

NOTE XII. Lecture VI. p. 172.
The principle intimated in the text is that the "perfection"
(reXeior-qs) of Christian doctrine was attained by the reading
of the Old Testament in the light of the (elementary) know
ledge of Christ ; in other words, that the complete exposition of
the Gospel was the result of a combination of the facts and the
words of the old dispensation with the facts and thes. words of
the new, a combination effected in the minds of the Apostles
under the teaching of the Holy Ghost, who thus brought to
light the meaning and the scope of his own earlier inspirations,
preserved in the Law and the Prophets. This method of divine
teaching is exhibited in action, and exemplified at length, in
-k Bengelii, Gnomon, in Rom. i. I.

262 NOTE XII. [Lect.
the Epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews. It does in
fact constitute and create those two precious writings; which,
while they are arguments addressed to others, appear to be
also records of the course of thought and formation of opinion
in the minds of the writers themselves. They use for the edu
cation of other minds the same means and materials which
the Holy Ghost had first prepared, and then used, for the
education of their own.
E.g. The mind of St. Paul having received the fundamental
principle of justification by grace through faith in Christ,
seems to have defined and systematised his doctrine on that
subject, by reflection on his own experience of what the Law
could do and of what it could not do, on the principle enun
ciated by Habakkuk, that " the just shall live by his faith,"
on the fact that Abraham, " being yet uncircumcised, believed
God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness," on
David's description of " the man to whom the Lord imputeth
righteousness without works," &c, &c. The writer to the
Hebrews, again, in his penetrating and profound treatment
of a multitude of Old Testament texts and of the whole
system of the first covenant, not only instructs the disciples
whom he addresses, but also incidentally shews in what way
their teachers had themselves been taught, namely, by means
of the former Scriptures, read in connection with the Gospel
facts, and under the teaching of the Holy Ghost.
I do not mean that precisely the same passages which they
think fittest for instructing others had been effectual to their
own enlightenment, but that they had gained their own per
fect light from these and others like them, and that they had
themselves been taught through the same medium which they
employ. St. Paul's manner of using the Old Testament seems
continually to imply his own personal obligations to it.
Some may think that this view of the manner in which the
truth was cleared to the minds of its first teachers is incon
sistent with, or at least derogatory to, their inspiration ; since
it implies the processes of study, reflection, comparison, deduc
tion, a gradual increase in the fulness and proportions of their
knowledge, and a progress of doctrine in their own minds.

VI.] NOTE XII. 263
Certainly it implies all this, and that is a reason not against,
but for its truth ; for the Apostolic writings appear to bear
witness to such processes and such progress in the minds of
their authors. Had it been the purpose of these Lectures to
consider the Progress of Doctrine in this sense, the view taken
of it would have been in accordance with the observation of
Bengel, that when the Pauline discourses and writings are
placed in chronological order, "incrementum Apostoli spirituale
cognoscitur1." Such a view has no kindred with that which
has been hazarded by Professor Jowett and others, and which
treats the later teaching, not as an expansion, but as a reversal
of the earlier; not as a more full and definite, but as an
absolutely different doctrine. The doctrine was always one,
its full development being implied in its first elements, but,
like any other large system of thought, taking time to unfold
itself, first in the minds of the teachers, and then in the
Church which they taught. The instrument used for this
purpose was the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It was so
from the very first. When their Lord taught them personally
after his resurrection it was through this medium. " He ex
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
himself;" " Then opened he their understandings, that they
might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus
it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise
from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remis
sion of sins should be preached in his name among all na
tions." (Luke xxiv. 27, 45-47.) It is scarcely less evident
that the same method was pursued in their subsequent illu
mination by the Holy Ghost, and that the light which they
enjoyed was a light which was reflected from the Scriptures.
That which the Lord, before his departure, did by word of
mouth, is precisely that which, after his departure, he did by
the Holy Ghost ; " Then opened he their understandings that
they might understand the Scriptures."
There is nothing in this view of the case derogatory to the
fulness of their inspiration, for the inspiration in which we
1 Gnomon, Rom. i. I.

264 NOTE XII. [Lect.
believe is not one which in its general action supersedes the
natural processes of the mind, but one which mingles itself
with them, and insures the truth of their results. In making
the former Scriptures the means of enlightening the authors
of the later Scriptures, the Holy Spirit established the con
tinuity of his own teaching, and built the Church " upon the
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets," amalgamating the
two foundations into one. It is from his own experience
that St. Paul says to Timothy (albeit not impowered by the
Apostolic inspiration), " The Holy Scriptures (of the Old
Testament) are able to make thee wise unto salvation (ere
trotptcrai els trtorripiavj through faith which is in Jesus Christ."
(2 Tim. iii. 15.) The force of the expression lies in the
o-otpio-ai. The Gospel Timothy has already received ; the faith
in Christ Jesus lie already has ; and therefore he is actually
in possession of the salvation : but the wisdom (trotfiia) apper
taining to this salvation he is to seek by means of the Scrip
tures (to bvvdp.eva crotpio-ai). This trotpia corresponds to the
TeAewrrjs (of doctrine) spoken of in Heb. vi. 7 , which is there
illustrated by the exquisite example of spiritual exegesis, on
the passage " Thou art a priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek." Elsewhere, again, the Apostle adverts to this
character of his doctrine, " Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect" (trotplav ev tois reXewis, I Cor. ii. 6); and
there the method of its exposition is described by the remark
able expression (of somewhat doubtful meaning), ev 8t5a«Tois
irveijpaTos ay(ov, -nvevp.aTiKois Ttvevp.aTiKa. tjvyKpivovres (ver. 13).
It seems to me that the interpretation of these words is best
derived from the fact, everywhere apparent in the Apostle's
writings, namely, his habit of working out all the more
recondite and (if I may use the word) scientific parts of the
Evangelical doctrine by the aid of the Old Testament, the
types, images, and sentences of which were, we know, in his
sight TTvevpdriKa. Dean Alford's objection to this interpreta
tion, as given by Chrysostom, is founded upon his treatment
of the word ovyKplveiv, as if meant barely to prove or inter
pret. I think that Chrysostom's illustrations, in the passage
referred to, suggest a larger meaning than this; but even

VI:]. NOTE XIII. 265
£he latter of these words, taken in its full sense, would
be a more adequate and exact rendering than that which
is adopted in its place, "putting together spirituals with
spirituals," i. e. attaching spiritual words to spiritual things.
The trvyKpiveiv will more properly represent a process of
thought and judgment than a mere method of expression :
it does in fact most aptly represent that process which we
actually see in the Epistles, in which the ¦nvevp.ariKa. of the
old covenant are combined with those of the new in order to
establish and elucidate the doctrine which is delivered. The
appropriation of the Old Testament words to express the New
Testament doctrines is a part of this elucidation: e.g. the
application of the old terms of sacrifice and lustration, to
describe the nature of the death and the effect of the blood
of Christ.

NOTE XIII. Lecture VI. p. 173.
"As Luther complained of the Epistle of James, that it
was not occupied with Christ, so in more recent times an
inclination has been exhibited to regard James, as he appears
to us in his Epistle, as the representative of the faith of the
earliest Christians ; and hence it has been deduced that the
Ebionitic doctrine was the primitive; a conclusion in every
respect over-precipitate ! For, first, the design of James is
such, that it does not fall to him to set forth in order
the faith and its contents, but to maintain the maris rather
according to its ethical significancy, and to contend against
all antinomianism. The maris he pre-supposes ; he does
not seek to plant it for the first time; and hence it
is incompetent, nay, unjust to him, to treat his Epistle
as if he began with the beginning, and meant to set forth
the fundamental principles of Christianity, which as yet
were not in dispute. But, secondly, it would be still more
hazardous from this short Epistle — which, according to its
avowed design, aims to unfold the ethical and not the dog
matical aspect of Christian truth — to form an estimate of
James universally; of whom we have no right, since in other

266 NOTE XIII. [Lect.'VI.
respects he is at one with the synoptic tradition, to assume
that in respect to Christological ideas he stands opposed to
it. Thirdly, utterly untrue is the assumption that James is
to be viewed as the representative of the faith bf the earliest
Christianity. Rather is his letter, with its polemic against a
one-sided faith, an evidence that there was another tendency
in the Church, which laid chief stress on faith, not in its
ethical purifying power, but viewed principally as an object of
knowledge, trotpia; consequently, more in respect of its dog
matic import, and that in a fruitless way, and which held
participation in Christianity in this sense for justifying. Over
against this theoretical faith he places that which is practical.
Still more weighty is what we would adduce fourthly, viz.,
that it cannot be denied that to the individuality of James
the ethical was the most congenial, and hence drew him to
give especial effect to the refutation of this false tendency m."
Dorner goes on to shew that the ethic of St. James is a
Christian ethic, and then to point out the actual Christo
logical features of the Epistle. The result is, "that James
had before him the Christian presupposition in anthropological
and soteriological form" — a sufficiently alarming sentence,
which, however, I print in italics, because it gives the precise
point to which I have wished to speak in the text, namely,
that a considerate examination of the Epistle shews, that
the whole doctrine of the manifestation of Christ in the flesh,
and of the mystery of redemption and salvation, is presup
posed as already known and accepted both by the writer and by
those to whom he writes. It is this pre-supposition which
justifies the place which is assigned to the Epistle in the
course of divine instruction.
m Dorner, On the Person of Christ, Introduction, pp. 62, 63.

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