BS 2397 .B48 1867 Bernard, Thomas Dehany, 181 -1904. The progress of doctrine in GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, *<7"oul(i call particular attention to the following val'as^b^e works desoribed in their Catalogue of Publications, y\2. : Hugh. Miller's "Works. Bayne's WorkL. "Walker's "Works. Miall's "Wor'kif. Biingener's "Worlc Animal of Scientific Discovery. Knight-a Karjo-^edge is Power. Krummaclier's Svffeling Rav'our, Banvard's American Histories. Tj.e Aimwell Stories. *reweomb*s "Works. Tweedie's Works. ChamV^rs's "Works. Harris' Works, Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Eioliaal Literature. Mrs. Knight's Life of Montgomery. ditto's History of Palestine. Whewell'B Work, W«'.y land's TSTorks. Agassiz's Works. ■Williams' "Works. Guyot's "Works. Tliompson's Better Land. Kimball's Heaven. "Valuable "Works on Missioos. Haven's Mental Philosophy. Buchanan's Modern Atheism. Cruden's Condensed Concordance. Eadie's Analytical Concordance* The Psalmist : a Collection of Hymns. Valuable School Books. "Works for Sabbath Schools. Memoir of Amos Lawrence. Poetical "Works of Milton, Cowper, Scott. Elegant Miniature Volumes, Arvine's Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes. Bipley's Notes on G-ospels, Acts, and Homans. Spragne's European Celebrities. Marsh's Camel and the Halllg. Boget's Thesaurus of English "Words. Hackett's Notes on Acts. M'Whorter's Yahveh Christ. Siebold and Stannius's Comparative Anatomy. Marcou'sGeolog^ical Map, TJ, 3^ Heligious and Miscellaneous Works. Works in the various Departments of Literature, Science and Art. (Banh auir ^xntolix^ |Jubruiitions. BAVEX'S MENTAL PMILOSOPHT ; Including the Intellect, the Sensi- bilities, and the Will. By Joseph Havex, Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Chicago University. Royal 12mo, cloth, embossed, 2.00. It is believed this work will be found preeminently distinguished for the Completeness with trhJch it presents the whole subject. SAVEX'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY : Including Theoretical and Practical Ethics. By Joseph Haven, D. D., late Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in Chicago University. Royal 12mo, cloth, embossed, 1.75. It is eminently scientific in method, and thorough in discussion, and its views on unsettled ques- tions in morals are discriminating and sound. MOPKIXS' LECTJJItES OX MOHAL SCIEXCE, delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, by Mark Hopkins, D. D., President of "Williams College. Royal 12mo, cloth, 1.50. j^" An important work from the pen of one of the most profound thinkers of the age. WATLAXIf^S ELEMEXTS OF MORAL SCIEXCE. By FRANCIS Wayland, D. D., late President of Brown University. 12mo, cloth, 1.75. WAYLAXD'S MORAL SCIEXCE ABRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools and Academies, by the Author. Half mor., 70 cts. The same, Cheap School Edition, boards, 45 cts. WAYLAXD'S ELEMEXTS OF FOZITICAL ECOXOMY. By Fran- cis Wayland, D. D. 12mo, cloth, 1.75. WAYLAXD'S POLITICAL ECOXOMY ARRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools and Academies, by the Author. Half mor., 70 cents. All the above works by Dr. Wayland are used as text-books in most of the colleges and higher ichools throughout the Union, and are highly approved. AGASSIZ AXD GOULD'S PRIXCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY; Touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Natural Arranj^ement, of the Races of Animals, living and extinct, with numerous Illustrations. For the use of Schools and Colleges. Part I. Comparative Physiology. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A. Gould. Revised edition. 1.50. PART II. Systematic Zoology. In preparation. " It is simple and elementary in its style, full in its illustrations, comprehensive in its range, yet well condensed, and brought into the narrow compass requisite for the purpose intended." — S(//i- man's Journal, RITTER'S GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES. Translated from the German of Carl Ritter, by Kev. W. L. Gage. With a Sketch of the Autl) r's Life, and a Portrait. 12mo, cloth, 1.50. This volume contains the grand generalizations of Ritter's life-work, the Erdkiinde, in eighteen Volumes; his lectures on the Relations of Geography and History, and a number of important %apers on Physical Geography. PROG RESSIJE PEXMAXSHIP, Plain and ornamental, for the use of Schools. By X. D. Gould, author of " Beauties of Writing," " Writing Ma> ter's Assi.«!tant," etc. In five parts, each, 20 cts. THE BAMPTON LECTURES amptoix IT^ttuas. LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT EXAMINED. Lectures, delivered in the Oxford University Pulpit, on the " Bampton Foundation." By Rev. H. LoN- GUKViuuK Manskl. With Copious Notes translated for the American edition. lL>mo, cloth, 1.50. " This is incomparably the ablest contribution to the cause of sound learning and treasures of exact thought, wliich has recently been added to the common stock. In clear and simple terms, with strong sense and abundant learning, positions are laid down which will affect the science of thinking for a long future, and which administer a strong and wholesome corrective to the flippant materialism of the times." — Congregationalist. HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OF THE SCRIPTURE Rec- ords, STATED ANEW, with Special reference to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern times. Lectures delivered in the Oxford University Pulpit, on the Bampton Foundation. By Geo. Rawlinson, M.A. With the Copious Notes TRANSLATED for the American edition. 12mo, cloth, 1.75 "Th&consumate learning, judgment, and general ability displayed by Mr. Rawlinson in his edition of Herodotus are exhibited in this work also." — North American Review. " In its special application of secular history to the illustration of the sacred record ; it possesses an interest and value for Biblical students, which can hardly be expressed in words. AVe see not how any man of candor can read this volume and retain a doubt as to the authenticity of the historical books of the Old Testament." — N. Y. Independent. PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT; Lectures ON the Bampton Foundation. By Thomas Dehany Bernard, Exeter College. 12mo, cloth, 1.50. "A book of remarkable ability and interest. No production within the present century has appeared more fresh in matter, original in style, or of more permanent value to the cause of truth, than this." IJubcaix '^§zdmm. LIFE OF CHRIST HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. The Ilulsean Lectures Avith Notes Critical, Historical, and Explanatory. By C. J. Ellicott, B.D. Royal 12m o, cloth, 1.75 " Prof. Ellicott has shown himself to be a true scholar. He is doubtless among the very first of all English speaking scholars of the present generation." — New Englander. "Every page seems to be the result of deep thought and careful investigation." — Evang. Review. " This is no common book. It is evidently the production of a master mind." — United Presbyterian INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS. With Historical and Explanatory notes. By Brooke Foss Westcott, Trinity College, Cam- bridge. With an Introduction by Prof. H. B. Hackett, D.D. Royal 12mo, cloth, 2.00. 'The work is a striking combination of originality with erudition, its argument is masterly." — Philadelphia Lutheran. THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE NEW TESTAMENT, CONSIDERED IN EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, CIj^ § amp ton: Jfnuniraibtt* B Y THOMAS DEHANY BERNARD, M.A., OF EXETER COLLEGE, AXD RECTOR OF WALCOT. FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION^ WITH IMPROVEMENTS. BOSTON: G-OTJlL.r> J^l^ ID IjIN"COLI^, 59 WASHINGTON STREET. KEW YORK: SHELDON AND C O M P A N Y . CINCIXNATI: G. S. BLANCHARD i CO. 1867. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by GOULD AND LINCOLN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT ROCKWELL & ROLLINS. ■1 ■,!■-• PREFATORY NOTE TO The Bampton Lectures of Mr. Bernard on the Progress of Doc- trine in the New Testament, deserve unqualified commendation ; for they are as nearly perfect both in substance and form as any human production can well be made. The views which they express are fresh and convincing, and the language in which they are presented is clear as crystal, revealing every thought and shade of thought with absolute distinctness. There is not, I believe, a dark or dull sentence in the volume. The argument awakens curiosity, satisfies reason, and strength- ens faith. There is constant progress from first to last, and the reader is made to see that every step in advance is safe, that he is moving steadily forward on solid ground. I have rarely perused a more attractive or instructive work, and I do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the best fruits of biblical study in modern times. No person can read it without having his interest in the New Testament and his knowledge of that wonderful book greatly increased. For the benefit of the general reader, the untranslated sen- tences of the author's edition have, in most cases, been translated, and the Greek itself placed as foot-notes. ALVAH HOVEY. Newton Theological Institutiow, May 1, 1867. vii EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE KEY. JOHN B A M P T O N, CANON OF SALISBURY. . . . "I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chan- cellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for- ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Es- tates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter men- tioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall take and re- ceive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of Eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established forever in the said University, and to be per- formed 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 tlie 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 Oxford, between the commencement ix X EXTRACT FROM BAMPTON'S WILL. of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. '*Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following subjects — to confirm ^and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics— upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice 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 Chris- tian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. ** Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall alwaj's be 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 expgnse of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; 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 bo qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degi'ee of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." PREFACE. The title given to these Lectures may perhaps suggest differ- ent expectations as to their scope. It may appear to some to announce an intention of drawing from the New Testament materials for a historical inquiry into the growth of christian doc- trine, as it took place in the minds and under the hands of the Apostles. To others it may indicate a purpose of showing that the New Testament itself exhibits a scheme of progressive doc- trine, fashioned for permanent and universal use. The Lectures -wdll be found to address themselves not to the first, but to the second of these attempts ; not examining the New Testament collection in order to ascertain the chronological sequence of fiict, but contemplating it, as it is, for the purpose of observing 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 natu- rally to us, as that with which we are familiar in our own Bibles. When tills 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 unwarrant- able stress is laid on an accidental order, which some may regard as little more than a habit of the printer and the binder. The xi XU PREFACE. Lectures themselves ought to give the answer to this idea ; for if the familiar order does exhibit a sequence of thought and a sus- tained 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 Apocalj'pse, are regarded as sev- erally 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 hav- ing an evident doctrinal significance (Lecture II.), and a certain measure of propriety and fitness is attributed to the relative po- sitions 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 arrangement of the books of the New Testament, it does not enter into their design to dis- cuss the subject on its other side, and to treat of the custom of the Church in regard to the order of the canon. Yet this is a point on which, in some minds, inquiry 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 re- membered, that the New Testament was not given and received PREFACE. Xlll % as one volume, but that it grew together by recognition 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 in- stance, that of the relative dignity of the names of their authors, or that of their chronological production or recognition. In fact, this tendency shows itself at once, in the earliest period to which our inquiries are carried back by extant manuscripts, by cata- logues 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 Appendix, by reference to two writers whose works have laid the Church under no common obligations. (^) From that review 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 suffi- ciently recognized by the instinct, and fixed by the habit, of the Church. 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 (1) Numbers icitliin parentheses, in the text, refer to Notes at the close of tJie volume} those ivithout parentheses, to foot-notes, 2 XIV PREFACE. scheme. The first method would be suited to the purpose of jnoving the fact of the progress cf doctrine ; the second, to the purpose of slioidng that that fact involves the unity of a divine plan ^ and therefore the continuity of a divine authority. The hitter purpose appeared the more likely to be practicalh' useful, at least in the present day. The advanced character of the doctrine in some books, as compared with others, is indeed sufficiently obvi- ous, and is not only admitted, but sometimes exaggerated into a supposed incongruity, or even inconsistency, in the views of the sacred writers. It vv^as, 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 reve- lation 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 frastrate the provision Avhich our gi"eat Teacher has made for enduing those that believe on his name with the vigor of a distinct and the repose of a settled faith. One of the most effectual safeguards 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 Testa- ment 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 PREFACE. XV answers prayer. I have need to revert to it now. One who has taken up a subject connected 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 inade- quate 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 bor- row contributions from writers by whom they have been thor- oughly explored. Only a few such additions have been made, as they occurred at the moment. I may be allowed to plead that the circumstances 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 care of a parish of fifteen thousand 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 LECTURES, LECTUEE I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. (page 25.) St. John xvii. 8. Subject proposed. Its connection with the ministry of the word, and \\ith the present tendencies of thought. I. Preliminary positions. 1. There is divine teaching in the Xew Testament — doctrine given by the Father to the Son — by the Son to men. 2. The divine teaching coincides in extent with the Xew Testament. Not to be restricted to words of the Lord in the flesh. Effect of such restric- tion. Forbidden by the Lord's words. Not to be extended througli the whole Christian age. Progress 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 progres- sively developed. IT. Outlines of the sub.tect. 1. EeaUty of the progress of doctrine. Visible in the Old Testament — in the New Testament. 2. Stages in the progress of doctrine in the New Testament — marked by Gos- pels, Acts, Epistles, Apocalypse. 3. Principles of the progress of doctrine in the New Testament— constituted by the relations of the doctrine (a) to its Author, (6) to the facts on which xvii XVIU CONTENTS. it is founded, (c) to the human mind, (cZ) of the several parts of the doc- trine to each other. Survey of the New Testament as a progressive scheme. LECTURE II. THE GOSPELS. {page 53.) 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 Testa- ment 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. Communica- tion 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 of 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 designer. 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. LECTURE in. THE GOSPELS. {page 77.) Heb. \\\. 3. The Lord himself the first Teacher. His personal teaching iu the Gospels is Initiatory. cox TENTS. XiX I. 1. Includes the substance of all Christian doctrine. Its occasional character — but the occasions pre-ordained. Instances of pregnant sayings. 2. Tet does not bear the character offinaUtjj, — a. in its form — 6. in its method — c. 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 doctrines of Forgiveness of sin and Acceptance in prayer. II. 1. Is a visibly progressive system. Comparison of the first and the last dis- courses, Matt, v.-vii. and John xiv.-xvii. 2. Tet declares itself incomplete, and refers us to a subsequent stage of teach- ing. Transitional character of the last discourse. Plain assertions of incompleteness. Promises of things to be spoken after. The personal teachings 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." LECTURE IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. {page 102.) 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. 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 perfecting 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. HcMtual guidance of the Apostles by the Holy Ghost. Nature of the gift at Pentecost — shown, from the promise, from the facts, and from the XX CONTENTS. testimony of the Apostles, to have involved the Gospel itself. Hence a divine authority attaches to the whole Apostolic teaching, in its interpre- tations 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 members of the Church to receive it. LECTURE V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. {page 127.) Acts v. 4 2. 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 evolu- tion of doctrine. I. It gives the general character of the christian doctrine in its second stage. 1. 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 resurrection as the source of life. Progress of doctrine in the summing up and exposi- tion of the past. II. It GIVES THE COURSE OF EVENTS through wliich 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 — Jndaizing attempts negatived and superseded; 6. The Gospel is the hi ir CONTENTS. XXI of the iazo— inheriting its ideas and its Scriptures. St. Paul's conflict for these positions. Largeness of the results deduced from them in the Epistles. Yalue of a divine summing up of the meaning and eflects of the manifestation of Christ. LECTURE VI. THE EPISTLES. {page 151.) 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 presented the Gospel as a system, but, 1, in its external aspect — all the discourses 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— indicates fel- lowship — addresses itself to actual life, and various conditions of mind. II. Method. One of reasoning, interpretation of Old Testament Scriptures, utterance of jersonal feelings and convictions — is a method of association ratherthanof authority, of education rather than of information, yet per- vaded by authority, aud blended with direct revelation, III. Authorship. Chiefly that of St, Paul, who had 7iot 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 showing 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. (1) St. Paul's Epistles, grouped and character- ized, form a body of doctrine, (2) Need and eflect of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (3) The Catholic Epistles confirmatory and supplementary. The Epistles a provision for the exigencies of the christian life. The exigencies must be known— the provision must be used. XXll CONTEXTS. LECTURE VII. THE EPISTLES. {page 177.) 1 Cor. i. 3 0. The doctrine in the Epistles, as a stage in advance of the doctrine in the pre- ceding books, is distinguished by I. Its General Character — a doctrine of the life in Christ— shows the ful- filment, 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." Discrimina- tion 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 teiis 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 Epistles. The form of it fuller — the ground of it clearer. A new sense of it from the gift of the Spirit. (3) Doctrine ofioorshlp — ih the Gospels — in the Epistles. Plainer revelation of access by sacrifice — by mediation — in the Holy Ghost. (i) 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 personal duty in regard to it. LECTURE VIII. THE APOCALYPSE. {page 200.) Rev. X X i. 2. The Apocalypse fulfils the promise, " He shall show j-ou things to come" — and completes the line of history and prophecy. Is related to the last discourse in St. JIatthew, as the Epistles are to that in St. John. The Lord himself is still the revealer. CONTENTS. XXm Connection between the progress of prophecy and the progress of doctrine. Doctrinal bearing of the book in I. The avaxt which it supposes — concerned Avith 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 indi- cations of its actual history. In the later epistles the tokens and revela- tions of the future grow darker. Thus a want has been created which de- mands a further word of God. State of mind to which the Book is ad- dressed. II. The satisfaction which it pPvOVIDES — 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 Sacrifice, — implied by " the Lamb," as the Apocalyptic name of Clirist. 2. A doctrine of the History of the consummation — showing the inner nature of events — by connecting things seen with things not seen — by present- ing the eartli as the battle-field 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 tlie 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 Vic- tory of the Lord — and of his people. 5. A doctrine oi Judgment. "The Prince of this world is judged.'' Judg- ment 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 tj-pe of society in its maturity. Fail- ure of earthly societies to realize the ideal. Kealizaticn 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 eflected by the Gospel. Other systems have despaired of human society. Completeness of the Bible in providing for the perfec- tion 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. THE " "^ PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. LECTUEE I. THE NEW TESTAIMENT. I HAVE GIVEN UNTO THEM THE WORDS WHICH THOU GAVEST ME.— St. John xvii. 8. On the truth of this sa3dng stands the whole fabric of creeds and doctrines. It is the ground of authority to the preacher, of assurance to the believer, of existence to the Church. It is the source from which the perpetual stream of Christian teaching flows. All our testimonies, instruc- tions, exhortations, 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 inquire concerning them. It is a sec- ondaiy 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 wants 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 3 25 26 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. attended by an incidental necessity for extensive and va- rious discussion. Tlie 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 guid- ance of God, I shall submit to j'ou 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 pages are opened, they present, not the exposi- tion of a revelation completed, but the records of a revela- tion in progress. Its parts and features are seen, not as arranged after their development, but as arranging them- selves 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 preparation and completion, whereby various and vital relations are consti- LecT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 27 tuted 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 ap- preciated, if the doctrine, which the Book jields upon the w^hole, is to be firmly grasped by the student or fairl}^ pre- sented by the preacher. In this way the subject of progressive teaching in Scrip- ture is implicated with the living ministrj^ of the Church. How it is affected by the present tendencies of sacred criti- cism there is no need to explain, for it is known to all that the studies of our day are directed to a minute and la- borious examination 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 subject, we have cause to be thank- ful that the progressive character of revelation is thus coming more distinctly before the mind of the Church. In regard to any subje'ct 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 writ- ten 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 canoni- cal 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 28 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. words are necessaiy, 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. 1. That by doctrine shall be here meant divine teaching, or truth as communicated by God. 2. That the course of divine teaching under the Chris- tian 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 ex- planations as time will allow, I will close 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. 1. First, then, I assume that the doctrine here spoken of is divine teaching, and that by its progress is meant a systematic advance in its communication from God. That some doctrine contained in the New Testament 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 intermediate channel, are absolutely and incontestably di- vine. Over and above these discoveries of the mind of God which are contained in the natural order of things, and which we raa}^ discern by an intuitive faculty or infer by a reasoning process, we have that, which, in the clearest, LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 29 fullest, strongest sense, must be called the " word of God." Na}^, he has not only given us a word; he has done more, he has given us words, ^ separate, articulate, definite com- munications, 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 Proph- ets testified, when the}^ spoke, that " the word of the Lord came to them ; " and the testimony was authenticated of God and accepted of men. But the communications made through them were only introductory. " In sundr}' 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 suc- ceeded by him who is himself the " Word of God." He became man, and stood forth 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 but "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 showed 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 1 prJuaTa, 30 THE PEOGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. received the words of God, it Avoiild be impossible to con- ceive a higher authority, a more plain assertion, or a more unqualified statement. On this point I need say no more. My only purpose in touching it has been to refresh in j^our minds the remembrance, that the doctrine about which we inquire is, in some part of it at least, truly and incontesta- bly divine. 2. More perhaps needs to be said in order to justify the next step which I would take, in the assumption that the course of divine teaching coincides in extent Avith the Scrip- tures of the New Testament. Have I the right to extend the course of divine teaching so far ? 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 com- pelled to extend our thoughts to a progress of doctrine car- ried on to the end of time. In neither of these cases will the course of the divine communication of Christian truth coincide Avith 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 LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAIVIENT. 31 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 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? Or is it also true of other words ? words for instance which he gave after he was risen? or, again, words which he gave after he was glorified ? To those who would study the evolution of doctrine in the New Testament this question is of vital importance, for if, after we have passed the first stage of teaching, the au- thority which we recognized there is withdrawn, our treat- ment 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 free- dom of opinion when we are left with his followers. Only at first shall we tread securelj^ 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 thus form only the first chapter of the history of the Church, separated from its subsequent chap- ters by a much narrower interval than that which marks 32 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. 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 indi- vidual apprehensions, modified by the personal character and historical position of those who formed them. They would therefore be liable to such deductions on these ac- counts as historical criticism might suggest, and would re- main rather as warrants for various explications by other minds and in other ages, than as fixed canons of the truth forever. 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? 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 be- longs to the discourse in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of St. John, must come more distinctly into view at a later stage of our inquiry. It is now sufficient to refer to it in passing, as 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 teach- ing 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 doc- trine in its communication from God as extending, not only over one stage in which it was delivered by the Lord in the Lect. T. the new testament. 33 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 line of broad demarcation, separating those words from all others whatever. But that very voice forbade the act, and admonished us that, when it should seem to have ceased, it must yet be recognized 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 inquiry which lies before me. But a second question is waiting for me now. If I see that the proposal to restrict the divine authority to the com- munications of the Lord's own lips has been negatived by himself, I am left to extend that authority to communica- tions from the lips of men. Then where am I to stop ? Am I any longer within the limits of the New Testament? I have looked forth on the ocean. Am I, or am I not, actu- ally launched upon it? 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 re- hearsed 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 appre- hension by man. The great transition from the one stage 34 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. to the other is exhibited before our e^^es as alread}' 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 combination with the processes of human thought and the variations of human feelings, in association with pecu- liarities 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 subsequent history of doctrine in the world, that is, of Church histor}^, in its essential and inward character? Certainly it is so; and therefore the Acts and the Epistles stand to the ecclesiasti- cal historian as the first chapters of his work, for there he alread3^ finds 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 distinctly ex- hibited through the agency of men and the instrumentality of facts. And this is a process which goes on through de- scending ages, and in which every generation bears its part. It has gained accessions from all those varieties of the hu- man mind which have been placed in contact with revealed truth, from the idiosyncracies 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 religion, from Italy and England, from Germany and Geneva, from au- thority and inquir}^, from Church and Dissent. These words and others like them represent the varying measures of ap- prehension, and the varjdng kinds of expression, which the Gospel revelation has found among men. The " Develop- LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 35 ments of doctrine " (to use a word which some time since was very familiar to many of us) — the developments of doctrine thus originated were the joint product of the re- Tealed truth and the condition of the .mind which received it. The revealed truth was one, but the conditions of the human mind are infinitely various, and hence an endless variety in the developments themselves. — a variety which sometimes melts into a higher harmonj^, but more often jars on our ears in irreconcilable discord. I am not here concerned with the degrees in which differ- ent developments have represented or perverted truth, and in which thej'' have more conspicuously exhibited the ele- ment of the divine truth or that of the human infirrait3^ I would only obsei^e that through all this confusion there is in some sense a progress of doctrine. Even by misappre- hensions and perversions the relations of the "Word to the human mind are more perfect^ disclosed. In partial S3^s- tems of religion those parts of the entire scheme which they have more particularly adopted often come to be seen under '4 a stronger light. But especially it is evident that certain great features of truth emerge from periods of conflict and the driving mists of controvers}^, and swell upon the sight with outlines more defined and a power more recognized than had seemed to belong to them before. The names of Athanasius, Augustine, and Luther, recall in a moment ^ 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 apprehensions of men, affecting of course by their increased definiteness and ex- 36 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. pansion the proportions of the whole body of truth. These however are only prominent instances of a general and continuous fact. Every age, every Church, every sect, every controversy, in some way or other contributes some- thing to the working out, the testing, or the illustrating of some part of the revelation of God. Our English mind has borne its part, and the religious movements of our own day will deposit some residuum of materials for future thought and knowledge. Our missionary 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 addi- tions to the history of doctrine, as we recognize 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 in- firm 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 advanced, the defini- tions of it becoming more exact, the construction of it more systematic, and the deductions from it more numerous. Thus the history of the apprehension of Christian truth by man, which commences within the New Testament, 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 separation between the apostolic period and all the subsequent periods LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 37 of this history? It is this — That the apostolic period is not only a part of the history of the apprehension of truth by 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 reall}^ is, a revelation of what he intended that it should be in the minds of men forever. Tliis char- acter of the apostolic writings has, without variation of testimony, been acknowledged by the Church from the beginning ; but this acknowledgment has been confined to these writings, and has never been extended to subsequent expositions or decrees. Councils and doctors have claimed a right to be heard, only as asserters and witnesses of apos- tolic 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 ma}^ appear to be) other authority is based upon the fact, asserted or implied, that in the quar- ters appealed to there was reason to recognize some special connection with the apostolic teaching. This fact, more- over, comes out most clearl}^ at those moments in which (what might be called) an adyance of doctrine is seen most evidently to take place. If the doctrine of the Nature of Christ shows a new distinctness and firmness of outline after Nice and Constantinople, yet that form of the doc- trine professes to be, and when examined proves to be, only 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 38 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. 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 preten- sions by the plea of an imaginary tradition, descending from the daj^s when it was confessed that the communica- tions of God had been completed. Our own days have seen fresh evidence of the tenacity with which the Romish Church holds to this theory, 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 accumu- lating 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 exposi- tion of such a theory began in this pulpit, and was com- pleted 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 determine 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 revela- tion of the truth was not to be violated. 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 tradi- tion could be found. The gift thus ascribed to the " Infallible Authority " 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 abandoned by those who LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAJVIENT. 39 offered, hut have not been suffered to hold it ^^^ ; and we are still able to say, that only in transient moments of en- thusiasm, and by some insignificant and eccentric sects, has there been any definite allegation, that doctrinal com- munications 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 da}- s of his flesh ; they include other words, afterwards given through men in the Spirit, during a period of time which is repre- sented 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 onl}'- cannot be shown to belong, but has never been sup- posed to belong, to any words which have been spoken since. On these three points the judgment of the Church has been all but universal and unchanging. In speaking there- fore of progress of doctrine in the New Testament, I speak of a course of communication 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 con- stitute the only representation of it for all men and for- ever. I have now to add that they give the representation, 40 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. not only of its substance, but also of the p?an on which it was progressively matured. It must here be remarked that there are two ways in which we may exhibit the progressive development of any sj'stem 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 charac- terized as the historical^ the other as the constructive method. In the one case we inquire 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 produced in the other would be rather governed by the order of thought. Xow if we consider the New Tes- tament as representing a progressive development of doc- trine, it is so in the latter sense more than in the former. It is rather a constructive than a simpU^ historical represen- tation. For instance, in the development of the manifesta- tation 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 properl}^ coalesce into a sepa- rate whole, as bringing out a view of that manifestation, which is an advance in the order of thought upon the view which the sjmoptic Gospels present. So in a historic rep- resentation of the formation of apostolical doctrine we should have to trace the successive stejos 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 labors. On the other hand, the purposes of a constructive representation may be better LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 41 served by keeping the records of the external activity of the Church separate from its directly doctrinal writings, or by placing those doctrinal writings in a different order from that of their chronological production. Thus the New Tes- tament, 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 ade- quate 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 the prog- ress of doctrine as it actually was during the time which the New Testament covers, and the representation of it which we have in those particular writings. Yes ! and there would be a difference between the actual course of some important enterprise, — say of a military campaign for instance, — and the abbreviated narrative, the selected documents, and the well-considered arrangement, by which its conductor might make the plan and execution of it clear to others. In such a case the man who read would have a more perfect understanding 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 his- torical development of truth was guided, is also the virtual author of that representation 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. Trac- ing the course of doctrine as it is seen to advance through those pages, we shall have no need to reconstruct for our- selves the actual order in which the truth was historically developed. "Whatever were the measures and gradations 4* 42 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. 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 forever. Indeed, the plan on which the Lord perfected his promised teaching was one which could only be seen in retrospect. Conducted through the medium of persons 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 inquired for in oth- ers, 3"et the decision was of the Lord, and destined for the whole bod}^ A transient occasion demanded the interfer- ence 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 recognized, and their relative order discerned. To exhibit this plan of things there was need, not of a mass of acci- dental records, but of a body of records selected and ar- ranged. 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 occasional. 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 author) finds himself oppressed, LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTA^IEXT. 43 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 sev- eral books seem to have grown into their places as compo- nent 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 prepared 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 regu- lated. 1. The reality of this progress is very visible ; and more especiall}^ so when we regard the New Testament 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 heav- ens and the earth " — " Even so, come, Lo^jl Jesus." How much Y\4^ between these two ! The one the first rudiment of revelation addressed to the earliest and simplest con- sciousness of man, that, namel}- , 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 interven- ing teaching has made it ; the expr^ion of the definite faith which has been found, and of the certain hope which has 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 different rates of progress in the two stages which divide it. In the Old Testament the progress is protracted, interrupted, often languid, some- 44 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. times so dubious as to seem like retrogression. Accessions take place in sundry parts, in divers manners, at times un- der disguises of earthly forms, seeming to suggest mistakes, which have to be themselves corrected. Yet through it all the doctrine grows, and the revelation draws iwarer 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 unbroken. 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 delaj^s, or develop itself by languid progression. The root was long before it showed the token of its iH-esenccjithe stem and leaves grew slowly, but yes- terday the bud emerged from its sheath, and tdftlay it is expanded in the flower. A swift course of events, the period of one human life, a few contemporary writers have 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 liafe been observed, a plan of progress though its course is swift, and I would take note first of its stages and then of its principles. 2. Its stages 1 do not now examine ; but just mark them ofi" as they catch the eye. First we are conducted through the manifestation of Christ in the flesh : we see and hear and learn to know the living person, who is at once thQ LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 45 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 accom- plished 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 accumulation of facts, but at a certain point a gi*eat change occurs, which is visible to every eye. It is the point where we pass from the sjmoptic 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 recognize the glory of the person of Chiist, with a con- sciousness not changed but more distinct, with acknowl- edgments not new but more articulate. In the former Gos- pels 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 b}^ the three disciples, who had walked conversing by his side, and then suddenly ^w his countenance altered and his raiment white and glistering. Such is the efiect upon our minds, not merely of the last Evangelist's own expressions, but of that selection of words and acts which it was his commis- sion 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 46 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. the lips of the Incarnate Word, and are remitted to the discourses and wi'itings 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 invis- ible 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 introduc- tion 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 increased. Its more mysterious parts are seen expanded and defined. Statements which might seem of doubtful meaning in the former stage have found 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 recognized relations with the feelings and necessities of man. The nature and conse- quences of the work of Christ on earth, the offices for men which he now fulfils in heaven, the living relations which he bears to his people in the Spirit, the discoveries of his majest}^ and communication of his glory which are ready to be revealed in the last time, all these are seen in the apos- tolic 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 life in the Spirit LeCT. I. THE NEW TESTA^IENT. 47 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 pro- phetic book which follows transports us into the unseen world, and opens the temple of God in heaven, and shows us the connection of the historj^ of the Church with things above and things below ; and guides through the dim con- fusion of the conflict to the last victory of the Lamb, leaving us at last among the full effects 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 inquire 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 autlior 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. Secondly, it is made clear by his own ^ 48 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. promises beforehand, by facts which evidence his personal administration, 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 testimo- nies of this are scattered along our wiiole path, till we come to the last vision itself, in wiiich he personally reap- pears, *' to show unto his servants the Revelation which God gave unto him," renewing thereby for the last time the assertion of our text, " I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." b. The relation of the doctrine to the facts on which it is founded is a principle by which a certain measure of prog- ress is necessarily constituted. Christian 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 therefore reasonable that the facts should be / completed, before they are clearly interpreted and fully ( applied. Jesus must have died and risen again before the Sdoctrine concerning his death and resurrection can be brought to light. Not till the Son of Man is glorified can we expect to arrive at a stage of doctrine which shall give all tlie 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." c. The relation of the doctrine to the human mind does also plainly necessitate a particular kind of progress 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 announce- LeCT. I. THE KEW TESTAMENT. 49 ment into the form of a human experience. It had to es- tablish its own connection with the world of human thoughts and feelings. Once spoken by the mouth of the Lord, it 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 consequences 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 ordinar}^ resources at so critical a moment. He would give a divine certainty and authority to the first human appre- hensions 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 applications might be guided and tried forever. Therefore 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 teach- ing which carried his word into more intimate connection yrith human thought and more varied application to human life. d. Lastly, the relation of the several parts of doctrine to each other would call for a certain orderly course of devel- opment. There is a natural fitness that the knowledge or the Lord himself should precede the knowledge of his workJ 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 life ; embracing the meritorious 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 mo- tives of conduct should afterwards be elicited. It is right 6 50 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. 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 kingdom of an inward and spiritual grace, and then that we should be subse- quently 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 Apocalj^pse. Lift up now your eyes on this monument of a distant age which you call the New Testament. Behold these remains of the original literature of a busy Jewish sect ; these occa- sional writings of its leaders, emanating from different hands and gathered from diff'erent localities. They are delivered to you collected and arranged, though by means which 3'OU cannot ascertain. They are before you now, not as acci- dentally collected writings, but as one book ; a design com- pleted, a body organized, and pervaded by one inward life. The several parts grow out of and into ea(jh other with mutual support, correlative functions, and an orderly devel- opment. It is a " whole body fitly joined together and com- pacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making in- crease of the bodjT^ to the building itself up " in truth. 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 degrees to behold his glor}^, 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, Lect. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. • 51 and carries us into the life of his people, yea down into the secret places of their hearts ; and there translates the an- nouncements of God into the experiences of man, and discov- ers 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 shows 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 resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment, and the new creation, and the life everlasting. Thus it is furnished for all emergencies and prepared for perpetual use. It dominates the restless course of thought, and is ever being interpreted by experience and CA^ents. It is an authority which survives when others perish, and a light which waxes when others wane. By it, as the i^istru- ment of God for the education of men, nations are human- ized and churches sanctified. And yet more real and last- ing 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 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 combination with that older volume which it continues and completes. Then is it not to each of us a matter of the deepest per- sonal 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 partaker in the life w^hich it reveals, an example of the character which it demands, and an inheritor of the portion which it promises? But 52 . THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I. this cannot be, unless he yield to the Written Word the confidence which it claims. Oh ! deal worthily, deal trust- fully 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 message, 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 Scripture will never cease to minister, and which the Holy Spirit will never cease to guide. LECTURE 11. THE GOSPELS. THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. — St. Mark i. 1. With reverential and affectionate interest we look back to the beginnings of those things which possess our alle- giance 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 fresh- ness to the feelings with which we regard them ; while the comparison of the state of commencement with the state of perfection bikings with it a natural pleasure, in mariiing 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 opening of the mystery of godliness, of the salvation of the world, of the glory which fills the heavens, and of the kingdom which endures forever. The expression with which St. Mark opens his narrative implies that the Gospel is then an established 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 show itself as in actual progress. The beginning of the Gospel (according to this Evangelist) is not found at the birth of Jesus, when the communications of Heaven were made but to few, and died 54 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. suddenly into silence ; but from the time when John did baptize in the wilderness, and when Jesus began to show 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 publica- tion 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 ; ^ and St. Paul, in presenting to the Jews "the word of this salvation," dates its proclamation from the time " when John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel." ^ But the expression which is used in the text of the open- ing of the public life of Jesus may also be truly applied to the whole period of that life. The Gospel, considered as fact^ began from the Incarnation, and was completed at the Resurrection ; 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 per- fect, 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 j)er- fection 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 lActs X. 36, 37. 2 Ibid. xii. 24. Lect. II. THE GOSPELS. 55 Gospel of Christ, they would remember how that Gospel dawijed graduallj^ on their minds during the few years in which its facts had been passing before their eyes, how im- perfectly 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 after- wards. 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 ful- filled, and which could not be fully opened till it had been fulfilled. While the facts were still incomplete, the doc- trine was 3"et in its commencement ; and we have on this account the right to describe by the words of the text, not only VnQ first steps but the icJiole of the manifestation 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 represented by the writings of the four Evangelists ; and I would now con- sider 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 teach- ing which bears within its own limits a certain character of S3^stematic 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 rever- ence with which the fourfold Gospel must be ever touched 56 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. 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 collec- tion is fitted to its place and fulfils its function, as the com- mencement of the Christian doctrine in the Neio Testament, Now the Christian doctrine is a doctrine concerning 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 necessary for every learner that, before all inferences or ap- plications, the facts themselves as mere phenomena should first be rendered in the clearest light. Hence our elemen- tary lessons are narratives of the simplest form. A plain report of words and deeds, eas}^ and inartificial in the ex- treme, in which the most stupendous events elicit no articu- late expression of feeling, without appearance of plan or sj^stem, with scarcely a comment or reflection, and in which a word of explanation almost startles us — such is the char- acter 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 comment, 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, unclouded and scarcely colored by any perceptible contribution from the mind of the writers, gives us the scenes, the facts, and the person, LeCT. II. THE GOSPELS. 57 as seen in the clearest light and through the most transpa- rent atmosphere. Who can fail to recognize a divine pro- vision 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 Chiist the Son of God?" The importance, in the whole course of instruction, of first fixing on the mind both the objective reality 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 exhibit 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 circumstantial detail. We do not go forward to further disclosures, till the historical facts have been insured to us by testimony upon testimony, and the portrait has grown familiar to us b}^ 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 show unto you that eternal life, 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 us." ^ Yes, it is true. We have fellowship with those that 1 1 John i. 1-3, 58 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. Lect. II. 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 3'et with them. Their 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 shown us his hands and his feet. We have been led out as far as to Bethan}- , have seen the hands lifted up to bless, and watched the ascending form. Open these pages where we will, the sense of reality re- vives 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 Redeemer is our friend. We are sol- emnized 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 disconcerted, 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 especially upon those who converse in the region of abstract ideas, whether they fre- quent 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 necessary to the student and the divine ; for there are influ- LeCT. II. THE GOSPELS. 59 ences in abstract thought and in dogmatic discussion which will drain the soul of life unless fitting antidotes be used : and there is no antidote so efiectual, as is found in a con- tinual 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 evangelical narratives is a suflScient proof of the wisdom which assigned them the place and the space which the}^ 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 maj'- use the expression) feel more at home, in the four successive cham- bers than we should have done in one long gallery ; and the impression of all that is there shown to us sinks deeper into the heart, from the repetition of many passages of the story under slightly varying lights and in different relative con- nections. Lively attention, minute observation, careful comparison, and inquiry which is never fully satisfied, are awakened at every 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 per- petuall}^ refreshed. We know the immense expenditure of labor in our own day on the comparative characteristics of the Gospels, and the manifold attempts to harmonize 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 60 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRIXE. LeCT. II. 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 themselves, and almost elude our attempts to ascertain them, but y^i result in giving four discriminated aspects of their common subject, as the Royal Lawgiver, 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 same. ^^^ 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 different quar- ters, and the image is still the same. It is represented from four different points of view ; but, however repre- sented, it is the same Jesus. The conception 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, possess of the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee. From time to time some fresh portrait may appear. Some adventurous imagination, charmed and yet perplexed by the Gospel story, may attempt to reconstruct it in ac- LeCT. II. THE GOSPELS. 61 cordance with the spirit of the world. Unable to receive as real the sole example of sinless hiimanit}^, it may intro- duce 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 tJie 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 accordance with the spirit of those books and of the whole ensuing system of doctrine. Jesus Christ 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 he 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,'* ^ he " is our life,"=^ he is "the hope of glory."* " He of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica- tion, and ' redemption .-' ^ and they who are saved "are made partakers of Christ,"^ not merely of his gifts, whether they be gifts of grace or glory. Is it not indeed 1 John xl. 25. 2Eph. 11. 4. 8Col. iii. 4. 4 Col. 1.27. 5 1 Cor. i. 30. «Heb. ill. 14. 62 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IT. the distinguishiug 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? that under it the believer is, not the man who maintains the doctrine of the Trinit}^, or holds "justifica- tion by faith," but the man who has " come to " Christ and " abides in" him? These are the Lord's own words : they are fundamental 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 doctrine as to the nature of Christ or as to the work which he does. They present to us the Lord Jesus himself, as he showed himself to men in order to win their confi- dence 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 com- prehend 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 ac- ceptance 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 ad- vancing doctrine. 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 LeCT. II. THE GOSPELS. 63 believed before a miracle had been shewn. It was imputed as a fault, " Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe :" ^ and it was a condescension to inferior spiritual sensibilities when the simple words "Believe nie"^ were changed to " Or else believe me for the very works' sake." As it was with those disciples, so also is it with ourselves. The evidential works have their own most important, most necessar}' office : but the Lord himself is his own evidence, and secures our confidence, love, and adoration, by what he is more than what he does. We pass on from the Gospel histories into a dispensation of invisible ofiices and spiritual relations, and we cany with us the personal knowledge of him by whom these offices and relations are sustained. It is this which secures that thej^ should not be to us a system 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 Sycliem, receiving sinners, preaching to the poor, comforting his friends, and suffering little children to come to him. With an acqaintance already formed, a confidence alread}^ 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 righteousness 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 1 John iv. 48. 2 ibid. xiv. 11. 64 THE PEOGKESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. knawTi JiimseJf, we are ready for the Spirit to take of the things which are his and show them to us. II. Our reflectioDs hitherto have turned upon the relation which the Gospel collection bears to the whole New Testa- ment, and we have looked at it as the beginning of a course of doctrine extending through the books which follow. It is now further to be noted, that its own separate luork is itself fulfilled on an ajyparent j^lcin of ^progressive develop- ment, which is constituted by the relative characters of the Gospels viewed in the order which they have habitually assumed. (1.) The collection is divided into two parts by a line of demarcation perceptible to every eye and recognized in every age ; the first three Gospels forming the one part and the fourth Gospel the other. The former naturally pre- cedes, and in its eflTect 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 plienomena 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 antecedent 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 manifesta- tion of Christ, in that we are familiarized with its ordinary aspect and most frequent characteristics, before our thoughts are riveted on those peculiar passages in which the revelation of glory is most concentrated, and which LeCT. n. THE GOSPELS. 65 serve to interpret all that we had before felt to be im- plied. (2.) Again, if the synoptic Gospels are taken by them- selves, 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 complete portrait of the Lord : each also has its own historical associations, whereby it represents a separate stage in the presentation of Christ to the world. Both the internal characters and the his- torical associations of the several Gospels have been fully wi'ought out by recent writers, and are now generally understood. Yet they must be shortly noticed here, for the due elucidation of the statement that the books in com- bination constitute a progressive course. The record of St. Matthew, ever recognized as the Hebrew Gospel, is the true commencement of the New Testament, showing how it grows out of the Old, and pre- senting the manifestation of the Son of God not as a de- tached 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 of David, the son of 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 fulfilled .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. It sets 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 corresponds to that period in the historical course of 6* 66 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. events when the word was preached to none but to the Jews only/^^ The Gospel of St. Mark is tradition allj- 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 colored 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 mightj^ deed to another with a peculiar swiftness of movement, and yet with the life of picturesque detail. Power over the visible and invisible worlds, especialh^ as shown in the casting out of devils, is the prominent char- acteristic 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 relation to the ex- pansion 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 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 recognize 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 Abra- ham, but the son of Adam; and it carries out the intima- tion by special notice of om- Lord's familiar intercourse Lect. II. the gospels. 67 with human life, his tender s^nnpathies with human feelings, his large compassion for human woes. The preface, ad- dressed to a Gentile convert, indicating the position, of the writer in regard to the facts which he will relate, and speak- ing in the language of classical composition, shows us at the outset that we have passed from Jewish associations to a stage in the histor}^ 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 a Greek mind, then, in some sense, the mind of the world. Its internal character thus accords with its historical posi- tion, as the Gospel of St. Paul, written by his close com- panion, and circulated, we cannot doubt, in the Churches which he founded. As the book of Acts shows us three stages in the outward progress of the Gospel, first within the bounds of Judaism, then in the work of St. Peter, spreading bej^ond those limits in the Roman direction, and finall}^ in the ministry of St. Paul, delivered freely and fullj^ to the world ; so do the sj'Uoptic 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 fortu- itous 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 asserted 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. 68 THE PKOGRESS OF DOCTRINE. Lect. II. (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 con- flicts through which it established its relations to Judaism and to the world, than it entered on those profound and subtile, 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 foundation of the whole Gospel, it would be first to explore this mystery that the activities and subtleties 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 securing 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 pro- duction could co-exist. It must be after a speculative the- osophy had begun to form its language and manifest its aberrations. Yet it must be while the voice of an eye-wit- ness 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 forever 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 LeCT. n. _ THE GOSPELS. 69 first came to Jesus, who followed him most closel}^, who lay in his bosom, who stood by his cross, who believed when others were confounded, who saw with more penetrating 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 Gos- pel according to the Spirit." As the other Gospels respectively make prominent the ideas of law, of power, and of grace, so does this present the glory of Christ. " We beheld his glor}^, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father."^ All the disciples beheld it, but there was one whose pure, lofty, and con- templative 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 minis- tr}^, but in the depths of unmeasured eternity and the re- cesses 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 manifested 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." ^ We have now seen that in the three S3moptic Gospels the representation of Christ, as he lived and conversed amongst men, is carried on by three successive stages, from its first Jewish aspect and fundamental connection with the old covenant to its most catholic character and adaptation to 1 John i. 14. 2 Ibid. XX. 31. 70 THE PEOGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. the Gentile mind ; and that these steps coiTespond to and are connected with the historical stages of advance, by which the Word of Cod 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 the picture which has been presented ; and, further, that this advance also is connected with historical conditions, subsequent in time to those un- der 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 difierences of degree. There is nothing expanded in one book which has not been asserted in another. Take what- ever may seem to j'ou the distinguishing idea of any one of them, and 3^ou find a strong expression of it in all the oth- ers. The Judaism of St. Matthew reaches out to the call- ing of the Gentiles ; and the catholic spirit of St. Luke falls back upon his Jewish origin. St. John, in exhibiting the divine nature of Christ, exhibits only what the others have everywhere implied and frequently affirmed. " The Johan- nean conception of Christ," as it has been termed by some, who would place it in opposition to preceding representa- tions, is in fact their explication and confirmation. In the former Gospels w^e behold the Son of God, proclaimed 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 eye- witnesses of his majesty. The first word in the Temple LecT. n. THE GOSPELS. 71 declares to Ms 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-revela- tion 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, nei- ther 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 antagonistic to "the Johannean con- ception." "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 3^e 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 state- ments, " 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. ^^^ 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 con- ception. The exposition is continuous ; the picture is one. 1 Matt. xi. 27, and Luke x. 22. 72 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRIXE. LeCT. II. 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 shows 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 retrospection 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 characterized b}' unity and progi'ess it has obviousl}^ the appearance of design : and the appearance of design is an argument for its realit}". But icliose design is this, which appears not in the sepa- rate books, but in the collection taken as a whole ? The agents were severed from each other, and wrote as their respective turns of mind and historical circumstances deter- mined. Where then was the presiding mind which planned the whole, and, in qualif3'ing and emploj^ing the chosen agents, divided to every man severally as he would ? By the voice of the Church as a bod}', by the ever-accumulating consent of her several members, an unchanging answer comes down from age to age. The Spiint of the Lord is here. Yes ! the Spirit was to testify of 'Jesus, and the fourfold Gospel is his permanent testimony. In it he has provided that the foundations of our faith should be laid in the region LeCT. n. THE GOSPELS. 73 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 b}^ the simplicity, fully known by the variety, and certainly known by the unity, of the narratives which give to the world the per- petual and gnly representation of its Redeemer. Finally, he has provided that the representation should be com- pleted by a progressive course of teaching, which first fa- miliarizes 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 glor}^ 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 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 glor}^ of the Onlj'-begotten of the Father, but clothed in the poverties and infirmities 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 dispen- sation, and is finished once for all. What did it mean? What has it done ? What are our relations with him now ? and in what way has this brief appearance afiected our 74 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. position before God and the state and destiny of the soul ? What is the nature of the redemption which he has wrought, of the salvation 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 recall 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 partially, as a final communication, or as the commencement of informa- tion to be completed afterwards. This is the subject which will next claim our attention, as the first step in the inquir}^, how the Christian doctrine was added to the Christian facts — the dtvine interpretation to the divine intervention. 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 doctrine ; that it also deposits its material and provides its safeguard. a. The narrative creates the tuant^ 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 sug- gest anxious inquiries which wait for clear replies, and vast speculations which demand a firm direction. b. 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 LeCT. II. THE GOSPELS. 75 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. c. Again, the history deposits the material of the doc- trine ; for that material is nothing else than Chi-ist manifest in the flesh — his incarnation, his obedience, his holiness, love, grace, and truth, his death and passion, his resurrec- tion 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 illustration and its final seal, and that which thej^ 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 knowledge." ^ d. 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 alread}'' 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 methods, iCol. ii. 3. 76 THE PROGEESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. II. which have trained the minds of disciples mainly by schemes of doctrine without the admixture in its due proportion of the ever fresh and healthful element of his- tory. Blessed be the wisdom of God, which 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 onlj^ 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 Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." LECTUKE III. THE GOSPELS. HOW SHALL, WE ESCAPE, IF WE NEGLECT SO GREAT SALVATION, WHICH AT THE FIRST BEGAN TO BE SPOKEN BY THE LORD? — Heb. U. 3. From age to age this question has fulfilled its office. Men, trusting in their immunity from criminal acts, have found themselves confronted b}'- an accusation which they could not answer, and convicted 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 practi- cally neglecting so great salvation ! Not, however, on this question, but on the following 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 corresponding retribution ; but which do so by the mention of a fact which falls into our present line of thought 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 wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will." It began to be spoken hy the Lord. The word of the old covenant is repeatedly declared to have been " received by the disposition of angels"^ — "ordained by angels "^ — "spoken by angels."^ The ministering spirits, the mes- 1 Acts vil. 53. 2 Gal. iii. 19. ^Heb. ii. 2. 77 78 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRrNTE. LeCT. III. sengers and servants of the Lord, were employed to intro- duce thfi preparatory system. On the other hand, the salvation of the new covenant is introduced, not by the servants, but by the Lord in person. His introduction of it was not confined to providing its conditions and founda- tions, by the manifestation of himself, and by the redemp- tion vf hich 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 " spolven" 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 publication. " It began to be spoken by the Lord," ^ 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 commissioned by him for the purpose, proceeded to 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 difierent spirit, if we consider the word spoken by the Lord in person as a finished word, 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 propo- sitions. 1 'A.p)(rfv \apoviToV napiXapav, 2 3,* aTrovaP.L^fWf. 112 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, given to me to you-ward : how that hy revelation he made known unto me the mystery." ^ Between the first and the second of these pairs of texts a very remarkable difference appears. In the first, St. Paul seems to represent his own preaching as a link in the chain of tradition, " I received," " I delivered,"^ : nor yet as the first link, for even the fuller expression, rendered "I re- ceived of the Lord," ^ 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 command- ment. ^^^ St. Paul, therefore, here appears to stand, in respect to the sources of his information, on the same foot- ing 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,* who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." On the other hand, in the second pair of statements, the contrary asser- tion is made, namely, that his gospel was not received from man, nor taught by man, but communicated imme- diately 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 spiritual interpretations ; and the expression, " Gospel which I preached," is used by St. Paul in diflfer- ent places with more immediate reference to the one or the other of these elements. In the passages from the Epistle KaTii aiT0Kn7.v^iv iyvwpiiyf fioi rb fivaT'iO(ov. 2 TrapiXa(Sov,i:apt^wKa. 3 dTTo Tov Kvpiov. 4 ^aOu}i TraptSoirav ,'miv. LeCT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 113 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 manifestation. 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 substance of the doc- trine 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 re- ceived it as direct revelation from the Lord ; and this aflfirmation is made, not merely in respect of the gener^ 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," — "m?/ Gospel" as he elsewhere 10* 114 THE PROGUESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. 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 justification in Christ, which (as a principle) was acknowledged and held before his voice was lieard ; and we learn from his own state- ments, that, for this special work, not only a special com- mission, 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 wit- ness, not of those things which he had heard from others, nor of those things which he had only thought out for him- self, but of those things which his Lord had showed him in personal visits and distinct connnunications, according to the announcement 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 / will appear unto thee." ^ 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 com- missioned 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 con- nect themselves with the agency assigned to him in the ^ Acts XXVi. 16. (if Tt tif^fj iiv Tt d'pQr)ao^ai aoi. LeCT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 115 progress of doctrine ; and the more carefully we examine his history and weigh his language, the more sensibly do we feel ourselves in the presence of that great fact, on the realit}^ of which the faith of succeeding ages has reposed, namel}^, the continued personal administration of the Lord Jesus in founding his Church and perfecting his word. This administration was manifested, as we have seen, by selection of agents, direction of events, angelic messages, visits in visions, special instructions, and distinct revela- tions ; 5^et these numerous interventions 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 nor- mal 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 Jiabitual, not through separitte in- terventions, but through the Holy Ghost dwelling in them. So the promise ran that it should be ; and so in fact it was. The Day of Pentecost is the opening of the second period of the New Testament dispensation. It stands alone, as does the ^ay which now we call Christmas : the one the birthday of the Lord, the other the birthday 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 myste- rious combination with the mind of man, and henceforth the revealing light shines, not from without, but from within. 116 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. " 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 imperfectly apprehended ; for in the dispensation of the vSpirit 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 dispensed 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 fervor and joy, by which we see the men animated in the exercise of their 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 ? 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 springs from which, according to the laws of that nature, the emotions should themselves be quickened! 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 fervor of emotion, so the fervor 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 Lect. IY. the acts of the. apostles. 117 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 departure ? He told his Apostles that the}^ 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 knoidedge 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 show it unto 3^ou." These are plain assertions. It is enough that they were made by him who gave the gift, and certainly knew how to describe it. The rehearsal of these assertions be- longed to the last stage of our inquir}' ; 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 perplexit}' and disorder of thought, an incapacity to understand the things Avhich the}^ hear and see, which we, enlightened from the light which they afterwards obtained, 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 deficicnc}' or to the necessit}^ of the case. They were dealt with accordingl3\ From the moment when they saw their Lord ascend, tlicy were in full posses- sion of all the external facts of which they were appointed to bear witness. But they were not in possession of the 118 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. 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 praj-er. As soon as the promise is fulfilled they lift up their voice and speak. Never were men so changed. Who. does not note the accession of boldness, faithfulness, and fervor ! But these are not separated and unsupported gifts. The^^ manifestly have their origin in the certainty of assur- ance and intensity of conviction. The " boldness " ^ pro- ceeds from " a full assurance ;" ^ according as it is written, " I believed and therefore have I spoken, these also believe and therefore speak." Their clear, firm testimony rises in a moment before the world, never hesitating or wavering, never to sink or change again, onl}^ manifesting more fully, as time advances, the largeness of its compass and the defi- niteness 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 them ; " ^ that their word was " not the word of man but the word of God ;"* that it was "the Spirit that bore witness;"^ that they " preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven;"^ that "things which eye had not seen nor ear heard, and which had not entered 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 tilings which are freely given of 1 rrnporioia. 2 i:Xt]po(popia. 8 Acts XV. 28. ■* 1 Thess. ii. 13. fi 1 John V. 6. 6 1 Pet. i. 12. LeCT. rV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 119 God ;" that they "spoke these things, not in words which man's wisdom taught, but which the Holy Ghost taught ; " and that they " could be judged of no man," because " none knew the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, and thej^ had the mind of Christ." ^ 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 reception. 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 fervor and boldness which preached it, rather it ivas 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 government of God, and of the con- sequences 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 faithful memory. For the second also the same faculty would sufl3ce, but only up to a certain point ; namel}^ as far as they had received and understood the exposition of transcendental truth from the lips of the Lord Jesus. But we have seen that the sal- vation only began to be spoken by the Lord, and that he himself asserted that it would 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 1 1 Cor. ii. 9-16. 120 THE TROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. 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 un- qualified acceptance, but their representation of the sacrifi- cial character and atoning merits of the death, of the life- giving power of the resurrection, and of the meditorial 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 ever}^ man who could take a different view of the words which they repeated from that which they had taken them- selves. ^^^ Thus the whole system of their doctrine would stand (like the image in the dream) on feet part of iron and part of cla}'-, and would not w^ait 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 light, 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 pro- vided them, and we pass into the second stage of New Tes- tament teaching with adequate assurances that he who be- fore taught us on earth, now teaches us from heaven, and that we still "hear him and are taught in Mmy II. We have not then changed our teacher, but lie has changed his method : and I have now to point out the rea- sons of the change, by showing 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 LecT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 121 necessity, because he who had spoken with his lips was now to be received up into gloiy, and could no longer talk with his servants on earth. But though the change might be necessar}^, 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. " Never- theless I tell 3'ou the truth, it is good for 3'ou that I go awa)^ ; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto 3^ou." ^ The change then takes place as an advantags to those who are subjected to it. For them a stage of reve- lation hT?s 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 superiorit}' of the later method consists, as is pointed out by the plain distinction, " He dwelleth imtli j^ou, and shall be in j^ou." Here are two methods appropriated to the two stages of New Testa- ment teaching : and it is clear as daj'' that the second is an advance upon the first. In the one, the teaching power is separated 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 announcements fitted to form the apprehensions of man ; the words, in the other, are expressions of human apprehensions alread}'' formed under the divine agency. The teaching power has thus changed its method, in order to meet the exigencies of a more diflicult stage of instruction. The facts are finished when Jesus is glorified ; the mani- festation of the Son of God is perfect, the redemption is iJohnxvi. 7. 11 122 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRIXE. LeCT. IV. accomplished, and the conditions of human salvation are complete. The histoiy 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 sj^irit, 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 : bj^ voices from heaven, declaring what view men ougid to take of the historj^ which had passed before them, and what their faith and feelings ought to be concerning 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 be to us the messengers of God, only while they tes- tified that the}" had received such and such revelations, and while the}^ recited those revelations to us word for word ; but all their other words would come to us on their own merits, as simpl}" the words of hol}^ and enlightened men. In the other case, we should have Apostles, whose represen- tations of their own view of all which they had heard and seen, whose expositions of their own convictions and feel- ings, and of the processes of their own thoughts concerning the things of Christ, would be to us so many revelations from God of what he intended to be the result of the mani- festation of his Son in human hearts. Who does not see that this kind of teaching would ex- ceed the other in completeness and effectiveness ? It would be more complete ; for we should thus have the word pre- Lect. IY. the acts of the apostles. 123 seiited to us in the final form which it was meant to take, that, namelj', of a loord dwelling in us — a divine announce- ment changed ah'eady into a human experience. It would be more effective ; inasmuch as example is more so than precept, 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 sympath3^ 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 Hol}^ Ghost to the Apostles for the work whereto they were called. I say for the icorJc whereto they v'ere 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 superficial 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 drops descend upon the raiment. All the members have not the same office : — Are all apostles? 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 oflSce, so is the gift. An incommunicable office has an incommunicable gift. An office which is to be solitary 124 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. and supreme in the Church forever has a gift adequate to secure the implicit confidence of long-descending ages. Voices may be heard among us now which tend to im- pair that confidence ; complaints of the distinctive use of the w^ord " inspiration," as applied to the Scripture writers, assertions that '' the Scriptures are before, and above all things, the voice of the congregation." 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 character 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 authority of God, and to certify it to the world forever. 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 testimony ; to the other, that he ma}^ 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 forever. Such was the separate function of the Apostles of the Lord and Lect. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 125 Saviour, a function which they shared with the special messengers of God who went before them, and even with their Lord himself. "Ye are built," said they to their brethren, — " Ye are built on the foundation of the Apos- tles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." ^ The corner-stone is but part of the founda- tion, though it be the first and the chief part ; and this consolidation of the comer-stone with the adjacent founda- tions, as one basement to sustain the building, exhibits in the plainest manner the fact, that the Church, in respect of itsfaitJi, 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 inspiration as be- lievers associates them with the whole Church ; their inspiration as teacliers 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 authorit3\ 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 shows 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 thej' can add nothing, and in which they can change nothing. St. John exhorts those " who have an unction from the Hoh^ One," but as having himself a kind of anointing in which they do not share, whereby he delivers the " message," and the " witness," and the "commandment," which they on their part recognize and accept. No ! the voice that sounds lEph. li. 20. 11* 120 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IV. 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 /rom it.^^^^ 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 sa}^ '' 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 the}^ 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 show that he is so only " by acknowledging that the things which " those appointed teachers " wrote to us are the commandments 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 recog- nize and apprehend the old unchanging m^'stery, still receiving afresh the one revelation of Christ, ever approach- ing, never surpassing the comprehensive but immovable boundaries of the faith once delivered 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. THEY CEASED NOT TO TEACH AND PREACH JESUS CHRIST. — JctS V. 42. 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 ques- tions 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? ar^d then. What is the plan on which, it continues to advance? For a reply to these questions I address myself to that introductory boo'xi which gives us the external history of this part of the dispensation of truth. It is not the func- tion of a historical record to work out expositions of doc- trine, 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 purpose which ought to be more fully recognized than it is. There are works which are done with so natural and gTaceful a facility, that it seems to the superficial observer as if any one could have done them, or as if he who did 127 128 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. them was only guided by casual impulse, while a more careful student Avill perceive that singular gifts were neces- sarj^ to produce the results which seem so easy, and that a comprehensive design and an accurate judgment presided over arrangements 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 animated sim- plicity 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 introduced 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 consti- tuted, gradually detached from its Jewish integuments, and brought to the consciousness of its freedom and catho- licity ; in which it verified its credentials, proved its arms, recognized its destinies, and commenced its victories ; in which impulses were given which would never cease to vibrate and precedents were established to which distant ages would refer ; in which solemn and exciting scenes, marvels and miracles, saintly and heroic characters, their labors, their conflicts, their sufferings, their journeyings, 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 unobserved. It is nowhere announced, and the unconstrained freedom of manner and easy inartificial stjde suggest no thought of it. We seem sometimes to be reading a collection of anecdotes Lect. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 129 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, inquiring mind, his opportunities of information, his " perfect understanding of all things from the very first," his personal intercourse with those " who from the beginning had been eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." We cannot for a moment suppose that his acquaintance with the " Acts of the Apos- tles " 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 w^hich the principle of inten- tional selection is more evident to a careful observer. There is indeed no reason given why one speech is re- ported 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 b}^ 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 company, 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 in Pome, we are given to understand that we have been 130 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. 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 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 thai, whatever amount of design ma}^ be attributed to the author of the " Acts," we cannot ascribe to him the prophetic pur- pose 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? For a reply to this question I would point to three results which the book unquestionably yields. 1. It places in the clearest light the divine authority of the doctrine given during the period which it covers, as a doctrine delivered b}^ those who, for that particular pur- pose, were filled with the Holy Ghost, and were agents of the personal administration 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 doctrine delivered by the Apostles to the world. LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 131 3. It traces the steps of external history through which the doctrine was matured. 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." ^ Similar expressions continually recur : "he preached Christ unto them;"^ "he preached unto him Jesus ;" ^ "he preached Christ in the synagogues;"* they " spake unto the Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus ; " ^ " he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." ^ No such announcements as these are heard in the Gospels. The preaching spoken of there is not of the person but of the kingdom. Jesus comes "preaching the kingdom of God;"^ "preaching the Gospel of the kingdom;"^ and his parables and common teaching 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," ^ and are forbidden to publish the mani- festation of the fact " until the Son of Man be risen again from the dead."^*^ And because of the absence of this per- sonal proclamation by himself or his servants, we find John the Baptist troubled and perplexed, and sending a deputa- tion of his followers in the hope of extracting such a pub- lic declaration ; and the multitude at a later time complain. * ovK knavovro 6t6uaKOvreg Kal evayye2,L^6{ievoL 'Itjgouv rbv 'KpiOTov. 2 Acts viii. 5. ^ i^id, 35. 4 ibi(j. j^. 20. 6 Acts xi. 20. « Ibid. xvii. 18. ' Luke ix. 2. 8 Matt. iv. 23, and Mark i. 14. » Matt. xvi. 20. 10 Matt. xvii. 9. 132 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. "How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly ; " ^ 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 Blessed?" ^ The change in the ]?e3^-note of the preaching is very sig- nificant. Things had been tending towards it.. The pre- sentation 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 teaching 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 concern- ing the kingdom of God and the name of the Lord Jesus : " ^ 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 ex- pounded, testif^'ing the kingdom of God and persuading them concerning Jesus : " and yet again in the closing verse, which describes the two 3^ears' continuous ministry b}" the words "preaching Jhe kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ." ^ Evidently 1 John X. 24. 2 Mark xiv. 61. ^ Acts viii. 12. * Acts xxviii. 23, 31. Atafxaprvpoixevog ttjv ftaaL%eiav tov Qeov, TreldtJV re avTovg tu ixepl tov 'Irjaov. (ver 23.) KjjpvaoLjv t^v (SaaLleiav rov Qeov, KOI diddoKuv TU TTEpl TOV KvpLov 'lj]Gov. (vcr. 31.) Compare this sum- mary of the apostolic teaching at the end of the book with the summary of the last teaching of Jesus at its beginning : 6i' rjfzepuv TsaaapuKOVTa oTZTavofievog avTolg koi ?Jyo)v tu nepl r^f (3aai7u;lac tov Qeov LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 133 on purpose are the two expressions combined in this final summar}', in order to show that the preaching of the king- dom 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 fonnde 1 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 realization con- sists in the unfolding of the truth concerning him, "the things concerning Jesus." ^ The manifestation of Christ being finished, the kingdom is already begun. Those who receive liim enter into it. Having overcome the sharpness of death, he has opened the kingdom of heaven to all be- lievers. Those, therefore, who were once to " tell no man that he was Christ," are now to make " all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ ; " yea, they are to proclaim that fact to ever}'' nation under heaA^en. It is, I apprehend, by this change in the character of the preaching, that we are to explain the surprising diflference in the effect of the preaching, as seen in the Gospels and in the Acts. For some three j-ears, probabl}', did Jesus preach in the Temple, in synagogues, in houses, on the seashore, and by the wayside ; y^t it is obviousl}- but a scant}^ band of professed believers whom he leaves upon the earth, and these too appear possessed but with a dubious and uncer- " during forty days appearing to them and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God." * Tu nepl Tov ^IijGov. 12 134 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. tain faith. On occasion of an important gatliering in Jeru- salem, " the number of names together were about an hun- dred and twenty." ^ The largest number we ever hear of is that mentioned by St. Paul — "above five hundred breth- ren at once ; " ^ and of these, according to St. Matthew, " some doubted." ^ But a few days later Peter lifts up his voice, and " the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." "^ And so the word grows and multiplies, till we hear of " a great company of priests obedient to the faith," ^ and "many thousands® of Jews which believe ; " ^ besides the suddenly-rising, rapid l3'-grow- ing Churches in all parts of the Gentile world. Men have sometimes expressed their wonder at this difference in the effect of the Lord's own preaching and of that of his disci- ples ; and they have been fain to ascribe it to the outpour- ing 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 da}^ of Pentecost received any specicd 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 ensu- ing on their baptism. " Repent," said he, " and be bap- tized every one of 3'ou 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 influ- ence is said to have come. The true reason for the change in the effect of the doctrine 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 1 Acts 1. 15. 2 1 Qqy. XV. 6. 3 Matt, xxviii. 17. * Acts ii. 41. 5 H3i(j Y\. 7. « Literally, myriads. ' Acts xxi. 20. LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 135 me." Christ was not preached before he sufTered ; after he was glorified he was. In the former period, he and his fol- lowers " 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 consideration, seen to enhance it. Only when it is possible fi-eely 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 forever. 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 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 beautj^ of his life, and the attraction of his love. But if this were the main idea of preaching Christ, then certainly the rela- tive 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 gi-acious 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 136 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. 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 proclaimed, 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 restitu- tion 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 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 de- clare the spiritual consequences of his manifestation ; since they carried with them the implication of those three cor- responding gifts, which we celebrate forevermore, saj^ing 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 ad- duced, 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 sermons culminate and close. "Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give re- pentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins ;" ^ " Repent and be baptized every one of yoM in the name of Jesus Christ, 1 Acts V. 31. LeCT. V. THE ACTS or THE APOSTLES. 137 for the remission of sins ; " ^ " Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins maybe blotted out;"^ "Be it known unto 3'ou therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto 3*on the forgiveness of sins ; and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses ; " ^ "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whoso- ever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins." ^ Such is the burden of the apostolical preaching, as ex- hibited 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 sim- ple act of faith, a present cleansing to the conscience, as the necessary qualification for the glor}^ which is to follow. Then, in the next place, that glory is shown to arise from the resurrection of Jesus, as the preparation for it does from his sufi'erings. 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 gener- ally (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 unconsciously 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 » Acts ii. 38. 2 ibi(]^ iij^ 19^ 3 Ibid. xiii. 38, 39. * Ibid. x. 43. 138 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. back upon the resurrection of Christ as involving the reali- zation of the hopes of his people and the fulfilment of all the promises of God. Some have treated as a mere expe- dient for his own deliverance at the moment that one voice which he cried in the Council, " Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the so'q of a Pharisee ; of the liope and resurrec- tion of the dead I am called in question.'" 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 hops 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 chil- dren, in that he hath raised up Jesus again." And when we read his mind upon this subject more fully in 1 Cor. xv., and indeed in the whole of his writings, we see how truly the resurrection of Christ did, in his view, include the realization of all the hopes with which the old covenant was pregnant ; how entirely it was to him the cause and actual commencement, 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 LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 139 delivered iu the Gospels. I say that it is so, inasmuch as it does more than merel}^ testif}^ to the facts of the mani- festation 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 representa- tion of their force and bearing, and the intimation 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 provides for the present necessities of conscience in the forgiveness of sins, and b}^ resurrection which provides for the longings and hopes of the soul in the life everlast- ing. 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 inti- mations rather than the expositions of doctrine. It assists our present inquiry in a manner more appropriate to its historical character, by lajing down for us the course of external events through lohich the doctrine ivas 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 appears! "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to saints that are in Rome, in Corinth, Thes- salonica, Philippi, Galatia, Ephesus, Colossse." Who is this 140 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. 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 hardl}^ 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 Hol}^ Ghost qualif3'ing the men to fulfil the commis- sion 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 ma}^ further add) with eflective sup- ports to our conviction of their genuineness and authentic- it3\ But neither of these functions of the book is precisely that for which we now inquire. Between Gospels and Epis- tles there is need for a connection of a more internal kind. During the intervening 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 Au- thor. 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 LeCT. Y. the acts bY THE APOSTLES. 141 two points questions have been settled, principles carried out, and divinely implanted tendencies disclosed. Espe- ciall}^ have the relations of the Gospel to Jew and Gentile been fixed forever. AYe 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 shows the drift of that current of thought on which we are launched. The death of Stephen is not only an individual martjTdom, like that of James, so briefl}" mentioned after- wards ; it is a great crisis, and stands as such in the narra- tive, 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 of Cornelius we have a detailed statement of the means by which the Lord mani- fested 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 Scrip- 142 THE PROGRESS OF' DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. ture and of fact infers the verdict of God, and issnes the high decision, '' It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to ns." 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 ever3'where they reject and persecute him. Finall}', 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 people. ^ " Believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets, and having committed nothing against the people or customs of his fathers," ^ he and his creed are forced from their proper home. On it as well as him the Temple doors are shut. Last- ly, before the Jews at Rome he closes the long struggle with the peroration furnished him by prophecy : — "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, sajdng. Go unto this people and saj", Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and seeing 3'e shall see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their ej^es have they closed ; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their 1 Not, as some have put it, because Luke happened to be pres- ent. Rather, Luke was present because the scenes and speeches were to be reported. 2 Acts xxiv. 14; xxviii. 17. LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 143 heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto 3'ou, that the salvation of God ^ is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." ^ Now let no man think that the rejection of Jews and ad- mission 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 S3^stems being dealt with in such a waj^, that (so to speak) the texture of living fibre has been lifted unimpaired out of its former covering, leaving behind onl^' a residuum of what was temporary, preparator}-, and carnal. In fact, the doctrine of the Gos- pel 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 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 accuracj") by saying that the Gospel is the substitute for the Law, and that the Gosjoel is the heir of the Laio. a. In sajiug 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 pro- vides 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 1 Acts xxviii. 25-28. 144 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. which it did. Scribes taught distinct!}^, and the people were possessed with the idea, that there had been a law given which could give life, and that righteousness was b}^ that Law. Here was the conviction which had entwined itself with their patriotism and theu- 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 re- ceived Jesus himself as the Messiah, without any material 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 antago- nism of the two doctrines appeared. It was first in the arguments of Stephen, and afterwards in the preaching of Paul, that this particular feature of the Christian system made itself felt in its bearing on the great Jewish error. Hence the passion, the virulence, and the rancor with which the two men were pursued. " This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this hol}^ place and the law " ^ — so ran the accusation against the first martyr : and years afterwards the superintendent 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 place." - False aud odious allegations ! Yet the doctrine of which the two men were the great exponents did really involve a flat contradiction of the prevailing 1 Acts vi. 13. 2 Ibid. xxi. 28. LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 145 Jewish theory about the people, and the law, and that place. "Within the Christian Church the same theory held its ground, 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 faith," ^ or, as St. Peter expressed the same truth, " Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." ^ Still the anxious pastor in his parish, still the self-obser- vant 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 has fortified itself strongly'', and clothed itself gloriously, with the usurped sanctions of God. The Juda- izing doctrine would have perpetuated that usurpation in the Christian Church, and, in so doing, would have neutral- ized the Gospel itself. The keen eye of the selected champion saw in a moment the fatal consequences of cus- toms 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 ordi- nances. 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 discernment and the impulsive vigor 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 con- 1 Eph. ii. 8. 2 Acts xv. 11. 13 14G THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. test in Ihe 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, proclaiming salvation by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not by the works of the Law. h. 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 closel3'-woven system of ideas. These were wrought out and exhibited by it in forms according to the flesh — an elect nation, a miraculous historj', a special covenant, a worldly sanctuary, a perpetual service, an anointed priest- hood, a ceremonial 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 continuation of the covenant made of God with the fathers, the real and onlj' fulfilment of all which was tj'pified 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 recognize its identity : those who were LeCT. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 147 after 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 showed : 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 dishonor 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 dispensa- tion, and not, in one sense, their form also. Their written form it did inherit, unchanged 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 dispensation more truly than to the old, for these scriptures also were now raised to newness of life, and were recognized 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 heaven." ^ This is ever the position of St. Paul, for, as one has truly said, " None of the Apostles has laid such stress upon the Holy Scripture as the Apostle of the Spirit and liberty." ^ And as this appears in his writings, so does it also in the his- 1 1 Peter i. 12. 2 Baumgarten on the Acts, vol. iii. 78 (Clarke's Tr.). * 148 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. tory. From his first reported speech at the Pisidian Antioch/ which bases all upon the Scriptures, 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 Prophets ; " ^ 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 morn- ing 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 without 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 Jesus " * 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 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 mediatorial 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 1 Acts XV. 13, 41. 2 Ibid. xxiv. 14. 8Acts xxviii. 23. * Kom. iii. 24. Lect. V. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 149 fills aud 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 ex- pansion and formation of doctrine. In the Book of Acts we are conversant rather with the providential circum- stances 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, reasonings, debates concerning them, hj events which com- pel their more distinct assertion and test their hidden strength, and by the action of opposing principles, firmly resisted in their fierce assaults, or instinctively rejected in their subtle approaches. This, the common- course of the development and establishment of all principles, is here presented to us as carried on under the manifested guid- ance of the Lord himself; who, by special interventions, raises up the persons, guides the events, and certifies the issues with his own signature and seal. Blessing and praise be unto his holy name, because he has done this ! 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 vavering doctrine 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 13* 150 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. V. 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 pro- ceed, as if the summing up of the manifestation 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 for our justification ; " a Christ who 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 confidence 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 transmitting its testimony to the generation to come. LECTUKE YI. THE EPISTLES. 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 TOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER, AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. — 2?07n. i. 1, 7. These words are the beginning and end of the long super- scription which opens the series of Apostolic Epistles. That superscription forms a close and living union with the pre- ceding 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 testifying 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 characterizes the gospel to which he was separated as that which '"' God had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning 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 res- urrection from the dead: by whom," he adds, "we have received 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 151 152 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. 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 stxinding-point opening the dis- pensation of the Spirit, which has its source and its pledge in the resurrection, and claiming " all nations " for the *' obedience of faith" This witness of continuity is especially important in pass- ing from the apostolic history to the apostolic writings, since the history gains significance from the doctrine, and the doctrine derives authority from the histor}'. The per- sons and events in the Book of Acts are important because the}^ were ordained for the working out of the truth of the Gospel. But icliat 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 sum- maries and indications, and the sketches of doctrines pre- sented to us are taken rather from without than from within. If we except the debate in the council of Jerusalem and the charge to the elders of Miletus, all the discourses reported in this book are addressed to those who are not yet Chris- tians. 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 labor of St. Paul was spent, its absence is really remarkable. We are told how he passed two jears at Ephesus, and a j^ear 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 an- Lect. YI. the epistles. 153 other of the brethren : but no particulars of these preach- ings, teachings, and exhortations are given : and, consider- ing that we have specimens of ever}^ kind of address to those that are icithont, we might well ask why there is no exam- j)le to show how men were taught after they had believed. But they who hold that the scheme of Scripture as a whole is of the Holj^ Ghost will not ask that question ; for they see that this omission is part of a plan, which provides this information for us in a more worthy and perfect way ; namel}', by placing in our hands the collection 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 superscriptions, warn us that we are here in the esoteric circle of doctrine. Whatever prog- ress 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 of Christ in the con- sciousness 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 of the manifestation of Christ have been completed, and have been testified in all fulness and cer- tainty by the witnesses chosen of God. They have not only testified of 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 baptized. They have given this testimony, not as of themselves, but with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, whose witness is united with their own, and whose indwell- 154 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT, VI. ing presence is given also to those who receive the testi- mony, in order to open its meaning and to seal its truth. Thus a lioly Church is formed, which gradually proves itself catholic, and shows at once its power of expansion and its spirit of unity ; and within its protecting framew ork there exists a communion of saints^ a common participation in the same spiritual possessions by all whom a union with Christ has separated and sanctified to God ; and thus men are joined to the Lord and united with each other, and 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 ? Christians exist. Christian communities are formed. Let them now be left to their ordinary and permanent 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 ex- pand. It would have been hard to say with what force they would do so, or in what direction. 2^ow the great ideas of the Gospel are old and familiar ; and the very words which represent them have been sorely battered b}^ 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 latel}^ passed on earth, the present actual relations with heaven which were witnessed to men hy 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 Lect. YT. the epistles. 155 of which it is not easy for us now to estimate. The Father revealed, the Sou incarnate, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven — redemption wrought, salvation given, the resur- rection of the bod}^, the eternal judgment, the second death, the life eternal — new principles of thought, new standards of character, new grounds of duty, new motives, new pow- ers, new bonds between man and man, new forms of human society, new language for human lips — all 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 perversities 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 consequences deduced, under a variety of influences uncon- genial 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 thej^ had received into life and practice. The Lord recognized this necessit}^ 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 believers in Jesus they have received. This is the function in the scheme of divine instruction which belongs to these writings ; and I propose now to note some particular aspects in which their designation and adaptation to it will appear. Without entering yet into 156 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. 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 author- ship, and their relative character. I. The form in which this teaching is given to us is very significant. " The epistolary form," saj^s Bengel, "is a pre- eminence of the Scriptures of the New Testament as com- pared with those of the Old." ^"^ It is a suggestive remark, reminding us of that open commmiication and equal partici- pation 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 letteis to the brethren, let- ters characterized by all that fulness of unreserved expla- nation, and that play of various feeling, which are proper to that form of intercourse. It is in its nature a more fa- miliar communication, as between those who are, or should be, equals. That Qharacter 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 through the rifts of rolling clouds, catching the edges of objects and falling on patches of the landscape ; while, under the settled brightness of the universal and genial day, it is not so much the light that we think of, as the varied scene which it shows. But the fact that the teaching of the Apostles is repre- sented by their letters, is a peculiarit}^ not only in compari- son with the teaching of the Prophets, but with ancient teaching in general, which is perpetuated either in regular LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 157 treatises or in discourses or conversations preserved in writing. The form adopted in the New Testament combines the advantages of the treatise and the conversation. The letter may treat important suhjects with accuracy and ful- ness, but it will do so in immediate connection with actual life. 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 instruction, in which the word of God is to be given to men, not so much in the way of informa- tion, 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 ; Christian commu- nities have been formed ; and men's minds have been at work on the great principles which the^^ have embraced. Some of these principles in one place, and others of them in another, have been imperfectly grasped, or positively per- verted, or practically misapplied, so as to call for explana- tion 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 con- ditions of mind were not individual accidents. Rome, Cor- inth, Galatia, Ephesus, supplied examples of different ten- dencies 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 wa}^, by those letters which are ad- 14 158 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. dressed 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 closeness of application which personal acquaintance dictates 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 corre- spondence 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 comple- tion of evangelical doctrine. The one is in perfect harmony with the other. It is a method of companionship rather than of dictation. The writer does not announce a succes- sion of revelations, or arrest the inquiries which he encoun- ters 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 showing 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 b}^ authority, deduces his conclusions b}^ pro- cesses of reasoning, and establishes his points by interpre- tations and applications 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 quota- LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 159 tions. The more we enter into the spirit of the particular passages which have been thought to require that qualifica- tion, the more we feel that it can only have seemed neces- sar3% 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 emplo3^ed in reaching them, there is an outward guidance of the Christian mind and a visible purpose to provide such guidance. Consider, for instance, the argument on justification in the early part of the Epistle to the Romans, which accom- plishes every step by the aid of the former Scriptures. Why all this labor in proving what might have been decided by a simple announcement from one entrusted with the word of God ? Would not the apostolic declaration that such a statement was error, and that such another was truth, have sufficed for the settlement of that particular question? Doubtless ! but it would not have suflSced 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 inquiry. It is the same with those records of personal experience, and those efiusions of personal feeling, which teach us how the revelation of Christ tells upon the believer's heart. We see, for instance, in the seventh and eighth 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 con- sciousness 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 sepa- 160 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. rate from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus their Lord. This is not only definite information, it is also effect- ive education, showing the revelation of God as wrought into its ultimate and subjective form ; and assisting by sym- pathy, and ratifying by example, the same processes in other hearts. Yet we should speak amiss, if we represented the educa- tion of Christian thought as carried on in the Epistles onl}' by methods which seem to place the Apostle on the same level with his readers. No ! there is everywhere present, in the lofty and unwavering testimony, the sense of an authority which makes all things sure; and whenever occasions arise, as from Galatian perverseness or Corinthian disorder, it as- serts 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 pro- phetic manner, by definite additions to former revelations ; as when St. Paul informs the Thessalonians, *'in the word of the Lord," ^ 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 apostolical authority and direct revelation diffuse over the Epistles their certainty and their majesty ; but yet the presence of these more com- manding 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 Hol}^ One, that they may know all things."^ The mind of the teacher still enters into a free companionship with the mind that is taught, so as to exercise and educate the spir- itual faculties, at the same time conducting them with de- > 1 Thess. iv. 13-17. » 1 John ii. 20. LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 161 cisive authority to conclusions which they might else have failed to reach. III. Turn now to the autJiorsJiip 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 ? Peter and John, the two chief Apostles ; James and Jude, the breth- ren 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 oflSce of working out the principles of Christian faith into full pro- portions and clearly defined forms was assigned 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 which he had seen with his eyes, and heard with his ears, and his hands had handled of the word of life? We remember the indispensable importance of this qualification for the original apostleship, as ex- pressed 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 bap- 14* 162 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. tism 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 companied with him, or even with them, for one single da}^, the most important, or, at least, the most extensive and enduring part of the apostolic work devolved. The peculiar quali- fications, which in other respects fitted St. Paul for the work whereto he was called, have ever received a just ap- preciation and ample treatment. We can all perceive the active habit, the fervent spirit, the strong will, the warm affections, the tender sensibility, the exercised intellect, the subjective tendencies of thought, the vivid conscious- ness 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 ; finall}^, 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 w^orks, and salvation found by grace through faith, and w^hat is the change in the whole world within, when the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes a man free from the law of sin and death. Perhaps it is commonly felt that these qualifications out- weighed 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 LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 163 say, that his being born out of clue 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 training 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 arrangements 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 Jiis appointed work as the earlier call did with theirs. We are here led to the more distinct observation, that the apostolic testimony was twofold, — first to t\iQ facts of the manifestation of Christ, secondly to its intended conse- quences 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. Modem study traces the distinct outlines, and finds the solid fragment of their oral narratives de- j)Osited in the written Gospels. Still further, St. Luke's preface shows that these narratives were the regular instru- ments of Chi'istian education, " the things wherein " cate- 164 THE PROGEESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. chumens "were instructed."^ This kind of instruction has found its permanent form in the fourfold Gospel. But believers were also to be trained to the full appre- hension of the effects of the manifestation in their own spiritual life. The apostolic teaching on this subject is represented forever 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 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 remembrances. His relations with the Lord only commenced after Jesus was glorified and the dispensation of the Spiidt 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 ap- pearing. In this way it was provided that the two correla- tive kinds of teaching, which the Church received at the first, should be left to the Church forever in the distinct- ness of their respective developments ; 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 1 Aoyoi Trepl uv KarrixV^V^- Luke 1. 4. LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 165 his living ministr}^, 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 of the Church, fulfilling this office through Peter and John, their natural leaders and original representatives, 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 assigned. Had we been permitted to choose our instructors 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 to," ^ 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 recognize 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 ^Galatians ii. 9. 166 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. Lect. VI. since founded, and fully cognizant of its intervening history. Thus, if the collection of Epistles be intended to exhibit the fulness and maturity of Christian doctrine, the selection of its authors corresponds to the 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. 1. The Pauline Epistles appear, with ver}^ small varia- tion, to have been habitual 1}^ ranged in that order in which we read them now ; and it is one which on the whole, and in a certain measure, produces the effect of a course of doc- trine. They fall naturally into groups, which stand, rela- tively 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 corrective and decisive character. They are the voice of the doctor of the Church, expounding with blended argu- ment and authority the meaning and the bearing of the principles of the Gospel which his hearers had already re- ceived ; so as to decide the uncertainties, and correct the divergences, which will always characterize every second stage in the history of truth. When the enjoyment of a new discovery passes into reflection upon it, and im- pressions begin to define themselves in words, and " good tidings " are shaping themselves into doctrines and laws of life, a time of danger and necessity has come. Then the vagueness and the incorrectness of many first impressions LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 167 come to light ; then old habits of thought are found still to survive, and old principles return to enter into damaging or destructive combination v»'ith those by which they had seemingly been expelled. Then, through treacherous arts, 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 forever 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 exposition is not only vital but fun- damental ; namely, the need, the nature, and the effects of the justification 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 ? " is left unsettled; so there can be no solidity for a system of doctrine till the true answer to that question has been distinctly 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 : for what the one does in respect of fact, the other does in respect of doc- trine, 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 168 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. I^ECT. VI. 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 presence of the essential spirit of the world, rising again like a returning tide, the Gospel de- velops 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 insen- sate fashion to the elements of the world and of the flesb. In repelling this tendency, the apostolic doctrine asserts more strongly than ever its character as a revelation of Jesus 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 apos- tolic or Pauline doctrine has established its divine charac- ter ^ and developed its essential features. » In the Romans, by connecting itself with 'the inspiration of the Old Testament ; in the Corinthians and Galatians, by asserting its own (see especially 1 Cor. ii. and Gal. i.) LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 169 The following Epistles differ from this first group in tlie comparative absence of the controversial attitude and of the judicial tone. As those whose minds are now cleared, set- tled, and secured, we readily follow 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 collision with human error, he expatiates in the view of the eternal purposes of God, and of the ideal perfections 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 expounding, confuting, and deciding, but rather a prophet of truth speaking as "one borne along by the Holy Ghost." ^ Yet in both Epistles this high strain passes by the most natural transition into the plainest coun- sels, and in the intervening Epistle to the Philippians the voice is not that of a prophet but of a friend. Finall}^, 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 ele- ment, and sustaining the conflict of faith by the preaching of " that blessed hope " and "the glorious appearing and the coming of the day of God." ^ To this body of doctrine the Pastoral Epistles add their suggestive words, on the principles and spirit of that office, which is at once a government to order the Church and a 1 vnb TTvevnaro^ aytov (j>ep6fievoc. Who can read Eph. i. and il. with- out being reminded of this expression of St. Peter, by the sustained swell and unbroken flow of the thoughts and language ? 2 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. 15 170 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRIXE. LeCT. VI. 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 reminiscences, the ideas, the imagery, and the language which are natural to one who was by origin and training a Hebrew of the He- brews. With all his evangelical expansiveness of spirit, and all his antagonism to the false theory of the Jewish sys- tem, he yet has taught the things of Christ, and presented the universal salvation, under forms of speech 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 ordi- nance, and that its historical relations with the new cove- nant were a divine provision. Still it was of high impor- tance to the clearness and fixedness of the doctrine, that this connection between the two covenants should be deliber- ately shown to consist, not in rhetorical illustration, but in a divinely intended system of analogies. This is the per- manent office of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, if not St. Paul's, is confessedly Pauline, and, apparently on ac- count of its uncertified authorship, has usually taken its place in succession to his acknowledged writings. In its origin LeCT. VI. THE EPISTLES. 171 it evidently belongs to the last hour of transition and decis- ion, when s\t large number of men, who were at once Jews and Christians, stood perplexed, agitated, and almost dis- tracted, as they seemed to feel the gi'ound parting beneath their feet, and hardly knew whether to throw theniselves back on that which was receding, or forward 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 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 relation be- tween its two great stages. But more particularly 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 recognizes the fact that " the word of the beginning of Christ"^ had been enlarged by intervening teaching into a *' perfection," which many of those who are here addressed had sinfully and shamefully failed to receive ; the teachers sent from God having wrought out for them full expositions 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 inter- pretation of the principles of the Gospel, had been accom- plished by means of the true reading of the Old Testament in the light of the knowledge of Christ.^^^ 3. From the Pauline writings we pass to the collection of ' Heb. vi. 1. uEVTec rbv ttjc apxvc tov Xfitarov T^yov ettI ttjv reXetoTTjTa €p6fieda : " Leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us go on to perfection." 172 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. Lect. VI. the Catholic Epistles. For all internal reasons they are better read in the place which they occupy in our Bibles than that in which the older manuscripts generally assign them, preceding the Epistles of St. Paul ; for they are in effect the confirmation and the supplement of his doctrine.^ This character cannot here be proved, and it 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 sub- stance 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 harmonizing with the full development of evangelical doctrine, may appear to belong to an earlier, or rather a retrograde stage ; and if taken as an intended exposition of the essential features of Christian truth, it might be thought to imply an Ebionite view of the Gospel, and even to betra}^ an Ebionite origin. But the careful and candid student sees that the language emplo3'ed distinctly presupposes the evangelical doctrine, and by supplementing other expositions of it does in fact acknowledge and confirm them.^^^^ The harmonj' 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 to the Gentiles, assuring those who had accepted the doctrine that " this is the true grace of ^ See the latter part of Note I. iu reference to this arrangement. Lect. YT. the epistles. 173 God wherein ye stand ; " ' and again, instructing 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 Scriptures."^ On the Gospel doctrine itself, which is thus confirmed, a fresh light seems to be thrown by the spirit of these precious Epistles, the faitJi expounded by St. Paul kindling into fer- vent Jiope 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 admira- tion 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 forever. 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 ourselves 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 gloi-y with exceeding joy." With such charges, warnings, and commendatory prayers is the didactic portion of the New Testament left in our hands. We have now observed its function in the whole scheme of instruction, as addressed to those who have be- » 1 Peter v. 12. « 2 Peter ill. 16. 16* 174 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VI. lieved 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 metJiod 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 ascer- tained conclusions. Thirdly, by the appointment of the chief autJior, 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 spiritual life are met at every point and provided for in natural though informal succession. In concluding this survey I would sugest 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 consequences adopted, and a position in the Christian community assumed — these things seem to sat- isfy the minds of man}^ among us. We see that the word of God does not contemplate so sudden and easy a satisfac- tion. It supposes that the believer in Jesus has entered on a vast world of life and thought. It supposes the exist- ence of inquiries, 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 sup- Lect. YI. the epistles. 175 poses the existence of hiudrances, difficulties, oppositions — things to be struggled through, as well as things to be striven after. What do you know of all this ? Till j^ou do know something of it, the Epistles are not for you. They are not written to suit a cool indifference, or to gratif}^ 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 perplexity and distaste, if his own heart own no serious inquir}^ after the righteousness of God. The discover}^ in the Epistle to the Hebrews of all that is transacted within the veil, by the effectual ministry of the eternal Priest, can have for him but the slight inter- est which may attach to ingenious typology, if he feel no dail}^ 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 inapplicable to actual life, if he have not recognized 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 Chris- tian life and then leave us at the threshold. It recognizes 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 176 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRmE. LeCT. VI. 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 prospects which lie before you. And shall negligence or distrust deprive you of the assistance thus prepared, and leave you to encounter the thoughts which crowd upon the awakened soul, as if you had to deal with those onl}^ 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 thi-ough a con- stant companionship and familiar intercourse does it tell effectually for its destined ends, and accomplish the blessed transformation of the poverty and vanity of this poor hu- man life into the glory and reality of a life that is in Christ. LECTUKE YII. THE EPISTLES. OF HIM ARE YE IN CHRIST JESUS. — 1 CoT. i. 30. I TAKE this text, because it appears to me to contain 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 compared with the preceding parts of the New Testament, is the question which lies before me now. Some kind of doctrinal progress must necessarily be at- tributed to these writings, if their words are taken as words of God ; for everything in them which is not simple repeti- tion must be in some sense addition, either giving informa- tion wholly new, or explaining, enlarging, and arranging that which former teachings had imparted. It would therefore be fit, at the point which these Lec- tures have reached, to make some collection of these addi- tions, or rather some selection of the chief instances of them ; unless it should appear that this stage of the prog- ress of doctrine is marked by such distinctive features, as suflSce by themselves to describe the nature of the advance which has been made, and to supersede the accumulation 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 177 178 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. manifestation of 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 Epis- tles 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 instru- ments of education to the spiritual life after it has begun ; and that the appointment of their chief author implies the purpose of teaching things which followed the completion of the work of Christ on earth, in his offices and ministra- tions in heaven, and in the dispensation of the Spirit amongst men. If the actual contents of the Epistles cor- respond with these intimations, their doctrine must neces- sarily bear a specific character as compared with that of the Gospels 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 presuppose 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 litle words, but they make an announcement 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 Lect. YII. the epistles. 179 seems the only real one. ^iYe 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 Jiim^ from God himself, as its immediate origin and still continuous author. And where is it found? "In Christ Jesus." In Christ Jesus ! As the simple voice of faith this word is ever uttered with }oy unspeakable and full of glory. But preacher or commentator, who may attempt to sound the depths or open the treasures of its meaning, must feel his tongue falter under the sense of the inadequacy of every explaining word. Let us, however, at least assert the reality of the fact which it expresses, for it is no sym- bolical 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 ? They are not merely pro- fessors 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 connection, in which oui' separate life is related to his life 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 believers in 1 ef avTOv. 180 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTEINE. LeCT. VII. 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 succeeding dispensation. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." ^ 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 light 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 FatJier, and the Father in him;"^ not indeed with that character of knowledge 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 forever 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 himself ;"'' on the other, it is " with Christ in God'** that the Christianas present life is hid. Furthermore, these writers know that believers are in Christ and Christ in them, and show that knowledge, not 1 John xiv. 20. 2 ibid. x. 38 ; xiv. 10 ; and xvii. 21. 3 2 Cor. v. 19. 4 Col. ill. 3. LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 181 only b}^ frequent assertions and a universal supposition of a close and vital union between the members and ttie 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 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 the}^ 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 the}^ have in Christ, and the present and future portion which it secures, are contemplated in eternal counsels, 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 ^ (rejected ones). They live, yet not they, but Christ liveth in them,^ and he ^ is their strength and their song."* This indwelling of Christ is by the Hol}^ Ghost, so that the same passages speak inter- changeably of the Spirit being in us, and of Christ being in us ; ^ or of the Holy Ghost being in us, and our members being the members of Christ:^ and so this word, "/in you," includes the whole life of the Spirit in man, with all 1 2 Cor. xiii. 5. 2 Gal. ii. 20. 3 The ivSwdntov Xpioros. * Phil. iv. 13. 5 Rom. viii. 9, 10. ^ i Cor. vi. 15, 19. 16 182 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. its discoveries, impulses, and achievements, its victory over the world, its conversation in heaven, and earnest of the final inheritance. Thus, through the different but correlative relations rep- resented b}^ 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 j'^ou." 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 aspect. 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 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 LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 183 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 presence 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 conversa- tion is " a good conversation" in Christ ; their faith, hope, love, jo}^ their whole life is "in Christ." They think, they speak, they walk " in Christ." They labor 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." ^ Wives submit themselves to their husbands " in the Lord ; " children obey their parents " in the Lord." The broadest distinctions vanish in the com- mon bond of this all-embracing relation. " As many as have been baptized 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." ^ 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 ilCor. xi. 11. SGai.iii. 28. 184 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. 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," the}'^ 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 per- vading characteristic of the Apostolic writings. Yet, swiftly as I am compelled to proceed, I must delay a mo- ment ; for there is a question which one who rehearses such words ought not to leave unspoken. What correspondence is there between our own habit of thought and the Christian consciousness which speaks in these pages? 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 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? I glance over these pages, and see the holy and beloved name shining in everj^ part of them, and mingling its presence with every thought and feeling, every purpose and hope. I see an ever-present consciousness of being 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 iife bears this character? Let me accept nothing in exchange for this. Men bid me live in dutj^ 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 enjo3^ment of LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 185 all that I would possess and the realization of all that I would become. In suggesting these personal inquiries, I have scarcely taken a step out of my wa}^, 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 com- munication of new information, but b}^ the recognition of a spiritual state which has been attained, and by the educa- tion of the spiritual life pertaining to it. II. It now remains for me to point out that this fanda- mental character does of itself constitute a visible ad^'1lnce in the several parts of doctrine, both changing their aspect, and enlarging their bounds ; and for this purpose it is neces- sary to select some particular subjects in which this change may be studied. 1. We turn first to the primary doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ. In the Gospels this doctrine appears in its most general form. To a great degree it is typically repre- sented, through the bodily healing 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 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 be- lieveth on him is not condemned;" "he shall never per- ish, but have everlasting life : " and from time to time some words are spoken which suggest the method in which the salvation is wrought — words which tell of " the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world ; " of 16* 186 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. being " lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness," that those who look may live ; of " life given as a ransom for man}^ ; " and of " the blood of a new covenant shed for the remission of sins." But, in reaching the Epistles, who is not struck with the definiteness and development vrhich the whole doctrine, especially this last part of it, has ob- tained. 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 of the general assurances in which their souls at first found rest and joy. The word of God guides them through its commissioned interpreters. Thus the grounds of this sal- vation 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 loay in which men, being sin- ful, 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 pres- ent. God " has set him forth to be a propitiation for sins through faith in his blood ; " ^ " We are reconciled unto God by the death of his Son ; " ^ " We are justified in his blood ;"^ "We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ; " * we, " who were far ofi", are made nigh by the blood of Christ ; " ^ "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him ; " ^ " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us ; " ^ " By » Rom. Hi. 25. » Ibid. v. 10. s Ibid. v. 9. 4 Eph. i. 7. ^ Ibid. il. 13. « 2 Cor. v. 21. ' Gal. iii. 13. LeCT. YII. THE EPISTLES. 187 his own blood he entered in once to the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us ; " ^ " He was once of- fered 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 tree ;"^ "Ye are redeemed 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 all sin ; " ^ " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." ' Such is the constant voice of the apostolic teaching, and such also is the constant voice of that Christian conscious- ness which the apostolic teaching forms and certifies. Those "who are in Cln-ist are already inmates of that " holy tem- ple " 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, visible from the remotest precincts, and sanctif\'ing all around it, while the one sacrifice thereon completed is the ever-present condition of all which is celebrated or enjo3'ed 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 " mj^ster^^ is the nearest approach 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 objective act on God's part by which he reconciled the world to himself, the very description of it as an act » Heb. ix. 12. « Ibid. ix. 28. ^ Ibid. ix. 26. 4 1 Peter ii. 24. « Ibid. i. 19. ^ 1 John i. 7. ' 1 John ii. 2. 188 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. being only a figure of speech ; and that we seem to know that we never can know anything." ^ Instead of this we find a firm unsparing use of various but kindred forms of speech, each supplementing and confirming the other, and having in the minds of those who use them a recognized 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 express- ing the things of Christ. Mj'steries of course remain ; and the truths delivered, 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 sal- vation become more distinct 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 Chris- tian state — namely, that those who are saved are also sous. 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 con- sciousness of that relation, "Wist ye not that I must be among the things of my Father ? " ^ His first introduction to men ratifies it : " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ; " ^ and so he goes forth into the world as the Son of the Father. In right of this relation he straightway ' Jowett on the Epistles, vol. ii. p. 482. « Luke 11. 49. 3 Matt. iii. 27. LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 189 associates in it those who receive him : and when, in his first instructions, he lifts up his ej'es on his disciples 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 ;"2 "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of;"^ " That ye may glorify your Father ; " * " That 3'e may be the children of j^our Father which is in heaven ; " ^ " Be 3^e perfect, as j^our Father which is in heaven is perfect." ® So the whole course of his teaching tends to that intertwining of his own relation to God with theirs, which is finally ex- pressed on the eve of his departure : " My Father and your Father, m}^ God and your God." '' And this language is not a mere general declaration of the universal fatherhood of God ; for it is alwa3's addressed to his disciples as sucJi, to the little flock whom the world will persecute, and to whom " it is their Father's good pleasure to give the king- dom : " ^ and it is further declared that the consciousness of it is only awakened in those who hear Jiis word, for " no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomso- ever the Son will reveal him ; " ^ and the right to enjoy and feel this relation is represented by St. John as a gift to those who receive Jiim, and believe in 7iim: " To as many as received him, to them gaA^e he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name : which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." ^^ 1 Matt. vi. 6. 2 Ibid. 4. 3 ibjd^ 3. 4 Matt. v. 16. 5 Ibid. 45. ^ i^j^. 48. 1 Johu XX. 17. 8 Luke xii. 32. » Matt. xi. 27. 10 John i. 12. 190 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. 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 ^ those who were under the law, in order that ^ we might receive the adoption of sons ; " ^ and with stronger assertions of the means, on our part, through which the sonship is enjoyed. " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God ; "* "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." ^ But the substantive addi- tion made to the doctrine lies 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, cr3dng, Abba, Father.'*® "The Spirit itself wit- nessetli with our spirit, that we are the children of God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." ^ This revelation is not only seen in the par- ticular passages which assert it, but its presence is felt in all parts of the Apostolic writings, and as we read we be- come more and more sensible that Christ in the Spirit 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. ^ Buy out, e^avopaoTj. ^ iva. ^ Gal, iv. 4. 4 1 John V. 1. 5 Gal. iii. 26. ^ Ibid. iv. 5. ' Horn. viii. 16, 17. LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. ' 191 Speaking often on this subject, our Lord instructs us to come to God as a Father, and as one who seeth in secret ; ^ to worship in spirit and in truth ; ^ to praj^ always, and not to faint ; ^ to pra}^ as sinners who need mercy ; * as chiklren who are sure to be heard ; ^ and whatsoever things we ask to believe that we receive them.^ 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 3'e shall ask anything in my name^ /will do it. Hith- erto ye have asked nothing in mj^ name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." ^ In the Epistles these (at the time) anticipatory words have found their explanation ; and thereby all the previous instruction is fully realized. Men are in Christ Jesus, and therefore they come to God by him. Tlie whole character of worship and prayer is now derived from the conscious- ness that " through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father." ^ God is approached as a Father indeed, be- cause he is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ 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,^ or, as it is soon af- terwards expressed, " access with confidence by the faith of him." ^^ 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." ^ Sacrifice has been ofl'ered, the barriers are gone, a new and living way is opened. And yet, further, there is (as the ^ Matt. vi. 8. 2 joiin jy^ 24. » x,uke xviii. 1. 4 Luke xviii. 13. ^ i\y^^^ ^i. 11-13. ^ Mark xi. 24. ' John xiv. 6, 14, and xvi. 23, 24. » Eph. 11. 18. " Heb, x. 19. 192 THE TROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. word implies) a present introduction by the living interven- tion 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 pres- ence 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 pra3's in the Hol}^ 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 uttered." ^ Passing into the midst of isuch discoveries as these, we feel that the doctrine of prayer has attained its perfect form, by combination with the doctrine of the Trinity, and that the highest fulfilment of all which had been enjoined 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 stand- ard of character and rule of conduct have secured the rever- entail recognition of the common conscience of mankind, and the genuine admiration of unbelief itself. It iias been felt, even in unlikely quarters, that in those holy discourses and that perfect example, human character appears in a state of purit}^ and elevation which is nowhere else to be seen : and especially that this moral system shines most 1 Eom. viii. 26. LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 193 brightly in those points where other sj^stems fail, namely, the truthfulness of inward cleansing, the majesty of lowli- ness, 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 showed and taught what human per- fection is? Yet when we pass to the Epistles we are sensible of a momentous change. The standard is the same in its gen- eral elevation and in the proportions of its several parts. Where then is the change ? I answer, in the position of those who are to use it, in the relations of which they are now con- scious, and therefore in the motives by which they are to be influenced, and in the j>oz(;ers which they are supposed to possess. " Our duties," as Bishop Butler observes, " arise out of our relations." ^ Therefore every revelation of un- known 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 consequent motives to which he appeals, in those instructions 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 government. They are Ms disciples,^ and the children of their Father ; ^ they must "do more than others." * 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 * Analogy, Part II. chap. i. sect. 2. « Luke xiv. 26, 27, 43. » Matt. v. 45. -• Ibid. 47. 17 194 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. at last appeals to the claims of his love : " I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you ; " ^ " As I have loved you, that ye love one another ;" ^ 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 je except ye abide in me." ^ That last sajdng, which was at the time a parable, they soon knew as a fact. When the redemption was completed, and he was gone from their side, they found themselves in a closer and deeper union with him than they had under- stood before. Henceforth 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 " pre- sent our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service." * They base their practi- cal instructions on the consciousness of being redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,^ of being risen with Christ,® of having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us.^ 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 ; " ® we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, therefore we are to walk in him ;^ we are to flee for- nication, because it would defile the members of Christ ; ^® we are to put away corrupt communications because they will grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed » John xiii. 15. « Ibid. xv. 12. ^ ibi(j. 4. 4 Rom. xii. 1. « 1 Pet. i. 18. « Col. iii. 1. ' Rom. viii. 9, 13. » Gal. v. 22-25. » Col. ii. 6. " 1 Cor. vi. 19. LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 195 to the daj^ of redemption ; ^ we are to forgiTe one another, because God for Christ's sake has forgiven us ; ^ to receive one another, because Christ received us to the glory of God ; ^ and to give to others, because we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich ; * 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 glor}'.^ This character of ethical teaching is nowhere more con- spicuous 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 light ; ^ and " he that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked ; " * and every man that hath the hope in Christ purifieth him- self, even as he is pure ; ^ and the love which laid down his life for us is the reason for a willingness to lay down our lives for the brethren ; ^" 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 sins." ^^ We recognize then the advance of ethical doctrine, not only or chiefl}^ in its more various and detailed practical development, but in the fact that the principles, motives, and conduct of life 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 1 Eph. iv. 29, 30. ^ ibi^l. 32. 3 RonQ. xv. 7. 4 2 Cor. viii. 9. ^ 1 Thess. ii. 12. « Col. iii. 4, 5. "> 1 John i. 6. 8 Ibid. ii. 6. » Ibid. iii. 2, 3. »o 1 John iii. 16. " Ibid. iv. 7-10. 196 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. teaching of Jesus 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 doctrine in the depart- ment of Christian ethics ; if, in respect of distinct exhibi- tion of principles and motives, 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 w4th believers could not be fully unfolded ; and till those relations were apprehended, 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 Testa- ment, as illustrations of the change which that teaching exhibits in tlie 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, onl}^ as being its completion and fulfilment.^ The Lord himself was perfected and glorified, not in the daj's 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 mean- ing is defined, its extent is disclosed, its consequences are deduced. Parable and proverb are changed into great plainness of speech. What seemed a figure is shown as a fact. What was intimation of something future is become 1 n-Ajjpwais. LeCT. Vn. THE EPISTLES. 197 assertion of something present. Motives are supplied, powers are assured, by which that which was enjoined is realized, and a life which had seemed impossible is now become simply natural. Revelation has onl}^ enlarged itself to meet necessities and fill capacities which its former words had purposely created. The earlier teaching con- templated the coming of a day for its disciples, in which man}' things should be said to them which thej^ could not bear then. In the later teaching that day is come. At first they are taught as those who are with Jesus, after- wards as those who are in Christ. The}^ 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 sur- veyed. They are surveyed in the Epistles, and there the chosen teachers spread before us the unsearchable riches of Christ. They saj^ to us, " Of him are ye in Christ Jesus ; " and they show us what that state implies, of capacities, possessions, responsibilities, duties, and destinies ; of rela- tions to God and man, of connection with things in earth and things in heaven. They show that to produce and to perfect this state are the ends of the preaching of the word, of the institution of the sacraments, of the ordinance of the ministr}', of the life and order of the Church ; yea, of the divine government of the world, and of all that bears on human histor3\ " All things are for your sakes ; " ^ " All are j'ours, 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." 2 12 Cor. iv. 15. 2 1 Cor. iii. 21-23. 17* 198 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VII. 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 mys- teries which had been^ hid from ages and generations. Each stage of progress based itself on the facts and in- structions of that which went before. The Law was given to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; the Prophets spake to those m ho 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 ? Follow thou me. Oh ! let us follow. It is not the object of revelation to answer those inquiries, natural as the}^ are. It is its object to lead tliose to whom it comes into that fulness of knowl- edge, and up to those heights of blessing, towards which, in its own historical 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 press- ing into that inner circle of experience to which the Word of God conducts us. There we shall find it true that " he that belie veth on LeCT. VII. THE EPISTLES. 199 the Son of God hath the witness in himself.'' ^ There vre shall repeat within ourselves the words vvith which the last Apostle closes his Epistle : " We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that ive 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 life."^ There we shall feel that we have reached results for our own inward life answerable to all the preparations which went before — answerable even to the great facts in which those preparations culminated, when the Only- begotten of the Father came down to earth to take us into himself, and returned into glory to unite us to God. 1 1 John. V. 6. 2 Ibid. 20. LECTUKE yill. THE APOCALYPSE. I JOHN SAW THE HOLY CITY, NEW JERUSALEM, COMING DOWN FROM GOD OUT OF HEAVEN, PREPARED AS A BRIDE ADORNED FOR HER HUSBAND.— Rev. xxi. 2. These words open the last vision of prophecy and the last teaching of Scripture. It had been the promise of the Lord to his disciples 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 show them things to come : and we find the promise fulfilled in both its parts. The predictions of the great transitional discourse, concerning the coming dis- pensation 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 show j^ou things to come," find its distinct fulfilment in the Apocalypse. That book continues the line of predictive history running through the New Testament, and is the consummation of the sure word of prophecy which pervades the Bible as a whole. 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 after- wards. As all the great doctrinal features of the Epistles 200 LeCT. VIII. THE APOCALYPSE. 201 are found in germ in separate sayings of the Lord, so also the main outlines of the Apocalypse are given us in par- ables and saj'ings, which trace the future history of his kingdom. And more particular!}^ 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 fii'st 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 out- lines 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 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 onl}^ do we hear from him, that this part of his teach- ing is to be continued by the Holy Ghost, whom he will send to show us things to come ; but a peculiar care is taken in this last communication 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 revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Idm^ to show unto his servants the things which must come to pass," is a 202 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRIXE. LeCT. VIII. 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 himself, 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-remembered form again, surrounded with the symbols of majesty and judgment, and looked upon his countenance, 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 doc- trine ; 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 prophec}^ is 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 partially discovered or S3'mbolically 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 ver}' closest ; for it is a doctrine which rests upon events. Its foundation 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 glorj^ These are ex- ternal facts. The}^ enter the region of doctrine (as we commonly use the term) through their consequences to our- selves, through their effect on our own inward conscious- ness, through the uses and applications which may be made Lect. VIIT. the apocalypse. 203 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 glovy — to perfect our salvation ; then these facts, in them- selves 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 particular facts, or a whole series of events, may be inti- mated in the way of prediction for other reasons, 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 prog- ress of doctrine, that the enlargement of the one must in some degree involve the enlargement of the other. It also results that the one is still to be distinguished from the other, and therefore that it does not belong to such an in- quiiy 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 204 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VIII. of " the body, the Church." The final result of his appear- ing is shown not only in the peace, the holiness, the partici- pation and inherence in him of each separate person, but in the formation of a corporate existence, a society in which man is perfected, a kingdom in which God is glori- fied. The parables and sayings of the Gospels present this kingdom of God as having its own life and end, its own history and destinj^, in which those of its individual mem- bers are involved. Soon its visible shape appears. A societ}^ is formed, and, if glorious things were spoken of the cit}^ 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,"^ " the habitation of God through the Spirit."^ It is not a mere aggregate of separate parts, but possesses an organic life, as " the body of Christ" "fitly joined together and compacted b}^ that which ever}^ joint supplieth, according to the eff'ectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying oi itself in love."^ 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 hav- ing spot or wrinkle, or any such thing."* 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 glor}^, its full response to the work of Christ, its reali- zation of the purposes of God, constitute the end to which the existence of each member ministers. This line of 1 1 Tim. iii. 15. ^jgph. ii. 22. 8 Ibid. iv. 16. *Ibid. v. 27. LeCT. Vin. THE APOCALYPSE. 205 thought runs through the Epistles, and forms a distinct advance upon that which works out the development of personal salvation. 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 in a history and destinies larger than those w^hich 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 glorious 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 realization which at any par- ticular time we behold. When present things in a measure disappoint us, we turn more eagerly to the brighter future, and look bej^ond the darkened foreground to the light 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? 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 ! Doubt- less 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 onl}^ just begun. The wrestlings " against principalities and powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places " ^ were yet to be more painfully felt, and believers * Eph. vi. 12. 206 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VIII. were prepared to be "partakers of Christ's sufferings," and not to " think it strange concerning the lier}^ trial which was to try them, as though some strange thing happened to them." ^ 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." ^ They were "falling from grace," and '• turning back to weak and beggarl}^ elements, whereto they desired again to be in bondage." ^ " Some had already turned aside after Satan," * and, where there was no special prevalence of error, a coldness and worldliness of spirit drew forth the sad reflection, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." ^ 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 com- bination of Christian ideas with the rudiments of the world and the vagaries of oriental philosophy. Here were men, like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses, "resisting the truth, reprobate concerning the faith." ® Here were " Hymenoeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth had erred, saying that the resurrection was past already."^ Here was the "knowledge falsely so called,"^ teeming with a thousand protean forms of falsehood. While the Apostles wrote, the actual state and the visible tendencies of things showed too plainly what Church history would be ; and, at the same time, i)rophetic intimations made the prospect » 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. ' Heb. v. 12. ^ Gal. iv. 9 ; v. 4. * 1 Tim. V. 15. 5 Phil. ii. 21. ^ 2 Tim. lii. 8. ' 2 Tim. ii. 17. * 1 Tim. vi. 20. i^evSwFVMos yviats. Lect. VIII. THE APOCALYPSE. 207 still more dark : for " the Spirit spake expressl}^ that in the latter times men would depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,"^ — that " in the last days grievous times should come," marked by a darkness of moral condition which it might have been ex- pected that Gospel influences would have dispelled,^ — that *' there would be scoffers in the last days, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? " ^ — 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 called God or an object of wor- ship, so that he sits in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God." * " The mystery of lawlessness was already working, and as antichrist should come, even then were there many antichrists,"^ men " den3ang the Father and the Son," " denying the Lord that bought them,"^ "turn- ing the grace of God into lasci\4ousness," ^ 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 essen- tially 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 of evil show themselves more plainly. They are en- countered, but not dissipated. Or, to change the figure, we see battles fought by the leaders of our band, but no secu- 1 1 Tim. iv. 1. « 2 Tim. iii. 1-5. ^ 2 Pet. iii. 3. * 2 Thess. ii. 4-7. ^ 1 John ii. 18, 22. « 2 Pet. ii. 1. ' Jude 4. 208 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. VIII. rity is promised by their victories. New assaults are being prepared ; new tactics will be tried ; new enemies pour on ; the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes, and the last exhortations of those who fall at their posts call on their successors to " endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,"^ and "earnestly to contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." ^ The fact which I observe is not merely that these indica- tions 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 per- sonal 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 tenden- cies of that histor}^ had distinctly shown 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 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 ? what is to be its issue ? and what prospect is there » 2 Tim. ii. 3. » Jude 3. LeCT. VIII. THE APOCALYPSE. 209 of the realization of that which we desire ? To such a state of EQind 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 endeav- ored 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 indi- vidual life. That / should be pardoned, saved, and sanctified — that I 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 be- ing, 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 aHy of God. There ought surely to be a consciousness within me corresponding to that posi- tion ; there ought to be affections which will associate me in spirit with that larger history, in which my own is in- cluded ; 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 prophecy, can belong only to those who read it and hear it thus. II. Such being the state of mind which the book presup- poses, and such the wants to which it is addressed, I have now to point out some leading characteristics of its doctrine, 18* 210 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VITI. in order to show what are the satisfactions which it pro- vides. These characteristics, though distinguished from each other, will yet all be found to combine in one. The doctrine of the book is a doctrine of consummation. 1. It is a doctrine of the cause of the consummation. It educes the result from one source — the atoning death of Jesus. Is this an advance in doctrine? Has not the na- ture and efficacy of the great sacrifice been already suffi- ciently disclosed ? Yes, certainly, in its bearing on personal salvation ; but this book exhibits the connection between the personal and the general salvation, in the identity of their common cause. The personal salvation for each sev- eral 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 pro- pitiation of his death are CA'er before our eyes, as the cause of our restoration 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 majest}', as the conqueror and the king. It is not so. The opening doxology, "To him that loved us and washed us from otir sins in his own blood," strikes the note of all which is to fol- low. 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" ^ and his appearance wakens the ^ V. 6-10. This passage is fundanniental, as showing the ground of the power and the means of the victory, by the intentional con- trast of images. 6 Xeuv evCKriaev . . . ISoii apviov tu? € Rev. iii. 21. ^ Rev. v. 5. tSou evCKTf).oM the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed to open the book." The variety of the words employed in the Authorized Ver- sion (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. 8 Rev. xii. 11. * Ibid. xix. 11-16. 216 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VIII. certaint}' of its judicial consequences to him and to it, had been revealed with increasing distinctness through the for- mer writings ; till in two of the last Epistles the " terrible voice of most just judgment " had swelled into the fall tones, to which our ears had been accustomed in Old Testament prophecy. I need not recall bj^ particular cita- tions the manner in which this line of teaching is carried out in the Apocalypse, the various forms of strong develop- ment in which the power of evil is represented as appear- ing, or the plagues, and punishment, and final overthrow, which are its portion from the Lord. The opening procla- mation of the coming notifies also its eff'ect on the world : "Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." ^ 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 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 certainlj^ 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 ; 1 Rev. i. 7. LeCT. VIII. THE APOCALYPSE. 217 and which, as a doctrine of consummation, is an evident advance, in that particular direction, on the doctrine of the Epistles. But it is when the prophecy carries us be3^ond 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 judgment has dealt with things that are past, the final results appear, and the true life of man begins. The doctrine of the book is ultimatelj^ 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 cit}^, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, pre- pared 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 be a per- fect humanity ; not only perfect individually, but perfect in society. There is to be a city of God. '' The Holy City ! " — there is the realization 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 constitution of society- complete in its own local habitation ; the. visible collection of buildings being a symbol of the organized life within. It is the most perfect realization, and the most convenient representation, of society in its maturity ; in which the various relations of men are so combined, as to promote 19 218 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. VIII. 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 realized in fact, nor are the causes of the failure remote from view. In this fallen world all communities have grown up under hard external conditions, and with a deep internal disease, sustaining all sorts of shocks and wounds, and often developing what vigor 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 : " 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 continued ; 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 anticipate the perfec- tion of man from the progress of society and the education of the world. And yet human nature is to find the realization 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 Lect. YIII. the apocalypse. 219 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 con- cerned. 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 onl}^ of the man of God, but of the city of God ; and it presents the society or cit}^, not as a mere name for the congregation of individuals, but as having a being and life of its own, in, which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his perfection. The "Jeru- salem which is above" is, in relation to the Lord, "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife,"^ and, in relation to man, it is " the Mother of us all."^ 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 tended.^ Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and what will have been lost? Not merely a single passage, a 1 Rev. xxi. 9. 2 Qal. iv. 26. 3 UoKra ttoAi? (^uafiev ttjv vTovj refers us with equal precision, as well to what follows, as to what precedes. It is the word rip^ro. 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 1 Words of the Lord Jestis, vol. vi. p. 337. 2 5tv ^p^aro 6 'l7ji(rat ei<: ita) appertaining to this salvation he is to seek by means of the Scriptures (ra Sum/xeva o-oc^iVaO. This ia corresponds to the reAeid-n}? (of doctrine) spoken of in Heb. vi. 1, which is there illustrated by the exquisite example of spiritual exegesis, on the passage " Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Elsewhere, again, the Apostle adverts to this character of his doctrine, "Hovvbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect " {ao<}>iav e*- rots xeAeioi?, 1 Cor. ii. 6) ; and there the method of its exposition is described by the remarkable expression (of somewhat doubtful meaning), evSiSaicTolg TTveu/xaTOS aytou Trt'eu/xaTt/cot? nvevixaTiKO. avyKpivovrei; (vcr. 13). it SCCmS 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 Trveu^an/ca. Dean Alford's objection to this interpretation, as given by Chrysostom, is founded upon his treatment of the word tTvyKptVetv, as if it meant barely to prove or interpret. I think that Chrysostom's illustrations, in the passage referred to, suggest a larger meaning than this ; but even the 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 avyKpiveiv 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 Trvev/xaTtKa 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 icords to express the New Testament doc- Lect. VI. NOTES. 257 trines 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 eflfect of the blood of Christ. Note XIII., p. 172. "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 Ebiouitic 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 ttiVti? rather according to its ethical signiflcancy, and to contend against all antinomianism. The irCm.^ 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 dogmatical aspect of Christian truth — to form an estimate of James uni- versally ; of whom we have no right, since in other respects he is at one with the synoptic tradition, to assume that in respect to Christological ideas he stands opposed to it. Thirdly, utterly un- true is the assumption that James is to be viewed as the repre- sentative of the faith of the earliest Christianity. Eather 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, croi^t'a; consequently, more in respect of its dogmatic 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 258 NOTES. Lect. VI. was the most congenial, and hence drew him to give especial effect to the refutation of this false tendency." ^ Dorner goes on to show that the ethic of St. James is a Christian ethic, and then to point out the actual Christological features of the Epistle. The result is, " that James had before Mm the Chnstian 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 shows, that the whole doctrine of the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, and of the mystery of redemption and salva- tion, is presupposed 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. 1 Dorner, on the Person of Christ, Introduction, pp. 62, 63. laiMUi^ IIDIIICP, PUBLISHED BY GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 Washington Street, Boston, OOn JtEVEALED IX KJLTVItE JLXD IX CHRIST; including a Refutation of the Development Theory contained in the " Vestiges of the Nat» ural History of Creation." By Rev. Jajies 15. 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A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures. By Alexa:nder Cruden. Keviscd and re-edited by the Rev. David King, LL, D. Octavo, cloth arabesque, 1.75 ; sheep, 2.00. The condensation of the quotations of Scripture, arranged under the most obvious heads, 'while it dimmishes the bulk of the work, greatlii facilitates the finding of any required passage. " We have in this edition of Cruden the best made better."— Puritan Recorder. BADIE'S AKALYTICAZ CONCORDANCE OF THE HOT.T SCRirTUMES ; or, the Bible presented under Distinct and Classilied Heads or Topics. By John Eadie, D. D., LL. D., Author of " Biblical Cyclo- paedia," " Ecclesiastical Cyclopaedia," " Dictionary of the Bible," etc. One vol- ume, octavo, 840 pp., cloth, 4.00 ; sheep, 5.00 ; cloth, gilt, 5.50 ; half calf, 0.50. The object of this Concordance is to present the Scriptures entire, under certain classified and exhaustive heads. It differs from an ordinary Concordance, in that its arrangement depends not on WORDS, but on subjects, and the verses are ijrinted m full. KITTO'S POPULAR CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERA- TURE. Condensed from the larger work. By the Author, John Kitto, D, D. Assisted by James Taylor, D. D., of Glasgow. With over five hun- dred Illustrations. One volume, octavo, 812 pp., cloth, 4.00 ; sheep, 5.00 ; half calf, 7.00. A Dictionary of the Bible. Serving also as a Commentary, embodying the products of Bie best and most recent researches in biblical literature In which the scholars of Europe and America have been engaged. KITTO' S HISTORY OF PALESTINE, from the Patriarchal Age to the Present Time; with Chapters on the Geography and Natural History of the Country, the Customs and Institutions of the Hebrews. By John Kitto, D. D. With upwards of two hundred Illustrations. 12mo, cloth, 1.75. B®- A work admirably adapted to the Family, the Sabbath School, and the week-day School Li- brary WESTCOTT'S INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF TSE GOS- PELS. Witli Historical and Explanatory Notes. By Brooke Foss Westcott, M. a., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. With an Intro- duction by Prof. H. B, Hackett, D. D. Royal 12mo, cloth, 2.00. tSS" A. masterly work by a master mind. ELLICOTT'S LIFE OF CHRIST HISTORICALLY CONSID- ERED. Tlie Hulsean Lectures for 1859, with Notes Critical, Historical, and Explanatory. By C. J. Ellicott, B. D Royal 12mo, cloth, 1.75. 1^- Admirable in spirit, and profound in argument. JtAWLIN SON'S HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF THE TRUTH OF THE SCRIPTURE RECORDS, STATED ANEW, with Special reference to the Doubts and Discoveries of Modern Times. In Eight Lectures, delivered in tlie Oxford University pulpit, at the Bampton Lecture for 1859. By Geo. Rawlinson, M. A., Editor of the Histories of Herodotus. With the Co- pious Notes translated for the American edition by an accomplished scholar. 12mo, cloth, 1.75. " The consummate learning, judgment, and general ability, displayed by Mr. Rawlinson in Uii ^ition of Herodotus, are exhibited in this work also." — North- American. 18