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*fi

THE

PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE

NEW TESTAMENT,

CONSIDERED IN EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

ON BY

THOMAS DEHANYV BERNARD, M.A.,

OF EXETER COLLEGE, AND RECTOR OF WALCOT. FROM THE

SECOND LONDON EDITION, WITS IMPROVEMENTS.

BOSTON:

G-OULD AND LINCOLN,

59 WASHINGTON STREET.

NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY.

CINCINNATI: G. S. BLANCHARD & CO.

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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 ASD PRINTED BT ROCKWELL & ROLLINI

PREFATORY NOTE

TO

THE AMERICAN EDITION.

The Bampton Lectures of Mr. Bernard on the Progress of Doc-

.l trine in the New Testament, deserve unqualified commendation;

for they are as nearly perfect both in substance and form as any

~,"i 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 Institution, May 1, 1867.

\

EXTRACT

FROM

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

^ OF THE LATE

KEY. JOHN BAMPTON,

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 the Printing-

House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the

afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year

following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement

ix

X EXTRACT FEOM BAMPTO^'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 Apostles1 and Nicene Creeds.

" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall always 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 expense 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 be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford 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 will 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 fact, 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 this particular arrangement of books, which may be, and often have been, otherwise arranged, is treated as involving a course of progressive teaching, it may seem that an 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

Xll 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 Apocalypse, 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 within parentheses, in the text, refer to Notes at the close of the volume ; those toithout parentheses, to foot-notes. 2

XIV PREFACE.

scheme. The first method would be suited to the purpose of proving the fact of the progress of doctrine ; the second, to the purpose of showing that that fact involves the unity of a divine pla?i, and therefore the continuity of a divine authority. The latter purpose appeared the more likely to be practically useful, at least in the present clay. 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 was, then, not the reality of the progress of doctrine, but the true character of it, which seemed especially to solicit attention ; and in this point of view the subject is here considered.

It was in fact originally suggested by the strong disposition, evinced by some eminent writers and preachers, to make a broad separation between the words of the Lord and the teaching of his Apostles, and to treat the definite statements of doctrine in the Epistles, rather as individual varieties of opinion on the 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 frustrate the provision which our great 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 £he 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 with the present tendencies of thought.

I. Preliminary positions.

1. There is divine teaching in the New Testament — doctrine given by the

Father to the Son— by the Son to men.

2. The divine teaching coincides in extent with the New 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 through 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.

II. Outlines of the subject.

1. Beality 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

XV1U CONTENTS.

it is founded, (c) to the human mind, (d) of the several parts of the doc- trine to each other. Surrey of the New Testament as a progressive scheme.

LECTURE II.

THE GOSPELS.

(PAG'E 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 ; (%) 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 UI.

THE GOSPELS.

(PAGE 77.)

Heb. iii. 3.

The Lord himself the first Teacher. His personal teaching in the Gospels is initiatory.

CONTENTS. XIX

I. 1. Includes the substance of all Christian doctrine. Its occasional character —

but the occasions pre-ordained. Instances of pregnant sayings. 2. Yet does not bear the character of finality, — a. in its form — b. 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. Yet 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 11 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 tbe 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. Habitual 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.

LECTUEE 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 gharacter 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 which the doctrine was matured.

Outlines of the history in this point of view. The doctrine cleared and formed in the course of this history, chiefly in respect of two principles : a. The Gospel is the substitute for the Law — Jewish theory of the Law — Judaizing attempts negatived and superseded; b. The Gospel is the heir

CONTENTS. XXI

of the Law — inheriting its ideas and its Scriptures. St. Paul's conflict for these positions. Largeness of the results deduced from them in the Epistles. Value of a divine summing up of the meaning and effects of the manifestation of Christ.

LECTUKE 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 xoithin 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 personal feelings and convictions — is a method of association rather than of authority, of education rather than of information, yet per- vaded by authority, and blended with direct revelation.

III. Authorship. Chiefly that of St. Paul, who had not been with Jesus and

was born out of due time. Inference, that these writings form a stage of doctrine in advance of that in the Gospels, as 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 effect 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.

XX11 CONTENTS.

LECTURE VII.

THE EPISTLES.

{PAGE 177.)

1 Cor. i. 30.

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 this general character.

Examples. (1) Doctrine of salvation — in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Increased definiteness, especially as to the consciousness of atonement and redemption. (2) Doctrine of adoption — in the Gospels — in the Epistles. The form of it fuller — the ground of it clearer. A new sense of it from the gift of the Spirit. (3) Doctrine of worship — in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Plainer revelation of access by sacrifice — by mediation — in the Holy Ghost. (4) Ethical doctrine — in the Gospels — in the Epistles. Advanced to a higher point by the knowledge of higher relations, motives, and powers found " in Christ Jesus." Retrospect of the course of doctrine — its unity and progress. Our personal duty in regard to it.

LECTURE VIII.

THE APOCALYPSE.

{PAGE 200.)

Rev. xx i. 2.

The Apocalypse fulfils the promise, " He shall show you things to come" — and completes the line of history and prophecy. Is related to the last discourse in St. Matthew, as the Epistles are to that in St. John. The Lord himself is still the revealer.

CONTENTS. XX1U

Connection between the progress of prophecy and the progress of doctrine. Doctrinal bearing of the book in

I. The want which it supposes — concerned with the destinies of the body,

the Church. The corporate life distinguished from the individual life in the Epistles. Contrast between the ideal character of the Church and the 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 provides — as being a doctrine of consum-

mation.

1. A doctrine of the Cause of the consummation. The personal salvation

of the individual and the general salvation of the Church have the same ground, namely, the Atoning Sacrifice, — implied by " the Lamb," as the Apocalyptic tiume of Christ.

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 earth 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 tbe 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 of 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 type of society in its maturity. Fail- ure of earthly societies to realize the ideal. Realization promised in the Bible. Need of the final vision to complete the teaching of God. The Bible an account of the preparation of the City of God — by expectation, prophecy, and type — by the reconstitution of men's relations to God, and to each other — both effected by the Gospel. Other systems have despaired of human society. Completeness of the Bible in providing for the 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.

LECTURE I.

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I HAVE GIVEN UNTO THEM THE WORDS WHICH THOU GAVEST ME. — St. John xvii. 8.

On the truth of this sajing 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- ondary and subsidiary ministr}^.

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 PROGEESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. I.

attended by an incidental necessity for extensive and va- rious discussion.

The institution of these lectures is a testimony to that necessity, and a testimony also to the relation which such discussion bears to the main object for which the Word was given. For if this pulpit is devoted on these occasions to the deliberate treatment of some particular question, that is only on account of the bearing which such questions may have on the work which the Church fulfils in testifying the Gospel of the grace of God. More especially is it fitting that one, who is habitually engaged in the work of preaching and teaching, should keep as near as he can to this ultimate practical aim. Therefore, invoking the 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 veiy 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 NEAV 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 yields upon the whole, is to be firmly grasped by the student or fairly pre- sented by the preacher.

In this way the subject of progressive teaching in Scrip- ture is implicated with the living ministry 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 subject the observation of successive stages of design must be expected ultimate^ 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 necessary, in order to fix the point of view from which it will be regarded. I shall therefore devote the chief part of this introductory lecture to secure for myself the following positions.

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 may 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, strougest sense, must be called the "word of God." Nay, he has not only given us a word; he has done more, he has given us words,1 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 they 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 sundiy 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 mankiud. 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 pergonal 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 pr'niara,

30 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. I.

received the words of God, it would 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 your 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 with 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 ma}?- 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 with the extent of the New Testament. In the one case it will be comprised in the Gospels alone, which leave us some of their most peculiar doctrines only in short summaries or pregnant germs ; in the other case it may be prolonged through an indefinite series of accessions, which will always leave the Church in doubt, as to what the faith delivered to it is, and still more in doubt as to what it may hereafter turn out to be.

What then are the words to which the description in the text applies ? or rather, within what limits shall we seek them?

Undoubtedly the Lord speaks of all the words which he

LECT. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT. 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 wliich 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 securely on the rock : we must then look well to our steps, and be free to choose our path among the irregularities and uncertainties of a more shifting soil ; for we shall pass from words which the Son of God gave to men, to the expansions of those words and the deductions from them which the men who first received them have given to us. Our study of the progress of doctrine within the limits of the New Testament would thus be entirely changed in its character, as we passed from the Gospels to the subsequent books. Only in the first stage would the progress of doctrine bear the meaning of the progress of its communication by God. In the second stage it could but signify the progress of its apprehension by men. The Acts and Epistles would 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 wo'uld 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, mollified 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, loth, 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 b}- 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 testimonv 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 onr e3^es as already effected. We have the gospel as it existed in the mind of Peter and of Paul, of James and of John. It is thus presented to us in 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 history, 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 already 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 Eoman 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 inquiiy, from Church and Dissent. These words and others like them represent the varjTing measures of ap- prehension, and the vaiying 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- vealed 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 harmony, 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 they have more conspicuously exhibited the ele- ment of the divine truth or that of the human infirmity. I would only observe that through all this confusion there is in some sense a progress of doctrine. Even by misappre- hensions and perversions the relations of the Word to the human mind are more perfectly disclosed. In partial sys- tems of religion those parts of the entire scheme which they have more particularly adopted often come to be seen under a stronger light. But especially it is evident that certain great features of truth emerge from periods of conflict and the driving mists of controversy, and swell upon the sight with outlines more defined and a power more 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, ever3T 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 histoiy of doctri::e, 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 really is, a revelation of what he intended that it should be in the minds of men forever. This 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 may 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 clearly at those moments in which (what might be called) an advance 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

4

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 days 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 theoiy 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 TESTAMENT. 39

offered, but have not been suffered to hold it (2) ; 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 days 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 only 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 DOCTRIXE. LeCT. I.

not only of its substance, but also of the plan on which it was progressively matured.

It must here be remarked that there are two ways in which we may exhibit the progressive development of any S}^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. Now 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 simply historical represen- tation. For instance, in the development of the manifesta- tation of Christ in the flesh, the words and deeds recorded b}' St. John must be restored, on the historic principle, to their proper places in the actual order of events ; on the constructive principle, the}7- properly 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 s^ynoptic Gospels present. So in a historic rep- resentation of the formation of apostolical doctrine we should have to trace the successive steps and occasions of its advance, to secure the exact chronological arrangement of St. Paul's Epistles, and to insert them in their several places in the narrative of his 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, yet the decision was of the Lord, and destined for the whole body. 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 TESTAMENT. 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 especially 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, Lord Jesus." How much lies between these two ! The one the first rudiment of revelation addressed to the earliest and simplest con- sciousness of man, that, namely, which comes to him through his senses, the consciousness of the material world which lies in its grandeur round him : the other the last cry from within, the voice of the heart of man, such as the interven- ing teaching has made it ; the expression 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 nearer to the great disclosure. Then there is entire suspension. We turn the vacant page which represents the silence of 400 years, — and we are in the New Testament.

Now again there is progress, but rapid and 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 delays, or develop itself by languid progression. The root was long before it showed the token of its presence, the stem and leaves grew slowly, but yes- terday the bud emerged from its sheath, and to-day it is expanded in the flower. A swift course of events, the period of one human life, a few contemporary writers have given us all the gospel that we need to know under our present dispensation, all that we shall ever know till Jesus comes again.

But there is, as has been observed, a plan of progress though its course is swift, and I would take note first of its stages and then of its principles.

2. Its stages I do not now examine ; but just mark them off as they catch the eye. First we are conducted through the manifestation of Christ in the flesh : we see and hear and learn to know the living person, who is at once the

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 great change occurs, which is visible to every eye. It is the point where we pass from the synoptic Gospels and come under the teaching of St. John. Now we rise to heaven, and go back to " the beginning," and set forth from "the bosom of the Father." Now we are taught to recognize the glory of the person of Christ, 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 hoty mount." It is almost like the change which was witnessed by the three disciples, who had walked conversing by his side, and then suddenly saw his countenance altered and his raiment white and glistering. Such is the effect upon our minds, not merely of the last Evangelist's own 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 writings of men. Is this progress? He assured us that it would be ; and we find that it is.

We are under the dispensation of the Spirit ; and in the book of Acts are borne, by seeming accident but by 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 onry 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 majesty 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 TESTAMENT. 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 history 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 author is the ground of its continuous unit}T, 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 whole path, till we come to the last vision itself, in which 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 doctrine 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 the meaning and the virtue of facts which till then were not completed. Up to that time we are in the midst of a history of which his own sa}Ting 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 NEW 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 ordinary 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 with 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 of the Lord himself should precede the knowledge of his work, and that we should wait on his ministry on earth before we apprehend his ministry in heaven, and that we should see that we are reconciled by his death before we understand how we are saved by his 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

50 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. I.

that we should be fully aud 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 Apocatypse.

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 different localities. They are delivered to you collected and arranged, though by means which 3-ou cannot ascertain. They are before 3'ou 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 each other with mutual support, correlative functions, and an orderty devel- opment. It is a " whole bocty 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 body 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 glory, and to discern the drift of his teaching and to expect the consequences of his work. It passes on to his body the Church, and opens the dispensation of his Spirit,

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 events. It is an authority which survives when others perish, and a light which waxes when others wane. By it, as the instru- ment of God for the education of men, nations are human- ized and churches sanctified. And 3Tet 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 which 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 II.

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 brings with it a natural pleasure, in marking 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. IT.

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 ; x 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." 2

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 per- 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

*Acts x. 36, 37. 2Ibid. xii. 24.

Lect- IX- THE GOSPELS. 55

Gospel of Christ, they would remember how that Gospel dawned gradually 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 yet in its commencement ; and we have on this account the right to describe b}^ the words of the text, not only the first steps but the ivhole 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 systematic advance.

Two such topics, included in a single Lecture, can receive little more than a suggestive treatment ; but I pray that this may not occasion any defect of that careful 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 New 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 necessaiy 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- taiy 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 system, 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 th'e position of those who had been personally- present at "the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God?"

The importance, in the whole course of instruction, of first fixing on the mind both the objective reality 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 by line upon line.

Far on in the holy books, when the scriptural structure is nearly perfected, our eyes are turned back to the ground of visible, audible, tangible realities from which we started.

" That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and 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." 1

Yes, it is true. We have fellowship with those that

* 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 yet 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 sanctuaiy, 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 s}Tstematic 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 effectual, 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 sufficient proof of the wisdom which assigned them the place and the space which they actually fill, and especially which ordained that the picture of our Lord's earthly life should be given to us not in one Gospel, but in four.

I suppose we all feel how different would have been the effect of possessing one " Life of Christ," however full and S3'Stematic. We spend more time, and (if I may use the expression) feel more at home, in the four successive cham- bers than we should have clone 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- petually 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 PEOGEESS OF DOCTRINE. 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 yet 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. (3)

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, and more certain in its truthfulness, than is that which we possess of the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee.

From time to time some fresh portrait may appear. Some adventurous imagination, charmed and yet perplexed by the Gospel story, may attempt to reconstruct it in ac-

LECT. II. THE GOSPELS. 61

cordauce with the spirit of the world. Unable to receive as real the sole example of sinless humanity, 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 the statement of the person of Christ as the first work of the Gospel histories, and as the beginning of the Gospel itself, I speak in 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 be that, which, iu 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."1 He "is our peace,"2 he " is our life," 3 he is " the hope of glory." 4 " He of God ' is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica- tion, and redemption."5 and they who are saved "are made partakers of Christ,"6 not merely of his gifts, whether they be gifts of grace or glory. Is it not indeed

iJohnxi. 25.	2Eph. li. 4.	3 Col. iii. 4.
4 Col. i. 27. 0	5 1 Cor. i. 30.	6Heb. iii. 14

62 THE PEOGKESS OF DOCTEINE. LECT. IT.

the distinguishing feature of the Christian system, that it places the foundation of salvation in living relations with a living person, rather than in the adoption of opinions or of habits? that under it the believer is, not the man who maintains the doctrine of the Trinity, 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 : the}' 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 shown. 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 me"2 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 necessary 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 offices and spiritual relations, and we carry with us the personal knowledge of him by whom these offices and relations are sustained. It is this which secures that they should not be to us a s}7stem of ideas and abstrac- tions, of words and names. The Mediator between God and man, the High Priest in the spiritual temple, the King on the unseen throne, is this same Jesus who went in and out among us, whom we have seen sitting in the house at Bethany, or by the well at Sychem, receiving sinners, preaching to the poor, comforting his friends, and suffering little children to come to him. With an acqaintance already formed, a confidence already secured, and a love already awakened, we can pass with a prepared heart to more abstruse revelations of the same Lord, when he is presented as the 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. 4:8. 2 Ibid. xiv. 11.

64 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. II.

known himself, we are ready for the Spirit to take of the things which are his and show them to us.

II. Our reflections 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 farther to be noted, that its oivn separate work is ■itself fulfilled on an apparent plan 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 effect prepares us for the latter. "We are to learn the great lesson of the manifestation of Christ : and here, as in most other subjects, the order of fact is not the order of knowledge. In the order of fact the glory of the divine nature precedes the phenomena of the earthly manifestation ; but in the order of knowledge the reverse is true. Events occurring in time, a place in human histoiy, 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 aud most frequent characteristics, before our thoughts are riveted on those peculiar passages in which the revelation of glory is most concentrated, and which

LECT. II. 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 wrought 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.(4)

The Gospel of St. Mark is traditionally connected with St. Peter, who first opened the door of Faith to Gentiles, and has the appearance of being addressed to such a class of converts as it was given to that Apostle to gather, men like the devout soldiers of Caesarea, in whom the Eoman 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 mighty deed to another with a peculiar swiftness of movement, and yet with the life of picturesque detail. Power over the visible and invisible worlds, especially 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 our Lord's familiar intercourse

LECT. II. THE GOSPELS. 67

with human life, his tender sympathies 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}T 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 beyond those limits in the Roman direction, and finally in the ministry of St. Paul, delivered' freely and fully to the world ; so do the sjmoptic 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 PKOGEESS OF DOCTKINE. 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 destroj7 this mj^stery 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- osoplry 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 e}Tes 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. II. THE GOSPELS. 69

first came to Jesus, who followed him most closely, who lay- in his bosom, who stood by his cross, who believed when others were confounded, who saw with more 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 M 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 gloiy, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father."1 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- try, 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." 2

We have now seen that in the three synoptic Gospels the representation of Christ, as he lived and conversed amongst men, is carried on by three successive stages, from its first Jewish aspect and fundamental connection with the old covenant to its most catholic character and adaptation to

i John i. U. 2 ibid. xx. 3i.

70 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. II.

the Gentile mind ; and that these steps correspond to and are connected with the historical stages of advance, by which the Word of God passed from its first home to its destined sphere of influence. We have seen that in the fourth Gospel we rise to a more distinct apprehension of the spiritual mystery involved in 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 }~et these stages of progress are constituted only by differences of degree. There is nothing expanded in one book which has not been asserted in another. Take what- ever may seem to 3*011 the distinguishing idea of an3rone of them, and you 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 we behold the Son of God, proclaimed by angels, confessed hy 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 histoiy transfigured on the holy mount before the e3Te- witnesses of his majest}-. The first word in the Temple

LECT. II. THE GOSPELS. 71

declares to his earthly parent his conscious relation to his Father ; the last charge to the Apostles founds the Church in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; while, in the intervening period, some voice of self-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." x

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 ye hear are not mine," and " The Father is greater than I." Now, standing in connection with the claim to the incommunicable Name, and with the 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. (5)

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, alid 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 mysteiy 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 by unit}7 and progress it has obviously the appearance of design : and the appearance of design is an argument for its realit}r.

But ichose 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 qualif}Ting and employing the chosen agents, divided to every man severally as he would? By the voice of the Church as a body, bjr the ever-accumulating consent of her several members, an unchanging answer comes down from age to age. The Spirit of the Lord is here.

Yes ! the Spirit was to testify of Jesus, and the fourfold Gospel is his permanent testimony. In it he has provided that the foundations of our faith should be laid in the region

LECT. II. 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 by 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 only 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 glory and the mystery, which had already made themselves felt at every step.

I have only to add, that the divine teaching thus given, even when viewed separately, has the appearance of being not a whole scheme ending in itself, but a part of a larger scheme. I mean that the general effect of the manifestation which is made in the Gospels is such as almost necessitates farther disclosures.

One shining with the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, but clothed in the poverties and 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 affected 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 inquiry, how the Christian doctrine was added to the Christian facts — the divine 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 icant, 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 Christ 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 they had not known has been once for all revealed. All that is to be learned is comprised within this circle. The deep mine of truth lies beneath this spot. M In him (as the mystery of God) are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 1

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 already taught in the most effective way to feel that our trust is not in a name which we learn, but in a person whom we know ; not in a scheme of salvation, but in a living Saviour. I cannot say how strongly I feel the value of the Gospel narrative in this last point of view ; and I feel it most when I observe the effect of other methods,

lCol. ii. 3.

76 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRENTE. 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 only is duly prepared for more abstract revelations of the nature of the redeeming work and of its present and future issues, in whose heart the past manifestation in the flesh is clearly reflected, and who thus has worthity received into his own soul "the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God."

LECTUEE 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 by 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 by the Lord. The word of the old covenant is repeatedly declared to have been " received by the disposition of angels"1 — "ordained by angels"2 — "spoken by angels."3 The ministering spirits, the mes-

1 Acts vii. 53. 2Gal. iii. 19. 3Heb. ii. 2.

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78 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. III.

sengers and servants of the Lord, were employed to intro- duce the 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 which he wrought. He was the messenger and teacher of this salvation, as well as its author and giver. It was fully wrought by the Lord ; but, besides that, it began to be " spoken" by the Lord, its announcement coming first from his own lips. Yet this personal speaking was only a certain stage in the course of its publication. " It began to be spoken by the Lord," 1 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 different spirit, if we consider the word spoken by the Lord in person as a finished ivord, or if we regard it as a icord 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 'ApfflV Kafiova-a \aAci0-0at Scot tou Kvpiov.

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 79

First, The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels includes the substance of all christian doctrine, but does not bear the character of finality. Secondly, The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels is a visibly progressive course, but on reach- ing its highest point announces its oivn incompleteness, and opens another stage of instruction.

I. 1. The teaching of the Lord in the Gospels includes the substance of all christian doctrine. Never was teaching more natural than his. It was drawn forth by occasions as they arose. It shaped itself to the character, the words, and the acts of those whom he met in the highwa}?- of the world. It borrowed its imagery from the circumstances and scenery of the moment. Such teaching as this would not seem likely to embrace the whole circle of truth. We should expect to find it partial and fragmentary ; full in some points, deficient in others, according as the occasions for evoking it had or had not arisen.

Yet surely the whole course of the manifestation of the Son of God would be governed not by accident, but by a special divine predestination : and there must have been a providential appointment of the fittest occasions and the most perfect conditions, in order that he who came from God to speak the words of God might adequately accom- plish his mission. Then the general state of the religious atmosphere at the time of his appearing, the strongly dis- criminated developments of opinion in Pharisees and Sadducees, the condition of individuals who came across his path, the scenes and circumstances in which he met them, were all prepared by divine governance, to further the effectual fulfilment of his mission as the teacher of men. Thus it came to pass, that not only in set discourses (which seldom occur), but in transient conversations and sudden

80 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. III.

replies, in words drawn forth by the appeals of the wretched, by the temptations of enemies or by the errors of disciples, in strong denunciations of the wicked or in tender consolations of the weak, the mind of Christ has been expressed on all points, and the store of divine sen- tences is full.

Shall I enter into detail, and begin to show how the whole argument on justification in the Epistle to the Romans is involved in the assertion, that " the Son of Man was lifted up, that he that belioveth on him should not perish but have everlasting life " ? 1 — how the exposi- tion of the Christian standing in the Epistle to the Gala- tians is comprehended in the words, " The servant abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever. If the son make you free ye shall be free indeed " ? 2 — how the sacrificial doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews is implied in all its parts by the words, " This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the re- mission of sins"?3 Though such proof in detail is here impossible, it would yet be easy to show that ever}7 doctrine expanded in the Epistles roots itself in some pregnant say- ing in the Gospels ; and that the first intimation of every truth, revealed to the holy Apostles by the Spirit, came first from the lips of the Son of Man. In each case the later revelation may enlarge the earlier, may show its meaning and define its application, but the earlier revela- tion stands behind it still, and we owe our first knowledge of every part of the new covenant to those personal com- munications in which the salvation began to be spoken by the Lord.

1 JohD iii. 14, 15. 2John viii. 35, 36. 3Matt. xxvi. 28.

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 81

"In all things he was to have the pre-eminence,"1 in speaking as well as in acting, not only as the Life, but also as the Light of men. The more we study the records of that short ministry in the flesh, the more we are im- pressed with the fact that all the past and all the future are gathered up in it. Past inspired teaching here finds its meaning interpreted and its authority sealed, whilst (so to speak) the several chapters of future inspired teaching are opened by pregnant summaries and certified by antici- patory sanctions. That is indeed a time " of large dis- course, looking before and after," and the words of Prophets on the one side, and of Apostles on the other, are forever justified and maintained by the words of him who came between them.

There was nothing then on the lips of the preachers of the Gospel, but what had been " begun to be spoken " by its first preacher ; and in following to their utmost the words of the Apostles we are still within the compass of the words of the Lord Jesus.

2. Yet those words do not bear the character of finality. The doctrine delivered in the Gospels appears to need, and to promise, further explanations, combinations, and developments. The character of that ministry on the whole is introductory. It is so in its form, in its method, and in its substance.

a. Our Lord's general teaching, in regard to its form, is cast in the mould of parable or proverb. So it appears more especially in the first three Gospels as compared with the fourth : and it is agreed on all hands that the former represent the Ordinary course of the teaching of Jesus ; and

1 lv napiv avr&s vpiarevav.

82 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. III.

that the latter purposely collects into one view those stronger assertions of divine mysteries, which were made on particular occasions, and which, when thus combined, form for us a more advanced stage of revelation. Yet in St. John also the characteristic form of parable continues, though its visible diminution corresponds with the in- creased intensity of revealing light.

There can be no need to exhibit the fact of this prevail- ing character of our Lord's discourse. It is to be noticed, not only in the large amount of professed parables, but in the general habit <5f proverbial sayings, that is, sayings which glance by us, as condensed and momentary parables, suggesting much that it would take long to tell, or, at least, sa3'ings which have more or less the shape and air of proverbs, complete in themselves, terse and pointed, fashioned for common memory and common use, meaning more than they say, and, by strong antithesis or seeming paradox, fitted to arouse reflection, and to fix on the mind some principle of thought or conduct. This characteristic of our Lord's teaching does not exist in that of his ser- vants. It is peculiar and distinctive ; and not without reason, for it falls in with that character of germinating fulness which has been already ascribed to the personal ministry of Christ ; and not less plainty with that character of initiation which is now to be asserted.

It is of the essence of proverbial speech that it detaches itself from particular occasions, that it has a capacity for various applications, and a fitness for permanent use, and embraces large meaning within narrow limits. It therefore fitted well the lips which were to utter the great principles of Christian thought, and to leave them amongst men for all times and occasions. Yet this form of teaching belongs

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 83

to the introduction of knowledge. It seems intended to set the mind working, and to rouse the spirit of inquiry by partial or disguised discoveries of truth. "To them that are without," said our Lord, " all these things are done in parables ; " 1 intimating that the use of that form of instruc- tion is appropriate to the preliminary and probationary stage. In its fullest degree it belongs originally to those that are without, "though, by means of light afterwards afforded, it continues to minister large instruction to those that are within. To the multitude our Lord's teaching was mainly of this character : to his disciples it was obviously less so. To them " it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to others in par- ables." 2 Yet to them also, through all their time of train- ing, we see that this mode of speech is largely used, and when the personal intercourse is about to close they receive the assurance that the teaching of the future will Jierein differ from that of the past: "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show j^ou plainly of the Father." 3 The words remain as a sufficient testimony that the peculiar character of language, in which the salvation began to be spoken by the Lord, is a mark of an introductory stage, and, so far as it prevails, is both a sign that the time for showing plainly is not yet come, and a pledge that it is to follow.

b. As the form of the teaching leads to this conclusion, so also does its method. It is seemingly to a great degree

i Mark iv. 11. kttvois ro7s f|&> — yet certainly not to keep them without, but as the appropriate means to draw them within. 2 Luke viii. 10. 3 John xvi. 25.

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a method of chances aDcl occasions ; carried on by words suited to the moment, by separate addresses, or replies to particular persons, and by explanations added to particu- lar acts. It is moreover in these communications, rather than in the deliberate discourses, that the higher revelations of his Gospel are for the most part contained. When u he opened his mouth and taught" in the Sermon on the Mount, he delivered to those who were entering his kingdom the great principles of moral righteousness. But it is from words dropped as it were in a private conversation by night, or in collision with the provocations of unbelievers, or amid sighs and sorrows by the grave of a friend, that we derive our plainest assurances of the mysteries of his salvation. While we gather up the precious things of his ordinary discourses, we are made sensible that other truths are implied, deeper than those which are announced, and from time to time the words which assert those deeper truths break with a kind of suddenness on our ears. It would hardly appear likely that such a mode of teaching was intended to be final ; rather we should expect it to prove (as in fact it did) the prefatory announcement of a coming system of truth, in which the several sayings would discover their cohesion and the con- densed assertions would expand into their fulness.

c. If the form and method of the personal teaching of Jesus suggest the conclusion, that it was meant to be, not the whole of his teaching to men, but only the initiatory stage of it, that conclusion becomes more sure when we come to consider the substance of the doctrine itself.

The doctrine bears a double character. It is, first, the clearing, restoring, and perfecting of truth already known ; and it is, secondly, the revealing of a nrysterious economy which had not yet been divulged. It is, I suppose, obvious

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 85

to every reader of the Gospels, that the doctrine contained in them is much more full and explicit in the first of these characters than it is in the second ; that all which belongs to human duty and character comes out habitually to view in the clearest light, while the discoveries of that secret scheme of things, by which the divine purposes are worked out, are either made by implication, or are marked by a cer- tain brevity and reserve. This fact is generally recognized, and especial \y b}^ those minds which shrink from the more mysterious parts of revelation. These fall back upon the Lord's own teaching in the Gospels, as containing more to which they can cordially assent, or at least less which trou- bles and perplexes them, than they find in the writings of his followers. All that troubles and perplexes them is in- deed there ; but the restricted measure of its exposition allows them more easily to ignore its presence. Such men fly to the Sermon on the Mount, and linger over parables and discourses, which instruct us in the great original truths of the fatherhood of God, of heartfelt prayer, of love and forgiveness, of lowliness and truth, of obedience and self- sacrifice, of confidence in pardoning mercj^, and of faith (yet only general and preliminary) in him whom God hath sent.

It is indeed true that in passing through the synoptic Gospels we meet with few express and definite assertions of the real nature and effects of the mediatorial work of Christ; and if we drop out of notice those few strong s ayings, andare content to take the lowest meaning of every expression that sounds ambiguous, and are resolutely insensible to the suggestion of typical miracles and to the implications contained in the whole history, we may per- haps arrive at the Gospel of St. John with no higher con-

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victions than were expressed by the inquirer, whom we there find uttering the dubious acknowledgment, "Master, we know that thou art a teacher come from G-od." 1

But having acknowledged this much, we must from this point acknowledge much more. We find that the Gospel on which we have entered has collected for us the scattered sa3dngs, in which, from time to time, our Lord asserted his highest offices, and opened the mystery of his work. One after another the great testimonies concerning himself fall on our ears : yet, in regard to every one of them, we are made to feel that the intimations given are at the time be}*ond the apprehensions of the hearers, and this not only on account of the dulness of the particular persons, but because the testimonies imply events which have not yet happened, and are fragments of a revelation for which the hour is not yet come. Glance through a few of these say- ings : The heavens open, and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man ; 2 the Temple destined and raised up again in three days ; 3 the birth of water and the Spirit ; 4 the Son of Man who came from heaven, who goes to heaven, and who is in heaven ; 5 the lifting up like the serpent in the wilderness, that men may not perish ; 6 the water which he will give, springing up into everlasting life ; 7 the eating the flesh and drinking the blood as the means of everlasting life and of being raised up at the last day. 8 These sa}'ings, and many others like them, are ut- tered to hearers whose perplexity is made apparent, and are

1 oti dirb Oeov il.t'jlvdas hiod<JKa).os.

2 John i. 51. 3 Ibid. ii. 19. 4 Ibid. iii. 5. s Ibid. iii. 13. 6 Ibid. iii. 14. ? n,id. iv. 14. 8 Ibid. vi. 54.

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 87

at the time left unexplained, to await the light which they are to receive from future events and later discoveries. This (if I may so call it) anticipatory character of our Lord's teaching, with regard to the work which he came to fulfil, strikes us most forcibly, when we compare his mode of speaking on the subject with the full and explicit language which becomes familiar to us in the writings of his Apostles.

And if this account of one part of his teaching be true, an evident consequence follows in regard to the other part. Grant that the discoveries of the redeeming work of Christ are in any measure restricted and deferred, and it follows that a large part of the teaching on human duty must be restricted and deferred in proportion. Instructions in faith in himself must wait for their perfecting, until the things to be believed concerning him have grown clear. Instructions in our relations to God (whether bearing on the hope of a penitent or on the confidence of a child) have not obtained their completion while the grounds of forgiveness and ac- ceptance are in any manner obscure. Finally, instructions on duty and character must be deficient in some of their most important elements, while the motives which flow from redemption cannot be assumed as recognized, because Jesus has not yet died ; while the life in the Spirit, and the power of the resurrection, and the citizenship in heaven, cannot be realized, because Jesus has not jet revived, risen, and ascended.

In illustration of these assertions I will instance the treat- ment of the two doctrines of the forgiveness of sins and the success of prayer. We know how intimately in the evangel- ical system these two doctrines are associated with the personal agency of our Redeemer, the one with his atoning sacrifice, the other with his priestly mediation. But it is

88 THE PEOGEESS OF DOCTE1XE. LECT. III.

certain that in his own teaching on earth they are not so treated. Other truths concerning them are brought forward when these are absent.

Take the first example. "Forgive, and ye shall be for- given ;" 1 "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much ;" 2 " I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me ;" 3 "He smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner" 4 and then " went down to his house justified rather than the other." Lastly, in the great parable of forgiveness the erring son simply returns, and the father falls on his neck and kisses him. " Father," says he, "I have sinned against heaven and before thee," and straightway he is clothed with the best robe, and has the ring on his hand, and the shoes on his feet. " He was dead and is alive again : he was lost, and is found." There is no mention of an}' intercessor, no typical hint of sacrifice or other atonement, no condition airywhere supposed, but what is included in " because thou desiredst me," or in the presence of penitence and tenderness of heart, and the ab- sence of an unforgiving spirit towards others. Yet at other times there fall from the Lord's own lips some few words at least which reveal himself as the channel, and his blood as the purchase, of the forgiveness which he preaches so freely. " The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins ; " s " M}r blood shed for many for the remission of sins." G These saj'ings give a momentary insight into the depths of the subject, and disclose something of the mysterious means by which forgiveness has been procured, and through which, when once revealed, it must be sought. It is evident that

i Luke vi. 37. 2 Ibid. vii. 47. 3 Matt, xviii. 32. 4 Luke xviii. 13. 5 Matt. ix. 6. 6 Ibid. xxvi. 28.

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 89

such a revelation cannot remain as a mere associated idea, that it must become fundamental, and give a peculiar and distinctive character to the Christian doctrine of the for- giveness of sins. But we see that it is not wrought out in the Gospels. Must we not then expect that this will yet be done ? and that, in some future stage of divine teaching, we shall find the word "Forgive and ye shall be forgiven" elevated and opened into " Forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you," * and the hope of for- giveness placed forever on its true basis of faith in him, " in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." 2

Again, take the doctrine of acceptance and success in prayer. How earnest and how strong are our Lord'e dec- larations on this subject ! It is needless to rehearse them, but these precious assurances are here connected onty with the earnestness, importunity, and simplicity of the worship- pers, and with a general faith in the Father's will to give good things to those that ask him. We might be ready to say, "The whole instruction amounts to this, — Dismiss all heathen and all Pharisaic notions on this subject. Go simply to God as your Father. Ask, and ye shall receive." Yet he who has taught us, before he ceases to speak, adds something more. At the highest point of his teaching we hear him say, u No man cometh unto the Father but by me;3 " If ye shall ask anything in my name J will do it." 4 Here is an immense accession of revelation, which, when fully comprehended, must give its character to the whole Christian doctrine and to the whole Christian habit of

i Eph. iv. 32. 2 Ibid. i. 7.

s John xiv. 6. * Ibid. xvi. 23.

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prayer. But if we are ever to see this consequence wrought out by divine teaching, we must find it in some future stage of instruction, in which the access to the Father by the Son, and the new and living way which he has consecrated for us, and the offices of the High Priest over the house of God, shall be recognized as the true grounds of the full assurance of faith, for him who draws near to God in prayer.

The argument then stands thus. The doctrine of the Gospel includes special revelations which must from their nature become the foundations of moral and spiritual life. But in the doctrine of the Gospels they are not so treated, nor indeed could they be, since the revelations themselves are chiefly anticipatory allusions to facts which have not 3ret taken place. In these revelations the teaching culmi- nates rather than commences. They are the point at which it arrives, not that from which it starts. The doctrine does not therefore bear the character of finality. We expect another stage, in which these special revelations shall be not only cleared and combined, but shall hold that funda- mental place in the whole system of instruction which they tend inevitably to assume. And thus, from the considera- tion of the substance and proportions of the doctrine in the Gospels, as well as from the observation of its form and method, I conclude that I am here only in an initiatory 6tage of divine teaching, and that another part of the course must lie before me.

II. But I am not left to draw this conclusion. The doc- trine of the Gospels not only looks as if it were to be fol- lowed by another stage of teaching, but declares that such is the fact. I come to my second proposition, that the personal teaching of the Lord is a visibly progressive system.

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 91

which, on reaching its highest point, declares its own incom- pleteness, and refers us to another stage of instruction.

1. Place side by side the first discourse in St. Matthew and the last in St. John, and the truth of the first part of this proposition is at once apparent, namely, that the per- sonal teachiug of the Lord is a visibly progressive system. The Sermon on the Mount at the opening of the ministry, and the address in the upper room delivered at its close, are separated from each other, not only by difference of cir- cumstance and feeling, but as implying on the part of the hearers wholly different stages in the knowledge of truth. There is a greater interval between these two discourses than there is between the teaching of the Gospels as a whole and that of the Epistles.

The first discourse is the voice of a minister of the cir- cumcision, clearing and confirming the divine teaching given to the fathers. Blessings, laws, and promises are alike founded on the Old Testament language, which the speaker at the same time adopts and interprets. He keeps in a line with the past, while he makes a clear step in advance. He gives, not so much a new code, as a new edition of the old one. The word of authorit}^, "i say unto you," is directed not to destroy but to fulfil. It is the authority of the origi- nal lawgiver, clearing up his own intentions, and disallowing the perversions of men. As plainly as the first discourse links itself to the past, so plainly does the last discourse reach on to the future. If the one reverts to what was said in old time, the other casts the mind forward on a day of knowledge which is dawning and a new teacher who is com- ing. In passing from the one point to the other, we have left behind us the language and associations of the Old Tes- tament : we have entered a new world of thought, and hear

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92 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LEOT. III.

a new language which is being created for its exigencies. What makes the thought and the language new ? One sin- gle fact ; namely, that the true relation of the Lord Jesus to the spiritual life of his people is now in a measure re- vealed. " Ye believe in God, believe also in me : " — this is the keynote of the whole address. And in the same strain it continues, " No man cometh unto the Father but by me ; " "Abide in me and I in you;" "Without me ye can do nothing." How foreign would such words have been in the Sermon on the Mount ! We are not unprepared for them here, though even here they mean more than can be yet understood. I do not speak of single expressions, but of the whole doctrine on faith and prayer, and love, and ser- vice, and hope, and life. All subjects have here assumed their distinctively Christian character: they- are "in Christ Jesus." The faith fixes itself on him, and on the Father through him. The prayer is " in his name." The love is. a response tolas love. The service is the fruit of union with Mm. The hope is that of being with him where he is ; to abide in him is the secret of life, safety, fruitfulness, and joy ; and the guiding power of this new state is not the explanation of a law, but the gift of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Compare these ideas with those which charac- terize the first Gospel teaching, and 3^011 see how far yon have boon carried from the point at which you started. You see how much must have intervened in the gradual revela- tion of Christ, and in the gradual advance of his teaching, before such a stage of doctrine could be reached.

And much had intervened. To show how much, it would be necessary to trace through all the Gospel record the unfolding of the salvation, as it began to be spoken by the Lord, and the steps by which it was brought about, that the

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 93

Master and the disciples should become the Saviour and the believers, and that the external hearing and folloAving should pass into the nrysterious relations of an inward and spiritual union. It is enough to recall the fact that, through all the works of mercy, the corrections of error, and the instruc- tions in righteousness, a deeper lesson yet is sinking into the minds of his hearers, in the growing sense of a profound and ineffable relation borne b}^ him to the human race and to every human soul. He makes it felt, that he stands before men as the one object on which faith must fasten, as the one who has power on earth to forgive sins, who is come to seek and to save that which is lost, who gives rest to the heavy laden, as the giver of eternal life, as the quickener of whom he will, as the bread which came down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die, as giving his flesh for the life of the world, his life a ransom for many, his blood as the blood of the new covenant shed for many for the remission of sins. Testimonies like these gather as we advance ; and while the Lord in his ordinary teaching ful- fils his mission as the expounder of the laws, and the exam- ple of the character, and the prophet of the destinies of the kingdom of God, he discloses at the same time by these scattered sajings a far deeper and more fundamental rela- tion to that kingdom and to all its several members.

But while these disclosures are yet in progress they are sudden^ cut off. The ministry must end : the hour is come. AVe enter the upper room, and attend the last dis- course, which is the close and the consummation of the teaching of the Lord on earth. .

2. We turn, then, to that portion of the word of God which extends from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 17th chapter of St. John. There, in words most simple

94 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. III.

but unfathoraably deep, addressed first to men and then to God, there flow forth the thoughts which belong to that hour. Oh tender, solemn words ! oh words of majesty and love, of divine sorrow and joy ! words for the saddest moments, the loftiest moments, the last moments of life ! Not in the cold spirit of one who would prove a point do I turn to them now, though it be indeed to decide a question. But what a question ! Not one affecting some single doc- trine which some text in the discourse may touch, but one affecting all the doctrine before and after, all that began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him. It is the question whether the point which we have reached is final or central : whether the true teach- ing of God here reaches a close or effects a transition. There is no uncertainty in the answer, for to give that answer is one main purpose of the discourse. The Lord speaks to the occasion. He would have it understood to what point in the progress of his teaching we are come, and what is the relation between that which is now ending and that which is about to begin.

At the first glance it is plain that the character of the discourse is distinctly transitional; that it announces not an end, but a change; and that, in closing one course of teaching, it at the same time opens another. As the first discourse linked the personal teaching of Christ to the Law and the Prophets which went before it, so the last discourse links that teaching to the dispensation of the Spirit, which is to come after it. The fact on which the first is founded is that the Law of God has been given to men as the guide to 7'ighteousness ; the fact on which the last is founded is that Jesus himself has now been presented to men as the object of faith. And as it was intimated in the one case

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 95

that the lesson of righteousness was jet incomplete, and was to be perfected by Jesus himself, so it is intimated in the other that the lesson of faith is yet incomplete, and is to be perfected by the Holy Ghost whom he will send.

First, the narrative is careful to show us that this lesson of faith had been imperfectly learned. The auditors are the men whom the Lord had chosen and trained, and who had watched most closely the whole course of his manifesta- tion. Yet, as he proceeds, what do we hear? " Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? " " Show us the Father and it sufficethus." " How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the world? " " What is this that he saith? we cannot tell what he saith." By such voices of faint and partial appre- hension or of sore perplexity, we learn how far the teaching of the past had gone with them, in regard to those truths which were being then set forth.

But it might be, notwithstanding, that the course of divine instruction icas complete, and that events }Tet to come and reflection on the past would be sufficient to open to them its meaning. Not thus does the Lord reply. Mingled with sacl reflections, that he has been so long time with them and that }Tet they have not known him, he gives the consoling assurance that their instruction in the truth is not yet ended. A part of it is over, but only a part ; and a part which had its hindrances as well as its helps. The presence of Christ in the flesh had been a help to what they had already learned ; it was a hindrance to what they had now to learn.(6) While he sat there before them in the body, it was hard to understand the mystery of a spiritual union. That hindrance is to be removed ; " It is expedient for you that I go away."

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Then the teaching which he had given them must close. Yes, but another teaching shall be substituted ; which shall be also Ms, though suited to the new relations which he shall bear to them in his glorified state. "It is ex- pedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto }Tou, but if I depart I will send him unto you." Then follow those precious promises of the coming and office and work of the Holy Ghost, which expand their fulfilment over the whole Church and through- out all ages. But while it is clear that, in the wa}^ of ex- tension and of inference, many of the words allow and invite this wider application, it is far more evident that in their first intention they are directly addressed to those who heard them, and meant to meet the question of the particular crisis which had then arrived.1

1 "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com- forter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him : but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you." John xiv. 16-18. "At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Ver. 20. " These things have I spoken to you, Avhile abiding with you; but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things,- and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said uuto you." Ver. 25, 25. "When the Comforter is come, he shall testify of me." xv. 26. " He shall reprove the world of sin, and of righteous- ness, and of judgment : of sin, because they believe not on me ; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more ; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 97

No more distinct assurance could have been given that those future teachers of the world were not then at the end, but only at a certain point in the progress of their educa- tion, and that a teaching remained for them, which should both continue and surpass that which they had already received.

But had they not heard the truth from their Lord ! Yes ; and it was to be the office of the Spirit to recall to their minds the truth which they had heard, as the text and substance of their future knowledge. "He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." But though in the teaching of Jesus all the truth might be implied, it was not all opened; therefore the Holy Ghost was to add that which had not been delivered, as well as to recall that which had been already spoken- There is an evident contrast intended, with regard to ex- tent of knowledge, between " these tilings which I have spoken while }ret present with you," and " all things which he shall teach you." Nay, there is the plainest assertion which could be made, that things were to be said after- wards which had not been said then ; and those not few but many — (" I have yet many things to say unto you") — not of secondary importance but of the highest moment (" Ye cannot bear them now." *) They are things of such a kind as would now weigh down and oppress your minds, seeing that they surpass your present powers of spiritual apprehension. But these many and weighty things shall

into all truth ; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak ; and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." xvi. 8-14.

1 ou bvvaxjtk /3aoTa£eur. 9

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not be left untold : " When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth." He shall guide jou,1 as by successive steps and continuous direction, into the whole of that truth2 of which the commencements have now been given ; and especially into the highest and cen- tral part of it. For it is also made plain on what subject this light shall be poured, and into what mysteries this guidance shall lead. " He shall testify of me;" " he shall glorify me;" "he shall take of mine and show it unto you ; " "at that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, a7id ye in me, and I in you" Not then for some secondary matters (details of Church order or relations of Jews and Gentiles) was this light and witness of the Holy Ghost reserved (though to these questions also the divine guid- ance extended), but rather for the great and central mys- tery of godliness, embracing the nature, work, and offices of Jesus Christ, his mediatorial relations to the Father and to the Church, the redemption of men by his blood, and the salvation of men by his life. But instead of attempting to enumerate these great ideas, it were better to comprehend them all in his own vast and unexplained expression, " He shall take of mine,3 and shall show it unto you."

We have now reviewed the teaching of our Lord in the flesh, in order to draw from it an answer to this question, " Is the revelation of the great salvation given to us in that teaching to be considered as final and complete?" The answer has been, " No ! It has not the appearance of being final, and it explicitly declares that it is not com- plete. When it was ended, it was to be followed by a new

1 bhrjyfjoei. 2 (Is irdoav rrtv alrjBdav. SU rov (pou htyirai

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 99

testimony from God, in order that man}?" things might be spoken which had not been spoken then."

The testimony came ; the things were spoken ; and in the apostolic writings we have their enduring record. In those writings we find the fulfilment of an expectation which the Gospels raised, and recognize the performance of a promise which the Gospels gave. If we do not, the word of salvation, which began to be spoken by the Lord, has never been finished for us. Then, not only would the end be wanting, but the beginning would become obscure. The lessons of holiness would still shine in their own pure light, and the rebukes of human error would show in their severe outlines ; but the words which open by antici- pation the nrystery of the great salvation, flashing some- times on its deep foundations, sometimes on its lofty summits, would but dazzle and confuse our sight ; and we should be tempted to turn from their discoveries, as from visions which had no substance, or from enigmas which we could not interpret.

And so in fact they treat the personal teaching of Christ who give not its due honor to the subsequent witness of his Spirit, regarding the apostolic writings as only Petrine, Pauline, or Alexandrian versions of the Christian doctrine, interesting records of the views of individuals or schools of opinion concerning the salvation which Jesus began to speak. No ! the words of our Lord are not honored (as these men seem to think) by being thus isolated ; for it is an isolation which separates them from other words which also are his own, words given by him in that day when he no longer spake in proverbs, but showed his servants plainly of the Father. The brief communications in which the salvation began to be spoken by the Lord must lose

100 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. III.

half their glory, if a raist and darkness be cast over that later teaching which was ordained to throw its reflex light upon them.

Our thoughts have now arrived at the point where the day of " speaking in proverbs " -changes into the day of "showing plainly." It is a critical moment ; for, whatever progress of doctrine the change may involve, all our satis- faction in its increased distinctness of outline and accumu- lated fulness of detail must depend on our assurance that the teacher is still the same. My next duty will therefore be that of noting the care which he himself has taken to fix that assurance on our minds. His care is never wanting where it is needed, and we have cause to praise his holy name that in this, as well as in so many other ways, he has knit together the one body of his written word by living and indissoluble bands, so that its interdependent parts fulfil effectually their several functions, in commencing or completing the one testimony of the great salvation.

It is of the testiinon}^ that I now speak. More happy is that common ministry in which we present the salvation itself. Only for the sake of the salvation does the testi- mon}^ exist. There is a deep interest for every considerate mind in the form, the plan, the character, of the sacred writings ; but it is not a merely literary or intellectual interest : it is one created by the object for which the writings are given. The reader of the Gospels is not suffered to close the volume without a solemn admonition of the purpose for which it has been placed in his hands. " These things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life through his name." Does it wound our hearts to see this wondrous record misapprehended, its unity denied, its glory

LECT. III. THE GOSPELS. 101

darkened? Perhaps it is a sadder sight in the eye of heaven when its inspiration is vindicated, its perfection appreciated, its majesty asserted, by one who at the same time for himself neglects the great salvation. Snch a case is not impossible — perhaps is not uncommon. The Day will declare it. At least let it be remembered, that the study of the testimony is one thing, and the enjoyment of the salvation is another, and that the record of the things which Jesus did and said has attained its end with those only, who, " believing, have life through his name."

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LECTURE IV.

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

THE FORMER TREATISE HAVE I MADE, O THEOPHILUS, OF ALL THAT JESUS BEGAN BOTH TO DO AND TO TEACH, UNTIL THE DAT IN WHICH HE WAS TAKEN UP, AFTER THAT HE THROUGH THE HOLY GHOST HAD GIVEN COM- MANDMENTS UNTO THE APOSTLES WHOM HE HAD CHOSEN: TO WHOM ALSO HE SHEWED HIMSELF ALIVE AFTER HIS PASSION BY MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS, BEING SEEN OF THEM FORTY DAYS, AND SPEAKING OF THE THINGS PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD: AND, BEING ASSEMBLED TO- GETHER WITH THEM, COMMANDED THEM THAT THEY SHOULD NOT DEPART FROM JERUSALEM, BUT WAIT FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER, WHICH, SAITH HE, YE HAVE HEARD OF ME. — Acts i. 1-4.

With these words we enter on a new stage of history and of doctrine, and the}T are words which connect it with the past. The links of Scripture (if I may so call them) unit- ing one part to another, and assisting our sense of the con- tinuity of the whole, are wortlry of especial notice. Thus the Gospels have been brought to a fit and (as it seems from the final words) an intended conclusion, at the end of the twentieth chapter of St. John ; but 3-et another chapter is added, as if dictated by some afterthought, which in its effect links the whole Gospel record to the book which suc- ceeds it. The miracle which had alread}' foreshadowed the work of the fishers of men is repeated, but with altered cir- cumstances, typical of the change which was at hand. For now the Lord is no longer with them in the ship, but stands diinl}- seen upon the shore ; yet from thence issues his direc- tions, and shows the presence of his power working with them in their seemingly lonely toil. Then the charge is

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LECT. IV. the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 103

left to "feed his sheep," and lastly the future destinies of the two chief Apostles are suffered to be faintly seen.

In like manner does the book of Acts at its opening at- tach itself to the preceding record ; throwing back our thoughts on " the former treatise of all that Jesus began both to do and teach," and then passing rapidly in review the last circumstances "which connect the Apostles with their Lord, as the instruments which he had chosen and prepared for the work which he had yet to do. Thus the history which follows is linked to, or (may I not rather say) welded with, the past ; and the founding of the Church in the earth is presented as one continuous work, begun by the Lord in person, and perfected by the same Lord through the ministry of men. This is the point on which I have now to insist. " The former treatise" delivered to us, not all that Jesus did and taught, but " all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up." The following writings appear intended to give us, and do in fact profess to give us, that which Jesus continued to do and teach after the day in which he was taken up. (7)

There are then two points which claim our attention when we pass beyond that day, and enter on the second stage of New Testament doctrine. One is that the authority is con- tinued; the other is that the method is changed. Our in- quiries will naturally be directed (1) to the evidence for the first fact, and (3) to the reasons for the second.

I. First, then, I turn to the books which lie before us, to ask what evidence they give, that the divine authority, which was self-evident in the first stage of teaching, is continued also in the second, or, in other words, that this is as really as the other a part of revelation, and a period of divine com- munication of truth to man. The fundamental part of this

104 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. IV.

evidence consists in the words, which were cited in the last lecture, from the mouth of the Lord himself: for in the words of his lips is centred the evidence for all teaching which he has given us through the lips of men. But we are now to see how these intimations are supported in the books which follow.

1. We find, then, that the doctrinal writings of the Apos- tles are prefaced by the book of Acts, some account of that which was done being given as an introduction to the record of that which was taught. The function of this book in the scheme of Scripture is of very high importance, in other respects, to which we must advert hereafter, and especially in that which concerns us now. It is a record of the per- sonal action of the Lord Jesus Christ in the first evolution of his gospel and formation of his Church.

With him and with his last words on earth the book be- gins, reminding us of his commission and commands to the Apostles whom he had chosen. Then we see him depart, and they are left to their work. Yet they do not begin it till the promised Spirit is come ; they wait for the promise of the Father, which they have heard of him. One trans- action in the interval shows their own assurance that he who directed them so lately intends to direct them still : "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part in this ministry and apostleship." 1 Such language in- timates the relation in which they still felt themselves to their now unseen Master. But soon the promised gift is bestowed, and the dispensation of the Spirit has begun. And what in their view is the dispensation of the Spirit?

1 Acts i. 24.

LECT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 105

It is the agency and gift of Jesus. "Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." 1

This view of the operation of the Spirit, as the medium through which the Lord Jesus wrought and taught, is car- ried through the whole course of the history which follows. As in the promise, so in the history, " TJie Comforter will come unto jou " — " I will come unto you," — are but two sides of one and the same fact. On critical occasions and at each onward step the hand of the Master is made dis- tinctly visible. The first martyr dies for a testimony, which is felt to be an advance on what had been given before, being understood to imply that " this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and change the customs which Moses delivered us ; " and his words are sealed by the vis- ion of his Lord in glory. The consignment of the Gospel to the Ethiopian proselyte was another step in advance, and for this " the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip." The preaching of the word to Gentiles, and their admission into the Church, was a greater step ; and for this the Lord intervenes b}^ the mission of an angel to Cornelius, by a vision and a voice of the Spirit to Peter, and by a kind of second Pentecost to the converts themselves. But when the greatest step of all is to be taken in the onward course of the Gospel, then most visibly does the great Head of the Church make manifest his personal administration. A new Apostle appears ; not like him who was added before Pen- tecost, completing the number of the original college, and losing his individuality in its ranks ; but one standing apart

1 Acts ii. 33.

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and in advance, under whose hand both the doctrines and the destinies of the Gospel receive a development so exten- sive and so distinct that it seemed almost another Gospel to many who witnessed it, and to some who study it seems so still. How striking is the special authentication appro- priated to this stage of teaching ! This man's conversion, education, commission, direction, the Lord Jesus under- takes himself. Suddenly he meets him in the way, shines forth upon him in a light above the brightness of the sun, speaks to him by a voice from heaven, calls him by name, convinces, adopts, directs him, commands Ananias con- cerning him, and (apparently on repeated occasions) an- nounces the use which he has decreed to make of " the chosen vessel." The subsequent history is marked by con- tinual testimonies of the same divine intervention, given at every step which might involve the doubt whether it were of Paul or of Christ. When his soul clave to the ministry among his own people, he was forced from it by immediate command : " It came to pass that, while I prayed in the Temple, I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste and get thee quickly- out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimon}' concerning me : depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." 1 When he had fixed himself as a settled teacher in Antioch, " the Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- unto I have called them." When he would have confined himself to the Eastern Continent, and turned, in his con- templated circuit, first to Asia, and then to Bithynia, " the Spirit suffered him not," and a divine message enabled him to " gather assuredly that the Lord had called him" to cany

xActs xxii. 17, 18, 21.

LECT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 107

his Gospel into Europe. Again, in Corinth, the Lord's own voice directed him to remain, as in the head-quarters of the Grecian world. In Jerusalem, when disheartened and per- haps doubtful of the course he had taken, his Master came to assure him of the acceptance of his past testimony, and announce the purpose that he should bear witness also at Rome ; and finally in the shipwreck itself, when all hope of being saved was taken away, the declaration of the di- vine purpose was made j~et more distinct : " Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought Before Caesar."

Thus does he, who at the commencement of the history was seen to pass into the heavens, continue to appear in person on the scene. His Apostles act, not only on his past commission, but under his present direction. He is not wholly concealed by the cloud which had received him out of their sight. Now his voice is heard ; now his hand put forth ; and now through a sudden rift the brightness of his presence shines. And these appearances, voices, and vis- ions are not merely incidental favors ; they are, as we have seen, apportioned to the moments when they are ivanted, moments which determine the course which the Gospel takes, and in which a manifestation of divine guidance proves the divine guidance of the whole. The ship rushes on its way, shunning the breakers, dashing through the bil- lows, certain of its track. The crew work it, but do not guide it. We can see the strong movements of the helm, and from time to time discern a firm hand which holds it. No chances, no winds or currents, bear it along at their will, but he who has launched it guides it, and he knows the course which it takes.

The divine direction, which is thus exhibited in the book of the Acts, is indeed the direction of a course of action

108 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LeCT. IT.

rather than a course of teaching. It seems to be the guid- ance of the movements of the Gospel, rather than of the for- mation of the Gospel ; and our present inquiry is concerned with the progress of its formation, not with the progress of its extension. Yet in the apostolic period these two kinds of progress co-exist, and, as it were, cohere ; and the out- ward divine direction of the one is offered as surety for the inward divine direction of the other. In the earlier period, the things which Jesus began to do were the proof and sup- port of the things which he began t<5 teach; and in the later period, that which he continued to do, in the acts of his Apostles, is the pledge that in their doctrine also it was he who continued to teach. The inference is natural and is plainly intended, — If the introductory historical book mani- fests the direction of the Lord in the acts of these men, then in the subsequent doctrinal books ive must oivn his direction in their teaching. Such an inference would be reasonable, if we regarded the teaching as simply an accompaniment of the acting ; such an inference is inevitable, when we see that the delivery of the truth to the world is the one end and object of what is done.

I must further observe, that the facts recorded in the book of Acts are not only a pledge of the divine authority of the doctrine in the Epistles, but are also the means through which that doctrine was perfected. As the Gospel was guided through its conflict with the contemporaneous Juda- ism ; as it spread from the Hebrews to the Grecians, to the dispersion, to the devout persons, to the heathen beyond ; as it passed from Jerusalem to Antioch, to Corinth, to Rome ; as it was presented to men first through Peter, and then through Paul, — its doctrines were gaining at every step in definiteness and fulness. Questions arose which

LECT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 109

compelled decision ; new states of mind in receivers of truth called out, not new principles of truth, but new applications of it ; and the growth of Churches and the advance of Christian life led to the settlement of points which could not have been raised till such a state of things had arisen. Under these circumstances, a divine guidance of events was only a means for the divine guidance of doctrine. If the Lord himself sensibly interfere, to send Peter to Csesarea, and to call Paul to bear his name before Gentiles and kings, then not only those steps, but the doctrinal results of them, are visibly included in the purpose of God and marked with the seal of heaven.

More than this we can hardly ask for from the book of Acts, seeing that its province is in the outward scene, and its office is to record the march of events. We pass from it to the Epistles with the fullest assurance which such evi- dence can afford, that the doctrine which they contain is given by the Lord Jesus, and that, if it appear an advance upon that which he spake with his lips in the days of his flesh, that advance has been matured by himself.

In the Epistles which have for their province, not history but doctrine, some direct statements on this subject might perhaps be expected. Whether expected or not, they are certainly found. The great body of the Epistles are the writings of St. Paul. The change in the aspect of their doctrine as compared with the Gospel type bears chiefly the impress of his mind. It has been called, and may be prop- erty called, the Pauline doctrine. Is it also absolutely the doctrine of Christ? oris it an individual variety of that doctrine, to be regarded (so far as it seems peculiar) as one allowable form of the original truth? a token that there shall be, a warrant that there may be, various systems of 10

110 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. IV.

opinion in the Church ? The question in fact is this, Is the voice of Paul speaking in the Scriptures to be taken by the Church as the voice of Jesus? This question has been an- swered by the history in the Acts. We have already recalled to our minds the special choice, and call, and commission, and direction, which were assigned to the Apostle born out of due time ; the confirmation of his proceedings when they were most questioned, the divine fellowship in his course when it seemed most lonely. But there is 3"et a more direct answer than this ; one which his own words supply.

In his writings in general he is careful to assert the reality of his apostleship, as conferred by immediate ap- pointment and bearing the seal of God ; and it is observa- ble, that the strength of these expressions is proportioned to the occasions when the authority of the office involves the authority of the doctrine. In the Epistle to the Gala- tians, when he has to maintain his gospel as being the gos- pel, we find the precision which marks the language of one who knows what insinuations he has to negative : " Paul, an Apostle, not of men,1 neither by men,2 but by3 Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." He declares himself to have been placed, not originally from men, nor mediately by any man's ministry, but by the very hand of Christ, in the chair from which his instruc- tions are delivered, and thus he attaches the authority of the commission to the instructions which are given under it. But he goes farther, and affirms that those instructions themselves were no less immediately received from the Lord Jesus, than was the commission under which they were delivered.

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LECT. IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Ill

Let me ask your attention to the language which this Apostle uses, when speaking of the sources whence the matter of his preaching was derived. Take first two passages from the First Epistle to the Corinthians. He says (ch. xi. 23-25), " I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto yon, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread ; and having given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat : this is my bod}^, which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood : this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." Again (ch. xv. 1-7), the same expression, though less full, is used in reference to another class of facts : " Brethren, I declare unto }tou the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received. . . . For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for onr sins according to the Scriptures ; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures ; and that he was seen of Cephas, and then of the twelve ; after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; . . . after that, he was seen of James ; then of all the Apostles." Now place by the side of these statements two others, taken from the Epistles which follow. To the Galatians he says (ch. i. 2, 12), "I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man ; for 7" neither received it of man,1 neither tvas I taught it, but by revelation2 of Jesus Christ; " and to the Ephesians (iii. 2, 3) he speaks in the same strain, though with less emphatic precision : " Ye have

1 xapa avdpwirov TtapiXaj3ov. 2 61' a-oKaXi^euig.

112 THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. LECT. IV.

heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, given to me to you-ward : how that by revelation lie made known unto me the mystery." *

Between the first and -the second of thes'e 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,"2 : nor yet as the first link, for even the fuller expression, rendered "I re- ceived of the Lord," 3 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.(8) 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,4 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 hy 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 differ- ent places with more immediate reference to the one or the other of these elements. In the passages from the Epistle

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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 affirmation is made, not merely in respect of the general doctrine, but specifically of those parts of it -which it was given to him to develop and defend: "the Gospel which was preached by me," — " my Gospel" as he elsewhere 10*

114 THE PROGRESS 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 heard ; 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 wa}r 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 communications, 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 miuister and a witness, both of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I iciil 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

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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, namely, 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 ; 3'et these numerous interventions do not constitute the entire sj'stem 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 habitual, not through separate 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 dajr 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 conve3Ts 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 diclst 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 Spirit there is so much that is visible on its surface, that our thoughts are apt to be arrested before they penetrate to its centre. Tongues and prophecies, and signs and wonders, gifts of the Holy Ghost 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 j«>y. 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. IV. 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 ligJit" 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 they should "receive power," and he told them that they should receive " comfort," but we have seen that that on which he chiefly dwelt was the light of knowledge 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 you." 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 inquiry ; the evidence of their fulfilment is the thing before us now.

Those to whom these promises are given exhibit at the time a dimness of apprehension, a perplexity and disorder of thought, an incapacity to understand the things which they hear and see, which we, 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 deficiency or to the necessit}' of the case.

They were dealt with accordingly. From the moment when they saw their Lord ascend, the}" 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 prayer. 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. They manifestly have their origin in the certainty of assur- ance and intensity of conviction. The " boldness " l pro- ceeds from " a full assurance ;" 2 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, only 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 conld say that things " seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them ; " 3 that their word was " not the word of man but the word of God ;"4 that it was "the Spirit that bore witness;"5 that they " preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven;"0 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 b}T 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 ~ronr,cia. 2 irlrjpoipooia.

3 Acts xv. 28. 4 1 Thess. ii. 13.

5 1 John v. 6. 6 1 Pet. i. 12.

LECT. IV. 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 the}r had the mind of Christ." 1 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 zvas 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 certif}^. For the first testimony they needed but a clear and faithful memory. For the second also the same faculty would suffice, but only up to a certain point ; namely, as far as they had received and 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 PROGRESS 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 parti}7 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 eveiy man who could take a different view of the words which they repeated from that which they had taken them- selves.(t)) Thus the whole s3-stem of their doctrine would stand (like the image in the dream) on feet part of iron and part of clay, and would not wait long for the hour of its overthrow. But he who, in the face of all which has been now recalled to mind, should still treat their doctrine in this 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 Mm."

II. We have not then changed our teacher, but he 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 glory, and could no longer talk with his servants on earth. Bat though the change might be necessary, it was also "expedient" — expedient for them. So he represents it to his mourning and perplexed disciples, and adds the support of a strong asseveration. " Never- theless I tell you the truth, it is good for you that I go away ; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." 1 The change then takes place as an advantage