Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by

WALKER, WISE, & CO.,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

University Press, Cambridge:

Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.

PREFACE.

THE object of this work is to assist in the interpretation of the Gospels. It does not seek to go beyond the authority of Jesus. It does not undertake to show what the Evangelists ought to have said, and to force their language into accordance with it. If in any case it may seem to go beyond them, it has been only to meet the honest sceptic of our day on his own ground, and show either that he has misinterpreted the words and acts of Christ, or that those words and acts are in accordance with the great principles of reason, which reach alike through the realms of physical and moral being. The one all-sufficient answer to the unbelief of our age is still the same that Jesus addressed to the Sadducees, who represented the refined and philosophical scepticism of his day: "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." A true understanding of the Scriptures, with the insight which is gained from them in the light of the highest philosophy into the ways and works and character of God, is the most effectual remedy for scepticism, whether it be a disease going on through moral infidelity to intellectual unbelief, or an honest antagonism to doctrines which falsely call themselves Christian or Evangelical.

The best antidote to scepticism and to a narrow religious dogmatism, is the same. Both believers and unbelievers read too much about the Gospels in the works of their favorite guides, and study the Gospels themselves too little. We have never known a diligent and thorough study of the New Testament to end either in bigotry or unbelief. There is a truthfulness breathing through its writings which cannot but affect the ingenuous mind that puts itself freely and constantly into communication with