INTRODUCTION.

HOW TO STUDY THE GOSPELS.

WE are more and more convinced that the Gospel of Christ is to be the great source of moral and religious instruction and improvement to the world. The writings of the New Testament stand apart from all others. No works of man's genius pretend to an equal fellowship with them. They reach now, as they always have done, above the highest thought and experience of our race. As the sky rises as far above us when we are on the loftiest mountain as in the lowest valley, so they rise as far above the ideas and civilization of the world now, as they did in the days of Tiberius and Nero. There can hardly be a more convincing proof of their Divine authority than this; we mean, in the words of a profound and original thinker, Dr. Nichols, "the Gospel's sun-like solitude in the moral firmament. The vast space around it is clear of all light but its own."

And this suggests a most important principle of interpretation. As these writings rise above all others, and shine in a vast space "clear of all light but their own," so it must be in that light, more than by any helps drawn from inferior sources, that we are to learn and to apply their truths. It is wonderful how our Saviour imbued with the universality of his own mind every transient incident and word into which his thought or life passed, so that it has become, like himself, to us "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

"The grass which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven,” ""the sower" who "went forth to sow," "the fields "white already to harvest," "the light and gladness of the marriage feast" contrasted with "the outer darkness" where "shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth," the "grain of mustard-seed," the children at their sports in the marketplace, "I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink," his taking little children into his arms, his inspection of the tributemoney, are, by means of the virtue which went into them from him, taken up from the sphere of limited and transient expressions or incidents, and stand out forever as emblems of universal and undying truths. He who could thus imbue the most ephemeral forms of speech with an imperishable life, and who could place a slight act of grateful reverence, or a casual conversation with a sinful woman by the side of a well, among the memorable events in the world's history, must have been charged with life and power beyond all others. And his language, passing from its earthly uses into a medium for the communication of divine and heavenly truths, and of an influence more subtile and life-giving than any truths in their naked presentation to the intellect, can borrow little from subsidiary illustrations and analogies. We have only to open our souls to it, as we do our eyes to the light, and it will come in. If we give ourselves up to it, we shall not be left in darkness or in doubt. It speaks with its own authority, and explains and enforces its own decisions. Often when we try to explain. it, we shall only turn the attention away from it, or darken and obscure it by our words of inferior wisdom. A great part of our Saviour's language, and most of the lessons taught by his life, are of this character. He is the one Mediator between God and man, and it is worse than vain for us to interpose ourselves as his interpreters.

This is one of the reasons why all commentaries are read with a sense of disappointment. They are expected to throw new light on the great essential teachings of Christ;

They

and that is what no commentators can ever do. might as well hope to throw new light upon the sun. Happy are they if they can to some extent remove from his teachings the obscurations which men have thrown over them. They are expected to give new efficacy to the "virtue” that goes out from them; and that they can never do. We may hope to clear up some of the obscurities which obsolete customs, or modes of speech foreign to our habits of thought, have caused. We may analyze our Saviour's discourses, and show the underlying principles by which the different parts are united. We may bring together expressions, such as "the kingdom of Heaven," "the coming of the Son of man," "the end of the world," which with slight modifications are scattered through the accounts of his ministry, and, by a careful comparison of the different conditions and circumstances under which they were used, may detect the differences of meaning which were put upon them, and the central idea which gives a unity to these different meanings. We may free some of the fresh and beautiful expressions of Scripture from their subjection to the canting phraseology of a formal piety, and some of its sublime enunciations of truth from their cruel bondage to the "decrees" of metaphysical speculations or ecclesiastical councils. We may compare the different narratives of the same events, and by combining them into one may harmonize what to the superficial reader seem to be contradictions. We may bring out the relations of time and space to the Gospel narratives, and thus make the acts and words of Jesus more consistent with one another, and more real to the reader. Above all, we may come back to the simple and natural methods of inquiry which are employed in the interpretation of all other writings. What Bacon and Newton, and other great philosophers, have done for the study of the mind of God in the book of nature, by breaking loose from arbitrary and unnatural methods of investigation, and applying the most direct and simple processes, is what the ablest religious

thinkers and scholars must do, and to some extent are doing, for the study of the mind of God in the volume of that other book, in which he would reveal himself to us with greater fulness and a more affecting power. As what Bacon and Newton did most of all was to call men back to nature itself, as it exists in the world around us, so what we have to do most of all is to call men back to the Gospel itself, as it lies before us, dimly prefigured in the Old Testament, and embodied in the New.

There are two things essential in order to a right understanding of the Gospels;-1. A fitting preparation of heart; and, 2. A mind free from all preconceived opinions which may bias or mislead us in our investigations. The first is a moral and spiritual preparation; the second is that, but it is also and mainly an intellectual preparation.

1. There is the fitting preparation of heart. This is what our Saviour meant by the faith, which he always regarded as essential to salvation. It was not an intellectual belief such as men have made it since, but a disposition of heart, a readiness to receive and to obey him in whatever he might teach or command. With this faith in the heart showing itself by obedience and fidelity in the life, our Christian consciousness will be enlarged, and we shall take in more and more of the truth. All that is most essential in the Gospels may be received. Its holiest precepts will direct us in our lives; its richest promises will be fulfilling themselves in our experience. Its great words of comfort and of power, which lie beyond the reach of criticism or commentary, will take up their abode in us, and become to us spirit and life. It is through this preparation of heart that the family Bible gains such a hold on the affections, instils into the soul its divinest influences, guides us in our duties, and teaches us how to turn sorrow and weariness and pain, and even sin itself, into the means of deliverance and triumph. Thus it is that Jesus introduces himself to us as our Teacher and Saviour. The Holy Spirit enters our souls, and renews

them with a perpetual influx of life. And God reveals himself to us in whatever is great or beautiful in nature, in the dear and sacred relations which bind us to one another, and in all the gracious and merciful, though to us often mysterious and painful orderings of his providence. This use of the Bible its daily and familiar companionship, its confidential communications to us in our retired moments is worth more than all its more elaborate and learned lessons.

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2. But there is also to be a preparation of the intellect, and in order to this, first of all, we must allow no preconceived opinions to stand in the way of a perfectly free and fair investigation. We must remember that, as students of the New Testament, one is our Master, even Christ, and that as no want of faith can be an excuse for setting aside anything that he has taught, so neither should any preconceived opinions of ours, or creeds drawn up and established by human authority, stand as a barrier between his words and us. If our views are not broad enough to take in any doctrine that he has taught, then we must make them broad enough. There is a freedom, a greatness, not merely an elevation but a breadth of thought, in his instructions, strangely in contrast with the narrow and enslaving opinions which metaphysical divines have elaborated "in order to satisfy the demand of unity in the Christian consciousness and in the activity of the dialectic reason,” or which ambitious rulers in the Church have established as an engine of administrative authority. Christ has set our feet in a large place, and our allegiance to him requires that, in the study of his words and life, we should jealously assert and exercise the liberty wherewith he has made us free.

A mournful spectacle, in this respect, has been presented by the Christian world. Advantage is taken of the new convert, in the most impressible moment of life, when he has no time or heart to examine for himself, when he is rejoicing in the advent of new hopes and a new experience, and his