submitted to its influence and authority here lay down the burden of the flesh, the kingdom of Heaven is the name applied to the more perfect and glorious condition of being into which they then enter. Jesus uses the expression in these three different ways. When therefore he says to Peter, "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven," he means, I will give to thee the truths by which my religion shall be unlocked and laid open to the souls of men, so that it may act upon them as a spiritual power, and receive them into itself as an outward institution, or a divinely organized community of souls. And more than this. So far, its work is on the earth. But it is not confined to the earth. What is done here, in this lower sphere of the kingdom of Heaven in accordance with its laws, applies with equal force in its higher sphere, in the heavens, where those same laws prevail. Whatever is done in accordance with those laws here is recognized as in accordance with them there above, wherever that kingdom extends. Whatever is bound or loosed in accordance with them here, has the sanction of Heaven, and is bound or loosed there. They who, accepting the offers of salvation, become members of the kingdom of Heaven on earth, become by that act members of the kingdom of Heaven above; and they who by rejecting its offers exclude themselves from it here, at the same time. close its doors against them in the heavens. In this sense, what is bound or loosed on earth is bound or loosed in heaven.

But how is it that Jesus uses this language in his address to Peter alone? It is addressed to him as the spokesman or representative of the Apostles. As Olshausen has said, "That which at verse 19 is spoken to St. Peter is at Matt. xviii. 18, John xx. 23, addressed to all the Apostles. One cannot therefore find in these words anything that is peculiar to St. Peter; he merely answers as the organ of the college of Apostles, and Christ, acknowledging him as such, replies to him, and speaks through him to them all.” "That

which is through St. Peter bestowed on the Apostles, was again through the Apostles conferred on the whole Church." "That the Apostles then, and their true successors in the Spirit, turned with the word of truth towards one place, and away from another, that they followed up their labors on one man and not on another, in this consisted the binding and loosing. The whole new spiritual community which the Saviour seems to found took its rise from the Apostles and their labors. No one became a Christian save through them, and thus the Church through all time is built up in living union with its origin. Christianity is no bare summary of truths and reflections to which a man even in a state of isolation might attain; it is a life-stream which flows through the human race, and its fountains must reach every separate individual who is to be drawn within this circle of life. Gospel is identified and grown into union with the persons. The explanation, therefore, of the passage which the Protestant Church usually opposes to the view of the Catholics, according to which the faith of Peter, and the confession of that faith, is the rock, is entirely the correct one, only the faith itself and his confession of it must not be regarded as

apart from Peter himself personally."

The

21-28. THE HUMILIATION AND

SUFFERINGS OF THE

MESSIAH.

21. Here commences a new era in the ministry of Jesus. He now for the first time openly and plainly (Mark viii. 32) announced to his disciples the sufferings and death and resurrection from the dead through which he was soon to pass. They could not take in the idea. They remembered his words, but it was not till after his resurrection that they understood what was meant by them. The words were indeed so fearfully distinct, that at first they could not be misinterpreted. Peter, adhering still to his mistaken ideas of the Messiah and his kingdom, and unable to admit the possibil

ity of such degradation and sufferings as have just been foretold, in the ardent impetuosity which so often showed itself in his conduct, laid hold on Jesus, and remonstrated with him as one does with a friend in despondency. (See Whately, Good and Evil Spirits, p. 135.) "God be gracious to thee, Lord; this thing shall not be to thee." As if he had said, "There is no ground for such gloomy apprehensions. This cannot be." It was an act of ignorant presumption for him to address Jesus in this way. The suggestion evidently touched him most keenly. Turning to Peter, and looking at the disciples (Mark viii. 33), he rebuked Peter, and said to him, "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling-block to me, because thou regardest not the things of God, but the things of men."

Why does Jesus show such extreme sensitiveness? He had used the same expression once before (Matt. iv. 10), in his last reply to the tempter in the wilderness. It has been supposed that it is not applied to Peter so much as to the evil spirit from whom the suggestion came. But the language is very explicit. "Turning, he said to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan," thou tempter. Here, as in the other case (iv. 10, see note there), where the same expression is used, there is something which indicates a peculiar sensitiveness, as if Jesus entered enough into the feeling of the disciple to be himself not wholly insensible to the temptation which came here under its most insidious form. "Unquestionably," says Olshausen, "the Saviour must be conceived of as having maintained one continuous conflict with temptations. The great periods of such temptations at the commencement and termination of his ministry exhibit, merely in a concentrated form, what ran through his whole life. Here then, for the first time, there meets our view a moment in which temptation assails him by holding forth the possibility of escaping sufferings and death. It was all the more concealed and dangerous that it came to him through the lips of a dear disciple, who had just solemnly

acknowledged his divine dignity. From the clear and pure fountain of Christ's life no unholy thought could flow; but inasmuch as he was to be a conqueror victorious over sin, it had to draw near, that in every form he might overthrow it; and upon his human nature, which only by degrees received within itself the whole fulness of the divine life, sin, when it drew near, did make an impression." Instantly, however, in this case, on feeling the power of the temptation, he recognized the source from which it came, and by the harsh word which he used in his reply to Peter, he laid open to him the wicked agency or wrong principle and motive by which the suggestion had been prompted.

Nor does he stop with the disclosure of what is wrong in the disciple. He lays down, 24-28, more strongly, and with words of more fearful and solemn interest, the utter self-renunciation which would be required of his followers. We have no language which comes up to the full force of the idea here set forth. Utterly to deny and renounce themselves, to take up the cross, that appalling instrument of degradation and torture and death, and follow Him—is what he sets before them as their duty now. But he rises into a region of thought which makes even these sacrifices seem small. "For what," he asks, "shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he reward every man according to his doing." Here we are lifted up amid the retributions of another world. The sacrifices made here, the obedience, in self-renunciation and holy living, of those who follow him in his conflicts and humiliation, will be rewarded by him, when in that higher world he shall meet them with the ensigns of his greatness, in the glory of his Father, and attended by his angels.

Then, v. 28, by one of those sudden transitions which are so common with him, he comes down from the thought

of his kingdom, in its glorious consummation with ransomed souls above, to the time of its establishment and ascendency on earth, i. e. to the time when, with the destruction of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the Jews, and the overthrow of the whole Jewish polity, the sacrifice and the oblation should cease, the old religion no longer be recognized in the region where it had so long prevailed, and the religion of Christ, the Son of man coming in his kingdom, should take its place as the only true worship among men.

NOTES.

THE Pharisees also, with the Sadducees, came, and, tempting, desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, 3 It will be fair weather; for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the 4 sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them and departed.

1. The Pharisees also, with the Sadducees] The Pharisees overlaid the Law with their traditions, and thus made it of none effect through their superstitious and hypocritical observances. (See xv. 1-20.) The Sadducees by their unbelief, retaining the letter of the law, but explaining it away in a captious and sceptical spirit, rendered it of none effect. These hostile sects, however, could forget their differences long enough to attack one whose simple, energetic, and life-giving truths laid open the emptiness of their pretensions, and overthrew alike the religious reasonings of both.

2.

He answered] Mark (viii. 12)