the preacher holds before his congregation a picture which he has been painting, aud while they are wrapt in silent admiration of its fidelity and beauty, there comes to many a conscience the rapier thrust of, "Thou art the man." No one knows where to look for the application, for it is not confined to the close of a discourse. There is nothing to indicate the direction from which the preacher may come, or in what way he will make his attack; and nothing in the nature of the subject chosen for discussion, or in the manner of illustrating it, that offers security against his onsets. The hearer can never make sure but that he may, by an unexpected and dexterous application of the point in hand, however apparently remote from practical purposes, plunge his "two-edged sword" into his very heart. There is no room for one class in a congregation to indulge in self-gratulation at the expense of another. The miser is smitten in the very act of applauding the preacher's eloquent denunciation of drunkenness. Many a hand ready to seize a stone to cast at the discovered offender is made to hang nerveless by the side. To the malicious joy of the reprobate at witnessing the unmasking of the hypocrite, succeed "shame and confusion of face," on account of his own delineated character. The enemy of religion is made to quail while rejoicing over the fall of "the saints."

It may not be altogether out of place in closing this unpretending paper, to express the persuasion that there is now open to the man who shall combine in himself the requisite qualifications, an untrodden path to usefulness and eminence as a preacher in England. While the "high places of the field will be wisely left by every modest person in the indisputed possession of Robert Hall, and others of stately endowments;—and while the more retired posts of ministerial service are efficiently occupied by men of less mark and stature, there is a broad midway, not so thronged by distinguished preachers, but that the rightly qualified individual may find sufficient room for striking out a new course. The path, thus but dimly defined, will run in

the main through unfrequented ground, while, in several points, it will coincide with that so usefully trodden by the celebrated Whitfield. Whoever shall unite in himself even the characteristics of Welsh preaching, will not be found very meagrely equipped for the duties of the pulpit. The resources of manner and intonation have not as yet been worked to exhaustion; on the contrary, there is an ample residue of latent forces awaiting evocation, and ready to do the bidding of any man who shall be but wise and bold enough to employ them as the auxiliaries of sacred oratory. KILSBY JONES.

The Genius of the Gospel.

ABLE expositions of the Gospel, describing the manners, customs, and localities, alluded to by the inspired writers; also interpreting their words, and harmonizing their formal discrepancies, are, happily, not wanting amongst us. But the eduction of its WIDEST truths and highest suggestions is still a felt desideratum. To some attempt at the work we devote these pages. We gratefully avail ourselves of all exegetical helps within our reach; but to occupy our limited space with any lengthened archæological, geographic, or philological remarks, would be to miss our aim; which is not to make bare the mechanical process of scriptural study, but to reveal its spiritual results.

SECTION SEVENTY-FIVE :-Matt. xxii. 23—33.

:

'The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, saying, Master, Moses said, if a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them ye do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrec tion of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were

astonished at his doctrine."

SUBJECT:-The Question of the Sadducees,-Matrimony

in the Resurrection.

THE Sadducees were the rationalists of their age, in the Jewish church. They recoiled from the stiff orthodoxy of the day. The dogmatism of the Pharisees so disgusted them, that they resolved upon investigating sacred questions for themselves, and forming their own judgments. They became freethinkers, sceptics, haughty intellectualists. They looked with contempt upon the men that lived in verbalities, and uttered oracularly, as divine doctrines, subjects which they had never investigated for themselves. Dogmatism in the church will ever lead to Rationalism. Rationalism is the recoil of the reflective intellect from a mere technical orthodoxy, and a theological dogmatism in the church. As a rule, the greatest denouncers of rationalism are the most fruitful producers of it. As tyranny on the throne begets rebellion amongst the people, so dogmatism in the church begets rationalism amongst the thinkers Although the Sadducees, on this account, had but little sympathy with the Pharisees— and perhaps not more with the Herodians—yet they agreed in their opposition to Christ. Feeling, perhaps, a little gratified with the baffled and confounded state in which their old foes (the Pharisees) had been driven from Christ's presence, they, with their self-sufficient pride, now ventured to approach Him and assail Him with a question. "They bring," says Stier, "before Him as actual history a curious case, which was at least possible, in order to put their question in the sharpest form :—a case which was probably not then for the first time imagined, but which was already a common and hacknied jest against the resurrection ;— as indeed the like are current enough among the Sadducees of this day. Moses has said:-thus they begin, and are proving beyond contradiction (although cunningly, scarce suppressing a smile, they afterwards only put a question,)

VOL. X.

2 Q

that this Moses, in this, as in all his laws, cannot possibly pre-suppose a 'resurrection.' Seven brothers had all married one wife successively, without issue: all those who followed married in order to raise up seed to the first; i. e., according to Moses' meaning, so to speak, to raise up his after-growth out of his grave;—beneath which, however, according to the design of the wilful inquirers, there is a half restrained sensual sneer at the whole Mosaic ordinance. They all died, however, without effecting their object, for the woman was barren; last of all the woman died also, as indeed, all men die. And now, if with his dying all is not over, as we say, then in the so-called 'resurrection' (Mark Tav åvooтão, ironically for ei), on the so-called last day, in which we would so willingly believe, if thou wouldest solve our doubts in regard to it, what a strange claim there will be on the part of seven men; and whose will she be? The same question might be asked in the case of every second marriage of a widow or a widower; but they take their stand here on the commandment of Moses, and therein lies the emphasis of the question. Did Moses, when he made such ordinances of this life, take for granted another life after this, and prepare such confusion for that life? We may well admire the patience, mildness, and wisdom, of the Lord Jesus towards this folly, when we hear His answer."

In Christ's answer He does three things: He charges them with error. He corrects their mistake.

them out of their own Scriptures.

I. HE CHARGES THEM WITH ERROR.

And, He convicts

"Jesus answered

and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God." Their error sprang from ignorance, as most errors do.

"Those that are in the dark miss their way," says Matthew Henry. The blind must be expected to stumble.

First They erred concerning the fact of the resurrection. They said there was no resurrection from the dead. This was one of the leading defects in their creed. "The Sadducees say

that there is no resurrection; neither angel, nor spirit." Now had they known the scriptures as Christ explained them in this passage, and to which soon we shall have to turn our attention, or "the power of God" as seen everywhere in nature, they would not have denied the fact of the resurrection. Why did they deny the resurrection? Was it because of

the difficulties? Did they talk as some of the modern sceptics do? Did they pronounce the thing an impossibility? It is true that the work of a general resurrection appears to a finite mind overwhelmingly great. How can it be, it is asked, that each man of the countless generations of the race, that have ever trod this earth or breathed this air; whose dust has been flowing in the waters, floating in the winds, and entering into combination with an indefinite variety of existences, vegetable and animal, shall stand forth in the judgment in a body, conscious that it was the same in which he spent the days of his probationary career? Is not the idea absurd? Does not the work involve an impossibility? We answer, However stupendously difficult it is, there is no impossibility at all, since Omnipotence has engaged to accomplish it. Difficulty is a thing relative to creatures. What is a difficulty to one being is no difficulty to another. A work, that would out-measure the energies of a child, can be achieved by a man with facility and ease. The idea of impossibility to Omnipotence is a contradiction. Had we been told that there should come a resurrection from the dead, and that the work was to be effected by the combined energy of all created existences, we might have pronounced the doctrine incredible ;—we might have discovered difficulties that would have baffled and outstripped the united forces of the creation. But the moment we are told that God is to do it, the idea of difficulty becomes absurd. The God who robes this earth in verdure, rolls through it new oceans of life every hour, the God who has piled up the mountains, poured out the seas and spread out the heavens, who crowds immensity with globes and systems that no arithmetic can compute, is certainly equal to the work of calling up and re-organizing the mighty generations of the