us? Let us humbly and devoutly ask this question, remembering whose words they are of which we speak - words which it seems an almost equal irreverence to praise or to censure words, however, which it is our

duty and privilege to understand, to examine, and to explain.

ance.

(1.) Suffer me to begin with the most simple, homely peculiarity of our Saviour's teaching, true of the Scriptures generally, but especially true of His words, — namely, their brevity. Perhaps we hardly enough consider either the fact or its great importRemember how small a book even the whole Bible is, and remember, further, how small a part of that book is occupied by His words. Compare them with the teaching of other celebrated teachers in our own or former times. One collection alone of the sayings of the Arabian Prophet Mahomet fills no less than thirteen hundred folio pages. All the sayings of Christ are contained in the short compass of the four Gospels; the few that are not there do not occupy two pages at most: the whole Sermon on the Mount - the greatest discourse ever preached, the whole

code of Christian morality, the whole sum of saving doctrine- would not, if read from this place, take more than a quarter of an hour. Consider how greatly this has assisted the preservation, the remembrance, the force of Christ's words. We have not to go far and wide to seek them; they are within our grasp, within our compass, within our sight; - very nigh to us, in our heart, and in our mouth, easy to read, easy to recollect, easy to repeat. The waters of life are not lost in endless rivers and lakes. They are confined within the definite circle of one small living well, of which all can "come and drink freely, without money, and without price."

You never get to the
There is something in
They pass into pro-

(2.) But the well is not only easy to find, but it is deep, and its "waters spring up into everlasting life." end of Christ's words.. them always behind. verbs-they pass into laws-they pass into doctrines-they pass into consolations; but they never pass away, and, after all the use that is made of them, they are still not exhausted. One reason of this is to be found in their freedom from local, temporary allusions.

Allusions of this kind, no doubt, they do contain. Some light is thrown upon them by the knowledge of the country, and of the manners and customs of the time. But by far the larger part of His teaching is drawn from subjects so familiar, so natural, that they can be equally understood in almost every country. No learning is needed for their illustrationshepherds, sailors, ploughmen, soldiers, fishermen, can understand them as fully as the greatest scholar that ever lived. Another cause is their great variety. Each one of the classes I have just mentioned can find something even in the outward form that will apply to their own particular case-much more in the object and meaning of the different parts. Each man, with his own peculiar temptations, joys, sorrows, may find something that suits himself; each man, like Nathanael under his fig-tree, may find the Saviour's eye fixed on him alone. We sometimes imagine that by "preaching the Gospel" is meant preaching the same truth over and over again in the same words, to congregations however different from each other, under occasions however different each from each. This was

not the preaching of the Gospel by Him who first preached it; even in the short compass of the Gospels, every chord of the heart is struck, every infirmity of the conscience and mind is roused and soothed. Heaven and earth may pass away, but as long as a single human soul survives in the depths of eternity, in that human soul Christ's words will live, will find a hearing, will awaken a response.

And this variety is expressed and is secured by a process in itself instructive. Not by one form of teaching only, but by many. By things new and old; by discourses, such as the Sermon on the Mount; by stern truth or severe rebuke, as in the argument with the Pharisees and Sadducees; by pleasant fiction and parable, such as those He spoke on the sea-shore of Gennesareth. Remember this, all that learn and all that teach. Not by one channel only, but by many, is God's truth conveyed one may have more attraction for one class, one for another; by some means or other, Christ would have us taught to know His Father's mind, to do His Father's will; but every one of those ways and means is after His example.

(3.) Consider, again, how the words, as it were, force us away from the mere letter that kills, to the Spirit that gives life and lives for ever. Some of you may have heard Luther's celebrated description of S. Paul's language: "The words of S. Paul are not dead words; they are living creatures, and have hands and feet." He meant thereby to describe, and did faithfully describe, the extraordinary force and completeness of the words of that great Apostle, each of which seem to have a distinctness and substance of its own. But there is something in our Lord's words higher still: we almost forget that they are words; they seem but as a transparent light in which the truth is contained. No sect has turned them into watchwords; they are almost like a soul without a body; to use His own description, "The words that He speaks to us are spirit and are life."1

This peculiarity is connected with another, which the Apostle himself has indicated. It is true of the Scriptures generally that they treat of general principles, not detailed applications. But this is specially true of our

1 John vi. 63.