works;" then we shall indeed receive them as "given by the inspiration of God; "1 they will indeed be "a lantern to our feet, and a light to our path."

When this year closes upon us, may we be more the disciples of Christ than we were before; not gazing in blank astonishment at His power, but doing with all our might what He has told us to do; convincing ourselves, "by doing His will," that "the doctrine which He has taught" of life and death, truth and duty, this world and the next, is truly "of God." 2

1 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.

2 John vii. 17.

66

NOTE. - For the meaning of the word "Doctrine" (didaxn) (p. 61), see further, Sermon X., and compare Arnold's "Fragment on the Church," pp. 155-160. The agreement of the Liturgical with the Scriptural use of the word may be seen from the following passages. "To fashion the lives of you and yours after the rule and doctrine of Christ." "To fashion your own selves, and your families, according to the doctrine of Christ" (Ordination of Priests). "Following the holy doctrine which he taught" (Collect for the Conversion of S. Paul). "Doctrine,” as late as the 17th century, was opposed not to "practice," but to "discipline." See Hooker, E. P., III. x. 7.

SERMON VI.

THE CONSOLATIONS OF CHRIST.

(FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, 1857.)

LUKE iv. 18, 19.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

ON previous Sundays I have described the general aspect of our Lord's teaching, especially as exhibited in the Gospel of S. Matthew. It is the peculiarity of S. Mark's Gospel that in this respect it adds hardly anything1 to what we learn from S. Matthew. We may

1 The chief exception is Mark iv. 21—29.

pass, therefore, at once to the character of the doctrine of Christ as brought out in the Gospel of S. Luke; and for this purpose the words which I have just read, following up, after a short interval, the Gospel of this Sunday, form the best introduction.

The whole scene is characteristic of the tender, the pathetic, the singularly human and domestic strain which breathes through the words of this Evangelist. It was in the synagogue of His own town of Nazareth, where He had been brought up. He was there, as for nearly twenty years He had been, according to His custom, on the Sabbath-day. In front, as usual, in the foremost places, were the Scribes and expounders of the law; behind them were the rough and almost savage peasants of that wild mountain village; round about Him were faces and reminiscences new and old, - the vacant place of Joseph,- His brethren, James and Joses, and Simon and Jude, incredulously watching to see what He would do1; within hearing, too, His sisters and His mother, who had long pondered all that she had seen and heard for the last thirty years; Nathanael 1 Mark vi. 3; John vii. 5.

also, we can hardly doubt, from the neighbouring Cana, fresh from the newly awakened discovery that he had found the King of Israel. In this assembly the youthful Teacher rose up for the first time, and claimed His right of reading the Holy Scriptures before the congregation. It was that portion of the sacred year when the prophecies of Isaiah were read; and there was delivered to Him the long parchment scroll on which they were written in the Hebrew characters. He unrolled the parchment, and when He had found the place, the 61st chapter, He read aloud the words in which the Prophet announces the coming deliverance of his country: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." He paused, the words that followed, speaking of the day of vengeance and of the local circumstances of the Prophet's time, would have narrowed the application of the sacred text,-He paused, and rolled up

the scroll once more, and gave it to the minister, and then, as was the custom of those times for one who intended to teach, and as was always His custom, "He sat down." "And the eyes of all those that were in the synagogue were fastened upon Him"-Scribe and peasant, mother and brother, friend and enemy, old and young; every eye was strained to watch the first opening of those lips which had so long been sealed. At last the result of that wisdom and grace which had been growing year by year in deep seclusion would be made known1,-at last Mary would see the meaning of all those strange deeds and sayings which she had kept in her heart2, at last the astonished disciples would see what good thing could come out of the poor, despised Nazareth.3 And He began to say to them, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." And they all "bare witness to Him, and marvelled at the gracious words that proceeded from His mouth."

What those gracious words were we are not told. But we have the text, and from the text we can infer the discourse; nay more,

1 Luke ii. 52. 2 Luke ii. 19, 51. 3 John i. 46.