iniquity and lust might fill the world with misery; but none have ever been found so utterly degraded, as to receive a professed teacher of what is criminal as a messenger from heaven;* neither of old was there a single city in the civilised world, according to Philo, in which there dwelt not multitudes, accustomed to celebrate "the ever virgin" virtue.f The apostle, therefore, had no fear of being misunderstood, when he appealed to the moral sense of the Philippian converts. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." He has no new rule to inculcate; no moral code to supersede, whether in Israel or in the Gentile world; but only to free the recognised one from the glosses of misapprehension, and to point to the source of all acceptable obedience.

And thus we find that the enemies of Christianity

* Il n'est pas dans la nature humaine quelque abrutie qu'elle puisse être de croire à un homme qui viendroit enseigner le crime. Voltaire.

† De Mut. Nom. § 36. Si le plus méchant des hommes pouvait être un autre que lui même, il voudroit être homme de bien. Rousseau Nouv. Hél. ii. 11.

‡ Philip. iv. 8. Philo says that each virtue involves its own recompense. De Parent. Col. § 10, with de Somn. ii. 5. Barrow similarly remarks that "each religious performance hath happy fruits growing from it, and blissful rewards assigned to it. All pious dispositions are fountains of pleasant streams, which by their confluence do make up a full sea of felicity." (V. i. p. 70.)

were accustomed to oppose the truth by constantly accusing its advocates of vicious and immoral conduct,* thus instinctively recognising the unwritten law of God themselves, at the very time when their own customs were most diametrically opposed to its holy requirements.

How, then, could the multitude resist the authority with which Jesus spoke? A secret and unaccountable influence often pervades a congregation, even where the majority may be unconverted, and utter strangers to any salutary impressions, when a man of prayer speaks from the heart with holy and spiritual affection, although he uses the most ordinary language, and never broaches any novel thought, and this simply because the unction. of the Spirit is upon him. And here Emmanuel, the Prophet, of whom Moses wrote, to whom the Father gave the Spirit without measure, was addressing the people, who had flocked to Him from all the surrounding country, and even in part from more remote localities, under the conviction that He had power to work the most stupendous miracles, and who were themselves eye witnesses of such power. They were, however, astonished rather than converted, as a warning to us.

*See Justin M. Apol. i. 70; ii. 51; (A.D. 153.) Athenag. Legat. c. 5, (A.D. 178); Tertull. Apol. c. 2; de Cult. Fæm. c. 4; Minucius Felix (A.D. 210) &c. Such reports are said to have been actively propagated by malicious Jews. Justin Dial. p. 234: (ed. Colon 1686.) Cf. Tertull. ad Nat. i. 14. But Pliny clearly ascertained their utter falsity, and the innocent simplicity of the Christians, whom he persecuted in Bithynia, (A.D. 102 or 109,) in the reign of Trajan. Ep. x. 97. Cf. 1 Peter iii. 13—17.

Nothing less than Almighty energy can transform the soul, or quicken the careless sinner. Many forsook Jesus, after some experience of His mercy and wisdom, because they could not bear what seemed to them "hard sayings," or really "receive the things of the Spirit." Whilst, therefore, we rejoice, that we have no uncertain glosses or traditions before us, but masses of pure gold,* the words of eternal truth, and of divine wisdom, we must remember with holy awe, that it is the Spirit alone, who can quicken us, or enable us to apprehend them eagerly, thankfully, and profitably.

Our Teacher is also the Saviour of all that believe in Him. Following His guidance, bowing to His authority, and upheld by His all-sufficient grace, we shall be enabled to triumph over all our spiritual foes, and to glorify Him here on earth, and whether we live or die to bask continually in the sunshine of His love.

It has been said that "what was religion enough for the time of the Patriarchs, or the Prophets, or the Apostles, or the Reformers, or the Puritans, is not enough for the heightened consciousness of mankind to-day; and that when the world thinks in lightning, it is not proportionate to pray in lead." Such is the covert infidelity of the day,† which so often clothes its Titanic thoughts in devout and mystic language. For

* See a beautiful image in Chrysost. T. v. p. 397.

Let sceptics pause, and ponder well the remarks of Pascal. Pensées, Part 2, de Art. 4, § 12, &c. But the Bible itself is its own best witness and interpreter.

our part, we shall count ourselves happy to be despised as weak and childish by men wise in their own conceit; for we would rather suffer the greatest indignities, with Paul of Tarsus and the son of Zebedee, for giving honour to Emmanuel, than attain to the highest glory in this world for attempting to scale the heights of heaven on the ladders of science, or to measure the depths of the Eternal by the uncertain plummets of human reason.

APPENDIX.

A

NOTE TO CHAPTER III.

S the Bible is a series of distinct, and in some respects of independent, treatises, it seems evident that in subordination to its grand and all pervading object of exhibiting Christ in His grace and in His glory, each separate book must embody a special moral, or a special lesson of spiritual wisdom, and that the distinct apprehension of this central idea or object will not only throw a steadier light over all its pages, but also enable us to appreciate the unity of the whole volume, and the paramount excellence, and invariable purposes of divine revelation, more highly.

It may not be unprofitable to illustrate this by a series of references to the historical portions of the Old Testament.

The five earliest books of the Pentateuch seem to be intimately connected together, and to embrace a most comprehensive system of faith and practice, in successive stages. In Genesis we are presented, first, objectively with a striking view of the gracious Providence of the Creator, evolving good out of evil, and overruling all things to the eventual benefit of His church, both collectively and individually,' thus teaching us to cast away all anxious thought for the morrow;2 and secondly, subjectively, the faith of His people,3 in blissful communion

1 Strikingly illustrating Rom. viii. 28.

2 See on Matt. vi. 25-34.

3 Heb. xi. 4-22. Justification by faith, and the object of that justifying faith, not the word of God generally, but the promise of The Seed, contrary to the order of nature, is stated Gen. xv. 6, and thence alleged Rom. iv.; Gal. iii. 6—14. The birth of Isaac was symbolical of the resurrection, according to the view of Chrysostom, grounded on Rom. iv. 18-25.