ing and wider amplitude in the simple teaching of Jesus of Nazareth; and to the end of time, the word Christian will represent each age a higher standard of human attainment. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven, is perfect." Such are the cardinal doctrines of Christ; and they are amply sufficient for the faith, and life, and hope of man.

Connected with these is a variety of opinions belonging to the time and to the age, which are found in the New Testament, not in the way of doctrine, but of allusion or illustration. They make no part of Christianity, and for them Christianity is not responsible. I have already mentioned some. The number might be greatly increased. As we must place the doings of the devil in the age of Christ, to the account of traditionary opinions, so must we his agency in preceding ages, especially in the temptation and fall of mankind. So likewise the introduction of physical death by the first sin of Adam. These opinions are alluded to, but are far from being taught as a part of Christianity.

Among the opinions incorporated into the substance of the New Testament, must be reckoned the interpretations of the Old Testament, which we meet with from time to time. These were generally Rabbinical and traditionary. The Jews in quoting the Old Testament were accustomed to apply to their Messiah and the coming dispensation, not only those

passages which were really prophetic, but others which might be so applied. Christ himself adopted this mode of accommodating Scripture to present circumstances. In speaking of the base treachery of Judas Iscariot, he quotes a passage from one of the Psalms of David, in which he complains of the defection of an intimate friend: "He that hath eaten bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." Now no man in reading the Psalm, out of which this is quoted, would suppose that this was in any sense prophetic. Nor is it necessary for us to suppose, that Christ intended to assert, that it is to be so considered. He merely adopted a mode of quoting the Old Testament common at that time, remarking a coincidence between an event or a sentiment in the old record, familiar to every mind, with something then taking place. This being the case, that passages both prophetic and historical are quoted in the same form, it follows as a consequence, that we are left to our own judgments to decide, which are, and which are not, prophetical, by the connection in which they originally occur.

The claims of Christ to our credence and confidence do not ultimately rest on the fulfilment of prophecy, but on the credentials which he brought with him. The only purpose of prophecy could have been to excite an expectation of him, and to prepare the world for his coming. Prophecy alone,

without miraculous attestation, could never have identified his person, or fixed upon him the faith of the world.

Then, interwoven with the history of Christ and Christianity, as they actually appeared, are the opinions and expectations which then prevailed of what he was to be. The Apostles and Evangelists, who were the historians of his life, when they became his disciples, were imbued with these opinions and expectations. Their views were only gradually modified and corrected by what he actually was, and the mission he actually accomplished. The consequence is, that the New Testament is, in a manner, the history of the engrafting of the real and true Messiah, on the erroneous expectations of the Jews.

Hence results the fourth and residuary element of the New Testament, the language and phraseology of the times, of the nation, and of the age. Christ could not create a new language to correspond to his new religion; he could only adopt what was already in existence. He could only use old words in new significations. He did not cast his religion into the fountain head of the stream of time, but only after it had swelled to a river. He could only, therefore, gradually tinge its waters, not color at once its whole volume. The epithet, Son of God, had been applied to the expected Messiah long before he was born. He could not do otherwise than assume it, when he

assumed the office to which it was appropriated. He did so, and when accused by the Jews of arrogating to himself some participation in the Divine nature, he explicitly told them that he made no such pretension; but took it solely on the ground that God had sanctified him and sent him into the world: "The Jews answered him, saying: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, It is written in your law, I said ye are gods. If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?"-a disclaimer which ought to have put a perpetual bar to the stupendous perversion which was made, in after ages, of the same phraseology. Just so it was with the language which was in use when he came, concerning the new dispensation, under the figure of the kingdom of heaven. He adopted this figure, and made it the means of impressing spiritual truth. He applied it to that wide and mighty sway he was to exercise over the minds of men by the truths which he taught: "Thou sayest well that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that is of the

truth, heareth my voice;" that is, is my true and loyal subject.

The very same is the case with the sacrificial language of the New Testament. It is found in the New Testament, not because the death of Christ was a real sacrifice, for a human sacrifice is one of the most shocking and revolting ideas that can enter the mind, nothing could cast a darker blot on the character of God,—but because sacrifice was one of the principal religious ideas of the Jews, and might be used to illustrate the relation of Christ to God and the Church. There was a remote analogy between the significance of the Jewish sacrifices in symbolizing the penitence of man and the forgiveness of God, and the effect of the death of Christ in bringing man to faith, penitence and reconciliation. The most affecting phraseology concerning Christ, who died to bring about the spiritual renovation of man, and his reconciliation to God, that could be used to a Jew, whose priesthood daily offered up a lamb in sacrifice, morning and evening, for fifteen hundred years, was to call him "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," or, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Such figurative language, however, causes no serious mistake, as long as its figurative character is kept in view. It is, on the other hand, highly affecting and edifying. It only leads to mistake and confusion,