THE EVANGELISTS.

The peculiar characteristics of our Saviour's preaching are a spirit of all-pervading piety, all-embracing benevolence, and uncompromising holiness. These graces He breathes in his every utterance, and commends in His every discourse. Many a precept does He give, enjoining and illustrating them. And His own love to the world, nay, His own life does He give, not only as an atonement for the sins of the world, but also as a pattern of that mutual love and self-denial which ought to animate the redeemed children of God. "A new commandment (says He) I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."*

Nor let us wonder that He should call this a new commandment. For, not to speak of the supreme excellence of that love of His which He gives as the type and pattern of that which He commends, it is to be remarked, that the whole doctrine of love which He taught was new in those times. The Pharisees, with a semblance of reason indeed, but, in reality, prompted only by their own exclusive and wicked hearts, generalizing the facts and necessities of their nation's history into permanent principles of morality, had altogether obscured the benevolent character of the law of Moses. They had even made it of none effect by their traditions. Thus, because they found their forefathers commanded to exterminate certain idolatrous nations, in order to make place in the fit region of the earth† for a people who might preserve the worship of the true God until the world should be ready for the Incarnation of the Son of God-because they thus found the heroic spirit of man made use of as a weapon of God, in order to serve a mighty purpose which a heroic + See page 168.

*John xiii. 34.

spirit could alone effect, they seized on this fact as a cover and sanction for the spirit of hatred and vengeance which animated them. By a vicious generalization, they consecrated that spirit, and made it a general principle in religion, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." * Nay, not content with the wide field for hatred which the latter part of the precept opens up, they narrowed the former most shamefully. To the term neighbour they gave so restricted a sense, that they looked upon, as their greatest enemies, those whom we should call their nearest neighbours. These were the Samaritans. And to such a pitch did a Jew carry his hatred of a Samaritan, that he would not even ask a drink of water from him. But their antipathies were not confined to the Samaritans only. It was, as has been already stated, held contrary to the law (a law which a Jew's natural pride would plainly render very congenial to him to observe) to have any social intercourse with any man of another nation. In a word, the Jews were hateful, and hating one another; and this was over all. And, but that the love of money overcomes all difficulties, we should find the same spirit in that people still. Let any one enter a synagogue, and attempt to look on the same prayer book with one of the worshippers, the Jew will shrink or steal away from him, eyeing him askance with a look full of hatred and contempt. So ruinous, even to the ordinary principles of humanity, does a conceit of exclusive religious privilege prove when redeeming grace is wanting in the heart.

But do we see any trace of any thing like this in Jesus? Nay. In His every feature the contrast which He displays to this, though it was the all-pervading spirit of His age and nation, is itself a most convincing proof of His divinity. For as to the merely great men of history ↑ John iv. 9.

* Matt. v. 43.

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they are just made by their times, they are just the spirits of their times. They are acknowledged to be great only because they unite many voices in their own, and thus are oracles by which the many speak, and by whom, therefore, the many are pleased and flattered, as every one is by an echo of his own opinions. But it was quite otherwise with our Saviour. Because it became Him to fulfil all righteousness, He did indeed observe the law of Moses, and during all His life He gave a perfect example of what a son of Abraham ought to be. But He never identified himself with the Jews of his own times. the other hand, He speaks of them as a race wholly distinct from himself, and having no sympathies with Him. "Am I a Jew ?" said Pilate; "Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?" Pilate looks on Him merely as a Jew. But our Saviour answers, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews." In which words He contrasts himself with His countrymen according to the flesh, as He did with his relations according to the flesh, when he said, "Whosoever doeth the will of My Father who is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." He stands out both from country and kindred. He stands alone. He is the Son of God. The character of our blessed Saviour never could be explained by supposing Him to be merely a great man. No mere man could ever emancipate himself so completely as He did from the spirit of His times. He existed and he preached in direct contradistinction to that spirit and those times. In the midst of hardheartedness and hatred, "A root in a dry soil, He grew up a tender plant." Though forced to breathe an impure atmosphere of hatred and hypocrisy during all His life, still He remained altogether uncontaminated by it; and

every feeling that ever moved in His heart, every truth that ever flowed from His lips, was full of heaven and of humanity.

How cuttingly to the heart of the wicked lawyer who stood up and tempted; Him, and to us how beautifully and convincingly does He restore to the term neighbour its legitimate import, by the parable of the Good Samaritan! And how completely does He annul the false generalization of the Pharisees, who maintained that, because their fathers were forbid to give peace to the enemies of Jehovah,* therefore they were to hate all who were their own enemies. "Ye have heard (says He) that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."+ But it is needless to attempt to quote what our blessed Saviour has said in favour of reciprocal kind offices between man and man, and mutual love among all. This were to write down the whole gospels. Nay, though this were done, it were not all the truth. For the Evangelist tells us, that all that is recorded is but a tithe and scantling of what Jesus actually said and did.

True, He also cautioned his disciples very solemnly against supposing that they were to enjoy, in their personal history, the love and peace which He inculcated. He taught them that they were only to be the ministers of that peace, not the partakers of it. He knew that the spirit of the world, always heroic in persecuting piety, would feel a sting in the very glance of these advocates + Matt. v. 43.

*Deut. xxiii. 6.

of love and peace; and for the hatred against them which that feeling would beget, He prepares His disciples. "Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.* Beware of men. The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I am not come to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be those of his own household." Such, did He warn His disciples, were to be the inevitable consequences of confessing His name, and of adhering to the doctrine of the cross, in the midst of a cruel, proud, and persecuting world. And so it happened. It is, indeed, truly worthy of remark, that though, in religion, the policy of Rome was to grant toleration to all, though, in civil law, none were punished by Rome but when a crime was proved against them, yet it went quite otherwise in Rome with the followers of Jesus. If they but confessed the name of Christ, that was enough to bring them to the rack, to the arena. Literally, as our Saviour forewarned them, they were persecuted solely "for his name's sake." And truly dreadful were the sufferings which were inflicted on them.

Yet the sufferings of the first Christians were not unmitigated evils. On the contrary, as it is only through death that we attain to life, and as it is the peculiar characteristic of Divine Providence to bring good out of evil, so was it only by martyrdom that the peaceful spirit of the gospel could be preached effectually to the Roman. Reason went but a little way with him. In the Roman

*Matt. x. 16.