ably these. He would observe that the four most prominent treatises in the volume are four memoirs, which give a fourfold account of the actions and the teaching of Jesus Christ, by which he founded Christianity as a religion, and the Church as a Society. These evidently constitute the essence and foundation of the religion, for nothing can be more certain than that every other portion of the New Testament presupposes the existence of this divine life as the foundation on which it rests.

Next follows another historical work, which details to us the means through which the Church was constituted a visible Institution in the world. One idea is fundamental to the entire book, that Jesus is the Christ, or in other words, that He is the Ruler of God's spiritual kingdom, on which is founded the summons consequent thereon to men to enrol themselves as His subjects. To this idea and to this purpose, all the other details of the book are plainly subordinated.*

To these follow twenty-one writings of an historical character in the form of letters. They contain a mass of teaching, doctrinal and moral, pervaded and dominated by one idea which runs through them, that of Jesus as the personal Christ. While they contain doctrinal statements, it is worthy of particular remark that not one of them contains a formulated statement of what constitutes Christianity as a system of dogmatic or abstract truth. On the contrary, such doctrinal statements as are found in them are wholly wanting in systematic form, and are evidently called forth

This is evidently the burden of the entire book, from the first opening speech of St. Peter to the concluding one of St. Paul. The following passages are summaries of its teaching :-“ And daily in the temple and from house to house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus to be the Christ." (Acts v. 42.) "This Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ." (xvii. 3.) "And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ." (xviii. 5.) "To whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus." (xxviii. 23.)

by the special circumstances of particular communities of Christianity to which the letters are addressed.

But further, every one of them presupposes a Christianity already existing, and the obvious purpose of each letter is to explain it and to accommodate it to the state of thought and feeling as it existed in each particular Church. But throughout the entire contents of these letters, composed by six different writers, each of whom possessed marked mental peculiarities, one common idea unquestionably dominates-that of Jesus as the living personal Christ. Every doctrinal statement is made to have its focus in Him. Every moral precept has a vitality communicated to it by being referred to Him as the centre of obligation and spiritual power. Truth is propounded, but it is truth as it is in Jesus. Over all Christians He reigns by sovereign right. He is the supreme motive to holiness. He is Lord of the conscience. In Him centre all God's creative and providential acts. The manifested revelation of God is His historic life and actions. He is a great spiritual power, capable of acting on the human heart with energetic might. I fully admit that these points are brought out in different degrees and aspects by these writers. Yet one common thread runs through the entire series. It is not too much to say of every writer that the idea of Jesus as the Christ interpenetrates and modifies his entire thoughts, whether doctrinal or moral. To this even the Epistle of James, where it is least apparent, forms no exception.

Its predominance throughout these writings is no theory, but a fact, and forms the feature which distinguishes them from every other literary composition in the world. Of the dominance of this idea we have a striking example in the epistle to Philemon. In it St. Paul asks a personal favour of a Christian friend on behalf of a delinquent slave. That favour is asked in the name of Christ. There remains one other writing in the New Testament, the Apocalypse. Whatever opinion we may form of the purpose of its author, one thing respecting it is as clear as the existence of the

sun in the firmament-that the great prominent idea which penetrates it from one end to the other is that of Jesus as the Christ living and reigning. The removal of this idea from the pages of the New Testament would reduce the residuum of its contents to a shapeless chaos.

These facts then afford the most complete proof that the person of Jesus Christ constitutes the inner centre of Christianity, and underlies its entire system; and that everything else that is connected with it occupies a position wholly subordinate to this its inner life. From this the inference is plain, that the Revelation which constitutes the essence of Christianity is not a body of dogmatic statements or precepts, but the manifestation of that divine person whose actions and teachings are recorded in the Gospels—or in other words, that the essence of Christianity as distinct from its adjuncts, consists of a number of objective facts which have actually occurred in the history of the world. Of these facts the original followers of Jesus were the witnesses and proclaimers, and, as far as light was communicated to them by the divine Spirit, the exponents to mankind. We must

be careful however to observe that in accordance with their own statements, this exposition is far from having exhausted all their meaning, for the greatest of apostolic writers affirms that a greater unfolding of it is reserved for the ages of the future.*

What then is the position occupied by the other books in the canon relatively to those which contain the objective

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"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, even in him." (Ephes. i. 9, 10.) And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the Mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God; according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Ephes. iii. 8, 9, 10.)

facts which constitute Christianity? The Acts of the Apostles convey to us information how that divine Society called the Church was instituted and established in the world as a visible institution, through whose agency these facts were to exert a mighty influence on mankind; and they also inform us as to the mode in which the minds of the Apostles became gradually enlightened as to their meaning and import. The character of the Epistles is clear. They make no professions of being a dogmatic revelation; but in every case they assume the existence of a prior Christianity, which had been communicated orally to the converts, and consisting of such facts of its Founder's life as proved Him to be the Christ, and which the writers endeavour to unfold, explain, and apply in accordance with the various emergencies of the primitive societies of believers. One of these Churches, that at Corinth, is expressly reminded by St. Paul, that the essence of the Christianity which he had proclaimed among them consisted of a number of such objective facts.* These writings are, in the strictest sense of the term, letters which were called forth by the special exigencies of those to whom they are addressed; and in them the Christian revelation is unfolded, and adapted to the requirements, habits, and modes of thought of particular Churches, or individuals, who, having originally been Jews, proselytes, or pagans, had united themselves into a society, whose one bond of union was that Jesus was its Messiah and King.

My position therefore is, that like as we have a great revelation of God in the created universe, which is the manifestation of His eternal power and Godhead; as also we have a second revelation of God, made in the conscience and moral nature of man, which at the same time affords manifestations of the moral character of the Creator, and forms the foundation of moral obligation, so we have a third revelation of His innermost moral and spiritual perfections

* 1 Cor. xv. 1-8.

in the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord. This revelation may be briefly summed up as consisting of the Incarnation and its results, by means of which the moral and spirital perfections of God have been exhibited in the actions and teachings of a divine man; or in other words, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If this view be correct, it follows that the personal history of our Lord must constitute the citadel of Christianity, and must therefore form the key of the Christian position, on which if we can retain a firm hold, we shall remain masters of the entire ground; and other points connected with Christianity will assume their due place and proper subordination. But if this cannot be maintained, the most successful defence of the remaining contents of the Bible will be so much wasted labour. On this point therefore the defence of Christianity must be concentrated.

It is evident if this view is correct, that the proof that the inner temple of Christianity consists in the personal manifestation of Jesus Christ in the sphere of human history, is of the highest importance in reference to the position. which ought to be taken by the Christian advocate. But such a proof can only be supplied by an examination of a large number of passages in the New Testament. If I were to do so in the body of this Lecture, it would swell it to an undue length. I will therefore adduce the full proof in a Supplement; and assume for the purpose of this argument that the essence of Christianity consists neither in a body of dogmas nor of precepts, but in a personal history which constitutes a manifestation of the divine on the sphere of the human.

This being so, in order to prove that Christianity is a divine revelation, it will be only necessary to establish two points :

First, that the person of Jesus Christ is not a manifestation of the ordinary forces which energise in man, but of a power which is superhuman and divine.

Secondly, that the account which the Church possesses of