will lead us into the midst of the most awful and solemn thoughts which the mind of man can reach, the thoughts of a gospel refused on the one hand, accepted on the other. But high above all these differences stands the one Divine form of the Son of man, speaking as He spoke in the last days of His sojourn among mankind, “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." That was the reward of His perfect obedience and sacrifice: that is the word of hope with which He cheers us on to tread in His blessed footsteps.

XXII

THE BIBLE. (x.) THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

"AND the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”—Revelation xxi. 14.

WE began last Sunday to consider the New Testament. We saw its great mark to be this, that in it God speaks to us in His Son, thus putting the crown and finish to all that through long ages and in different ways He had spoken before. His speaking in the times of old had been about Himself and His kingdom, about men and the world only so far as they have to do with Him. It is the same still in the New Testament. Here too we are not taught to worship a new God, but the God of Abraham and Moses and David is made known to us more perfectly in the person of His Son.

We saw that the New Testament, like the Old, may be divided into the books which chiefly teach us by works, and the books which chiefly teach us by words; into stories of things that happened, and direct teaching by lessons; the Gospels and the Acts

of the Apostles making up the first part, and the Epistles and Revelation of St. John the second part : just as in the Old Testament we have first the long history from Genesis to Esther, and then Job, Psalms and the rest, and the books of the Prophets.

Our proper subject last Sunday was the Gospels, which are in truth the very heart of the New Testament, from which all the other books draw their life and power. I pointed out that these books tell us what the gospel really is,—not all the doctrines that we believe, still less a few chosen doctrines, but the simple message of good news that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is close at hand, brought near to us in the life and death and rising again of Christ. The words of Christ are not by themselves the gospel, even the deeds of Christ are not by themselves the gospel; but the picture which His words and deeds, and especially His deeds, give of Him and of God's dealings with Him, this is the gospel. This one gospel, as we saw, is presented to us in four books, the Gospel according to St. Matthew, i.e. as understood and described by St. Matthew, the Gospel according to St. Mark, and the rest. Thus we are taught to look on through each of the four books at Him who is the one subject of them all, and we are enabled to see Him, as it were, from different sides and in different lights.

We go on to-day to the book called the Acts of the Apostles. The question at once arises, Why should we want to hear about the apostles? When we have had the words and deeds of the Master, we are inclined to think little of the words and deeds of the

servants. If God has spoken to us once for all in His Son, can we go further? Is it possible to have anything in the Bible after the Gospels which it is worth our while to hear? We must face these questions, brethren, if we want to understand the Acts of the Apostles and their use for us. I do not think that we half value the Gospels as we should do, or half understand how completely they rise above all the rest of the New Testament. But the truth is, the better we know their surpassing dignity and value, the more able shall we be to appreciate the excellence of the other books of the New Testament. If the Gospels were more highly prized, the Acts of the Apostles would not be so little read, or so little cared for as they are now.

There are two great purposes served by all the books of the New Testament which follow the Gospels. First, they are in their several ways a Divine explanation of the Gospels; they teach us what we ought to think of Christ, and of the light which He throws on God and God's kingdom. Secondly, they carry us gently onwards from the ascension of Christ into the common life of men. The gospel was not flung suddenly and nakedly into the midst of the world. Christ appointed apostles to carry on the work which He had begun, and through them He founded the Church, which was to carry on the same work when they were dead. We want for our guidance to know not only what Christ was, but what changes His coming began to make in the world. We are too

much accustomed to think of Him as

a long way

off from us: we should find Him far nearer if we

approached Him through His apostles and through His Church.

The teaching which we receive through the apostles is threefold. In the Acts we have the teaching of their lives, what they did and what God did with them. In the Epistles we have the letters which they wrote to Churches or to single persons. In the Revelation of St. John we have the visions of prophecy which were vouchsafed to one of them. The book of their Acts, with which we are concerned to-day, manifestly carries on the story of the Gospels. It was written by St. Luke, the author of the third Gospel, and at the beginning he refers back to his earlier book. "The former treatise (i.e. writing) have I made," he says, "of all things that Jesus began both to do and to teach." In his Gospel he had written down the first part of what he had to say, the doings and teachings of Jesus on earth. Now he was about to tell what happened after Jesus had ascended into heaven.

We must not however suppose that he has any intention of putting before us all the acts of all the apostles. None of the Gospel writers made any such attempt as to our Lord Himself. What St. John distinctly says, "Many other signs truly did Jesus which are not written in this book," must be borne in mind for all the Gospels. Those things which are told us about Christ are the things which it was most important for us to know, the things which were the best signs and marks to explain the whole of Christ's life. So is it in the Acts. First, we have nothing but the names of three or four apostles.