Imatges de pàgina
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"Among those that" were "born of women," indeed, — those, that is, who lived under the law when the regenerating spirit, in its fulness, was not vouchsafed, "there" had "not arisen a greater than John the Baptist:"* it was his peculiar privilege to see with the eye of sense what other prophets and holy men had only beheld in spirit-God manifest in the flesh, to bear testimony to the actual presence of "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world:" it was his province, too, to close the prophetical revelation of the Old Testament, with the announcement which brings us to the very threshold of the new covenant, "that he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;"t and which, as regards distinctness of doctrinal statement, has no parallel in antecedent prophecy. Nevertheless, "He that is least in the kingdom of God" — or the gospel dispensation-"is greater than he:" for the spiritual blessings of an accomplished atonement, appropriated by faith, and the actual presence of the promised Comforter, both of them special privileges of the new covenant, were not the Baptist's either to possess or to announce.

And as his preaching, so his baptism, was but preparatory and imperfect. It was not a baptism for the remission of sins; nor did it either symbolise or confer the regenerating spirit: it was not a "laver of regeneration," but a baptism "with water unto repentance," the outward lustration (an ordinary one among the Jews) symbolizing the effect of the law upon the conscience, viz. a heartfelt conviction of sin. For the uɛrávoia, or repentance, which John preached, was, in its nature, negative rather than positive: it consisted in the preparation of the heart for a cordial reception of the Gospel, whenever it should be promulgated; in the putting off "the old man with his deeds;" in the removal of spiritual impediments to the influences of Christianity. But it did not involve that positive element of internal renewal which results from union with Christ: it represented regeneration merely in its negative aspect it was the sign and seal of fitness for the spiritual blessings of redemption, not of those blessings themselves. Hence its essential inferiority to the Christian sacrament. Christian baptism symbolises the actual transfer from a state of nature into a state of

the remission of sins” (Luke, iii. 3.): not, as Olshausen remarks, that he preached remission of sins, but a repentance which was to prepare for, to lead the way to, that blessing is åperiv dμapricv. "Nam quod prædicabat baptismum pœnitentiæ in remissionem delictorum in futuram remissionem enuntiatum est." Tertull. de Bap. s. 10.

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grace, and seals to the believer the blessings of the new covenant. In it we are not only buried with Christ to sin, but we rise with him to a new and heavenly life: we not only put off the old man, but put on the new. Christian baptism, therefore, represents regeneration in its fulness, in its positive as well as its negative aspect, the spirit as well as the water; and so differs from, and is superior to, the symbol of the Baptist's ministry.

But of what nature was "the kingdom of heaven" which John announced as at hand, and to prepare men for which was his mission? The expression, as is well known, is used in the New Testament in various senses, which it is not necessary here to enumerate. Whether we take it to signify the unseen dominion of the Spirit in the hearts of believers-as when our Lord says "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke, xvii. 20, 21.)*; - or the visible church in its present mixed condition, as in the parables of the tares and the net; or the future manifestation of the church at the day of Christ (Luke, xxi. 31.); or, in general, the Christian dispensation; is not material to the question before us. The essential point to be noticed is, that into this "kingdom of God" — or new dispensation about to be introduced by Christ-there was no entrance save by the door of repentance: none could become partakers of its privileges without a change of heart. The Baptist's censures were directly aimed at the religious formalism, and reliance upon external privileges, which then characterised the Jewish people, who were warned that the axe was about to be laid to the root of the trees, and the sifting fan applied to the floor, with the intent of detecting and casting away whatever should be inwardly unsound; and that no carnal connexion with Abraham could, of itself, entitle them to the blessings to be purchased by Christ's death, and bestowed upon believers in Him. Might it not have been at once gathered by those who heard the Baptist's words, that the future dispensation, of which he announced the approach, was not to be primarily an external and visible, but an inward and spiritual, one?

The lesser luminary speedily disappeared to make way for the greater. The first notice which we have of our Lord's ministry

"The Pharisees demanded of our Lord when the kingdom of God should come. He shows, in His reply, that the access of the religious system so represented as a kingdom to the individual is, in the first instance, by means of an internal work: without which no man may enter therein. It is when the principle by virtue of which we become obedient subjects of the kingdom of God is already born within us, that the corresponding outward development is required."- Gladstone's Church Principles, &c. p. 112. Precisely so; and this is all that Protestants affirm.

connects it immediately with that of John: "From that time" (the time of John's imprisonment), "Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."* In this, its negative aspect, the teaching of our Lord was identical with that of his forerunner. Like the Baptist, He insisted upon the necessity of an inward change as a preparation for his kingdom; like him, too, He unveiled the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, and impressed upon his hearers the worthlessness of external religionism, apart from purity of heart. He released the conscience from the yoke of traditionary observances not prescribed by Scripture, and stimulated it by unfolding the full extent and spirituality of the Moral Law. These are confessedly the leading features of our Lord's teaching, so far as it was opposed to the prevailing formalism of the age; and in this light it appears as the summing up of all that the prophets had urged on the same topics; as the supplement, not the subversion, of the earlier revelation (Matt. v. 17.). As the prophetic instruction is more spiritual than that of the Law, so the teaching of Christ is more spiritual than that of the prophets and thus the progressive tendency of revelation from the form to the "spirit and truth" of religion maintains itself to the end.

The question, in what sense and how far Christ was a lawgiver, so much debated between the Romish and Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, appears to admit of an easy reply. The tendency of Romanism to transform the Gospel into a legal institute, like that of Moses, is perceptible in the emphasis with which the Council of Trent affirms that Christ came, not only as a redeemer to save, but as a lawgiver to be obeyed†; but the obedience due to Christ in his kingly office can be sufficiently secured without making Him a lawgiver in the sense in which Moses was. In this sense, Christ did not appear in the character of a lawgiver; on the contrary, He "is the end," exhibiting in Himself the scope and the fulfilment, "of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Had it been His purpose to establish a new law resembling that of Moses, he would, as has been well remarked, have delivered, in the first instance, to his followers, a system of rites and observances, together with a ceremonial law and a ritual,

* Matt. iv. 17.

"Si quis dixerit Christum Jesum a Deo hominibus datum fuisse ut redemptorem cui fidant, non etiam ut legislatorem cui obediant, anathema sit." De Justif. Can. 21.

+ Rom. x. 4.

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analogous to that given at Sinai.* Such a system is indeed attributed to Him; but not by the writers of the New Testament Scriptures. A ceremonial law finds no place in the original promulgation of Christianity. The only two visible ordinances which Christ did appoint, He appointed, as will be shewn hereafter, on principles very different from those which govern a legal system of religion. Even the Sermon upon the Mount, which of all our Lord's discourses bears the greatest resemblance to a new code of law, is not so in reality. It does not "take the place" of the law inscribed on the tables of stone: it is that very law itself in its full spiritual meaning. It is a republication of the moral Law by Him who had formerly delivered it at Sinai, and who now once more delivered it, freed from the false glosses and expositions of the Pharisees, and with its inner spirit more perfectly unfolded. Viewed in this light, this authoritative exposition of the moral Law was directed to awaken the conscience of the hearers long benumbed under the spell of formalism, and lead them, under a conviction of sin, to Himself, the Saviour of sinners. But the discourse is more than a spiritual exposition of the original Law: it contains an element which does not belong to the Law at all as such. The Law, in its own proper nature, requires and commands, without recognising man's weakness or offering him assistance; but in Christ's new Law, if we will call it so the grace of the Gospel is either presupposed or offered. For to pronounce the "poor in spirit," those "that mourn," those "that hunger and thirst after righteousness," "blessed;" what is this but to set forth the efficacy of repentance, and faith? To direct men to call upon God as their Heavenly Father, to expect forgiveness of sin from Him, and to rely upon his providence for the supply of their temporal necessities; what is this but to presuppose that they are reconciled to Him by faith in His son Jesus Christ. The promise that prayer shall be heard is a strictly evangelical one: it is a declaration of God's unmerited goodness; it presumes, on the part, of the suppliant, a sense of spiritual neediness, which itself is a gift of grace; and on God's part, the appointment of a mediator, through whose intervention prayer becomes acceptable. In this particular point of view, the Sermon upon the Mount is rather the

Nitzsch, Protestant. Beantwort. &c., p. 198.

+"If the two tables of stone which contained the law are destroyed, yet the Sermon on the Mount takes their place; if though Moses is gone, Christ is come ;"&c. &c. Newman's Sermons, vol. iv. serm. 18. The passage, written before the author had become a Romanist, is worthy of perusal, as illustrating the substantial affinities of systems of doctrine.

full portraiture of Christian sanctity than a repetition of the law: it sets forth the standard at which the Christian-he upon whose heart the law is supposed to be already written by the Spirit of God-should aim.*

So far as Christ has delivered to us the nature and extent of evangelical righteousness, as distinguished from that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and bestows upon believers grace for the fulfilment of that righteousness, He may be called a lawgiver; but this is not the sense intended by the theologians of Rome. What is meant is, that Christ was the author of a new visible system, founded on the same principles as the old one; by incorporation in which salvation is to be attained. How wide of the truth this notion is, will be evident to every reader of the Gospels. The real character in which Christ appeared was that of a rabbi, or teacher; an office which had no necessary connexion with the ceremonial law, or the priesthood. This is a very important feature of our Lord's ministry, viewed as introductory to the Gospel dispensation. For thus was formally established, in the person of the Saviour Himself, the Word of God as the chief instrument, under the new economy, of drawing men to God. Christ Himself, the Eternal Word, appears as a preacher of His own approaching spiritual kingdom: He invites to Himself the weary and heavy laden that they may have rest; He promises everlasting life to those who shall accept the invitation. No one comes to him except the Father draw him; but every one that has heard and learned of the Father does come to Him, and to those who thus come He gives life. Hence is to be explained the peculiar emphasis which our Lord everywhere laid upon faith, as the condition of the exercise of His divine power, whether the case that required it was a bodily or a spiritual one. For faith and the Word are correlative terms; and, therefore, simultaneously with the installation of the Word, as one chief instrument of the Spirit, faith was constituted the essential connecting link between the sinner and Christ, and this at a time when faith could not possibly mean an assent of the understanding to certain doctrines, but, simply, trust in a person. "What shall we do that we might work the

See Bp. Taylor's sermon upon Matt. v. 20.

"Certum hoc est, Christum in ministerio prædicationis suæ non solum evangelium de gratuitâ peccatorum remissione, scd etiam legem auditoribus suis proposuisse, eandem a corruptelis pharisaicis vindicasse et pristino nitori restituisse. Verum de eo non quærunt pontifices, quando Christum legislatorem fuisse pugnant, sed ideo et hoc respectu id nominis ipsi competere statuunt, quod novas quasdam leges promulgaverit, ac legem Mosaicam perfectionem reddiderit." - Gerhard, loc. 15. cap. 7.

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