He was beset on every hand by the most subtle and tremendous temptation, the spectacle of his people, of his own chosen even, agonizing with all the force of piety, patriotism, and personal desire for a Deliverer, who should come in visible glory on the earth; and, with an arm not wholly spiritual, should break the yoke of hateful bondage, purge the land of unrighteousness, and bring in material blessedness like a

flood.

Through the fervent passion of Jewish piety there ran a signally false conceit. It was that the Lord of the universe had taken the Jew into special covenant relation with himself. And when, in his usual providence, the God of all the earth did not save the Jew from overwhelming calamity, this conceit took the form of confident expectation, that a special Deliverer would be in good time deputed of God to appear on the earth, and vindicate, against all its foes, the chosen race. Little by little, unwittingly, the pious Jew had ceased to believe," The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” and had begun to look for a shepherd other than the living God. Instead of expecting the kingdom of God in holy spirit shed abroad in human hearts, and in heavenly providence overruling all the trouble of an evil world, he looked for a visible manifestation of that kingdom in the person and the reign of a Messianic king, at whose appearing the world should be no more evil to the chosen ones, and trouble should no more beset the holy race. The pure theism of the best religion of the ancient saints was displaced by a Messianism, in which the recognition of God in loving faith was postponed to a thoroughly Jewish expectation of a visible heir of David's throne.

Jesus, even if he were a man of absolute perfection, could not but wish to meet that expectation around which gathered all the piety of his people. Yet his best conviction, as far as we can judge from the imperfect biography in our hands, instructed him that the kingdom of God must be providential and spiritual, God's own exercise of control and care, God's own administration of life in the soul. Imagination, duly instructed in the mysteries and miracles of the life of God in the soul of man, may trace in mere outline the conflict in the

mind of Jesus between his natural wish as a Jew and his best conviction as a Christ, or spirit-anointed soul; but, except to this extent, we have lost the most significant element in the life of the carpenter-Master of Christendom. The heavy Jewish mind, which the storm of earthly woe had so "pressed out of measure, above strength," invariably slept while the Spirit made intercession in Jesus with groanings that could not be uttered. Of such inner life as their Master had, the disciples knew little or nothing. Hence the record can tell us almost nothing. So much as this, however, we seem able to make out,- - that Jesus was moved to commit himself to the hope of living among his people as their Deliverer, through whom the true kingdom of God should come; while yet there were times when this hope utterly forsook his soul, and he was compelled to see and to declare, that for him, as for previous would-be Messiahs, there must be a sudden and violent end, with no hope of Messianic leadership, except in some return in glory which the Father might vouchsafe to his broken people and their suffering shepherd. It is impossible to fix the details of the scene; but the main facts hardly admit of doubt, that the mind of Jesus was profoundly divided between the hope of a life of spiritual - not to say supernatural kingship on earth, and anticipation of a death which should leave all in the hands of God; though not without some hope, or dream at least, of a throne borne on the clouds in some great day of God's visitation. The last days of the life of Jesus, if we can accept the record, furnish evidence which cannot be resisted. Much as the Master had admitted to himself, and had declared to his disciples, what the end must be, the hope of divine intervention to set up Messiah's kingdom had remained fixed in his heart; with such faith that this would yet .prove God's will, and such fond desire that it might be provided for in the divine purpose, that even the cruel fact could not convince him, nor the undoubted fate pluck out his hope, until again and again, and yet again, he had prayed in a great agony "that the cup might pass from him."

Though we drop the veil reverently upon that hour in

which Jesus, pursuing the thought and purpose of his own. mind, encountered in full career the will of God, and was forced by the clearest sense of duty to surrender the first aim and chief hope of his life, yet it is impossible not to see how this fact affects the transmission of revelation through the mind and life of Jesus. This surrender to which he was brought, and which he accepted, is the most significant fact of the life of the Christ. All that he did and all that he said must be viewed in the light of this closing scene. If Jesus had in life a thought and will not warranted in the hidden will of God; especially if he had this as he had — in the most guileless exercise of natural faith and national religious expectation; and, still more, if he proved equal to entire self-surrender, and did relinquish, in view of the ignominious cross, his cherished hope of life, surrendering himself utterly to the will of God, it is evident that THE FINAL DOCTrine of Jesus IS IN THIS LAST DOing of the will OF GOD, and that by this all that has gone before should be judged, and, if need be, corrected.

This surrender of Jesus at last to the will of God requires us to pass over whatever savors of his own will in his previous teaching, and to find his final doctrine, the doctrine sealed with his blood, in the absolute removal of hope from every other object, and the absolute surrender of faith to God alone. The confession of Jesus, that he was not sufficient unto himself, made and witnessed as it was, settles, as far as his authority can settle it, the futility of all faith which does not rest on God alone in absolute submission. Does not this final development of the life and teaching of the Master impose on us the necessity of interpreting all that went before, in the light of this last and most impressive lesson? Is it too much to say, that mere justice to Jesus may require us to modify his previous testimony, to make it agree perfectly with this final and most significant testimony? Are we not bound, in the high honor of discipleship even, instead of exalting, the very words and will of Jesus, to suffer him to withdraw these in his great surrender, and so to take the story of his life, especially in the imperfect Jew-Christian record

which we have, as the envelope or suggestion of revelation rather than as revelation itself? So far as Jesus ever wished to take revelation into his own hands, and to himself break for the world the bread of life, he found reason to give up that wish, and leave all in the hands of God. Shall we com pel him to do what the divine purpose caused him to desist from? Shall we insist on his divine sufficiency, when he himself has confessed, that it was not in his will, but in the will of God overruling his own, to accomplish a perfect work for mankind? Are we not bound as honest Christians to accept the most serious and characteristic act of Christ, by which he acknowledged that it was not in him to know or to do the perfect will of God, except by surrendering his own aims, and leaving all in the control and care of the only God and Saviour? It may seem good to exalt Jesus as the Saviour; but is it true to Jesus, or to the truth of God revealed in the experience of Jesus? No matter what accredited authority may command, the authority of truth toward God, and of the true submission of Jesus himself to God, should outweigh with us all other. We must come to the truth of this matter, though it cost us as much as it cost our Galilean brother and teacher. By his sacrifice we are warned, that of us also may be demanded the uttermost sacrifice of cherished thought and pious purpose. If we allow ourselves to feel, "It cannot be that profound Christian piety is in error," we may resist, but we cannot alter, the truth. The cup which Jesus agonized before God to put away must be pressed to our lips also, however sincerely and earnestly our traditional feeling may resist the trial, until we become fully conscious that there is no supreme will or name but that of God.

If our position thus far be at all correct, we need hardly say that it is a great mistake to assume, that upon the death of Jesus certain apostolic men became fully possessed of Christian revelation, and transmitted it entire to mankind. They neither transmitted it nor possessed it, except in the imperfect fashion of men who themselves knew but "in part." To question the absolute knowledge of men "called to be apostles," or called to be any thing at all in the "apostolic age," is

thought in many quarters extremely heretical. No doubt it is. The Orthodoxy which is most interested on this point virtually assumes, that any man who was an apostle, or who lived while any apostle yet lived, or whose early youth goes back far enough to barely touch the old age of an apostle, must have known all about Christianity; and that when it is evident that Jesus himself did not at first comprehend and attach himself to the whole will of God. This Orthodox assumption is quite unwarranted by facts. The chosen dis ciples of Jesus were very far from having a full comprehension of the burden of Christian gospel. If they apprehended some part correctly; if they, in part, caught the right spirit of Christian faith, they yet utterly failed to receive Christianity in its purity and completeness.

A significant comparison may be made here between the regular" historical" apostles and their great rival, Paul. The former were overshadowed completely by the latter, in spite of the fact that they were the accredited depositaries of the story and teaching of Jesus. His comprehension of principle was superior to theirs, and it raised him far above them as a minister of Christian truth. Paul took his hint from the life of Jesus, and wrought it out in his own ardent thought; then he came forward, better possessed of Christian truth than were the apostles, who thought they had learned from Jesus himself. His own account of the matter is capable of no other explanation. He pursued a spiritual method in making himself acquainted with the substance of Christian Idea; and he boldly claimed for the results of his independent inquiry a value not shared by the gospel which Peter, James, and John believed themselves to have received directly from the Master. We need not decide the question between heretical Paul and Orthodox Peter and James. It is enough to point out, that Paul, the "inveterate rationalist," did in fact

"St. Paul, though disclaiming, as 'carnal wisdom' and 'the wisdom of this world,' the philosophic prepossessions of his time, is himself the subtlest of reasoners, -an inveterate rationalist, never more thoroughly in his element than when arguing the claims of Christianity on psychological grounds, or boldly rationalizing the Old Testament to rebut the scruples of his countrymen. The