event. It is where, in ascribing to Paul a prediction of the future condition of the church, he is made to refer to the "church of God" as what Jesus had "purchased with his own blood" (xx. 28). The passage, in the guise of a prophecy, may be suspected of having been put in after the circumstances described had had effect. The phrase, moreover, may denote no more than that the exaltation of Christ, as the head of the church, and the ruling centre of her interests, had been earned through his sufferings (Phil. ii. 8, 9; 1 Pet. i. 11). To require for a repentant sinner also the provision of a sacrifice, and one of this stupendous import, if a truth, was a condition that needed to be proclaimed in the plainest possible language.

In judging of the elements that have entered into the composition of Christianity, an important ingredient has been found to be the tenets of the Essenes. They are accounted a Judaic sect, and the passage through this channel in the Judaic form of Christianity is apparent.

John the Baptist is presented as the forerunner of Jesus. Had this truly and simply been his position, after introducing Jesus he should have withdrawn, or have ranged himself behind him. But such was not the case. John, after Jesus appeared upon the field, continued his system of making converts and baptizing them (John iii. 21). The two acted independently of one another, Jesus, however, as it is said, drawing in the greater number of converts (John iv. 1). John's ministry was known of to Jesus as what was going on apart from himself (Luke vii. 29, 30). The want of association between the two was so decided that John, when his own career had been brought to a close by his being thrown into prison, had to send some of his disciples to Jesus to ascertain who he might be (Matt. xi. 2, 3). His followers, met with years later, are found to have been gathered to his own name, and not to that of Jesus (Acts xviii. 25, 26). The two, moreover, differed from one another essentially in practice. John was an ascetic, dwelling in the desert, and restricting himself in his diet to the wild products around him. Jesus frequented the habitations of others, and lived freely as they did (Matt. xi. 18, 19). John, pursuing the method of the Pharisees, inculcated fasting. Jesus placed his followers under

no such restraint, and accounted for his freer system by assuming the character of a bridegroom, asking, "Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast" (Matt. ix. 14, 15). It is accordingly clear that John, in maintaining fasting, was not conscious of the presence of the bridegroom, and was in fact no follower of his.

John, in his character of an ascetic, made his habitation in the desert, as was the custom of the Therapeuts. He denied himself the enjoyments of life, abstaining, as the Essenes and Therapeuts, from eating flesh, and clothing himself with rough garments, as the prophets of old (2 Kings i. 8; Isa. xx. 2; Zech. xiii. 4), for one of whom he passed current (Matt. xi. 14). He also pursued the system of purification by water followed by the Essenes and Therapeuts to remove the taint of sin. Seeing the strong vein of Essene doctrine introduced into the synoptic narratives, it is fair to assume that we have in the alleged precursor John one of this type of asceticism. James, "the brother of the Lord," as described, was another such. He drank neither wine nor fermented liquors, and abstained from animal food.

He never wore woollen, but linen garments. His knees became as hard as camels', in consequence of his habitual supplication and kneeling before God" (Euseb. Ec. Hist. ii. 23).

The public career of Jesus opens, when he became of matured age, with his baptism by John. This is an act that carries with it the significance of acknowledged discipleship. The evangelist is conscious of the incompatibility with the character sought to be maintained for Jesus of being a special emissary from above and lord and master of all, that he should be presented thus in a position of subordination, indebted for initiation in his mission to another. He attempts to clear himself of the difficulty, but with obvious want of success (Matt. iii. 14, 15). John, we have seen, was no follower of Jesus, and now the reverse is found to be the case, Jesus being exhibited as the disciple of John. In this manner, apparently, Jesus enters the Essene community, afterwards marking out for himself a more independent position. That is, while inculcating certain lines of Essenism, he does not

accept their restrictions of diet, and asserts for himself individual prominence, the Essenes figuring only as an undistinguished brotherhood. Then we have him presented as the Jewish Messiah, in whom centred all the hopes of the nation; and thus, in the end, we get that Judaic form of religion which characterized the founder and his first adherents, as depicted in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the apostles.

In this category the Epistle of James must be included. It is addressed to the twelve tribes of Israel, ignoring the Gentiles, and it inculcates natural religion as to be drawn from the Jewish scriptures. The accepted ones are begotten " with the word of truth" (i. 17); it is "the engrafted word" which has saved their souls (i. 21); "pure religion is “ "to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (i. 27); salvation turns upon good works, as in the instances of Abraham and Rahab (ii. 14-26); the hearers are exhorted to exercise patience until the coming of the Lord, who is the judge standing at the door (v. 7-9).

The

The next step in the onward course of Christianity was the extension of the offer of the new faith to the Gentiles. book of Acts shows that there was a time when these races were considered to be unentitled to the privileges of the gospel. The vision of Peter is introduced to warrant the application of its terms to them. The discussion raised in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts gives the movement another origin. The churches of Judea, it may be there seen, were still maintaining the Judaic form in all its integrity, some of their body saying, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Paul and Barnabas, though Jews by race, were of the Greek spheres of Tarsus and Cyprus, and among their neighbours of the Grecian town of Antioch had introduced no such exactions. In addressing themselves to these Gentile citizens, it is made apparent they were not acting under the authority of Peter's alleged vision, but in pursuance of their own reading of the Jewish scriptures, which, while providing supreme advantages for the children of Israel, allowed some measure of reflex blessing to reach the Gentiles (xiii. 47; xv. 14-17). We may apprehend, therefore, that these semi-Gentile preachers, or such as they were, had, in an independent manner, gained over adherents from the Greeks of Antioch, and that members of the

churches of Judea, hearing of the movement, attempted to quell it, and failing, had to accommodate themselves thereto in the best manner they could effect. Such appears to be the history of the extension of the faith to the Gentiles. It was an act not due to the institution of the reputed founder, but was in truth against his ordinance; it was not practised by his first followers, but, on the contrary, discouraged by them when they came to know of it. The work was, essentially, that of unauthorized preachers, following the bent of their own sentiments, among a population to whom they were allied in nationality if not in race; and but for such adventitious circumstances Christianity must have remained in the character in which it was first launched of a Jewish sect.

In endeavouring to trace the advances made in the development of Christianity, I follow, not the canonical arrangement of the Christian scriptures, which is a purely arbitrary one, but rather the order of the doctrines, as this progresses from stage to stage towards ultimate maturity. I make no use of the second epistle to the Thessalonians, the epistle to Philemon, and that of Jude, as they do not afford sufficiently clear materials to aid the inquiry I am undertaking.

The first Epistle to the Thessalonians embraces no higher line of doctrine than what we have already had before us. The Thessalonians are recognized as followers of the churches in Judea (ii. 14). The attempt of the Jews to prevent the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles is adverted to (ii. 16), probably from being an event fresh on the minds of those addressed. The death of Christ is accounted a mere death, such as the prophets also had undergone (ii. 15). The deliverance expected was to be at the return of the Lord in power (iii. 13; iv. 14-18; v. 23).

I now group together the Epistle to the Romans, the 1st and 2d of Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Galatians, ascribed to Paul, and the 1st Epistle of Peter. These exhibit decided Gentile sympathies, and place the salvation of man upon the Gentile element of a human sacrifice as accomplished in the death of Jesus.

The line of doctrine taken in these writings could not have been thrust upon a community essentially Jewish in creed without occasioning violent contest. The reported teaching of

the reputed founder had led those who ranked themselves as his followers to believe that if they repented they would at once be "frankly" forgiven. They had been told that when standing in life he had thus forgiven those he dealt with; for example, the palsied man, and the female who had anointed him. How could they receive the declaration that there could be no forgiveness but by his death, through the efficacy of his blood shed for them? To require of them the paramount condition of a sacrifice, was to alter the whole character of the dispensation offered them; and to say that this should be the sacrifice of a human victim, was to do the utmost possible violence to the teaching they had received, as they believed, from a divine source. The apostles were inculcating their master's doctrine of free forgiveness or repentance, and maintaining strict adherence to the Jewish economy, and their authority also had to be set at nought. A commotion, on the attempt being made to convert the Jewish creed, based on the mission of Jesus, into a practically Gentile one, was inevitable, and accordingly we have ample evidence of such a contest in the scriptures before us.

All critics have seen that the Paul of the Acts and the Paul of the Galatians are essentially two very different beings, and it has been the custom to accept the representation in the Galatians as belonging to the genuine man, and to view the statements in the Acts as an untrue account of him, arranged and put forward for a particular purpose. The Epistle to the Galatians shows us Paul standing in entire independence of the apostles, and in collision with them, while in the Acts he is described as occupied in Judea in concert with them. It is commonly held that the latter is a picture drawn to keep out of view the scandal of such a want of concord. But if this is a right criticism, there is much more also in the Acts to be accounted for. Paul's career is given us to its close when he is left in durance in the hands of the Roman authorities, and we find him maintaining to the end his Jewish characteristics, free of the Gentile elements which form the very essence of the teaching ascribed to him in the epistles. It is obvious that we have two distinct schemes of doctrine, the one Judaic, and the other Gentile. Both forms, in point of actuality, are represented to have occurred in the Church, and