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destruction. Those sects or bodies of teachers, who adhered strictly to the law, and even fenced it roimd with commentaries, as the Scribes and Phari- sees } did, were more popular than the Herodians who courted Rome, or the Sadducees whose worldly pride despised spiritual * Hebrews i. 3. t See the early part of Gfrorer's Urchrist^rUhum, Stuttgardt, 1838. t The word Pharisee is derived from Pharathy U* expound ; though fmrn an homonymous root it acquired the Rense of separate. 352 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE. things, and despaired of the nation's hope. Yet the zeal of the common people did not save them from changes of thought, due partly to contact with foreigners, and partly to the fermenting of their own minds. The Essenes endeavoured to realise a hermit sanctity which the law had not prescribed, and which had only few models in their older history. It is probable, that foreign (and even Bauddha) influence, caught through Alex- andria, may have conspired to stimulate this process in Judsea. Again, the mutual instruction and free prayer of the synagogue must have wrought in men's minds, and supplanted, except on rare occasions, the sacerdotal worship of the Temple, though they left it a recognised sanctity. On the whole, we see traces of an uneasy ferment in the Jewish mind, a longing after the Past, yet an awakening of thought which would hardly have wel- comed its literal resuscitation ; and an intense jealousy of Gentile influence, with symptoms that the nation was being imbued by it. When Jesus began to teach, (after being preceded by the stem preacher John, who was to awaken men's minds to receive a new order of things,) He addressed the two great anxieties of His countrymen, as if He were about to fiillil their hope. Good new8y He said, the kingdom of God is coming : And as to the Law, He said, I am not come to destroy the Law, hut to fulfil. Hence both the common people in their simple patriotism, and the Scribes in their zeal for the Law, might be expected to welcome the new Teacher. " But it soon appeared that Jesus would fulfil such hopes, not in their letter, but in some higher meaning. One of His first sayings is. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for tJieirs is the kingdom of heaven: and one of His last, My kingdatn is not of this world, which elsewhere He explains, by saying. The kingdom is tcithin you. All the blessings mentioned by Him m His first great discourse, are ascribed to meekness, purity, hunger for spiritual things, and, in short, to what is purest in heart and conscience, rather than to kingly pomp and worldly success. Here is the whole question raised, whether a kingdom of sword or of LAW AND QOSPEL. 353 thought 18 the greatest, and whether happiness is most in gran-* dear and animal gratification, or in the health of our better souls. All that is best in your Indian wisdom should lead jou here to take part with Jesus against the worldly and the animal. Again, Jesus was on the side of the law, so far as it condemned all sin, and subjugated things to Grod. But so far as it consisted of external prohibitions, and reached neither the root of things nor their fulness, Jesus abolished it to make room for a higher. Moses forbids murder, and adultery, and false swearing. Jesus persuades us to put away the thought, the glance*, and the profisme lightness which grow into such deeds. Moses, who deals with outward acts, rightly allows marriage to be dissolved, when the love which should bind it is broken ; but Jesus, who by His wisdom jGashions the thoughts, says, they do wisely and holily who love to the end as they began. The Law enjoined almsgiving : Jesus persuades us to double our gifta, by hoping for nothing again ; thus only can they give us joy in our own mind. The Law could assemble men at prayers ; Jesus enables us to pray, by putting before our minds a Father who is ready to hear, and who giveth more than we desire or deserve. The Law gives authority to priests and teachers according to their descent or their office ; Jesus requires of them whom He sends, the good works which shall shew their calling and sending to be of Ctoi. The Law required many precepts, some wearisome, and some imperfect, and all becoming a burden to the conscience, if they even did not darken it by written formalism ; Jesus opens a new and living way in our consciences, by summing up all in two words, which every one that hears them can apply fresh for himself: Love the Lord thy Ood with all thy heart/ and Love thy neighbour as thyself: and again, 'Whatsoever things ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them ; for this is the Law and the prophets.' No wonder that such teaching seemed different from that of the Scribes; for they could only say, * it is written, and it is delivered,' not seeing the * An Cicero says, "ne impruderUiam quidem oculorum adjici fms est.*' M. P. 23 354 THE WORDS OF CHRIST. reason for the precept ; but Jesus draws water from the living fountain of truth ; and His words have a perpetual echo from the conscience, which is God's witness in man. " Thus Jesus abolished for ever for all believers in His truth every law* of the letter ; and put in its place a new and a living law. But no words are so powerful as His own to awaken in our hearts that sense of the unseen which we call faith ; by which we see no longer mere precepts, but the reasons for them ; thus passing from the letter to the spirit, and appre- hending the very truth. He spoke chiefly by parables, which simple people might understand, and which had an especial view to His own time ; but yet their meaning comes out true in some sense for all time, even as His kingdom is for eternity. The Jews arc like an elder son who stayed at home with his Father, while the yoimger one spent his goods in a far coimtry ; so many of the nations had wandered from the Father of their spirits into worship of dumb idols and vile passions, but yet God calls them from afar and has mercy on them, like the Father in the parable falling on the neck of His prodigal son. This, however, is spoken not only to Jew and Gentile, as it might be now to the Hindda, but to whoever grudges the grace of God, and to every sinner who turns his heart to God. Again, the Expounders and the Scripturalists among the Jews are taught by a parable of the shepherd seeking a lost sheep, that God will have even extortioners and great sinners to repent, so that His servants, who know His mind, must needs welcome them into His kingdom. Tliis also is perpetually true. Again, the Jewish nation, having been freed from ignorance and taken to fanatical pride, is likened to a man from whom one evil spirit has been cast out, but who suffers him to return with seven others. So is now every man, who begins to be good, putting away some fault, if afterwards he turn back, and hardening himself in hypocrisy, or in despair, suffer his evil habits to be increased. But the kingdom of God is like leaven, which goes through all * See Luther, Oalai, i. 14; and read the third chapter of 2nd Corinthians. THE WORDS OP CHRIST. 855 the lump of the meal ; here you see, that the kingdom which Jesus preached was one of thoughts and feelings, which should work their way out of men's hearts into customs, and laws, and states. Again, it is a little seed, and it becomes a great tree. Here we have its growth from a little seed in a comer of Palestine, till it overshadows the earth ; and again, in man's heart, from a single good thought, or prayer, till it fill him with good fruits. Again, on stony ground it perishes, and so in hard hearts; amidst thorns it is smothered, and so among worldly anxieties ; by the wayside fowls devour it, and so with careless seekers after truth, the opponent easily takes away their good impressions ; but in good ground it bears fruit ; and so does the infinite love of God in every good and honest heart. " Even the common sayings of Jesus have a manifold mean- ing. He speaks of the coming fall of Jerusalem ; but His words hold true of every great judgment of God in the world. One shall be taken y and the other left; so shall it be in the final judgment between good and bad. Look not back, and return not; so should no one look back to any place of sin, any more than to a city of destruction.