THE LOGOS IN MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE. 165 Matthew, Mark, and Luke, contain John as the acorn does the oak, the child the man.

It is admitted that the Synoptists reveal the perfect humanity of Jesus. Yea, it is usually held that they state it with a sharper definition, and illustrate it with greater fulness than John. But this is more than doubtful. The Jesus of the fourth gospel, as of the other three, is unquestionably, perfectly and completely human. He is the Son of Man, the true and real Son of Man. Sits He not at the well of Jacob wearied with His journey? Does He not weep at the grave of His friend? Is not His soul troubled and perplexed with the dazing vision of His coming agony? Ah yes! the Jesus of the fourfold history is "the Man of Sorrows." THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH is the witness of all the Evangelists.

A stage further than this we may travel under the guidance of the acute and original author of Ecce Homo. Taking as His criterion of certainty the agreement of all the evangelists, he forms a "rudimentary conception of Christ's general character and objects; and allots a place therein to His supernatural power and Messiahship. He says "that Christ did Himself claim Messiahship cannot reasonably be doubted. His death is explicable on no other supposition. The fact that Christ appeared as a worker of miracles is the best attested fact in His whole biography."*

But with a criterion like that in our hands we cannot, in honesty, stop short here. We must use the rule fairly, and apply it all around. The evidence that proves Messiahship will prove Divinity, and the facts that testify to His claim to work miracles urge us forward and upward, even to His kingly throne. The concord of the Evangelists is a large and all-sufficing law, if completely obeyed.

(1.) All four writers agree in treating Jesus as a being who has not entered this scene of sin and suffering in an ordinary way. Mark calls Him the Son of God in his first line. Matthew and Luke very decisively affirm the Saviour was not born as men usually are, and the former traces His genealogy up to Abraham, and the latter up to Adam, both regarding Him as the beginning of a new creation, the head of a new race, the second Abraham and father of the faithful of all ages, the second Adam and founder of a new humanity. The seal of Divinity stamps His birth. He is born of the Holy Ghost. He comes into the world as no other ever came. May He not have been where man never was? Will He not do what no other man ever did? Has not this Spirit-born Man a nature man never before had?

(2.) His names and titles are in perfect keeping with this unique introduction to our earth. He is called "Jesus" because He shall save His people from their sins; "Emmanuel," which being interpreted is God with us; the "Holy One of God;" "the Son of God." The Synoptists show that Christ Jesus elected and preferred the title SON OF MAN. Fifty times does He use it. He is the Man par excellence, the Man without equal, the Heir and Ideal of the human race, the perfect Type realised and embodied. This is the favourite designation. But it

* Ecce Homo. Preface to fifth edition, pp. viii., ix.

+ Cf. G. B. Mag., 1876. Three articles on the Miraculous Origin of Jesus, pp. 41, 88, and 121. Matthew i. 21, 23; xxi. 5; xxv. 34. Mark i. 24. Luke i. 35.

stands not alone. Its real and only sufficient complement is the SON OF GOD, descriptive of the special and unfathomable relation He holds to God in possessing a Sonship of a singular and unequalled character, far deeper in its meaning than His Messiahship, and based on the absolute divineness of His being. And in the phrase, THE SON,* the other two designations are blended together; and in unison with the terms the Father and the Holy Spirit, represent to us the New Testament conception of God (i.e., the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), just as Jehovah stands for the fullest definition of God in the Old Testament. It is needless to say that such names and titles fit nowhere so well as they do that Eternal Word described in the preface to the gospel of John.

(3.) Moreover, it is only with a Person of such lofty rank that the claims of Jesus reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke compare. In the first gospel we have five great discoursest in which Christ appears as Lawgiver, issuing from a new Sinai a new code of righteousness for men; as Founder and Head of a new society, holding new relations to each other, fired with a new enthusiasm, and animated by a new spirit, and resisting the onset and shock of "the gates of hell; as King and Judge of all the nations of men. Thus He claims sovereign rights as a sole and sovereign King, and claims an exclusive and supreme allegiance. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." "All power in heaven and on earth is given to me." His arm is almighty, as His presence is ubiquitous. Verily one whose story begins by connecting Him with blessings to all families on earth, and ends by a claim of limitless power and omnipresence, only finds its fitting crown in the language of John-" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The more we examine the first three gospels, the more profoundly are we convinced of this. Who is this "young Man of promise" that encourages His followers to dare death with the assurance that if they endure persecution for His sake they shall find it a benediction of priceless value? Think of this Syrian peasant saying to men, If you will not leave father and mother, brother and sister, house and land, for Me, you are not worthy of Me! What must He be worth who claims so much! Who is He that dares to claim the soul, whole and undivided —to make Himself the motive and goal of life's duty and devotion? Hear Him inviting to Himself, as if He were a God to console and help, all restless and sin-worn souls, and daring to promise them quiet, and healing, and life.t Verily such enormous claims can no more rest on mere simple humanity than the universe on the shoulders of a babe.

(4.) Here, too, is another inexplicable fact on any other hypothesis than John's. The three Evangelists attribute to Jesus a holiness that has not a single stain. He is holy, harmless, and undefiled. Not a sigh of penitence escapes Him. Never do you hear the groan of remorse. At no point does He confess mistake. Sensitive as He is— and never was man more so, to the slightest defilement-yet there is no spot on His robe, no consciousness of impurity within Him. Christ

*Matthew xi. 27. Mark xiii. 32. Luke x. 22.

Cf. Matt. v.-viii.; x.; xiii.; xvi.-xviii.; xxiii.—xxv.

Cf. Matthew v. 11; xi. 28, 30. Mark viii. 34, 35. Luke xiv. 26, 27; xviii. 29, 80.

THE SHEPHERD AND HIS LAMBS.

167 never fails. The first Adam did. He used his freedom to sell his purity. Abram failed. He would not risk his safety and pleasure for another, but tampered with truth and defiled it. Moses failed. He was angry, and sinned; though man had never before shown such meekness. Elijah failed. His self-will brought despondency, and despondency grew into despair. Christ never failed. He was without sin. That picture of unspotted holiness is unique, and for ever defies all explanation short of the fact that He is the only begotten Son of the Father.

(5.) Go for a moment to Mark's gospel, and behold Him as the irresistible Conqueror, invading all the regions of human need and sin, and carrying captivity captive. Linger with Luke over scenes of ineffable tenderness and pity. Behold the great, good, pure Man die, rather than surrender His chosen work of redemption; and die, not because, as Professor Seeley says, He claims Messiahship, but because "HE MAKES HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD:" trace the life-giving and darkness-dissipating results of His voluntary sacrifice, and then see if you can hold back the words, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men."

(6.) If you are able to do this, then remain within the circle of the concord of the four Evangelists till you see the crucified Nazarene rise again from the dead; and as you feel the power of that resurrection vindicating the despised and humiliated Son, verifying the Old Testament prophecies, avouching the Sacrifice as accepted by the Father, you will surely admit that the Father is one with Christ, and Christ one with the Father. "I and the Father are one."

For ourselves, we are as certain that the Logos was in Matthew and Mark and Luke's gospels before ever it was expressed by John, as we are sure gravitation was a fact of Nature before it was described and defined by Sir Isaac Newton. If John had not written a line of his gospel, the reflective piety and thoughtful devotion of the Christian heart and intellect would soon have composed for itself the doctrine of Jesus the Eternal Word. JOHN CLIFFORD.

The Shepherd and His Lambs.

BE voiced, O hearts, and sweetly sing
The Shepherd of the sheep,
How He, though universal King,
His little lambs will keep.

The hearts of kings in every land,
He turns His when and how;
He holds the waters in His hand,
And crowns the mountain's brow

With silence and eternal snow,

And teaches sun and star,
And all the wilder worlds, to know
Their orbits near and far;
Ripley.

He rules o'er realms remote, unseen,
Which angels cannot bound;
His gulfs of space that intervene

No creature thought can sound:

And yet He is a Shepherd King,
The David of His sheep,

And loves the lambs that mothers bring
For His kind arms to keep.

Their very weakness melts, for He
Is evermore the same;

His angels through His glories see
A Lamb that once was slain.

E. HALL JACKSON.

The Abuse of Metaphor in Relation to Religions

Belief.

BY DAWSON BURNS, M.A.

No. VII.-Concerning Conversion.

MAN is made for religion. This is a proposition which none_will deny unless prepared to assert that man is a beast or a demon. It is none the less evident that he does not develop religiously in the same way that his physical and intellectual faculties develop from infancy to maturity. On the contrary, he manifests passions which are either sinful, or easily become so, and by which his life, as a moral organism, has a tendency downwards, and not upwards-is drawn from the Divine service, and not to its more orderly and perfect fulfilment. Apart from theories of depravity, the fact is apparent in early years, and hence the need of Conversion-i.e., a recoil from depravity, and the re-turning of the soul to its rightful Owner and its righteous Ruler.

This change, whether sudden or gradual, is a great one, a vital one, and we are not surprised that in Scripture it is described in language intensely and variously figurative, or that the different aspects of the one event are lighted-up by a train of metaphorical radiations.

Conversion is depicted as a washing and a purging-the possession of a clean heart and a right spirit-a departure from the snares of death-an opening of the eyes and unstopping of the ears-a deliverance from lameness and dumbness-a springing-up like grass and as water-fed willows-a release from prison and darkness-a putting of God's law in the inward parts, and writing it in the heart-the substitution of a fleshy for a stony heart-becoming like little children-a turning to the Lord-the right hearing of Christ's words and coming to Him-being made free by the truth-entering in by the door (Christ)-being a new creature-being born again-being born of incorruptible seed (God's word)-putting off the old man, and putting on the new man-a deliverance and a translation-a circumcision withbut hands-a rising with Christ and being quickened with Him. Not in one place only, but in many passages, are some of these figures presented, with the object of making clear the necessity, reality, and importance of Conversion-that change of mind and disposition which characterises the sinner who repents and turns to God.

It is not wonderful that Conversion, so depicted, should be described as a Divine work-the result of a Divine agency and influence making itself felt in various ways. The Hebraistic conception of God as the ground of all energy, life, and being, would have wholly revolted from the ascription of a moral and spiritual change to any power but that of Jehovah. Yet, in the Hebrew theology, the personality and all-pervading potency of the Creator did not exclude belief in human personality, or deprive man of an executive freedom, without which he would

CONVERSION.

169 have no more claims to a moral constitution than the beast of the field. The Evangelical Prophet could say (Isaiah xxvi. 22), "Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us for Thou also hast wrought all our works in us;" nor did he feel any inconsistency between this declaration and the summons to Israel (i. 16, 17), "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." So the prophet Ezekiel could utter, in God's name (xi. 19)-"I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you;" and without any sense of incongruity he could afterwards affirm God's vindication of His equity, and exhort (xviii. 30, 31)"Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

And the apostles were equally insensible or defiant of imputed contradiction when glorifying God and addressing man. St. Peter attributed the wonders of the day of Pentecost to the Divine Spirit, but enjoined repentance on his hearers; and in preaching to the crowd in the temple he did not shrink from the appeal, "Repent ye and be converted," as though conversion were their own independent act and deed. St. Paul, as is well known, loved to attribute election, in its source and fulness, to Divine grace-but he is not forgetful of human agency; and in one notable passage he startles the class of literalists by paraphrasing the words of his favourite prophet, Isaiah, (Eph. v. 14)" Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." How many are there still who would denounce such language, if found outside of the Bible, as heresy, blasphemy, and absurdity. "What a denial," they would say, "is here implied of the Divine sovereignty! What a deification of the creature! Besides, what an impossible task is assigned the sinner. How can the sleeper wake himself? How can the dead one raise himself up?" Such is the latent if not uttered thought of a theological system which deals with the figurative language of Scripture concerning conversion as though every feature in the natural figure had a spiritual counterpart. Thus, when Conversion is compared to a birth, because in natural birth the person born has no choice, and can exert no control over the conditions of that event, it is inferred that so it must be in regard to the spiritual birth. By this abuse of metaphor a double wrong is done;-the real significance of the metaphor is unrecognized, and a dogma is set up in opposition to the direct teaching of God's word. The figure of birth beautifully expresses the soul's reception and consciousness of a life from God and with Him,-a flow of affections and aspirations having God for their source, centre, and end. But to abuse this figure so as to extract from it the idea of man's perfect passivity in Conversion is, under the pretence of asserting God's glory, really to efface that glory, by representing Conversion as a mechanical operation, and man as a being differing in nothing fundamentally from the earth on which he treads. Such a theory of Conversion is, in truth, consistent not with Christianity, but with Pantheism or Materialism; for it proceeds either on a principle which makes God the only free and moral agent in His universe; or on a principle which identifies His dealings with human