well pleased.' Such was the splendid scene of his divine inauguration to an office, to which we behold him appointed by the concurrent suffrages of the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit; invested with the authority, and enjoying the complacency of the one, anointed and endowed with the unmeasured fulness of the other; an office which was destined to absorb all moral authority, distinction, and power, and in the discharge of which, whatever he uttered was henceforth to be regarded as law and life.

In the following essays, I propose to point out the leading features of our Lord's instructions. My object, be it remarked, is not to attempt a detailed and textual exposition of the truths he taught, the words he uttered-though these, of necessity, will be constantly before us, as our only data and source of illustration-but to elicit and exemplify the peculiar qualities by which these truths and words, when viewed as a whole, are distinguished. With the substance of what he taught, we are all more or less familiar; since, in common with the stupendous miracles which marked his path, the purity and perfection of his character, his amazing death, and glorious resurrection, it forms an important part of our scripture reading, and is one of the ordinary topics of pulpit instruction; but, if I mistake not, the impression which is generally entertained of the claims of Christ as a teacher, is most disproportionately inadequate; owing, perhaps, partly to the absorbing attractions which invest the subject of his atoning death, and partly to that eclipsing flood of light which immediately afterwards burst on the church in the ministry of the apostles; for, by a known principle, truth evolved and illustrated will supplant and succeed in the mind the same truth condensed and primitive, however superior its source, and throw over it an air of undeserved disparagement. Were it proposed to magnify his office as the great Proph

et of the church, it would be important to remark that the preaching of the apostles, subsequent to his ascension, was virtually the mere continuation of his own preaching; that they were simply the organs and oracles through which he spoke; as much so as when he had sent them forth, by two and two, to proclaim through Judea the kingdom of God; the only difference being, that he had now removed the scene of his instructions from earth to heaven; but, without recurring to this consideration, and confining ourselves entirely to the specimens we possess of his personal teaching, it may easily be made apparent that, in the most literal and comprehensive sense of the expression, never man spake like this man.' And in adopting the plan contemplated, of exemplifying the peculiar characteristics of his earthly teaching, I am principally moved by the persuasion, that it is best adapted to exhibit an enlarged, connected, and impressive view of the emphatic truth of this declaration.

On meeting with an allusion to our Lord's discourses, we naturally recur, in thought, to his sermon on the mount, to his parables, his charge to his apostles, his more lengthened vindicatory replies to the questions and imputations of his adversaries, his terrible prophetic denunciation of the Jewish priesthood and nation, and his valedictory address to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. These, when brought from their various detached positions in the gospels, and grouped together in the mind, assume, perhaps, a larger appearance than the cursory reader had before attached to them. He must, however, be aware, that we possess but a very small proportion of what Jesus actually delivered. It is not to be imagined that he, who went about doing good, and who turned every event into an occasion of usefulness, would travel from place to place, with his disciples, in silence. Rather, we infer from the

characteristic inquisitiveness which some of them showed, and his uniform readiness to reply, that the very scenes through which he walked, if nothing else, would furnish him with a perpetual occasion of instruction; that, in traversing a land so often pressed by angels' feet, so rich in the relics of miracle and devotion, that its very soil had lost its gross materiality, and every object had acquired a supernatural aspect, he would often advert to ancient times, making them the text of hallowed remark, and thus turn the very dust he trod into the gold of wisdom. And yet,

though so much of his time was necessarily occupied in frequent, circuitous, and protracted journeys, a few fragments, incidentally given, are all that we have of his divine communications by the way.

But we are not left to mere conjecture as to the probable occasions on which he taught. The scene of the first discourse he is recorded to have uttered, appears to have been Jerusalem; but of that memorable unsealing of the fountains of the waters of life, we only know that, in conjunction with his miracles, it was the means of inducing many to believe on him. To form an idea of the immense proportion in which the amount of his teaching must have exceeded what is on record, we have only to recall the following expressions: And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, and preached there. And he came down to Capernaum, and taught them on the sabbath days. And he said, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.' These intimations are all to be found in a single chapter, the 4th of Luke; and only refer to a single period, the opening of his ministry. But if we

bear in mind that similar intimations are dispersed through the gospels, and are equally applicable to all the subsequent stages of his life, we shall be vividly impressed, that what we read is merely a hint of what he delivered. What synagogue in Galilee, if not in Judea, did not resound to his gracious voice? What sabbath did not behold him breaking the bread of life to famishing crowds? He held the key of all the treasures of wisdom, and he distributed of its stores with the affluence and profusion of unwearied beneficence. He had come to sow the earth with truth, and wherever he went he scattered in abundance the incorruptible seed. What has been transmitted by the holy evangelists is all that is necessary to inform and to sanctify; had all that he uttered in the course of his laborious ministry been preserved-for he never pronounced an idle word—the voluminous mass would have been inaccessible to the great majority, and thus its design would have been defeated; for I suppose the world itself would not have been able to receive the books that should be written.'

We may, I think, warrantably suppose that, on commencing his public ministry, the adorable Redeemer had present to his comprehensive mind, an outline of the truths which should form the scope of his teaching. The worthlessness of formal ceremonial obedience; the spirituality of the law and its eternal obligations; the holy, benevolent, and paternal character of God; the relations in which we stand to God, and to each other; the display of his grace in the gift of his Son for human salvation; the spiritual nature of the gospel kingdom: the necessity of prayer, repentance, and holiness in those who belong to it; the agency of the Holy Spirit to enlighten, renew, and sanctify the soul; the sublime fact of his own divine appointment to be the Saviour and Judge of the world; these

were the momentous truths on which he chiefly dwelt, and to these, whatever the immediate occasion of his speaking, he perpetually returned. Like some of the celestial bodies, indeed, which refuse to come under any astronomical arrangement of signs, some of the lights which he kindled and placed in the great firmament of truth, stand out in isolated grandeur, and shine apart. But though this was to be expected from the awful extent of that ignorance he came to enlighten from the stores of his wisdom, and the variety of occasion which called it forth, the mass of his divine instructions will be found to come under the enumeration we have specified. And it is from his discourses and discoveries, on these topics, that we now proceed to exhibit those distinguishing marks of his teaching on which we propose to treat.

It is impossible to peruse the instructions of Christ without remarking the tone of authority which pervades them: this was the characteristic by which his hearers, on several occasions, appear to have been chiefly impressed; and to this, therefore, we think it natural to advert first. Of his personal appearance, and general address, we are left in ignorance; nor is it necessary, that, in order to form an idea of his teaching, we should be able to imagine them. For this purpose we have only to suppose, what is surely allowable, that they were in no way unfriendly to useful effect; and that, whatever the theme which engaged his tongue, his voice, and words, and gestures accorded with it, being true to nature, and to the eloquence of holy human feeling. And hence, the authority with which he spoke was not of one unvaried character, but was marked and modified by the nature of his subject. There was authority in his invitations and promises, not less than in his denunciations and commands, for they were uttered in the language of independent goodness and power; but while we hear in the