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true, but of the soul, and whispers sweet hopes of the land where no one says, "I am sick." Hence its triumphs, if not so palpable to the senses as these literal miracles, are still authenticating seals of its divine warrant, for nothing could accomplish such works as these, unless it came from God.

III. The Consequences of accepting or rejecting the proffer contained in this commission.

These consequences are embodied in two of the most momentous words ever uttered by human lips, salvation and damnation. The meaning of these awful words it will require an eternity of experience to unfold. They involve all that is most joyous in heaven, and all that is most fearful in hell, for ever! When the great apostle had caught but a single glimpse of what is included in salvation, he came back saying that it was not only unlawful to utter the things that he saw, but impossible, for they were unutterable. And if the splendors of the heavenly city are thus unutterable, how much more the terrors of the dark region below! The very dimness and vagueness of the terms employed to describe its torments, are more terrible than the minutest description of details, for it tells us that they baffle description, and are unutterable.

That this should be hinged on simple faith or its absence seems strange, until we remember that man is lost already, a doomed rebel, a serpent-bitten wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner

drowning in the sea. Pardon is offered to the rebel, healing to the dying wanderer, an ark of safety to the perishing voyager. To believe and accept is to be saved; to refuse or neglect is to allow the avenger of blood to come, the poison to to do its fatal work, and the drowning one to perish in the waters, for "how can we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ?"

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CHAPTER XVII.

THE TENTH APPEARANCE-APOSTOLIC COMMISSION IN LUKE.

Differences between Luke and the other evangelists-The Greek gospel. I. The Holy Scripture the only final and unerring rule of faith and practice. Popery and infidelity-Jesus endorsing the scripture. II. The central doctrine of revelation, an atoning and enffering Messiah. The law, prophets, and psalms-The cross of Christ the centre of all human history. III. A divine power needful to enable man to comprehend the gospel of Christ. "Opening the understanding"--The new light. IV. The salvation of the gospel for all, however remote their habitation, or great their guilt. "All nations"-"Beginning at Jerusalem"-Bunyan's Jerusalem sinner.

"Thy glory o'er creation shines;

But in thy sacred word,

I read in fairer, brighter lines,
My bleeding, dying Lord."

"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things." Luke xxiv. 44—47.

IN discussing the apostolic commission as it is given by the first two evangelists, we have seen

how exactly the form of it was determined by the purpose of each gospel. The evangelist Matthew, writing for the Hebrews, gives that portion of our Lord's instructions during that last memorable night and morning, which was most needful for the Hebrews, as we learn from the prominence given to them in the epistle to the Hebrews. Mark, writing for the Roman world, presents the doctrines required by the Latin mind, as we gather from the stress laid on these doctrines in the epistle to the Romans. But Luke addressed a yet different audience, the third representative people of the ancient world, the great Grecian race, that was scattered so widely over the earth, and played so important a part in history. They were polished with intellectual culture, and had a vast literature of their own, and a language so widely diffused that it was the best possible vehicle for a revelation that was designed for the whole world. Hence Luke adopts a more strict historical method, and bases his gospel more on existing records, and gives prominence to the scriptures. Whilst Matthew made prominent the divinity of Christ, his mediatorial kingdom, and the Trinity; and Mark, the doctrine of justification by faith; Luke presents the authority of the holy scripture, the doctrine of an atoning Messiah, and the need of divine illumination to understand the scriptures. These were the doctrines needful to be made prom

inent to the Greeks, to whom they were foolishness. And it is a striking proof of the position already argued that the apostolic commission was not the original authority to baptize, that we find no mention made of baptism at all by Luke in his form of the commission. This can be explained only on the supposition that the authority had previously been granted, and hence it was not deemed necessary to repeat the grant here. The only point that it has in common with the other forms of the commission is, the extension of the grant to all nations that had hitherto been limited to the Jewish nation. There are several points of great importance presented in this form of the commission.

I. The Holy Scripture is the only unerring and final rule of faith and practice.

This is the great question of the day in which we live. Infidelity on one hand assails the sufficiency of scripture, and presents human reason in one form as its supplement. Popery on the other hand assails it, and presents human reason in another form for the same purpose. Both agree in rejecting the scripture as a final and sufficient rule, and in presenting human reason to correct it. They differ in the precise form in which we are to look for that reason: Infidelity contending for the cultivated reason of the present, Popery for the traditional reason of the past.

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