God, by showing the irreligious confidence in worldly undertakings displayed by many (iv. 13–17).

(n) Here is a threatening against the rich, who, abandoning themselves to every gratification, had deprived the innocent of the means of subsistence (v. 1–6).

(0) Christians suffering from the oppression of the rich are exhorted to patience, and comforted with the idea of the Lord's near approach (v. 7-11).

(p) We have a dissuasive against swearing in conversation (v. 12).

(1) Prayer is recommended in a variety of situations (v. 13-18).

(r) The epistle concludes with the importance and blessedness of endeavouring to reclaim an erring brother from the evil of his ways (v. 19, 20).

There is no proper termination, but an abrupt and unusual ending without an apostolic benediction.

Though the epistle occupies a place in the canon subordinate to the Pauline writings, its lessons are valuable. It breathes a healthy spirit, and presents views of life which are eminently Christian. All is referred to God, the great author and sovereign of the world. Its practical tone is a preservative against the Pauline element in excess, or the antinomianism which relies on faith to the neglect of works. The precepts contain a sound morality, in contrast to the doctrinal and speculative element for which Paul's epistles are quoted. A production which associates divine causality with the steadfastness of an active and pure life, may well rebuke the religion which relies on dogma for acceptance with God.

Luther's judgment of its value is expressed with his usual energy. In comparison with the best books of the New Testament, it is a downright strawy epistle, is not an apostolic production, directly ascribes justification to works contrary to Paul and all other Scripture, makes no mention of the sufferings, resurrection, and

Spirit of Christ, and throws one thing into another without order.'1 The result which the reformer arrives at is that the writer lived long after Peter and Paul. His spiritual instinct appears in some of these statements. He is right in saying that it is not evangelical from a Pauline point of view; and that it contradicts the apostle of the Gentiles in relation to the doctrine of justification. But it is a valuable letter notwithstanding, because dogma does not constitute the essence of Christianity. Doctrines are but opinions; ethics, spirit and life.

1 See Luther's Werke, xiv. pp. 105, 148, etc., ed. Walch. The longest statements are in the preface to James's epistle in the edition of the New Testament published in 1522. The epithet strawy' epistle occurs in the preface to the edition of 1524.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE GOSPELS.

MUTUAL RELATION.

THOSE Who compare the first three gospels cannot fail to perceive that they agree not only in the substance of what they relate but often in the diction itself. Amid minor diversities they harmonise with one another in contents. Numerous investigations have been made to explain the resemblances.

The following hypotheses have been proposed to account for them :

1. That the gospels were derived from a common written source or sources.

2. That they were derived from oral tradition which had assumed a fixed form.

3. That earlier gospels were used in the composition of the later.

4. Some have combined the last two opinions, making a composite view out of them.

It would be a waste of time to discuss these opinions at length. We can only indicate what is settled among the best critics.

The first view has passed away, notwithstanding the amount of ingenuity expended in developing it by Eichhorn and Marsh. It is clumsy, laboured, and inadequate.

The second is also obsolete, in spite of Gieseler's

able explanation.1 Though it accounts for many resemblances and discordances in the gospels, it fails to explain their numerous verbal coincidences. The fixed form which it requires for the oral gospel must involve peculiar verbal agreements which would not be stereotyped. It does not meet the case, to say that the Jews preserved the sayings of their great teachers with strict accuracy; for the circle of hearers in which the oral gospel is supposed to have been formed was wider, more miscellaneous, less intellectual than the class that treasured up the sayings of the Jewish rabbis, not to speak of the manifoldness of the sayings of Jesus compared with the more easily retained and concise dicta of the former. Besides, the Jews did not rely on memory alone but wrote down what they valued most.

The third hypothesis is the only tenable one. We should not say that the evangelists 'recommended each other,' as Dr. H. Owen affirms; nor is it a sufficient answer to the objection, 'how came they not to avoid the many contradictions observable among them,' that these are only seeming contradictions, which would disappear were we fully acquainted with all the facts and circumstances. The evangelists used one another freely, having ulterior sources written and oral, which they employed according to the purpose that guided selection. It was not their intention to sift the documents at their disposal, to copy them literally, or to adhere to them. Their scope was wider, following no exact rule; and their passing from one source to another should not be judged by a modern standard. A leading motive usually guided their general procedure, shaping the narratives from whatever source they were drawn. Indifferent about perfect agreement, the avoidance of contradictions did not disturb them: they were intent on more important things. Those who think they re

1 Historisch-kritischer Versuch über die Entstehung und die frühesten Schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien, 1818.

fute our view by putting into juxtaposition passages which agree verbally, diverge, return to verbal coincidence and so on, assume that they prove absurdity in a writer who, after taking a few words from his predecessor, gives a few that vary either because they come from another document or because of his own caprice, while predecessors are used alternately in an interlacing fashion. But this is a caricature of the view, making the evangelists mechanical copyists, and leaving out of account the employment of additional documents, conscious freedom in dealing as well with the matter as the manner of each other's compositions, and especially the processes through which the gospels passed before they reached their present state under the hands of redactors. The synoptics as they now are, show the result, not the progress, of mutual derivation.

Those who believe in the original independence of the evangelists-that each wrote without seeing his predecessor's work-have been fairly driven out of the field of criticism. One valid argument overthrows their belief, viz. the peculiar resemblance of Mark's gospel to that of Matthew. It is easy to allege that on the ground of one evangelist following another, no good reason can be given why each has here and there something peculiar to himself; why he occasionally speaks more definitely than another, more circumstantially, more chronologically, more briefly. It is also easy to assert, that no good reason can be given why the diction of one should be altered by his successor for the worse, or changed without improvement, or rendered obscurer. Difficulties innumerable may be raised with respect to the abridging and adding processes of a later evangelist. Why did he act so and so?

The question can be brought to a probable issue in one way only; viz. by carefully examining and comparing the gospels as we have them. What do the