CHAP.

IV.

Jot and tittle.

but according to the dictates of the Spirit or power of
God in man, which is able to make obedient man perfect,
even as his Father which is in heaven is perfect. In this
sense Christ said that He was not come to destroy the law
or the prophets, but to fulfil the will of God by perfecting
what was written, and correcting what was taught by men,
of whom none, not even the best descendant of Adam, so
fully knew the power of God' as He himself.1 The
Scribes and Pharisees erred, not because they taught
the everlasting authority of the least letter (Jod) and even
of every point or tittle, but because they knew not the
power of God, which alone enables man to derive life
from the letter that killeth.' In this sense alone can
Jesus have said that he did not come to destroy the law,
but to fulfil it. He fulfilled it in spirit and in truth, whilst
he regarded the letter of the law not as the standard of
the faith, but as a basis from which the hidden truth might
be developed by the power of God, which he certainly
acknowledged as the verifying faculty. It is probable that
in this respect the reforming doctrine of Jesus was identical
with that of John the Baptist. For the law and the
prophets (in their literal interpretation) were until John;
since that time the kingdom of God (the rule of the Divine
power in man) is preached, and every man presseth into
it.' By insisting on the lasting validity of the letter in
its literal sense, the Pharisees justified themselves before
men; but for all this they erred, 'not knowing the Scrip-
tures nor the power of God.'2 It is only by knowing the
latter that the former can be understood. The action of
the Divine power on the heart of man, and not the mere
outward acknowledgment of the letter, which even the
'blind guides' could see, is the unfailing key of knowledge.
The wise and intelligent' knew, or pretended to know,
the Scriptures, whilst their heart was an abomination to
God. But even babes' are under the influence of the
revealing power of God. It is by being moved by the

6

3 Mat. xi. 25.

6

power or Spirit of God, by doing His will, that men can
know whether the doctrine be of God or not. By ful-
filling the will of God, Jesus fulfilled the law without
at once openly destroying it. But he longed to see it
destroyed, as Paul did destroy it in his name.
'I am
come to send fire on the earth; and what would I (give)
if it were already kindled.'2 This was the very founda-
tion of his reforming doctrine, and it was directly opposed
to the Pharisaical maxim that not a letter shall be
abolished in the law in eternity.' 3 If then we can render
probable that the Apostles were after their Master's death
held in awe by the Jewish rulers, and that the original
apostolic record of Christ's sayings was published under
the authority of the latter, and therefore after their revision,
the assumption will gain ground that Jesus may never
have spoken the words attributed to him about the
eternal validity of every jot or tittle of the law. If
he uttered those words, he meant to put a limit to the
validity of the entire written law. He did fulfil it all,
and thereby abrogated it.

6

6

The principal charge which Christ pronounced against the Pharisees, and not against the Sadducees, was that they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,' inasmuch as they neither went in themselves, nor suffered them that are entering to go in.' '5 This would seem clearly to imply that they possessed the means of opening the kingdom of heaven for themselves and for others, and yet that, by not making the right use of what was confided to their keeping, they shut up the kingdom of heaven. Thus they were blind leaders of the blind,' and responsible both for their own blindness and for the blindness of the people. Sitting in the seat of Moses, they ought to possess the key of knowledge,' which Jesus charged the lawyers to have 'taken away,'' We shall see that this key of knowledge, or key of the kingdom of

1 John vii. 17.

4 Acts v. 12, 13.

Luke xi. 52.

VOL. I.

2 Luke xii. 49.

7

6

3 Schemoth Rabbah 6.

CHAP.

IV.

IV.

CHAP. heaven, was promised to Peter, and that it consisted principally in the apocryphal doctrine of the Divine sonship, which it was given to that apostle to understand and to apply to his master. The secret doctrine of the Jews was believed to have been fully known to Moses, but to have been only partially revealed to the people by him and his successors. It is, therefore, not improbable that in referring to the Pharisees as sitting in the seat (or pulpit) of Moses, Christ recognised their authority 2 only in so far as they were the acknowledged guardians of the Hidden Wisdom, of that knowledge the key of which the Pharisees had taken away. Moreover, He did not wish prematurely to arouse the suspicion of the Pharisees against Him. Far more in accordance with the principles of Jesus were those of the Essenes, who regarded the soul, the heart of man, as the innermost sanctuary of the Divine Spirit, through which the creatures can be in direct communication with the Creator, and thus can become an organ of Divine revelation, speaking 'as the oracles of God.' 3

The fruit of holiness.

CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES.

The disciples of Jesus were to be known, not by their professions, but by their works, and these were not only to be the ordinances prescribed by the law, but also and above all they were to consist in the due performance of the unwritten moral precepts of the heart, of the weightier matters of the law. Jesus taught that without the lifting up of the heart every worship of God is in vain, and that the law written on the tables of the flesh must be the interpreter of the law written on the stony tables on Mount Sinai. Jesus came to do the will of God, and thus to fulfil the written law in spirit and in truth. He came to reveal the mysteries which to Moses had been partly revealed, but which that lawgiver had been obliged to hide from the people at large, inasmuch as the Israelites 1 See 'The preaching of Peter.' 2 Mat. xxiii. 2, 3.

31 Pet. iv. 11.

6

1

could not then have borne such glories. What Moses revealed in secret and in darkness to the seventy elders of Israel, was ever of old communicated from one generation to another as dark sayings,' by the right interpretation of which the written law of Sinai, the memorial of the will of God concerning the Israelites in the wilderness of Egypt, might be understood in its hidden completeness, and thus engraved on the heart of man, the dwellingplace of the Divine Word, of the Eternal Saviour of all.

6

Such knowledge as was necessary for entering into the kingdom of heaven, that is, the kingdom of the Spirit, it was difficult then to attain by those who were only led by the Pharisees, for these had taken away the key of knowledge. And yet all that was necessary for salvation was to know and to believe that the Spirit, Wisdom or Word of God had in all ages been at work in the heart of fallen man as the Saviour of all.' Therefore, if any man's faith in the regenerating power of this indwelling Saviour is even as small as a grain of mustard-seed, it is all-sufficient. Even the poor' can have this faith, and can thus be in the spirit.' For, if by God's Spirit they are led to know what is in their heart,' 2 if they are rich in the Spirit of Wisdom,' they are richly blessed by their poverty. Without this knowledge, without this faith, which required neither a powerful intellect nor a long course of training, nor earthly riches, the doctrines of the kingdom of heaven could not be understood. And because the Pharisees purposely hid these mysteries, the kingdom of heaven had to be proclaimed by dark parables, that is, in a mystery. Only to the few who were His disciples Christ confided 'the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.' Their eyes are blessed for they see, and their ears for they hear, what many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and to hear, and have neither seen nor heard. But to the people it was not

1 Ps. lxxviii. 2-8.
3 Deut. xxxiv. 9.

3

2 Deut. viii. 2.
4 Mat. xiii. 11-17.

CHAP.
IV.

IV.

CHAP. given to know this; to them the Lord spoke only in parables. For many are called, but few are chosen.'1 The time shall come when the Spirit of God will be shed over all flesh; when the saving knowledge shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But few only are chosen as organs of the Divine Spirit, as teachers of a superhuman doctrine. What makes them to be chosen before the others, what makes them to be earlier joint heirs with Christ, is that by listening to the dictates of the indwelling Saviour, this Divine power has to them become the medium of sanctification and of direct communion with God.

'Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.'2 Thus the faith of the Gentile centurion was beyond what Jesus had found in Israel.3 And the faith of the Syrophoenician woman was likewise the fruit of the hidden knowledge of the heart. It was not found by the Lord in Israel. For the things belonging to the peace of Jerusalem continued to be hidden from her eyes, even whilst the stone which the builders rejected,' had become the head of the corner.' The Pharisees had taken away the key of knowledge, they had forbidden the promulgation of the Hidden Wisdom, of which the doctrine about the Divine sonship formed the centre. And yet the key of this saving knowledge had been revealed to and by Abraham. law which was four hundred and thirty years' later, the law of Moses, had in Israel had the tendency of disannulling the Abrahamitic covenant, that it should make the promise of none effect.' But the germs of the spirit, the seed which is the Word of God, had taken root in a soil beyond the confines of the Holy Land. Christ had come as the sower of that Divine seed, but He had first to remove the hardness of heart, in which, like the rock, the seed could not take root. He had to warn man

1 Mat. xxii. 14.

2 Mat. vii. 14.

4 Luke xix. 42.

5 Mat. xxi. 42.

3 Mat. viii. 10.

6 Gal. iii. 17.

The