ERRATA. Page 53, line 24, for Matt. iv. 18, read Matt. ii. 18. 186, Note C [iii.], for the κevodožía ȧvůpúπwv, read idols. INTRODUCTION. Πᾶς γραμματεὺς μαθητευθεὶς εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ὅστις ἐκβάλλει ἐκ τοῦ θησαυροῦ αὐτοῦ καινὰ καὶ παλαιά, S. MATT. xiii. 52. THE ministers of the New Covenant have approved themselves as good stewards of the great Householder by bringing forth out of His treasure things new and old. Sometimes the new supplements the old, and answers to the needs of a fuller growth. Sometimes the newest is identically the oldest, and supersedes that which by dint of use had come to be regarded as the old, while yet 'from the beginning it was not so.' And still, to the scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, the old is ever new, and the new old; for the old lives in the new, as the new is rooted in the old; and old with new successively reveal one Truth, as the shifting seasons measure a world's cycle about its sun. The formal connection of new and old is not indeed peculiar to the Christian economy; for all nations who have ancient writings have endeavoured to read in them the riddle of the past.' But with the sacred writers this connection is not, as in the case of heathen authors, merely external; for 'the Old Testament looks forward to the New, as the New Testament looks backward to the Old;' and the New sees itself the more truly mirrored in the Old, as the Old, gazing ever fixedly on the New, is 'changed into the same image from glory to glory.' I. Preliminary Remarks. 1. The relations of the new to the old are various; and the analysis of but few citations from the Old Testament in the New, clearly shews the great difficulty of harmonizing the citations and their originals in accordance with any of the preconceived theories which have been, from time to time, hazarded. What has been well said on another subject, Inspiration', has its application to this: In the outset let it be said that we heartily concur with the majority of our opponents in rejecting all theories of Inspiration, and in sweeping aside all those distinctions and definitions which, in only too many cases, have been merely called forth by emergencies, and drawn up for no other purpose than to meet real or supposed difficulties. The remark probably is just, that most of the current explanations err more especially in attempting to define what, though real, is incapable of being defined in an exact manner.' And again :-'It seems pretty generally agreed among thoughtful men at present, that definite Theories of Inspiration are doubtful and dangerous'.' Definite theories of citation have proved scarcely less fruitful in controversies, and have tended to multiply the difficulties which they were devised to obviate. Nor, on the other hand, could any solid results be expected to accrue from a priori theories, which might not, at least as safely, be attained by a patient and unpretentious following of the inductive method. Let the passages cited be first scrutinized in the light of their original contexts, and without reference to the fact of their citation let the true meaning of the citation be elicited, so far as may be, without reference to the original: and then, from a comparison or contrast of the separate results, as much, assuredly, may be gathered as from any theory on the mutual relations of the New and the Old: for so far as the : 1 Aids to Faith, Essay IX. 2 Ibid., Essay VII. |