The Words of Christ.

43

tion earnestly solicited him, before increasing age should make it difficult, or approaching death impossible, to furnish them with a permanent memorial of a ministry of considerable length, full of satisfaction to him, and he trusts not unproductive of advantage to them." But ten years of constant labour were yet before him; and in 1856 he published" Parting Counsels,"" more last words "an exposition of the first chapter of 2d Peter-remarking in the preface, that "from the nature of its contents it seems peculiarly fitted to form the subject of a communication from a pastor who has passed more than half a century in official labour to those whose spiritual interests he has ministered to." He would not, however, venture to expound the remaining chapters till "better informed, and more fully assured," for many difficulties occurred in them; a token that he was now feeling one of the symptoms of age, in being " afraid of that which is high."

In 1807 Dr Brown had begun to lecture on the Gospel of John; and during the intervening 43 years-that is, till 1850the Gospels, especially the discourses of Christ other than the parables, had occupied much of his time. In 1850 he published "Discourses and Sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated in a series of Expositions." The sayings of our Lord--what awe and joy one feels at the phrase! The sayings of our Lord-what He said who spake as never man spake, what words flowed from the lips of incarnate Love, words laden with wisdom and fraught with truth for all ages-words ever repeated, and never losing their bloom and freshness-words familiar as the sunbeam, and yet, like the sunbeam, bright and welcome every morning-words that find an echo in the heart, and lodge themselves in it as the germ and nutriment of a new and spiritual existence-words that have passed into proverbs, Christendom feeling their weight and edge, and the toil and sorrow of every-day life lightened and cheered by them-words which, like winged seeds wafted by an invisible power, plant themselves where no one dreams of, and bear such fruit as no one anticipates-words that thrill in their unearthly tone and volume as they burst from the Speaker, looking up to His Father on the hill-top, in the upper room, or on the cross-words that touch us with more than woman's tenderness, as when He says to the distressed Magdalene, “Why weepest thou!"-words that astound us by their superhuman energy, as when, rising in the storm-tossed skiff, and His locks streaming for a moment in the breeze, He speaks to the billows, and their foaming crests crouch under Him into stillness-words which flashed and pierced like lightning among the masses of people surrounding Him-words, too, of Divine reach and penetration, and serene pathos and charm as he unbosomed Himself to His inner circle-or words, in fine, clothed in those vivid and

memorable stories which are read and relished by the child for their simple beauty, and by the sage for their unfathomed depth and disclosures, "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

Dr Brown's volumes on the "Discourses and Sayings of our Lord" are freer and less elaborate than some of his other volumes of exposition. Independent judgment is seen in all the opinions; but a good deal of foreign material, as from Brewster on the Sermon on the Mount, is inwoven, as indeed he intimates generally in the preface. Dr Brown never plagiarized; he quoted from others when it suited his purpose, and thanked the original owners. At the same time, while much of a popular and practical nature fills these pages, a deep critical vein, cropping out in a thousand ways, underlies all the discussions. Were we to characterize the work in a few clauses, we should say that it is distinguished by mature thought and just discrimination; that many passages of stirring and hearty eloquence occur in it; that in the portions explaining the Sermon on the Mount there is a keen and thorough search into the train of the Divine argument as it moves in majesty from topic to topic, with searching descriptions of character and analyses of motive based on a knowledge of human nature which a sagacious and self-recording experience only could furnish; that the sections treating of the Discourses in John are not only solemn and weighty, as is most due, but earnest and joyous, exhibiting intellectual skill and exegetical acumen with a softened splendour, as if they were vailed while illumined by the Sheckinah; and that the entire work, while it presents a full body of evangelical truth, and shows the perfect harmony of law and gospel, as it develops and adjusts the various doctrines of theology, is exuberant in wealth of instructive notes from many a source, striking excerpts from the best of authors, and multitudinous references from Holy Scripture. Especially in the supplemental volume, on the "Intercessory Prayer," is the fulness of Dr Brown's heart manifested; for he felt that the place on which he stood was holy ground, and that an exposition of that marvellous prayer was like drawing aside the vail, and passing with unsandalled foot into the inner and awful shrine. It is adventurous to construe such an Intercession, to subject such a Farewell to exegetical handling. "The disposition to inquire," as he says in the preface, "is lost in the resistless impulse to adore." These four volumes also show us that the Redeemer's Person was to him of living central interest; since He whose words are expounded is not some being far removed beyond the stars, but an ever-present Sympathizer and Saviour. For the Bible does not expound a religion, but it teaches of God; and the New Testament does not vaguely lay down the tenets of Christianity, but it portrays Christ. The merits of Dr Brown in this

Lücke, Tholuck, Stier.

45

work are his own,-though there had been before him, as expositors of the whole or parts of these sections of Scripture, such writers as Kuinoel, whose notes, with a show of learning, are often superficial, and sometimes worse than superficial; and Olshausen, whose merit, as Tholuck says, is his "presenting the thought in its unfolding," and who is always fresh and spiritual, if not always lucid and conclusive. Lücke had also written his Commentary on John-sincere, learned, masterly, and minute; Tholuck, too, had published several editions of his work on the same Gospel, not the fullest or most learned of his many works, but simple and delightful, enriched with a glowing spirit of earnest meditation, a true knowledge of the spirit of the Gospel and its adaptation to the spirit of man. The elder Tittmann and Lampe had commented on John years before,-their books very different in form and size as well as materials,-Tittmann excelling in acuteness, and Lampe in breadth,—the one resting more on strict grammatical investigation and the literal sense, and the other more on the scope and connection which he elaborates patiently and illustrates ponderously in his three quartos. Stier's "Words of the Lord Jesus" have been given to the world since Dr Brown's "Discourses and Sayings;" and though he could have no great sympathy with his brilliant peculiarities, they delighted him on his dying bed. For Stier's mind is very singular; subtle and creative, penetrating and profound, rich in allusion, fertile in suggestion, audacious in deduction, scorning opposition, attracted by the odd and the angular; sparkling and scholarly in his exegesis; often asserting that to be the truth contained, which after all is only an inference; his nervous system so finely strung as to be easily jarred; his thoughts ever and anon blossoming into poetry; inclined to a devout mysticism and looking more to Christ within as Life, than to Christ without as Mediator and Sacrifice; while a fervent piety is ever welling up, and throwing from many jets its prism-tinted spray over all his arguments, vindications, and criticisms.

In 1852 Dr Brown published the "Resurrection of Life," an exposition of the fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians. A wondrous chapter truly,-in which the Apostle, starting from first principles, soars away on daring wing to the heights of ineffable. glory; argues out the truth of Christianity from the empty grave of the Redeemer, and affirms that His resurrection was the pledge, and is the pattern too, of that of His people; describes in sentences dim to us by reason of their splendour the relation of the psychical to the spiritual, and of the animal nature that now is to the ethereal frame that shall be; and then sweeps away in rapture to sing his pæan over the death of death, when it "shall be swallowed up in victory." This expository volume excels in

compacted analysis and in wealth of illustration, and, touching many mysteries, occasionally lifts the curtain, if it does not throw it aside. The difficulties are boldly faced; there is no attempt to evade them, or to write round them. If the knot cannot be untied, there is never exhibited the impiety of attempting to cut it. In the course of the exposition many points start up of a kind which Dr Brown delighted to discuss by the light of the context, the analogy of faith, and the help of previous expositors, such as "baptism for the dead," and the "delivering up of the kingdom." Those sudden changes of person and appeal, not unlike conversational turns, which occur in the chapter, he opens up with great facility-with equal clearness and power. But these mysteries are not as yet to be fully comprehended; and it is to such paragraphs that Peter seems to refer, when he says that in the epistles of his "beloved brother Paul," when he speaks of "these things," are "some things hard to be understood." "These things" transcend all experience, and may not be known till we enjoy them. The life to come is so unlike the present life, for it shall not be under the same restrictions of time and space; the spirit being freed also from all physical hindrances, so that its powers are augmented and its capacities multiplied; still in contact with matter, but without sensation, and waiting to put on its "house from heaven,”—a lovely pavilion for a lovelier tenant.

The commentary on Galatians, a special favourite with Dr Brown himself, is more academic in its structure than those volumes now referred to, and is marked by its clearness and precision, its terseness and learning, its careful review of opinions, and its firm and decided conclusions. Reasons, brief but strong, are assigned for differing or agreeing with any other commentator, and there is no dogmatic or one-sided exegesis. Every kind of help has been consulted, and his opinions were revised and modified during a long series of years. He had long been fascinated by the Epistle, not more by its vehement and vigorous arguments on behalf of a free and unmutilated gospel than by the glimpses it presents of the Apostle's mind as he was writing it. For his emotions cannot be suppressed,-surprise that his Galatian converts had been so soon and so easily seduced, sorrow at their perilous state, and indignation at the vile arts by which the Judaizing teachers had imposed upon them. The pains and labour bestowed on the exposition have been immense, though they do not in every case lead to a satisfactory result. Yet if any one read him on the verse, of which above three hundred interpretations have been given, "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one," he will see how lucidly he can arrange discordant judgments, and classify and dispose of them; how he

Exposition of Romans.

47

can show the weakness of this one and the mere plausibility of that one; point out how one group of opinions is tainted by a radical fault, and another group must be given up for want of harmony and adjustment, even though after all he has not adopted what we reckon the view least cumbered with difficulties. He traces very perspicuously and accurately the connection between the law and the gospel; maps out their boundaries, where they seem to touch and where they are remote from each other; smites legal bondage, and vindicates zealously and oft the spiritual freedom and elevation of the Church of Christ. He was not wedded to old opinions or old books: what a hearty welcome he gives in one of his notes to the magnificent quartos of Conybeare and Howson! The only things we object to in Galatians come plainly from the school in which he first studied exegesis, and the influence of that school he was never able entirely to shake off. The volume, it may be added, is very different from the rugged and resolute commentary of Martin Luther, and is a mighty advance upon such expositions as those of Dickson, Slade, M'Knight, Pyle, or Ferguson.

The "Analytical exposition of the Epistle to the Romans" differs wholly in character from the commentary on Galatians. Its history is somewhat singular. He had prepared a regular commentary on the Epistle," grammatical, historical, and logical," -but he felt that he might not live long enough to complete it; "yet,” as he says, "I was unwilling to go hence without leaving some traces of the labour I have bestowed on this master-work of the Apostle. Forbidden to build the temple, I would yet do what I can to furnish materials to him who shall be honoured to raise it. For the last twelve months my principal occupation has been, so to condense and remodel my work, as to present, in the fewest and plainest words, what appears to me to be the true meaning and force of the statements contained in this Epistle of the doctrine and law of Christ, and of the arguments in support of the one and the motives to comply with the other; and to do this in such a form as to convey, so far as possible, to the mind of the general reader, unacquainted with any but the vernacular language, the evidence on which I rest my conviction, that such is the import of the Apostle's words." Dr Brown confines himself in the main to logical exposition. He tells us, that for more than forty years the Epistle had been an "object of peculiar interest, and the subject of critical study." He adds, too, that his early illustrations, "corrected and enlarged by an increasing acquaintance with the inexhaustible subject, have in substance been repeatedly, though in different forms, presented to Christian congregations and to classes of theological students." We believe that even in its present compacted form the exposition was delivered to his congregation; and surely it must have been