Gospel from two testaments, sermons on the International Sunday school lessons for 1893.

Preface

THE gentlemen who have taken part in the preparation of this volume are not on this account to be considered champions of Sunday School study according to the more or less definite method which has become associated with the International Lessons. Other systems may be better. We simply found this one in far more common use than any other, and wished, if possible, to promote its efficiency. One unfortunate impression cultivated by this mode of biblical study we have done our best to dissipate : the impression, namely, that the various portions and books of the Bible are all of the same importance. While no verse of the Sacred Volume is without value, not all is pure gold, as so much is. To assist in correcting this mischievous error of reducing all Scripture to one and the same level in respect to edifying power, the expositions in this volume have been made honestly historical. The Old Testament has not been forced to anticipate the New, but has been left to voice naturally, in its own way, such instruction as it has to give. By this procedure, it is believed, much is gained, not only for biblical scholarship, but as well in depth of religious impression.

The aim of these sermons is to promote a sound and cool understanding of Holy Scripture, always the primary purpose

PREFACE.

of good Sunday School teaching, at the same time keeping up a pronounced homiletical interest. The book is thus intended to aid two classes of biblical students, teachers in Sunday Schools and ministers engaged in preaching. It is never quite easy to further both these interests in the same discourse, though all genuine expository sermons attempt this ; and in some of the passages discussed upon the following pages the difficulty has proved so far insurmountable that the keen reader will think one intention or the other more or less subordinated. Critics may perhaps be willing to account for such and all other shortcomings in our work by the refractoriness of the scriptural passages on which the sermons thought faulty are based. At any rate we are sure that judges of expository preaching will find in the volume many rich and model specimens of this.

Minute exegesis we have entirely avoided. Commentaries, Bible Dictionaries and the innumerable Sunday School Lesson Helps furnish enough of this. We seek to perform a much more important service, that of placing the lesson for each Sunday in its proper historical setting and of exhibiting its thought in its wide and general relations, doctrinal or practical. How far we have succeeded in such a purpose readers will judge for themselves. We shall be surprised if these sermons are not found exceedingly helpful in this respect.

The lessons of each quarter form a beautiful unity. Those of the first quarter are historical, sketching in a most interesting way Israel's career after the captivity. The studies of the second quarter present some of the Old Testament's finest moral teachings. The third group offers an entertaining

PREFACE. V

resumb of Paul's missionary labors after his call to Europe. The fourth, more doctrinal, is taken up with fresh studies in the epistolary parts of the New Testament.

Interest in the book and in the scriptures which it treats will be greatly increased if the whole matter, or at least that for each quarter, is read through rapidly. The detailed study of each lesson will afterwards be not only easier but far more profitable.

May this volume do much to stimulate love for the Bible and to further the christian graces in all who read it.

The Editor.

Brown University, August 8, 1892.

Table Of Contents

First Quarter.

ISRAEL AFTER THE CAPTIVITY.

Lesson Page