the Philippians was an outpouring of the Apostle's love towards a church of his peculiar affection, at a time when his own heart was full of sorrow, and his death seemed to be approaching.

Be

Two of the greatest of St. Paul's Epistles have not yet been mentioned: the letter to the churches of Galatia, and that addressed to the congregation of Christians in the Metropolis of the world. tween these two there appears to be so intimate a relation that it is most natural to believe them to have been written at, or near about, the same time. And on examination it seems probable, as in the case of the two other Epistles, before mentioned, that the writing of the pointed and occasional letter gave rise in the Apostle's mind to the design of elaborating the more complete and systematic To the Galatians he wrote as their father in the faith, from whom they were rapidly seceding; to the Romans, who had never seen him in the imperial city, he wrote as the appointed Apostle of the Gentiles, hoping (as indeed proved to be the case) that his bodily presence among them might follow his pastoral treatise and exhortations.

one.

The providence of God has not disdained to preserve, among the Christian canonical Scriptures,

letters addressed to individuals. Of these, six have come down to us: four from the pen of St. Paul. The two to Timothy, and one to Titus, are precious to the Church in all ages, from being written on the subject of the choice, and duties, of the Christian ministry. The other, addressed to a private friend, Philemon, concerns a domestic matter, and exhibits to us a beautiful and graceful specimen of the interweaving of Christian feeling and sympathy with the incidents of common life. The other two are from the pen of St. John: the one, most probably, to a Christian lady, otherwise unknown: the other to a certain Gaius. Both are hortatory and general in their character: the latter, however, bringing before us various incidents and persons.

This enumeration of Epistles properly so called, should close with the most mysterious, and, in one respect, the most remarkable of all: that addressed to the Hebrews. The uncertainty of its authorship has been before mentioned. The lateness of its date is evident, from the allusions regarding present circumstances, and the statement which it contains of the handing down of the Gospel history from its eye-witnesses to the then living generation.

One part, however, of the promised testimony of the Comforter to the Church was yet in great part wanting. He was not only to bring to remembrance all that Christ himself had taught (John xiv. 26, xv. 26)—not only to enable the Apostles and apostolic men themselves to bear testimony (John xv. 27), and to guide them into all the truth (ib.), but he was finally to show them things to come (ib.). And therefore the New Testament canon closes with that great prophetic testimony of the Spirit of Jesus, received by the beloved Apostle in Patmos, and addressed by him in the form of an Epistle to the churches of his own especial jurisdiction in pro-consular Asia.

Thus we have the epistolary canon complete. We have been hitherto speaking of its various members formally, with reference to their occasion and constitution: let us now regard the whole with reference to its contents, and to the question, What has the Church gained by its possession?

First, What is to be expected? Proceeding, as of course we must proceed, on the hypothesis of Christian belief, here we have the writings of men under a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, an outpouring such as has never since been witnessed,

We believe these writings to have been intended for what they have since proved, the doctrinal charter of the future Christian Church. Nothing could be less like a system, than the teaching of our Blessed Lord. In these Epistles, the true comments on that teaching, we may expect great steps to be taken towards systematising it. The Lord's moral precepts, the Lord's mediatorial acts, are the seeds out of which, under his own direction, by his informing Spirit, the teaching of the Apostolic Epistles has grown. It is easy for any ignorant fellow to present to us a seed and a full-grown plant, and to argue, from their utter unlikeness, that the one is no development of the other. just in this way has the comparison been made, by some calling themselves critics, between our Lord's teaching and the Epistles of his Apostles. As far as I have been able to study their arguments, they seem to me to amount to this: Were it not for St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, St. James, St. Jude, and the Writer to the Hebrews, we never could have built up, out of our Lord's words and deeds, 4 that system of theology which their Epistles To which I answer: Possibly not: certainly not, unless we were informed by the

enounce.

And

Spirit which informed them. The educing from the Gospels, and from those further sayings of the Lord which the writers of these Epistles had heard, of the great doctrines of our faith, was a special work of God's Spirit, not the mere achievement of human logic. The process involved, as it went on, fresh revelations, in the unfolding of the Divine scheme of human salvation. Still, these revelations were in aid, not in suppression, of the common reason of mankind. They issued, not in the contradiction, but in the exposition, of our Lord's words and acts.

When then I find the Apostles arguing systematically for certain great doctrines as inferences from the facts of the Gospel, I find exactly that for which I am prepared: exactly that forward step which it was natural that God's providence should allow, and cause, next to be taken.

This being so, what has the Church gained by this addition of the Canon of Epistles to her historical sacred records?

I answer-First, the clear setting forth of the following great doctrines :

:

1. The unity of three Divine Persons in the Godhead.