criticism or translation be the mode in which they are effected, the defence prefixed to the Authorized Version of the Bible equally applies to either; "It breaketh the window that it may let in "the light; it breaketh the shell that we may eat "the kernel; it putteth aside the curtain that we "may enter into the most holy place; it removeth "the cover of the well that we may come by the 66 water."

To bear a part in a work at once so inevitable and so important, is pointed out as the especial duty of those whose natural tastes and studies incline them in this direction; and in so doing it seems a duty no less imperative to avail ourselves of such human means and appliances as God has placed within our reach, and as in any merely human studies we should think it disgraceful to neglect. Amongst these I need hardly say some of the chief are to be found in the labours of that great nation from which we should be loth to believe that Theology alone had derived no light, or that whilst we eagerly turn to it in every other branch of study, we should close our eyes against it here. Accordingly in the following pages I have had frequent occasion to express my obligations to continental divines, though of course not rendering myself responsible for their general views, any more, I may add, than in the case of similar acknowledgments which I have been glad to make to a very different school amongst ourselves. Until we have equalled the writers of Germany in their inde

fatigable industry, their profound thought, their conscientious love of knowledge, we must still look to them for help; and, even if we were as much superior to them in all other points as we are certainly inferior to them in those just mentioned, I know not how we should be justified in rejecting with contempt the immense apparatus of learning and criticism which they have brought to bear on the Sacred Writings,-why we should refuse the aid of the workmen of Tyre in building up the Temple of God at Jerusalem. At the same time it is clearly on our own resources that we must ultimately rely; no mere imitation of foreign writers, even were they as perfect as in many respects they are exceptionable, can meet our own necessities; it will not be from the rise of any German school in this country, even were it possible, but from such a union as the characters of the two nations so naturally invite, of the German spirit of research and love of truth with our own practical life and religious activity, that the true antidote is to be sought for our intellectual dangers, and not for ours only, but, may we not also hope without any undue confidence ?-for those of Germany no less.

The particular point of view from which I have regarded the three chief Apostles as connected with the Apostolical age itself and with the subsequent fortunes of the Church, is too obvious not to have been often dwelt upon. As early as the twelfth century it was made the subject of an elaborate exposition by one of the greatest authorities of

that period; and it must be familiar to every student of the most recent works of modern theology, whether treated historically, as by Neander, or devotionally, as in Chevalier Bunsen's Prussian Liturgy, or philosophically, as by Schelling in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Revelation. Such anticipations or exemplifications of large periods of history, whether in the events or the characters of a particular age, are unhappily liable to much fanciful exaggeration, such as in some French writers on this and kindred subjects is too palpable in spite of its ingenuity to need any detailed confutation. But the general principle of regarding individual characters as representatives of large classes, and of tracing in all great changes, whether Divine or human, the natural stages of a beginning, middle, and end, will not be disputed. Above all it must be applicable to the Apostolical Age, of which the characters have always been admitted to be especially set forth for the examples of subsequent times, and in which, if in any period of the world's history, we might expect to find a summary of God's dealings with mankind,-a likeness of those marked epochs with which we are familiar in the history of the Jewish people, and afterwards of the Christian Church. Of course there is a higher and more universal sense in which each of the Apostles is an example and a witness to all ages alike, and which can never allow the work of St. Peter to be superseded by that of St. Paul, nor the Epistles of St. Paul to "give way by subjection, no not for an

hour," to St. Peter and St. John. But this need not prevent us from receiving the subordinate lessons which a closer investigation of the Apostolical age and its consequences seems intended to convey, and which it has been the chief object of this volume to exhibit both historically and in their practical application.

Lastly, it must be remembered that these Sermons, as addressed to an Academical audience,-and it may be added immediately after the close of the long theological struggle which for several preceding years had agitated the University in an unusual degree, necessarily contain allusions which perhaps will hardly be intelligible except to those for whom they were especially intended. I have thought it best however to leave them as they were delivered, in the belief that even for the general reader the application of the truths of Scripture to the wants of a particular class, would more effectually illustrate their real value, than the exhibition of them in a more abstract form.

It was chiefly with a view to the younger generations of my hearers that these Sermons were preached; and it is in the hope that they may not find this volume altogether useless in their studies here and elsewhere that it is now published. And, if, in the representation of the lives and characters of the Apostles which it contains, there is anything to awaken in them a deeper sense of their peculiar responsibilities in this place-a livelier perception of the truth and power inherent in the words and

records of Scripture-above all, a stronger belief in the possibility of a nobler end to all our recent excitements, than the Epicurean indifference which in many instances threatens to succeed to them, or than the controversies out of which they grew,-I can truly say that its object will have been accomplished. It is at least my humble trust that it contains nothing by which such aspirations or convictions can be retarded or destroyed.

University College, Oxford,

November 13, 1847.