A mighty principle is contained in this circumstance, which we shall do well to store up in our hearts. Our Lord permits us to use our senses in testing a fact or an assertion in religion. Things above our reason we must expect to find in Christianity. But things contrary to reason, and contradictory to our own senses, our Lord would have us know, we are not meant to believe. A doctrine, so-called, which contradicts our senses, is not a doctrine which came from Him who bade the eleven touch His hands and His feet.

Let us remember this principle in dealing with the Romish doctrine of a change in the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper. There is no such change at all. Our own eyes and our own tongues tell us that the bread is bread and the wine is wine, after consecration as well as before. Our Lord never requires us to believe that which is contrary to our senses. The doctrine of transubstantiation is therefore false and unscriptural.

Let us remember this principle in dealing with the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration. There is no inseparable connection between baptism and the new birth of man's heart. Our own eyes and senses tell us that myriads of baptized people have not the Spirit of God, are utterly without grace, and are servants of the devil and the world. Our Lord never requires us to believe that which is contrary to our senses. The doctrine that regeneration invariably accompanies baptism is therefore undeserving of credit. It is mere antinomianism to say that there is grace where no grace is to be seen.

A mighty practical lesson is involved in our Lord's dealing with the disciples, which we shall do well to

remember. That lesson is the duty of dealing gently with weak disciples, and teaching them as they are able to bear. Like our Lord, we must be patient and longsuffering. Like our Lord, we must condescend to the feebleness of some men's faith, and treat them as tenderly as little children, in order to bring them into the right way. We must not cast off men because they do not see everything at once. We must not despise the humblest and most childish means, if we can only persuade men to believe. Such dealing may require much patience. But he who cannot condescend to deal thus with the young, the ignorant, and the uneducated, has not the mind of Christ. Well would it be for all believers, if they would remember St. Paul's words more frequently, "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak." (1 Cor. ix. 22.)

NOTES. LUKE XXIV. 36-43.

36.-[Stood in the midst of them.] We are not told in what manner our Lord entered the room where the disciples were. We know from John's words that the doors were shut, (John xx. 19.) "for fear of the Jews." Whether our Lord passed through the doors miraculously without opening them, or whether He opened them miraculously, as the angel did when He brought Peter out of prison, we cannot tell. (Acts xii. 10.) In either case there was a miracle. In any case the appearance was sudden and instantaneous.

[Peace be unto you.] I am quite unable to regard this expres sion as being nothing more than the ordinary salutation of courtesy. It seems to me to be full of deep and comfortable truth. It implied that the great battle was fought and the great victory won over the prince of this world, and peace with God obtained for man according to the old promise. It implied that our Lord came to His disciples with peaceful, gracious, and forgiving feelings, and with no resentment for their having forsaken Him.

Let it be noted, that "peace" was the last word in the prophetical hymn of Zacharias,-" peace on earth," part of the

good news proclaimed by angels when Christ was born,-"peace" the proclamation which the seventy disciples were ordered to make in every house which they visited,-"peace" the legacy which our Lord left and gave to the apostles on the night before He was crucified,—and "peace" was the first word which He spoke when He appeared among them again after His resurrection. (Luke i. 79; ii. 14; x. 5; John xiv. 27.)

Peace, in short, is one main ingredient of the Gospel. Every one of St. Paul's epistles, excepting the one to the Hebrews, begins with a gracious wish of "peace" to those to whom it is addressed.

Stella has a long and excellent passage on this expression. 37.-[Terrified and affrighted.] It is striking to remark, both here and elsewhere in Scripture, how invariably the appearance of any supernatural being, or any inhabitant of another world appears to strike terror into the heart of man. It seems an instinct of human nature to be afraid on such occasions, and is a strong indirect proof of man's utter inability to meet God in peace without a mediator. If man is afraid of spirits and ghosts, what would man feel if he saw God Himself?

38. [Thoughts arise in your hearts.] Here, as elsewhere, our Lord shows His knowledge of the inward man. The reasonings and questionings of the apostles were all known to Him.

39.-[Behold my hands and my feet.] Some writers cannot see anything in this mention of "hands and feet," but a reference to the uncovered parts of our Lord's body, to which our Lord directs His disciples' attention, as a palpable proof that He had a real material body. I cannot, however, think that this was all that our Lord meant. I believe that He called attention to the nail-prints in His hands and feet, and thus showed that He was that very Saviour who had been crucified.

[It is I myself.] The Greek words here mean literally “I am I myself."

[Handle me and see. Here is a direct appeal to two senses, touch and sight.

[A spirit hath not flesh and bones.] Stier and Alford both observe the absence of the word "blood" in this expression, and attach significance to it. I am unable to do so. Our Lord had just referred to the senses of touch and sight. Flesh and bones could be touched, looked at, scrutinized, felt, without difficulty. Blood of course could not. Our Lord therefore purposely mentions only "flesh and bones." But to infer that His resurrection body had no blood, as Alford suggests, appears to me to be going further than we have any warrant to go.

Let it be noted that our Lord spoke here of "a spirit," and the qualities of "a spirit," in such a manner that it is impossible to deny the existence of incorporeal beings. To believe every

idle story about ghosts and apparitions is foolish and unreasonable. But we must take care that we do not go into the other extreme, and deny the existence of spirits altogether. Our Lord's words about them are clear and unmistakeable.

41.-[Believed not for joy.] Poole remarks, “If they had not believed now, they would doubtless not have rejoiced, for faith was the cause of their joy. Yet the excess of their joy was the hinderance of their faith. So dangerous are the excessive motions of our affections!"

[Any meat.] The Greek word so rendered, means literally "anything eatable, any food." The English word "meat," at the time when our version of the Bible was last revised, did not mean "flesh" exclusively, as it does now. 43.-[Did eat before them.] The speculative questions raised on this circumstance, about the capacity of our Lord's resurrection body really to eat and really to drink, are most unprofitable and vain. Let it suffice us to believe that it was a real eating and drinking, and not a mere optical delusion, or apparent eating and drinking, as some have ventured to insinuate. We need not inquire further. That it was so, Peter's words in another place appear to prove plainly. (Acts x. 41.) The same remarks apply to the eating of the angels who appeared to Abraham. (Gen. xviii. 8.)

Our Lord's manner of dealing with the disciples in this passage ought to be carefully remembered. He appeals to their senses, and allows them to satisfy their senses of the reality of His risen body. He even implies that if their senses had not been satisfied they might fairly and justly doubt whether His body had risen. This mode of arguing strikes a blow at the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, and the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, in the Lord's supper. When our senses detect no change in the substance of the bread and wine, it is monstrous and unreasonable to require us to believe that any change has taken place in them after the act of consecration.

LUKE XXIV. 44-49.

44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.

45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures,

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ

to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

LET us observe, firstly, in these verses, the gift which our Lord bestowed on His disciples immediately before He left the world. We read that He "opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures." We must not misapprehend these words. We are not to suppose that the disciples knew nothing about the Old Testament up to this time, and that the Bible is a book which no ordinary person can expect to comprehend. We are simply to understand that Jesus showed His disciples the full meaning of many passages, which had hitherto been hid from their eyes. Above all, He showed the true interpretation of many prophetical passages concerning the Messiah.

We all need a like enlightenment of our understandings. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) Pride, and prejudice, and love of the world blind our intellects, and throw a veil over the eyes of our minds in the reading of the Scriptures. We see the words, but do not thoroughly understand them until we are taught from above.

He that desires to read his Bible with profit, must first ask the Lord Jesus to open the eyes of his understanding by the Holy Ghost. Human commentaries are useful in their way. The help of good and learned men is not to be despised. But there is no commentary to be compared with the teaching of Christ. A humble and prayerful spirit will find a thousand things in the Bible, which the proud, self-conceited student will utterly fail to discern.