presage of approaching catastrophe to a M'Ivor: the same landscape beheld his capture by the English band, and Carlisle Castle gate frowned loomingly upon him as he passed along the drawbridge and under its grim portal. For well he knew but few short hours of captive life remained to him; and only once again, when his death-bell tolled, should the bright sun sparkle in his eye, and the free wind fan the curls that clustered on his forehead. His execution is said to have been the last death by violence that stained Carlisle Castle.

Our military informant, after directing our attention to a well within the castle precincts,-stated to be the deepest in Cumberland, and said to date from the days of the Romans,-proceeded to point out the many objects of interest spread before us in the landscape-panorama visible from the castle walls. Below us flowed the Eden, a broad, shining river; even in the far westerly horizon we distinctly traced its course, widening and widening ever more and more, till it stretched away into Solway Firth, thirteen miles distant. South of the Eden, beyond Carlisle, the northern front of Skiddaw towered proudly upward; whilst a few miles only from the further brink of the river lay the Scottish Cheviots. Yes! we were really so near tartan Caledonia, the fair "land of the thistle," that an extra eight miles would have brought us to Gretna, the first place across the border. We were looking into Scotland!

(To be continued.)

212

THINGS NEW AND OLD.

A POSTIL.

"Then said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old."-S. Matt. xiii. 52.

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THINGS new and old. You will observe a peculiarity in this expression. The ordinary phrase is old and new, and our LORD here reverses it. This is not accidental for precisely the same turn of expression is to be found in the Old Testament, in that passage which speaks prophetically of those things which have an actual and visible existence.

You will bear in mind that, in the sequence of parables of which the text is the summing up and definition, the LORD is shadowing forth what His kingdom is to be here on earth.

In the Song of Solomon, a prophetical allegory in which Solomon, himself a type of CHRIST in his royalty, is addressing his bride, the type of the Christian Church, occurs this very remarkable passage,-remarkable, that is to say, not so much for itself, as for its connection with the passage we are now considering. The words are: "At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."

The time is now come, and every scribe which is instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, who is now bringing forth those very things, new and old, which so many years ago had been laid 66 for up the beloved." Mark also the very peculiar term which our LORD uses," every scribe." This is not a common expression as applied to the Apostles; indeed, except in

the metaphorical sense in which it is used, it is not a correct expression at all, for the Apostles were not scribes, which word designates a regular profession: the Jewish scribes were copyers, guardians, and explainers of the Old Testament. It is not therefore without meaning that our SAVIOUR calls His Apostles scribes instructed unto the kingdom of heaven. What He means by this declaration is, that those who have had the aim and object of the Old Testament doctrines, and types, and dark prophecies explained to them unto the kingdom of heaven,-that is to say, for the purpose of showing how they are all preparatory to the kingdom of heaven,— such a scribe as that is like a householder bringing out that which had been laid up in store for this very event, and producing old things; that is, ancient meanings, which are not done away because there is a new dispensation; but besides these, new things also. Of these the new are of most importance, and therefore are mentioned first; but in truth the importance and the value of them is derived from the fact, that they are both new and old; new to us, but evidently intended by GOD from the foundation of the world. And again new to us, so far as their present meaning, now for the first time unfolded to us, is concerned: but old, inasmuch as we have hitherto always understood them imperfectly.

This peculiarity has not escaped the notice of the Fathers. S. Augustine (de civitate Dei) remarks, “He said not old and new, as He surely would have said, had He not preferred to observe the order of value rather than of time; but the Manichæans, while they think they should keep only the new promises of GOD, remain in the old man of the flesh, and put on newness of error." The Manichæans that S. Augustine speaks of, like all other sects, have lasted their appointed time, and have disap

peared from the earth; but this fallacy of theirs is continually revived. Men are in every age finding for themselves new promises of GoD, and new readings of the Bible disconnected with the old; and thus it is that they remain in the "old man of the flesh, and put on newness of error:" or, to use the expression of a greater than S. Augustine, having "divisions" among them, "are carnal and walk as men."

Building new things upon old is the foundation of all missionary preaching; and you may recollect how S. Paul carried out the idea, in the specimen which is preserved to us in the Acts, of his peculiar method of proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. That all religion-that is to say, all knowledge of GOD-which man possesses in this world, must be in every part of the earth a more or less imperfect fragment of a once perfect revelation, is as true as the fact that all men are descended from Noah. The missionary produces from his treasure things new and old. He points out the unknown GOD, Whom hitherto we have worshipped in ignorance; he explains what we have done already, without seeing the import of what we have done, and restores what has been decayed, rather than constructs what is absolutely new. It is very true that the new things which he declares will be of infinitely greater value than the old things on which he builds them; but it is not less a truth that the old things are the only stable foundation for the new.

In S. Matthew's gospel we have four distinct specimens of our LORD's teaching-the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables in the Temple, the Discourse on the Mount of Olives, and this present sequence of parables from the ship, which we are now considering. We must not imagine that these four discourses are all that our LORD taught, or the only four occasions on which He addressed

the people or His disciples. "Many other signs truly did JESUS in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that ye might believe that JESUS is the CHRIST, the SON of GOD, and that believing, ye might have life in His Name." This was S. John's object, and thus he accounts for his recording those particular passages which bear on the object he had in view. S. Matthew's object was different: he was explaining the LORD's teaching. He cannot of course give us all of it, for the reason which S. John gives; but he gives us, as samples of it, discourses, which no doubt took place on the very occasions he describes, and exactly as he describes them, but which are nevertheless to be considered rather as specimens of what He taught, than as the whole of His teaching. The Parables in the Temple were a direct denunciation of Divine wrath, made probably once and for all; but the Sermon on the Mount is the way in which the LORD was in the habit of instructing His own disciples and followers on their individual and personal duties. The Discourse on Mount Olivet is a revelation of the conditions on which His own disciples and followers may hope again to enjoy His visible Presence; while this Discourse from the Ship is not addressed to His own disciples or followers at all—it is His method of proclaiming His kingdom to all men, and of laying down to all men the nature of it, the effect of it, the impediments in the way of it, the peculiar growth, the mysterious value, and the conditional tenure of it.

You will observe the different position from which the LORD teaches on these different occasions. In the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Discourse on Olivet, He is sitting among them, one of those whom He is teaching; here, separated from them, but sitting with His own disciples,