resurrection, commit the same mistake in studying Christianity that the student of Socrates' philosophy would commit if he studied only the dramatic story of his death. To the one the philosophy, to the other the death, is all in all." We have thus endeavoured to bring out the chief points of difference between the careers of Christ and Socrates; but among them all we would insist chiefly on these two: the loftiness of the Saviour's claims; and the love which he taught and so wondrously exemplified.

CHRIST'S PREACHING TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.

"For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him."-1 Peter iii, 17-21.

THERE are ideas of permanent interest contained in this portion of Scripture. Let us try to get to the apostle's standpoints.

Verse 17. For it is better, if the will of God be 80, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing.

It was a time of persecution; and all who "lived godly in Christ Jesus" were liable to fiery trials. Life itself was not secure. There were many who had to submit, for conscience' sake, not only to obloquy and cruel slander, and "the spoiling of their goods," but also to literal martyrdom. It is to such a contingency that the apostle refers when he speaks of his brethren in the faith suffering for well-doing. He has in his eye, as is obvious from the whole scope of the preceding context, as well as from the following verse, and from the commencement of the following chapter,-suffering unto death. "It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye die for welldoing, than for evil-doing." Such is his meaning.

The language, we may remark in passing, interestingly illustrates, so far as the expression if the will of God be so is concerned, the artlessness that was characteristic of the composition of many of the inspired writers. They were, for the most part, comparatively unlettered men, and made no preten

sion to "the excellency of speech." The meaning of the apostle evidently is" For it is surely far better, if it be the will of God to permit at all the shortening of your days, that ye suffer for well-doing rather than for evil-doing."

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Verse 18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.

The aim of these words is to animate the Christians addressed to suffer bravely and willingly for conscience' sake. The apostle gives them to understand that, even if their life should require to be surrendered and shortened, no strange thing would be happening to them. They would only be enduring in their little spheres what Christ himself had already endured in his great sphere. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins," or rather-For even Christ once suffered for sins. He once suffered unto death. That is the idea, as is evident from the word once, on the one hand, and also from the expression at the close of the verse, being put to death in the flesh. Indeed there is reason to believe that in the apostle's autograph the word actually used was died, instead of suffered,—for even Christ once died' for sins. This is the reading that is given in the most important manuscripts, and in the most important ancient versions, and by the best of the great modern editors of the text. Christians, then, should not shrink from death, if it would be otherwise impossible to maintain a good conscience. Even Christ, Lord of life as he was, once died.

There is a happy idea reflected back upon Christians by the word once. Christ did not need to die oftener, although his death was for the sins of the whole world; and Christians. who die once for Christ, will die no more.

The parallel, however, between the martyrdom of Christians and the death of Christ soon runs out. And hence, although the fact of Christ's death is referred to, in order to animate Christians to walk in the footsteps of Him who is their perfect Exemplar, the apostle speedily lets go the parallelism, and expatiates with zest on the peculiarity of the unique decease which our Lord accomplished. Christ, he says, "died for sins," He died on account of sins. Not only was he crucified by the wicked hands of sinners. That is but an atom of the great reality. His death had a gracious and propitiatory relation. It rendered pardonable all men's sins.

But the apostle not only says that Christ died for sins, he adds the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. He describes in one word the character of the beings for whose sins Christ died. They are unjust, or, as the word strictly

means, unrighteous. They have failed to do that which is right, either toward God, or toward their fellow-men; and hence they have made the distance between themselves and God, so far as character is concerned, all but immense. They have gone far away from God. Like the prodigal, they have gone, one and all, "into a far country." It follows, as a consequence, that they are at a great distance from the possibility of enjoying many of the choicest blessings which it would be the delight of the Father's heart to confer. It was while men universally were in this sad condition that Christ died for sins, the righteous in behalf of the unrighteous, that he might bring them to God, so that they might be the recipients of the bliss which it is the joy of the Heavenly Father to communicate.

The apostle adds, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. These words form a double participial clause, sustaining, in the fact that it is participial, a peculiar relation to the statement that immediately precedes. The relation might be legitimately represented thus, Christ died for sins, the righteous in behalf of the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, after he was put to death in the flesh on the one hand, and quickened in the spirit on the other. Christ's mediatorial fitness to bring us back to God, and to present us to the Father for the reception of the chief blessings of which our natures are susceptible, was conditioned that is the idea-on his being put to death in the flesh, and on his being quickened or made alive in the spirit. It was needful that he should die as a sacrifice, a self-sacrifice, a vicarious self-sacrifice,-for sins. It was needful that he should live again as the successful and victorious self-sacrificer, the ever active Priest and High-priest of humanity, who could consciously present his offering to the Father, and be the living Head of the living community of the saved. A mediatorial death, once for all, was needed on the one hand because of sins. A mediatorial life, for evermore, is equally needed on the other, for the sake of sinners. They, as living and self-acting but dependent beings, need to be led out of their sins, and conducted on and up into holiness and everlasting bliss.

When it is said that our Lord was put to death in the flesh, the general idea intended is obvious enough. He was put to death in respect to his flesh. The term "ilesh" is sometimes employed in a comprehensive acceptation, as involving a subtended reference even to those constituents of human nature which are spiritual. Thus we read that "the Word became flesh." We read again that our Saviour “ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." The meaning of the former statement seems just to be that the Word became man.

The meaning of the latter is analogous: our Saviour sprang from the lineage of David in respect to his human nature. We often read in the Old Testament of "all flesh," when the reference is simply to "all men," or, as we say in our English idiom, to "every body,"--there being no judicial decision intended in favour of the dogma of absolute materialism.

At other times, however, the word flesh is, with the utmost propriety, employed to represent the lower of the two great constituents of human nature, the material, as distinguished from the spiritual. In accordance with this usage of the term. we read of reconciliation being made by our Lord "in the body of his flesh." We read again that "in the days of his flesh," he "offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." In the passage before us, it is natural, in consequence of the antithesis, to understand the term as having reference to this, the lower element in our Lord's humanity. Men in general are susceptible of death in the spirit as well as in the body. They can, in spirit, be "dead in trespasses and sins." But not so our Saviour. Death,-whatever damage it might do to "the body of his flesh,"-could not touch his spirit. No wonder. "He knew no sin." And if even the humblest of his followers has, through faith in him, "life" and everlasting life," and shall never die," "shall not see death," it must be natural to suppose that the Lord of life himself could "never die" in the higher, nobler, and more spiritual of the constituents of that nature, which he shares in common with the lowliest of his people.

The apostle adds, but quickened by the Spirit, or rather, but quickened in the spirit. The phrase in the spirit exactly corresponds in form to the phrase in' the flesh as occurring in the preceding clause. The word quickened too,—it is of importance to note, is equivalent to made alive, as Luther renders it. It does not mean simply being alive. It means, and must mean, being made' alive. And hence, in some respects, the main difficulty of the whole paragraph. But hence also the key that either locks the door upon certain proposed interpretations of Christ's visit to "the spirits in prison," or opens it into possibility at least, if not into probability.

Had the apostle's phrase been, being alive in the spirit, the word spirit might have been understood as referring exclusively to our Lord's human spirit, as distinguished from his body; and then, when it is added, in which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, it might have been not unreasonably argued that the reference must be to the employment of the spiritual part of our Lord's humanity during the interval that elapsed between his death and resurrection. It might hence be argued that our

Lord went in his human spirit, during that intermediate time into the lower regions of Hades, the World of the departed, and preached in the Prison-House of the universe that the year of jubilee was come at last.

This conception of the apostle's meaning has been entertained by many; and we have great sympathy with the ethical and theological difficulties of all who have fled to it, as to a kind of refuge from some of the sterner aspects of their ecclesiastical creeds. Were, indeed, the interpretation a necessity in order to furnish us with a glimpse of hope in reference to the possibilities of heathens, we know not with what eagerness we would grasp it, and try to keep hold of it. In such a state of things we could with difficulty approach the consideration of the pasin an entirely unprepossessed mood of mind. We should be wishing, ardently, to find in it some "chink" or other through which we could look out hopefully, with the late lamented Dean Alford, over the millions of our less favoured fellow-men who pass away in darkness beyond the bourne of time. It would be delightful to see that there is after all some light from heaven falling on their darkness, some possibility of salvation.

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Most certainly we cannot entertain the idea that there are any nations of human beings anywhere on earth, who are absolutely shut out from the possibility of salvation. "The Lord is good unto all; and his tender mercies are over all his works." That "goodness," as we take it, is not only "evangelical,"—it is "evangelistic." In the divine" tender mercies that are "over all," there is, as we take it, intentional evangelism. God has not left himself," says Paul, "without witness" in any nation. Everywhere he is "doing good," even to the bad, "giving rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons," and innumerable other blessings, "filling men's hearts with food and gladness." That "food" and "gladness of heart" are evangelical and evangelistic. It must be so, if these "good and perfect gifts," like all other gifts, be manifestations of the heart of the Giver, and if they be given to beings who, instead of deserving them, deserve "indignation and wrath." The apostle Paul expressly assures us, in the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, that the Gentiles, "who have not the law are a law unto themselves," and "show the work of the law written in their hearts." The "law" referred to is not the law, as distinguished from the Gospel. It is the law in its more comprehensive sense as the great Authoritative Revelation of God. It is the law, as inclusive of the Gospel; for the apostle is expressly speaking of that impartiality of God, which is evinced in the provision he has made for the final acceptance of all the