We will not now attempt to show how contemptuously Luther would have treated it, and how far he would have been from acknowledging it as his own child. Enough, that no one of the earlier Lutheran divines ever had any doubt that there was no difference to be made between the first Lord's Supper and the subsequent celebrations. See Gerhard, Loci, X, p. 169: "Quod vero in prima coena quæ est regula forma, et exemplar reliquarum omnium manducandum et bibendum Christus dedit apostolis, illud vero hodie in eucharistiæ administratione manducatur et bibitur vi ordinationis institutionis et mandati: hoc facite." But as the majority of the present Lutheran divines are in earnest in making the Scriptures the only rule of faith (sola regula et norma Scriptura Sacra), we will pass over this contradiction with their own ecclesiastical tradition, and only inquire as to the admissibility of this last hypothesis in itself considered. The prophets are, indeed, sometimes accustomed to make their proclamation of future events more plastic, as it were present to the sight, by means of symbolical actions; as, in the New Testament, the prophet Agabus in respect to the imprisonment of Paul (Acts, ch. xxi). But here, too, that which the action signifies is added in the future tense, verse 11: "Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." Here, according to the nature of the case, that which is declared about the future is in the future tense, and so, too, if the words of the institution of the Supper are to be understood only prophetically with the 'Take, eat' (λaßεTε payɛTε), should there not also be connected some (λάβετε φάγετε), such phrase as, 'Ye shall receive my body' (Aýpεodε yàp τò σшμα μov)? It is true that Stier can here appeal to one passage in which it seems as if the aorist imperative, lάßɛtɛ, is actually used in the sense of a prophetic promise, that is, John xx, 22: "And when he had said this he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye (láßere) the Holy Ghost." The necessity of such a purely prophetic interpretation might also seem to result from what is said in another passage, John vii, 39: "But thus spake he of the

Spirit which they that believe on him should receive (usλλov laμßávεiv): for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified "—that is, if this excludes all working of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples before the glorification of Christ. Although this has been the view of a large number of interpreters, yet the present exegesis has almost universally come to the conclusion that the imperative, λaßɛre, can be understood only of a relative giving of the Spirit then actually enjoyed-what Bengel calls an arrha Pentecostes. (See, especially, Brückner on the passage.) And thus this attempt to get the Lutheran sense out of the words of institution is also in vain. But whether it will hold good or not, does not this lack of unity among Lutheran exegetes upon the cardinal point of their polemics force upon us the question, whether the hard and unbrotherly position of these strict symbolical theologians can be justified towards those who, with all honest readiness to bow implicitly to the words of the Bible, are yet unable to find a Scriptural ground for the Lutheran understanding of the words in which this sacrament was instituted; and who are therefore compelled to find the explanation of Luther's urgency about the ro≈TÓ ¿otiv in the fact that he was warped by a lingering reverence for the traditional doctrine of transubstantiation? The full-blooded Lutheran orthodoxy is wont to stand out against the so-called "mediating theologians," as if the latter were but pilgrims and strangers. And who are meant by this? According to the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung and to the strict Lutherans, all those believers who are not exclusively "Confessional Lutherans," nor Reformed. But who can not be called a complete Lutheran in the sense of the Confession-now that a Hofmann has given up the doctrine of the atonement as taught in the symbols, and a Thomasius has abandoned the communicatio idiomatum, and a Luthardt the verbal inspiration, and a Kahnis the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Lord's Supper, in the ecclesiastical sense? Let us hear what is said by a Lutheran divine who is certainly dyed of a fast color: "Every body makes his own special Concordat with *Münkel in the Zeitblatt für die Lutherische Kirche, 1868.

the Confession, to which Concordat alone he ascribes rule and right, and in consequence of which now a little and now much of this Confession must be sacrificed, in order that it may be valid and binding. And so we have all sorts of Lutherites [Luthertümer], who are agreed in this, that they all stand on the basis of the Confession, but who differ in this, that they map out this basis sometimes smaller and sometimes broader." Even the Leipsick Lutheran Conference of 1867 could find consolation only in this," that, despite all dissent in doctrine, an ecclesiastical consensus has yet taken shape, represented by the Pastorate."

Under the circumstances, would that the venerable representatives of the Lutheran theology might openly concede, that theological science has a development, and that one who lives in the nineteenth century can no longer have just the theology of the seventeenth; so that, between them and the so-called "mediating divines" there can not be as to scientific theology any specific difference, but only one of degree. On the other hand, there is such a difference in the ecclesiastical faith and confession, determined by education, providential training and religious peculiarities. For, though not wholly in Luther's sense, yet in a certain sense, it holds good what Luther said to Zwingle: "You have another spirit:" that is, the Lutherans have a reverential dependence upon ecclesiastical tradition, the Reformed upon the abstract principle of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith. What we mean to say is exactly met by a reply of Pressensé at an ecclesiastical convention to some Lutheran theologians who told him that they thought that the later Protestant theology of France would have done better if at the beginning it had attached itself to the great and older divines of the Calvinistic church: "c'est vrai, nous autres Français nous aimons toujours faire tabula rasa.' Yet this confessional difference is now no longer what it was of old. Even in the period when both Confessions were ecclesiastically contrasted and separate, they had a mutual influence, as Münkel concedes. "Nowhere," he says, "has the real Lutheranism of the old style been able to maintain its superiority soundly and purely. In respect

to doctrine and church government, this communion has on the whole been changed; it has received subtle poison which betrays its foreign origin." Although, then, the new and quickened interest in the treasures and possessions of the old Lutheran Church may have contributed in a large degree to this revived zeal for a still wider separation for the Calvinists; yet, even here, the stronger impulse has been found in the old Lutheran longing, which we also share, for a firmer ecclesiastical organization in doctrine, worship and piety. And, doubtless, many might be found, and among the most zealous too, who would not take it hard to give up even their chief doctrinal peculiarity, the Lutheran dogma of the Lord's Supper, if they did not feel constrained to retain it by the bonds of ecclesiastical consistency.

ART. VIII. THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS IN THE WILDERNESS.* By J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D., Prof. of Theology in University of Utrecht. Translated from the Dutch by Rev. J. P. WESTERVELT.

WE approach now one of the most mysterious portions of the evangelical history. If there ever could be pages which we should wish to leave sealed, because a glance at the fruitless efforts of so many makes us despair of unriddling them, it would undoubtedly be those which contain the history of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. We do not begin its contemplation without doubting our ability to give a perfectly satisfactory explanation; we do not return from its contemplation without feeling, next to an exalted respect for the Lord, the limited nature of our views. Let the voice of God, which we heard at the Jordan, not be forgotten by us, when we resort in spirit to the wilderness of temptation. So will our faith not fail, even where our understanding loses itself in enigmas.

* Besides the writers of Jesus' Life already cited, and those which are enumerated by Hase, L. J. s. 87 in his treatment of the history of the temptation, compare D. Nieuwhoff, De verzoeking in de woestijn, Rott. 1837, aangevuld in de Godg. Bijdr. 1840, 1-44. Moreover an essay of L. Könneman in Rudelb. u. Guer. Zeitschrift für luth. Theol. 1850. IV. As models of practical homiletic treatment the three Sermons of A. Monod, Jesus tenté au desert, Paris, 1854, deserve to be celebrated.

Most safely do we here also begin with a comparative view of the different narratives. The synoptic Evangelists give the history of the temptation with more or less copiousness, and a glance at their various contents enables us clearly to perceive that they, independently of each other, have each recorded those particulars which from oral tradition came to their knowledge. Mark is here very brief, and besides the single stroke, that Jesus was with the wild beasts, has absolutely nothing peculiar in his representation of the matter. Matthew and Luke depart from each other in the classification of the different temptations. The third temptation with Matthew is the second with Luke, and conversely the third temptation with Luke is with Matthew the second. We feel constrained to give to Matthew in this respect the preference. He certainly strives in this account more after chronological order (v. 1, 5, 8) than Luke, who speaks altogether indefinitely (v. 1, 2). There is, also, in Matthew's order of succession a better climax, and it is in itself improbable that the Lord, after having recognized and unmasked the tempter by his detestable demand of worship, should have endured a third assault from him, or had anything further to do with him. Thence it was that Ambrose and other fathers of the Church, even in treating of Luke's narrative, gave the preference to the order of Matthew. In yet another respect the praise of greater accuracy belongs here to the first Gospel. Matthew makes the temptation begin first at the end of the forty days abode in the wilderness: Luke represents this whole period as a period of temptation, and says just as Mark, who comprises all in a single expression: that he was forty days tempted of the devil. Do we meanwhile think, when we speak of the temptation of the Lord, specifically of those three assaults mentioned by both relaters, then it is self-evident that the first, which was a consequence of the long continued fasting, began, not before, but on or after the fortieth day. Unless we should maintain that the Lord was also exposed to other temptations, of which we have no account, we must hold that Matthew has expressed himself here with greater justness.

* Unless we should connect the words of Luke: ἡμέρας τεσσαρα κουτά with the preceding nyero eis tǹy epnuov, and not, as is usual the case, with the following ipaouevos. This might be very properly done, if the reading of Lachman and Tischendorf, év τň épýuo, were the genuine one. But even with the common reading we might perhaps translate: "He was led by the Spirit to the wilderness, forty days long, being tempted of the devil," if we apply the limitation of tim, not to the duration of the temptation, but to his abode in the wilderness.