2 EXPOSITORY THOrOHTS.
The short preface which we have now read is a peculiar feature of St. Luke's Gospel. But we shall find, on examination, that it is foil of most useful instruction.
In the first place, St. Luke gives us a short, but valua- hUy sketch of the nature of a Gospel. He calls it, " a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us." It is a narrative of facts about Jesus Christ.
Christianity is a religion built upon facts. Let us never lose sight of this. It came before mankind at first in this shape. The first preachers did not go up and down the world, proclaiming an elaborate, artificial system of abstruse doctrines and deep principles. They made it their first business to tell men great plain facts. They went about telling a sin-laden world, that the Son of God had come down to earth, and lived for us, and died for us, and risen again. The Gospel, at its first publication, was far more simple than many make it now. It was neither more nor less than the history of Christ.
Let us aim at greater simplicity in our own personal religion. Let Christ and His Person be the sun of our system, and let the main desire of our souls be to live the life of faith in Him, and daily know Him better. This was St. Paul's Christianity. "To me to live is Christ." (Philipp. i. 21.)
In the second place, St. Luke draws a beautiful picture of the true position of the qpostles in the early church. He calls them, '^ eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." . There is an instructive humility in this expression. There is an utter absence of that man-exalting tone which has so often crept into the Church. St. Luke gives the apostles no flattering titles. He affords not