4 Introduction.

7, 10; xv. 4, 8,9. He exhibits the law of Christ, not only as the fulfilment of the Mosaic law, but in contrast with it, as is illustrated in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, while represent- ing the new law as gentler than the old, he represents it, at the same time, as more stringent (see v. 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). His gospel is of a sterner type than Luke’s, which has been rightly styled ‘the Gospel of universality and tolerance.” The retribu- tive element is more prominent in it. Sin appeals to him primarily as the violation of law; and therefore his word for iniquity is dvopia, lawlessness, which occurs nowhere else in the Gospels. He alone records the saying, “ Many are called, but few are chosen” (xxii. 14), and, as Professor Abbot has acute- ly remarked, the distinction between the called («Ayrot) and the chosen (é«XexTol) is the more remarkable, because Paul uses the two words almost indifferently, and Luke, although he too has the parable of the unworthy guests, has not ventured to use kdyjtol in Matthew’s disparaging signification (Art. “ Gospels,” in Encyclop. Britannica). To him, also, is peculiar the record of the saying that “ Whosoever shall break one of the least commandments, and teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (v. 19). To continue the quotation from Professor Abbot, ‘“ Matthew, more than the rest of the evangel- ists, seems to move in evil days, and amid a race of backsliders, among dogs and swine, who are unworthy of the pearls of truth ; among the tares sown by the enemy; among fishermen who have to cast back again many of the fish caught in the net of the Gospel. The broad way is ever in his mind, and the multitude of those that go thereby, and the guest without the wedding garment, and the foolish virgins, and the goats as well as the sheep, and those who even cast out devils in the name of the Lord, and yet are rejected by him because they work ‘ law- lessness.’”, Where Luke speaks exultantly of joy in heaven over one repentant sinner, Matthew, in more negative and sober phrases, declares that it is not the will of the Father that one of the little ones should perish; and as a reason for not being distracted about the future, it is alleged that ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ The condition of the Jews, their increas- ing hostility to the Christians, and the wavering or retrogres-