Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/15

I] Political principles, we are told, are best studied in the history of classical antiquity, because they are there discussed and illustrated with a perfect abstraction from those particular associations which bias our judgment in modern and domestic instances. And so, in a still higher degree, in the history of the Jewish Church we find the principles of all religious and ecclesiastical parties developed not amidst names and events, which are themselves the subjects of vehement controversy, but in a narrative of acknowledged authority, free from all the bitterness of modern watchwords, and yet with a completeness and variety such as within the same compass could be found in no modern church or nation.

Reproduce this history with all the detail of which it is capable. Recall Abraham resting under the oak of Mamre; Joseph amidst the Egyptian monuments; Moses under the cliffs of Horeb; Joshua leaning on his outstretched spear; Samuel amidst his youthful scholars; David surrounded by his court and camp; Solomon in his eastern state; the wild, romantic, solitary figure of the great Elijah; "the goodly fellowship" of gifted seers, lifting up their strains of joy or sorrow, as they have been well described, like some great tragic chorus, as kingdom after kingdom falls to ruin, as hope after hope dies and is revived again. Represent in all their distinctness the several stages of the history, in its steady onward advance from Egypt