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MYTHOLOGY
"Who hath ears to hear, let him hear,"-was the oft-repeated word of warning with Jesus (Matt. xiii.. 9). There was something, then, in the teaching of the New Testament which required seeing, hearing and understanding !
It was not a case of plain-speaking; the divine teacher was not preaching history, even though he became a very great factor in its subsequent making. The Gospel-writers did not take even the earlier records of Judaism in their literal sense. Jesus is once reported to have said : "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John, viii, 32). To the Doctors of Law who set themselves up as the teachers of truth he said :* Woo unto you lawyers ! for ye have taken away the key
of knowledge ; ye entered not in yourselves, and them
that were entering in ye hindered" (Luke, xi. 52). The learned cleric has absolutely no idea of what this passage means. He certainly knows nothing of a key, much less of a key of knowledge, and has never heard of any Hall or Place from which the unfortunate * lawyers' debarred themselves and their followers by,
taking it away'! To him all is history, and nothing but bistory,--the history of a mad love for the unbelieving, idol-worshipping Israel on the part of Jehovah, or of the doings of a newly-announced son of God, become flesh to redeem the sinners! Iu vain do the Gospel-writers cry themselves hoarse in shouting "whoso readeth, let him understand” (Matt, xxiv. 15); so sure
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