'_If thou wouldest be perfect_.'--ST. MATTHEW xix 21.
For reasons many and profound, amongst the least because of the
fragmentary nature of the records, he who would read them without the
candle of the Lord--that is, the light of truth in his inward parts--
must not merely fall into a thousand errors--a thing for such a one of
less moment--but must fail utterly of perceiving and understanding the
life therein struggling to reveal itself--the life, that is, of the Son
of Man, the thought, the feeling, the intent of the Lord himself, that
by which he lived, that which is himself, that which he poured out for
us. Yet the one thing he has to do with is this life of Jesus, his inner
nature and being, manifested through his outer life, according to the
power of sight in the spiritual eye that looks thereupon.
In contemplating the incident revealing that life of which I would now
endeavour to unfold the truth, my readers who do not _study_ the Greek
Testament must use the revised version. Had I not known and rejoiced in
it long before the revision appeared, I should have owed the revisers
endless gratitude, if for nothing more than the genuine reading of St.
Matthew's report of the story of the youth who came to our Lord.
Whoever does not welcome the change must fail to see its preciousness.
Reading then from the revised version, we find in St. Matthew the
commencement of the conversation between Jesus and the young man very
different from that given in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke.
There is not for that the smallest necessity for rejecting either
account; they blend perfectly, and it is to me a joy unspeakable to
have both. Put together they give a completed conversation. Here it is
as I read it; let my fellow students look to the differing, far from
opposing, reports, and see how naturally they combine.
'Good Master,' said the kneeling youth, and is interrupted by the
Master:--
'Why callest thou me good?' he returns. 'None is good save one, even
God.'
Daring no reply to this, the youth leaves it, and betakes himself to
his object in addressing the Lord.
'What good thing shall I do,' he says, 'that I may have eternal life?'