GOSPEL HISTORY. " BY C. T. WINTER, AUTHOR OF THE CHILD'S ACTS OF THE APOSTLES," ETC. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT BIBLI сутак. 79 LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE; 48, PICCADILLY. NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG & Co. God's Promise of a Saviour.-What the Prophets Said.-The Four Gospels. AM going to tell you, dear children, about the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ; how He lived, what He did, and what He said; and how He died and rose again from the grave. But before I do this, I must remind you that God made man to love Him and to serve Him, to obey Him and to worship Him. God created the beautiful world, and said it was 'very good;" and He made a man and a woman to live in it and to enjoy it. They were quite happy as long as they obeyed God, for they were quite good, and God was their Father and their Friend. If they had gone on loving and 66 obeying God, they and their children would have been happy always. But Adam, the first man, and Eve, the first woman, listened to Satan (the enemy) and disobeyed God; and in this way they became unholy and sinful; and because they were no longer good they could not please God, for God is holy and quite good. God could no longer talk with them as a friend talks to a friend. What did God do? Did He say, "As you have chosen to obey My enemy, Satan, you shall be left in his power"? No; just as a father loves a son whom he is obliged to punish, so God still loved Adam and Eve; and though He turned them out of the garden of Eden, and made them feel His displeasure in many other ways, yet He promised them a Saviour* who should save them from their sins and from eternal death. God did not send this Saviour directly. He did not send Him for a great many years; but He promised Him again very often by His prophets-holy men who spoke and wrote as God told them. They brought men to expect that the Son of God should * Gen. iii. 13. come to die for them, to save them from sin and Satan, and to make them friends with God. And so, at last, God did send His Son into the world. He was born the child of a poor woman, and He died on the cross for all men. I am now going to tell you the story of our Saviour's life upon earth, as it is written in the books called the Gospels; but I do not give you this book to read instead of the Gospels, but to read with them, and to help you the better to understand them. There are four Gospels-the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the Gospel according to St. Mark, the Gospel according to St. Luke, and the Gospel according to St. John. Each Gospel is a true story of what our Lord Jesus Christ said, and did, and suffered. Gospel means "God's tidings"-the news that God the Son became man; that He was born into the world, and lived and died for us. This is "good news," the best that ever was told to men. The word Gospel then means "God's news;" but what do I mean when I say, "the Gospel according to St. Matthew, or the Gospel according to St. |