power of the reader, and displayed and made efficacious in the power of the preacher or exegete. The Gospel comes to us with the promise that God himself will confess it. But it is not self-evident that this should happen. It is in the balances, no, it depends on God’s good pleasure whether it does so or not. If it does not, we shall hear the Evangelist and yet not hear him. Thus our relation to him has a twofold character. We are pleased to let ourselves be bound by his word even as and although